graceInference

The rating of the step from Romans 11:6 to "salvation is by grace": consensus. Trent quotes the verse to that effect, "if it be a grace, it is not now by works" (Session VI, chapter 8); the Remonstrants' fourth article calls grace "the beginning, continuance, and accomplishment of all good"; Dort says that conversion "must be wholly ascribed to God" (III/IV, article 10).

def graceInference : Source :=
  { primary := trent✝ "ch. 8",
    supporting :=
      [waterworth✝ 36,
        Reference.work schaffCreeds3
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Five Arminian Articles (1610), art. 4"),
        Reference.work schaffCreeds3
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Canons of Dort, III/IV, art. 10")],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.consensus }

ephesiansInference

The rating of the step from "this" pointing to the whole, to "faith is God's gift": disputed. Robertson grants the ground and, in the same note, denies the conclusion. "This" refers "not to [pistis] (feminine) or to [charis] (feminine also), but to the act of being saved by grace conditioned on faith on our part", and of the two words he says that grace is "God's part, 'faith' ours".

Calvin is cited for less. He is Reformed, and holds elsewhere that faith is God's gift, so he does not deny the conclusion. But he denies that this verse teaches it: Paul's "meaning is, not that faith is the gift of God, but that salvation is given to us by God". So a reader may grant the reading of "this" and still deny that the verse delivers faith as a gift.

def ephesiansInference : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work robertsonWordPictures4
        (Bib.Locus.adLoc { book := Book.ephesians, chapter := 2, verse := 8 }),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work calvinGalatiansEphesians (Bib.Locus.pages 228 229)],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

giftInference

The rating of the step from the gift to God's work alone: disputed. Arminius grants both grounds. Faith is God's gift: he speaks of God, "whose benefit and gift I acknowledge faith to be" (Apology, article 4). And a man cannot turn to God by himself: he ascribes to grace "the commencement, the continuance and the consummation of all good". He denies the conclusion: "many persons resist the Holy Spirit and reject the grace that is offered" (Declaration of Sentiments).

def giftInference : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work arminiusWorks1 (Bib.Locus.page 600),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work arminiusWorks1 (Bib.Locus.page 681),
        Reference.work schaffCreeds3
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Five Arminian Articles (1610), art. 4")],
    tradition := Tradition.arminian, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

romansInference

The rating of the step from Romans 9:16, read as being about salvation, to God's work alone: disputed. Arminius grants the ground: the chapter's theme is "That the Gospel, not the law, is the power of God unto salvation, not to him that worketh, but to him that believeth", and the willing and running of 9:16 is the effort by which a man "hopes that he will obtain justification and salvation apart from the mercy of God". He denies the conclusion: the mercy goes to those "who seek righteousness and salvation by faith in Christ", and grace can be refused.

def romansInference : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work arminiusWorks3 (Bib.Locus.pages 527 565),
    tradition := Tradition.arminian, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

cooperationInference

The rating of Trent's step from cooperation to "the will is not passive": disputed, and the dissent rests on a distinction. Canon 4 speaks of the will "disposing and preparing itself" for justification. Aquinas grants that grace works with a will that moves, which he calls cooperating grace, and still holds that in grace's first effect "our mind is moved and does not move, but … God is the sole mover" (I-II q.111 a.2). Dort likewise grants that the renewed will "becomes itself active" (III/IV, article 12). Both place the will's activity after a first moment in which it is only moved; the canon does not say which moment it means.

def cooperationInference : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work aquinasSumma (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.111 a.2"),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work schaffCreeds3
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Canons of Dort, III/IV, art. 12"),
        trent✝ "canon 4",
        waterworth✝ 45],
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

dissentInference

The rating of Trent's step from "the will can refuse" to "grace is not effectual of itself": disputed. Aquinas grants the ground and denies the conclusion. "If God moves the will to anything, it is incompatible with this supposition, that the will be not moved thereto. But it is not impossible simply" (I-II q.10 a.4 ad 3). And "if God intends, while moving, that the one whose heart He moves should attain to grace, he will infallibly attain to it" (I-II q.112 a.3). On that reading the will can refuse, taken simply, and grace is effectual all the same.

def dissentInference : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work aquinasSumma (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.10 a.4 ad 3"),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work aquinasSumma (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.112 a.3"),
        trent✝ "canon 4",
        waterworth✝ 45],
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

textsOfResistanceInference

The rating of the step from the texts of resistance to "the Spirit's work is resisted": consensus. Every party grants it. Dort says that believers "grieve the Holy Spirit" (V, article 5); Calvin, on Ephesians 4:30, that "we grieve him when we do not follow his guidance"; the Formula of Concord, citing Acts 7:51, that "those who always resist the Holy Ghost … are not converted" (Solid Declaration II.60).

def textsOfResistanceInference : Source :=
  { primary := dort✝ 593,
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work calvinGalatiansEphesians (Bib.Locus.page 301),
        concord✝ "Solid Declaration II.60"],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.consensus }

resistanceInference

The rating of the Remonstrants' step from resistance, read as resistance to the grace that saves, to "that grace can be finally refused": wellSupported. Grant that what Stephen's hearers resisted was the grace that saves, and no reader was found who denies that it can be finally refused. The Reformed deny the ground instead, reading the resistance as made to the preached word and not to the inward work of grace. The word "resist" carries two senses here, resisting for a time and refusing to the end, and the step needs the second.

def resistanceInference : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work schaffCreeds3
        (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Five Arminian Articles (1610), art. 4"),
    supporting := [Reference.work arminiusWorks1 (Bib.Locus.page 600)],
    tradition := Tradition.arminian, confidence := Confidence.wellSupported }

griefInference

The rating of the step from grieving the Spirit, read as able to end in losing him, to "the grace that saves can be finally refused": wellSupported. The Formula of Concord holds both: the obstinate "do not receive, but grieve and lose, the Holy Ghost" (Solid Declaration II.83). Dort denies the ground instead: God "does not wholly withdraw the Holy Spirit from his own people" (V, article 6).

def griefInference : Source :=
  { primary := concord✝ "Solid Declaration II.83",
    supporting :=
      [concord✝ "Solid Declaration XI.42",
        dort✝ 593],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.wellSupported }

blasphemyInference

The rating of the step from the unforgivable sin to final refusal: disputed. Augustine grants both grounds. The sin that is never forgiven is impenitence: "This impenitence then is 'the blasphemy of the Spirit, which shall not be forgiven'" (Sermon 71, §20). And he denies the conclusion: God is the one "whom no man's will resists when He wills to give salvation" (On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 43). The grace refused to the end is, for him, not the grace that saves.

def blasphemyInference : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work npnfAugustineSermons (Bib.Locus.page 325),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work npnfAugustineAntiPelagian
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 43")],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

passiveInference

The rating of the step from God's work alone to the will's passivity: wellSupported. The Lutherans, who part from Dort at the next step, grant this one: man "does nothing whatever towards it, but only suffers what God works in him" (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration II.89). No reader was found who grants that God alone regenerates and denies that the will is passive in it. Aquinas holds that in the justification of one who has the use of reason, God's motion "does not take place without a movement of the free-will" (I-II q.113 a.3); that is passivity in another sense, the will moved and so moving, which is not what this step denies.

def passiveInference : Source :=
  { primary := concord✝ "Solid Declaration II.89",
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work schaffCreeds3
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Canons of Dort, III/IV, art. 12")],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.wellSupported }

effectualInference

The rating of the step from God's work alone to "grace cannot be finally refused": disputed. The Formula of Concord grants the ground: conversion "is not only in part, but altogether an operation, gift, and present, and work of the Holy Ghost alone" (Solid Declaration II.89). And it denies the conclusion: "God does not force man to become godly (for those who always resist the Holy Ghost … as Stephen says of the hardened Jews, Acts 7:51, are not converted)" (II.60); the perverse will "resists the Holy Ghost, who wishes to be efficacious" (XI.41).

def effectualInference : Source :=
  { primary := concord✝ "Solid Declaration II.89",
    supporting :=
      [concord✝ "Solid Declaration II.60",
        concord✝ "Solid Declaration XI.41"],
    tradition := Tradition.christianHistoricalGrammatical,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

asAidWithoutWhichSource

Who reads the ability as Adam's kind of help, one that makes believing possible and can be refused: Wesley, for whom "a measure of free-will" is "supernaturally restored to every man", with "power either to resist or yield to the grace of God" (Predestination Calmly Considered, §§XLVI–XLVII).

def asAidWithoutWhichSource : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work wesleyWorks9 (Bib.Locus.page 397),
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work npnfAugustineAntiPelagian (Bib.Locus.page 485)],
    tradition := Tradition.arminian, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

asAidByWhichSource

Who reads the ability as the saints' kind of help, one that brings believing about: Augustine, of the grace given to the saints (On Rebuke and Grace, ch. 34), and Dort, for which faith is God's gift "not on account of its being offered by God to man, to be accepted or rejected at his pleasure, but because it is in reality conferred" (III/IV, article 14).

def asAidByWhichSource : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work npnfAugustineAntiPelagian (Bib.Locus.page 485),
    supporting := [dort✝ 591],
    tradition := Tradition.reformedProtestant,
    confidence := Confidence.disputed }

Aquinas and the Thomists

operatingGraceInference

The rating of the step from operating grace to God's work alone: wellSupported. Grant that in converting grace God is the sole mover of the will, and no reader was found who denies that God alone is the one who regenerates. The Molinists deny the ground instead, placing God as sole mover only in the will's first, indeliberate motions; for them the converting act is "due to" the will's consent, "in no way" to "the Thomistic predetermination" (Pohle, "Molinism").

def operatingGraceInference : Source :=
  {
    primary :=
      Reference.work aquinasSumma (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.111 a.2"),
    supporting :=
      [garrigou✝ "ch. IV",
        Reference.work pohleMolinism],
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic,
    confidence := Confidence.wellSupported }

efficacyInference

The rating of the step from God's intention in moving to grace effectual of itself: disputed. The Molinists grant the ground and deny the conclusion. They grant that "the decree of God to bestow an efficacious grace upon a man involves with metaphysical certainty the free co-operation of the will", and deny that the grace brings it about: "the infallible success of efficacious grace is not to be ascribed to its own intrinsic nature, but to the Divine scientia media", God's knowledge of what a person would freely do (Pohle, "Molinism"). Garrigou-Lagrange holds the conclusion: "grace is intrinsically efficacious" (Grace, ch. VII).

def efficacyInference : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work pohleMolinism,
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work aquinasSumma (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.112 a.3"),
        garrigou✝ "ch. VII"],
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

asAgentOfNewLifeSource

Who holds of the will's part what this reading takes "not merely passive" to mean: the Molinists, for whom "it is rather the will itself which by its consent" renders grace efficacious (Pohle, "Molinism"). Rated disputed: no Thomist reads his own claim so, and Garrigou-Lagrange says Molina "deviates from the teaching of St. Thomas" here.

def asAgentOfNewLifeSource : Source :=
  { primary := Reference.work pohleMolinism,
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

asDispositionSource

Who reads "not merely passive" as the will acting while God alone is the agent of the new life: Garrigou-Lagrange, for whom the will's consent, "although as a disposition it precedes it [grace] in the genus or order of material cause, it nevertheless follows it in the genus or order of formal, efficient, and final cause" (Grace, ch. X); and Aquinas, for whom the movement of the free will "is not the cause of grace, but the effect" (I-II q.111 a.2 ad 2). Rated disputed: Garrigou-Lagrange himself lists Calvin's "merely passive" among the errors (ch. IV), and a Reformed reader may take that as a denial of the third part in Dort's sense, not only in another.

def asDispositionSource : Source :=
  { primary := garrigou✝ "ch. X",
    supporting :=
      [Reference.work aquinasSumma
          (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "I-II q.111 a.2 ad 2")],
    tradition := Tradition.romanCatholic, confidence := Confidence.disputed }

The citations

baseCite

The common list of sources: the texts, the readings, the claims of each position, and the parts of the conclusion. Each position replaces only the entries it cites differently.

def baseCite : Claim → AtomMeta

reformedCite

The Reformed citations. Dort does not cite Acts 7:51. What it gives is an account of those who refuse the call: "It is not the fault of the gospel, nor of Christ offered therein, nor of God, who calls men by the gospel … that those who are called by the ministry of the Word refuse to come and be converted. The fault lies in themselves" (III/IV, article 9). Read with Acts 7:51, that is the Reformed answer: what Stephen's hearers resisted was the outward call of the preached word, not the grace that saves.

def reformedCite : Claim → AtomMeta :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | Claim.acts7_51ResistsSavingGrace =>
      {
        label :=
          "What Stephen's hearers resisted in Acts 7:51 was the grace that saves",
        kind := PremiseKind.interpretive,
        source :=
          {
            primary :=
              Reference.work schaffCreeds3
                (Bib.Locus.sectionRef "Canons of Dort, III/IV, art. 9"),
            tradition := Tradition.reformedProtestant,
            confidence := Confidence.disputed } }
    | a => baseCite a

tridentineCite

Trent's citations: the texts and canon 4, as baseCite has them.

def tridentineCite : Claim → AtomMeta :=
  baseCite

remonstrantCite

The Remonstrant citations. That faith is God's gift is cited to Arminius, who affirms it on grounds of his own, and not to Dort, which affirms it in a sense he rejects.

def remonstrantCite : Claim → AtomMeta :=
  fun x =>
    match x with
    | Claim.faithIsGodsGift =>
      { label := "Faith itself is God's gift", kind := PremiseKind.theological,
        source :=
          { primary := Reference.work arminiusWorks1 (Bib.Locus.page 681),
            tradition := Tradition.arminian,
            confidence := Confidence.wellSupported } }
    | a => baseCite a

lutheranCite

The Lutheran citations: the Formula of Concord for what the Lutherans hold, in its own words.

def lutheranCite : Claim → AtomMeta

wesleyanCite

The Wesleyan citations: Wesley for what Wesley holds.

def wesleyanCite : Claim → AtomMeta