The Roman Catholic Church preached a synergy in salvation – where God provides grace in Christ and Man has faith and works in order to fulfill the requirements of salvation. The Protestant reformation did away with any concept of a synergy involving man’s works in order to attain salvation – and upheld that it is God alone who saves those who put their faith in Him. Works are what follow such a believer who is acted upon by God to bring forth good fruit.

Attributing all glory to God in the saving of a person begs the question of who gets attributed when a person isn’t saved – and the calvinists replied with a vehement voice stating all sovereignty lies with God alone. If He is the One who chooses to save, then so be it that He is the one who chooses not to save. Furthermore, they evidence in Scripture, passages out of Romans 9 and elsewhere that seem to lend credence to their position.

The arminians objected to this notion that God would predestine someone to perish – since it would betray the perception of His nature and character if He acted against His revealed desire that all the world may be saved. They instead held that man alone is responsible for his perishing. And there are ample evidences in Scripture to support this. But the corollary begs the question then – if man alone is responsible for his perishing, wouldn’t he also equally be responsible in his salvation? The arminians reply with a qualified Yes, incorporating freewill in response to prevenient grace.

Problems in Parallelism

If you observe the lines drawn, it’s primarily the calvinists upholding God’s sovereignty completely and attributing all glory to Him alone in salvation and the arminians upholding man’s responsibility completely and attributing all blame on him alone in condemnation – but both conceding their respective corollaries in order not to give up their primary beliefs.

Note again, it’s the primary beliefs that get upheld and the corollaries that get attacked consistently. No arminian argues against the complete sovereignty of God or about Him being worthy of all Glory – he simply argues against implying God desires some to perish from before the ages. And No calvinist argues against blaming man completely for his condemnation – he simply argues against the idea that human freewill could play a role in salvation denying God’s total sovereignty.

But what if we could demonstrate that the corollaries are indeed invalid and that they need not be maintained while meshing the two primary beliefs – wouldn’t that suffice in reconciling over 500 years of difference?