… The Synod of Dort, however, strenuously objected to the Remonstrants’ denial of irresistible grace:

Who teach that the grace by which we are converted to God is nothing but a gentle persuasion, or (as others explain it) that the way of God’s acting in man’s conversion that is most noble and suited to human nature is that which happens by persuasion, and that nothing prevents this grace of moral suasion even by itself from making natural men spiritual; indeed, that God does not produce the assent of the will except in this manner of moral suasion, and that the effectiveness of God’s work by which it surpasses the work of Satan consists in the fact that God promises eternal benefits while Satan promises temporal ones.

[….]

Who teach that God in regenerating man does not bring to bear that power of his omnipotence whereby he may powerfully and unfailingly bend man’s will to faith and conversion, but that even when God has accomplished all the works of grace which he uses for man’s conversion, man nevertheless can, and in actual fact often does, so resist God and the Spirit in their intent and will to regenerate him, that man completely thwarts his own rebirth; and, indeed, that it remains in his own power whether or not to be reborn.⁴

The Problem of Defining Irresistible Grace

The term “irresistible grace,” then, came initially as a view denied by the Remonstrants and defended by the Dortian Calvinists. The Synod of Dort rejected the notion that God’s grace was limited to His exerting strong moral persuasion on sinners by the Holy Spirit to lead them to salvation. They also rejected the notion that a person can “resist God and the Spirit in their intent and will to regenerate him.”⁵ Instead, the Dort statement asserted that God brings to bear the “power of his omnipotence whereby he may powerfully and unfailingly bend man’s will to faith and conversion.”⁶

In order to understand how Calvinists say that God effects irresistible grace, one must understand the important distinction they draw between what is variously known as the “general” or “outward” call from the “special,” “inward,” “effectual,” or “serious” call. Steele, Thomas, and Quinn virtually equate the “efficacious call” with irresistible grace, based on this distinction between these proposed two different callings from God:

The gospel invitation extends a call to salvation to every one who hears its message. . . . But this outward general call, extended to the elect and the non-elect alike, will not bring sinners to Christ. . . . Therefore, the Holy Spirit, in order to bring God’s elect to salvation, extends to them a special inward call in addition to the outward call contained in the gospel message. Through this special call the Holy Spirit performs a work of grace within the sinner which inevitably brings him to faith in Christ. . . .

Although the general outward call of the gospel can be, and often is, rejected, the special inward call of the Spirit never fails to result in the conversion of those to whom it is made. This special call is not made to all sinners but is issued to the elect only! The Spirit is in no way dependent upon their help or cooperation for success in His work of bringing them to Christ. It is for this reason that Calvinists speak of the Spirit’s call and of God’s grace in saving sinners as being “efficacious,” “invincible,” or “irresistible.” For the grace which the Holy Spirit extends to the elect cannot be thwarted or refused, it never fails to bring them to true faith in Christ!⁷

As this statement indicates, some contemporary Calvinists seem to be a little embarrassed by the term “irresistible grace” and have sought to soften it or to replace it with a term like “effectual calling.” They also object when others criticize that “irresistible grace” suggests that God forces persons to do things against their wills. Instead, they insist, God merely woos and persuades. Calvinists thus sometimes sound disingenuous in affirming a strong view of irresistible grace while simultaneously softening the language about it to make it more palatable. For example, John Piper and the Bethlehem Baptist Church staff affirm that irresistible grace “means the Holy Spirit can overcome all resistance and make his influence irresistible. . . . The doctrine of irresistible grace means that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance when he wills.”⁸Yet, just a few paragraphs later, they affirm that “irresistible grace never implies that God forces us to believe against our will. . . . On the contrary, irresistible grace is compatible with preaching and witnessing that tries to persuade people to do what is reasonable and what will accord with their own best interests.”⁹ No attempt is made in the article to reconcile these apparently contradictory assertions.

Likewise, R. C. Sproul argues at great length that John 6:44 (“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” HCSB) does not refer merely to the necessity that God “woo or entice men to Christ,” and humans can “resist this wooing” and “refuse the enticement.”¹⁰ In philosophical language, Sproul says, this wooing is a necessary but not sufficient condition for salvation “because the wooing does not, in fact, guarantee that we will come to Christ.”¹¹ Sproul states that such an interpretation is “incorrect” and “does violence to the text of Scripture.”¹² Instead, Sproul insists, the term “draw” is “a much more forceful concept than to woo,” and means “to compel by irresistible superiority.”¹³

However, in discussing irresistible grace, Sproul tells of a student who, hearing a lecture on predestination by John Gerstner, rejected it. When Gerstner asked the student how he defined Calvinism, the student described it as the perspective that “God forces some people to choose Christ and prevents other people from choosing Christ.” Gerstner then said, “If that is what a Calvinist is, then you can be sure that I am not a Calvinist either.”¹⁴ Sproul likewise chastised a Presbyterian seminary president for rejecting the Calvinist doctrine that “God brings some people, kicking and screaming against their wills, into the kingdom.” Sproul describes this Presbyterian theologian’s view as “a gross misconception of his own church’s theology,” as a “caricature,” and “as far away from Calvinism as one could possibly get.”¹⁵ So which way is it? If God compels persons with “irresistible superiority,” in what way is it inaccurate to say that God is forcing people to choose Christ?

The Synod of Dort insisted that such attempts at moral persuasion of unsaved persons was wasted time. That God’s grace was resistible and not merely the use of strong moral persuasion was precisely what the Synod of Dort rejected and the Remonstrants affirmed. The Remonstrants insisted that the compelling grace of God persuaded the lost to receive Christ as Lord and Savior. The Synod of Dort insisted that this was not going far enough. Note their explicit denial that a person can “resist” God. Note the use in the Synod of Dort language of divine omnipotence, which can “powerfully and unfailingly bend man’s will to faith and conversion.”¹⁶ Bending the will of a fallible being by an omnipotent Being powerfully and unfailingly is not merely sweet persuasion. It is forcing one to change one’s mind against one’s will.

Calvinists often describe their position as monergism as opposed to synergism. In monergism, God works entirely alone, apart from any human role. In synergism, on the other hand, humans cooperate with God in some way in actualizing their own conversion. None of us non-Pelagians would affirm for a minute that we can achieve salvation apart from God. The question is whether humans have any role at all in accepting or receiving their own salvation. On the one hand, the Calvinists say, “No! Your salvation is monergistic, provided only by the grace of God.” When a critic says this response means that God imposes irresistible grace against a person’s will or that humans do not have a choice in the matter, the Calvinists protest that they are being misunderstood and caricatured.

When challenged that irresistible grace goes against someone’s will, most Calvinists reply that it is not against a person’s will at all. God changes their will through regeneration invincibly, such that the person is irresistibly drawn to Christ. Calvinists call this willing, which is externally driven, compatibilist volition, as opposed to the more common view, libertarian freedom. In libertarian freedom a person does not have absolute freedom (a frequent Calvinist stereotype), but the person chooses between at least two alternatives. In every case a person could have, at least hypothetically, chosen something else. But in compatibilism, people always choose their greatest desire. They have no alternative choice but to will to do what they want to do. So when God changes their will through irresistible grace or enabling grace, they really have no choice. They will what God has programmed them to will. So the Calvinist system advocates both monergism (God is the only actor) and compatibilism (they go along with what God wants them to do after He changes their will through preconversion regeneration).

The problem is that Calvinists cannot have their cake and eat it, too. They cannot insist that an omnipotent God overwhelms and bends human will powerfully and unfailingly, and then transform this doctrine into something other than it is by softening it with more palatable language such as “effectual calling” and “compatibilism.” The effectual calling means precisely the same thing as irresistible grace. Effectual calling just sounds nicer. At the end of the day, people have no choice but to do what God has programmed them to do. Nonetheless, Calvinists often attempt to sidestep criticism by asserting that the doctrine has been misunderstood, even when non-Calvinists have quoted or paraphrased what Calvinists themselves have said in describing their own doctrine.

For example, at the “Building Bridges” conference, Nathan Finn chastised Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor Roy Fish for the following description of irresistible grace, which Finn described as a “stereotype” and a “misunderstanding” of the doctrine:

The “I” in the TULIP is what is called irresistible grace. That means that people who are going to be saved have no other option. They really don’t have a choice. The grace of God cannot be resisted. They cannot resist this special saving grace.¹⁷

A line-by-line study of Fish’s description reveals that Calvinists define irresistible grace in virtually the same words:

Roy Fish: (Irresistible grace) “means that people who are going to be saved have no other option. They really don’t have a choice.”

• The Synod of Dort: “And this is the regeneration, the new creation, the raising from the dead, and the making alive so clearly proclaimed in the Scriptures, which God works in us without our help. But this certainly does not happen only by outward teaching, by moral persuasion, or by such a way of working that, after God has done his work, it remains in man’s power whether or not to be reborn or converted. Rather, it is an entirely supernatural work. . . . As a result, all those in whose hearts God works in this marvelous way are certainly, unfailingly, and effectively reborn and do actually believe. . . .”¹⁸
• James White: “The doctrine of ‘irresistible grace’ . . . is simply the belief that when God chooses to move in the lives of His elect and bring them from spiritual death to spiritual life, no power in heaven or on earth can stop Him from so doing. . . . It is simply the confession that when God chooses to raise His people to spiritual life, He does so without the fulfillment of any conditions on the part of the sinner. Just as Christ had the power and authority to raise Lazarus to life without obtaining his ‘permission’ to do so, He is able to raise His elect to spiritual life with just as certain a result.”¹⁹
• David Steele, Curtis Thomas, and S. Lance Quinn: “The Holy Spirit extends a special inward call that inevitably brings them to salvation. . . . [T]he internal call (which is made only to the elect) cannot be rejected. It always results in conversion. By means of this special call the Spirit irresistibly draws sinners to Christ. He is not limited in His work of applying salvation by man’s will, nor is He dependent upon man’s cooperation for success. . . . God’s grace, therefore, is invincible; it never fails to result in the salvation of those to whom it is extended.”²⁰

Roy Fish: “The grace of God cannot be resisted. They cannot resist this special saving grace.”

• The Synod of Dort: The Synod rejects that . . . “God in regenerating man does not bring to bear that power of his omnipotence whereby he may powerfully and unfailingly bend man’s will to faith and conversion. . . .” (The Synod rejects that someone) “can, and in actual fact often does, so resist God and the Spirit in their intent and will to regenerate him.”²¹
• John Piper: Irresistible grace “means the Holy Spirit can overcome all resistance and make his influence irresistible. . . . The doctrine of irresistible grace means that God is sovereign and can overcome all resistance he wills. . . . When God undertakes to fulfill his sovereign purpose, no one can successfully resist him. . . . When a person hears a preacher call for repentance he can resist that call. But if God gives him repentance he cannot resist because the gift is the removal of resistance. . . . So if God gives repentance it is the same as taking away the resistance. This is why we call this work of God ‘irresistible grace.’ ”²²

Was Fish reflecting the statements of some Calvinists in his definition? Distinguishing Fish’s from Finn’s is so difficult that one must ask, What exactly is it in Fish’s description that Finn objects to so strenuously? Fish has echoed Calvinist descriptions of irresistible grace, and yet Finn takes him to task for doing so. No matter how modern-day Calvinists may attempt to gloss over the hardness of irresistible grace and project it in a softer, gentler light, the doctrine remains what it is. When pressed by their own words, Calvinists sometimes seem to play word games or equivocate their words in order to make their beliefs more palatable. However, this study will examine irresistible grace as it is described and defined in standard Calvinist doctrinal teachings.