Grace is everywhere in Christian theology. But what it means is a different animal depending on who you're asking.
For reformed Protestants, those in the Calvinist tradition, grace is irresistible. It's one of the key principles of their theological acrostic TULIP, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. When God's grace touches you, you cannot resist it. This comes from Augustine and was refined by John Calvin and the theologians who followed him. You're so enslaved to sin that you cannot choose God. You're incapable. So God gives you grace that overcomes that incapacity, and when he does, it works. You're drawn irresistibly to Christ. This view takes Augustine's statement in the confessions incredibly seriously. “Grant what You command and command what You will.” In other words, God doesn't just tell you to have faith, he enables you to have it. The command and the power come from God.
Now, ask an Armenian named after the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius about grace and they'll tell you something different. Grace is available to everyone. God extends his grace to all people. And while grace is necessary for salvation, humans retain the ability to accept or reject it. This is sometimes called prevenient grace. Grace that goes before, enabling humans to choose, but not forcing the choice. God doesn't push you into salvation. He opens the door and invites you through. You walk through or you don't. That choice genuinely belongs to you.
The practical difference is enormous. If you're reformed and you haven't come to Christ yet, it's because God hasn't irresistibly called you yet. If you're Armenian and you haven't come to Christ, you're choosing not to accept the grace that's already available to you. In the first view, your will is determined by God. In the second view, your will is free to accept or reject.
Methodists, Pentecostals, many Baptists, and most evangelical free churches are Arminian in their theology, even if they don't use that technical term. Presbyterian, Reformed, and some Lutheran churches land more on the Calvinist side.
The Roman Catholic understanding of grace is cooperation with grace. God gives grace. You cooperate with it. It's not that your will is determined by God, and it's not quite that your will is entirely free, either. There's a genuine cooperation between divine grace and human freedom that isn't fully explained. It's a mystery held in tension. Thomas Aquinas called this the compatibility of human freedom and divine causality and it remains one of the most debated issues in philosophy of religion.
Same word, three or four different architectures underneath, same vocabulary, different metaphysical assumptions.
For reformed Protestants, those in the Calvinist tradition, grace is irresistible. It's one of the key principles of their theological acrostic TULIP, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints. When God's grace touches you, you cannot resist it. This comes from Augustine and was refined by John Calvin and the theologians who followed him. You're so enslaved to sin that you cannot choose God. You're incapable. So God gives you grace that overcomes that incapacity, and when he does, it works. You're drawn irresistibly to Christ. This view takes Augustine's statement in the confessions incredibly seriously. “Grant what You command and command what You will.” In other words, God doesn't just tell you to have faith, he enables you to have it. The command and the power come from God.
Now, ask an Armenian named after the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius about grace and they'll tell you something different. Grace is available to everyone. God extends his grace to all people. And while grace is necessary for salvation, humans retain the ability to accept or reject it. This is sometimes called prevenient grace. Grace that goes before, enabling humans to choose, but not forcing the choice. God doesn't push you into salvation. He opens the door and invites you through. You walk through or you don't. That choice genuinely belongs to you.
The practical difference is enormous. If you're reformed and you haven't come to Christ yet, it's because God hasn't irresistibly called you yet. If you're Armenian and you haven't come to Christ, you're choosing not to accept the grace that's already available to you. In the first view, your will is determined by God. In the second view, your will is free to accept or reject.
Methodists, Pentecostals, many Baptists, and most evangelical free churches are Arminian in their theology, even if they don't use that technical term. Presbyterian, Reformed, and some Lutheran churches land more on the Calvinist side.
The Roman Catholic understanding of grace is cooperation with grace. God gives grace. You cooperate with it. It's not that your will is determined by God, and it's not quite that your will is entirely free, either. There's a genuine cooperation between divine grace and human freedom that isn't fully explained. It's a mystery held in tension. Thomas Aquinas called this the compatibility of human freedom and divine causality and it remains one of the most debated issues in philosophy of religion.
Same word, three or four different architectures underneath, same vocabulary, different metaphysical assumptions.