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I'd like your views on "once saved, always saved."(2009)

Part I.  Background.
My Initial View.
Scripture.
Orthodoxy.
Heresy.
Theology.
Doctrine.
Summary.

Part II.  The Doctrine of Eternal Security.
Classical Calvinism.
Moderate Calvinism.
Reformed Arminianism.
Wesleyan Arminianism.
My Revised View.
Part III.  Appendix.


Part II.  The Doctrine of Eternal Security

Previously we examined the differences among scripture, orthodoxy, heresy, theology, and doctrine.  It is essential to understand these ideas clearly before getting involved in any serious discussion of the Faith.  Now we are ready to move on to an examination of “once saved, always saved,” also called “perseverance of the saints” or “eternal security.”

Quick!  Raise your hand if you know for sure whether your denomination accepts or rejects “eternal security”!  I’m raising my hand here, but only because I had to look it up for this supplement.  You aren’t showing whether you as an individual believe it, only whether you know for sure about your denomination’s position. 

With that bit of housekeeping, let’s move on to thinking about “Once saved, always saved.  Or not.”

I felt that in order to give a reasonable answer to this question, I needed to do some background reading, so I bought and grumbled my way through 4 Views on Eternal Security, a theological study by Michael S. Horton, Norman L. Geisler, Stephen M. Ashby, and J. Steven Harper.  In this book, each author wrote his own view of eternal security - without seeing what the others were writing.  Then each person wrote a response to what each other person had written, while seeing what everyone had written, but without seeing the other responses. 

The first thing you must fully understand is that scripture does not decide the question of eternal security.  This is because - and, in the words of Dave Barry, I am NOT making this up - everybody on all sides of the issue reads exactly the same scripture passages in such a way as to support his point!  I concluded while reading the views that some or all of the theologians in this book first decided what they believed about eternal security and only then decided what the scripture says about it.  As a matter of fact, some of them accuse each other in the responses of doing exactly that.

The second thing you must fully understand is that eternal security is not a matter of orthodoxy or heresy.  The creeds accepted by the whole Church do not address it.  Because orthodox belief on this topic has never been defined, there is no such thing as a heretical belief about eternal security, in spite of any subgroup’s past or present charges to the contrary.

The last thing you must fully understand is that “once saved, always saved” is a point of doctrine.  It has its roots in Augustinian theology, as modified by Calvinist theology, and is closely related to four other points of Calvinist doctrine that I’m not going to get into here.  Nevertheless, some non-Calvinist theologians also accept the doctrinal point of eternal security, with or without some of the other points.  For example,
The technical term for this kind of theological debate is “a can of Worms.”

The theology that stands in starkest contrast to Calvinism is Arminian theology.  Many Arminians seem to accept one to three of the other five points of Calvinist theology in some form, but all Arminians (as far as I can tell) are united in rejecting “once saved, always saved.” Historically, this doctrinal division between Calvinists and Arminians led to people branding other Christians as heretics, burning them at the stake, and so on. 

Even today, some people on one side of this divide are fond of saying that people on the other side “are Christians, but just barely.”  Brothers and sisters, I beg you never to say such an unloving and divisive thing!  You need to be aware that this kind of statement is completely contrary to the scripture:
One problem I had with 4 Views on Eternal Security is that, to a greater or lesser extent, each author, X, insisted on telling me what the other guy’s (Y’s) view was and why Y was mistaken in how Y described Y’s own view.  Sometimes an author X went so far as to try to “clarify” the difference between the views of Y and Z.  So I admit that I may have ended up being a little confused about the four views.  However, to the extent that I understand them, here are the four views of eternal security presented in the book.

Classical Calvinism holds that those who are saved, “the elect,” were chosen by God from the foundation of the world to be saved through Christ.  Not everyone is among the elect.  Salvation is a gift, but the elect cannot choose to reject it.  The elect cannot become unsaved, but no one (except God, of course) knows who they are.  A person who appears to be saved and then apostasizes was by definition never truly saved in the first place.  Thus Classical Calvinism accepts the doctrine of eternal security.

Moderate Calvinism holds that the elect were chosen by God from the foundation of the world to be saved through Christ.  Salvation is a gift, but the elect cannot choose to reject it.  Not everyone is among the elect.  The elect cannot become unsaved, and they know who they are.  If a person among the elect appears to apostasize, that person is still saved.  Thus Moderate Calvinism also accepts the doctrine of eternal security.

Reformed Arminianism holds that God’s desire from the foundation of the world was that everyone should be saved, and thus salvation is available to all through Christ.  Furthermore, through God’s love, he has given human beings free will, and God’s prevenient grace (this is the grace that is acting on all persons prior to their salvation) makes it possible for each person to freely choose, through faith, to accept the gift of salvation.  Each person is also free to reject the gift.  If a person who has accepted salvation later commits apostasy, he never gets a second chance; he is eternally lost.  Reformed Arminianism thus rejects the doctrine of eternal security.

Wesleyan Arminianism holds that God’s desire from the foundation of the world was that everyone should be saved, and thus salvation is available to all through Christ.  Furthermore, through God’s love, he has given human beings free will, and God’s prevenient grace makes it possible for each person to freely choose, through faith, to accept the gift of salvation.  Each person is also free to reject the gift.  Even if a person who has accepted salvation later commits apostasy, however, he is never beyond the influence of the grace of God, and it is therefore possible - although unlikely - for him to be renewed to faith.  Thus Wesleyan Arminianism also rejects the doctrine of eternal security.

Now, as I said, the authors did spend more time in presenting the other guys’ views and less time in presenting their own views than I would have.  Nevertheless, I found the discussion as a whole enlightening, in spite of all my grumbling, and reading the book and the cited scriptures did clarify my thinking substantially.  I’m going to conclude by giving you my slightly revised view of “once saved, always saved,” and two appendixes (which you can skip entirely, because probably you have much more interesting reading to do).

My Revised View.  I really appreciate this reader’s question.  By asking me for my views, the reader forced me to read some theology and to carefully reconsider several passages of scripture.  Consequently, my views on the question of “once saved, always saved; or not” have firmed up substantially in the past couple of weeks. 

Many of you know that I grew up in the Methodist and United Methodist Church, and so you may think it’s not a coincidence that where I came out is right in the middle of Wesleyan doctrine.  You could well be right; however, I promise you that I came to 90% of my revised view by reading the Calvinist, Moderate Calvinist, and Reformed Arminian views.  The Wesleyan Arminian view came last in the book, and by the time I got there, my mind was pretty well made up about what I think. 

But I don’t know.  Neither do you.  Bear that in mind whenever you are discussing this point of doctrine with your friends.


Copyright 2008, 2011 by Regina L.  Hunter.  All rights reserved.

Opinions expressed on this page are solely those of the author, Regina Hunter, and may or may not be shared by the sponsors or the Bible-study participants.  Thanks to the Holy Spirit for any useful ideas presented here, and thanks to all the readers for their support and enthusiasm.  All errors are, of course, the sole responsibility of the author.

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