According to some Protestants, the receiver of God’s initial, justifying grace is passive in doing so. For instance, in the Joint Declaration on Justification , it is said that: > According to Lutheran teaching, human beings are incapable of cooperating in their salvation, because as sinners they actively oppose God and his saving action. (Section 4, Paragraph 20) However, according to some of these same Protestants, man is capable of rejecting God’s grace, contra the teaching of irresistible grace. As a friend of mine has said, man is active in his damnation and passive in his salvation. Or, as the Joint Declaration puts it: > Lutherans do not deny that a person can reject the working of grace. When they emphasize that a person can only receive (mere passive) justification, they mean thereby to exclude any possibility of contributing to one's own justification… (Section 4, Paragraph 20) However, this seems to pose a dilemma that leads these kinds of Protestants to either need to accept irresistible grace, or accept synergism. The dilemma is this: Does man choose passivity? Because it seems that if the Protestant say man does choose passivity, they either contradict the very meaning of being a passive recipient of God’s grace, or they must be a synergist (read: in agreement with the Council of Trent), because man is choosing God’s grace. If they say that man does not choose passivity, then they must believe in irresistible grace, because man’s passivity is the result of God’s choice. Man is incapable of rejecting God’s grace because passivity is not something he chooses. How could a Protestant who accepts monergism but rejects irresistible grace escape this dilemma?

1 Corinthians 10:13 (ESV) > 13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. **God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability**, **but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it**. If God's grace is irresistible, then the grace God offers to resist temptation should also be irresistible. Yet Christians still fall into sin, which sounds like a logical contradiction. How do Reformed Calvinists make sense of 1 Corinthians 10:13? ____ Related: - https://christianity.stackexchange.com/q/91151/50422 - [If God gives us enough grace so that we don't have to sin (1 Corinthians 10:13), then why do we still sin (1 John 1:8-10, 2:1-2)?](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/q/76302/38524)

[Matthew 22:14](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+22%3A14&version=ESV) : > For many are called, but few are chosen. [ESV] What is the difference between “called” and “chosen” here? Though I believe in predestination, I struggle to see how this verse deals here with irresistible grace.

Matthew 12:31 says blasphemy of the Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin. Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit in the ESV Study Bible, says that it is, "This sin is committed today only by unbelievers who deliberately and unchangeably reject the ministry of the Holy Spirit in calling them to salvation" In Calvinism, the I in TULIP is irresistible grace. Those God elected cannot resist His grace and that man will answer God's call. You can't resist it. So how does this fit in with blasphemy of the Holy Spirit where unbelievers resists the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit try to work in everyone? Or does the Holy Spirit only work within those elected?

In light of the doctrine of irresistable grace, how do Calvinists interpret Acts 7:51? >**Acts 7:51 (DRB)** You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, **you always resist the Holy Ghost:** as your fathers did, so do you also. Cf. Mt. 23:37. Doesn't this imply they *ought not* to resist the Holy Ghost, implying both 1) one can, and they did, resist the grace of God, and 2) they had the capacity to, but *refused* to, comply with God?

This particular question is concerned with John Bunyan's stance, rather than the stance of Pilgrim's Progress, which is addressed in a [related question](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/12383/does-bunyans-pilgrims-progress-state-a-position-on-predestination) . I learned of Pilgrim's Progress through reading works of reformed theologians (many of who highly recommended Pilgrim's Progress), and thus I assumed that Pilgrim's Progress also believed in predestination. I'm no longer sure of that, and I'm not even sure if John Bunyan himself believed in predestination. (Wikipedia doesn't seem to say either way) Thus, the question: did John Bunyan take a stance on predestination and irresistible grace?

Calvinists often object to the criticism that their doctrine teaches that God forces men to be saved against their will. From what I've read, Calvinism teaches that God changes a man's nature and desire so that it is the man's utmost will that he become saved. In this sense, it seems technically true that Calvinism does not teach that God saves men against their will. However, I'm wondering if this is just a semantic argument on the part of the Calvinist? The doctrine of total depravity teaches that men (even elect men) despise God in their natural state. In order for a man to love God, he must first be supernaturally regenerated. But God-hating men do not desire to be regenerated. It is not their will that their will be changed. It is not their desire to desire God. Thus, even though *salvation* may not be forced, I don't understand how any Calvinist could claim that the act of *regeneration* is not a forceful act accomplished against the will of the recipient, which (at the moment immediately preceding regeneration) is inclined to hate God utterly. Since regeneration leads inescapably to salvation (with some Calvinists even claiming that the two events occur at the same moment in time), it seems like a semantic argument to claim that God doesn't force men to be saved against their will. He may not force them to become *saved*, but if he forces them to become *regenerate* and regeneration leads inescapably to salvation, then are Calvinists simply dodging the issue when they claim that their doctrine does not teach that men are saved against their will? Am I correct in asserting that traditional Calvinist doctrine teaches that regeneration is forceful?

The question of what the Biblical basis is *in favor of* Irresistible Grace has been asked here . However, the question regarding the Biblical argument *against* it does not seem to have been addressed yet. So, that's the question. What is the Biblical basis or argument against the Calvinist doctrine of Irresistible Grace--that is, the doctrine that God's grace to the elect prior to their conversion is irresistible. The elect person can't help but be drawn into salvation and a relationship with God.

Titus 2:11 says > For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men... How does this fit with Irresistible Grace? From my understanding of Irresistible Grace, when God's grace that brings salvation appears to someone, they cannot resist and they are saved (whether against their will, or that the are unable to resist and their will is changed so it is their will, may not be relevant) I have consulted ESV Global Commentary, Matthew Henry Commentary, and Calvin's commentary for the verse, but have found nothing concerning this doctrine. How is this passage understood along with Irresistible Grace?

How does Calvinism reconcile these words from Jesus along with its doctrine of irresistible grace (IG)? > **Matthew 23:13,15 ESV** But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For **you** shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For **you** neither enter yourselves **nor allow** those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, **you make him** twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. I bolded the parts that seem to say that it is the Pharisees who are causing these people to turn away. The reasons why I think this passage and IG are at odds is because if the person being proselytized... 1. ...**did not** already receive God's IG, and was therefore not elect to begin with, why would Jesus say that the Pharisees *make them* a child of hell? 2. ...**did** already receive God's IG, how could any actions from the Pharisee's interfere with that?