So what’s Monergism anyway? According to my alma mater (wikipedia):
“Monergism describes the position in Christian theology of those who believe that God, through the Holy Spirit, works to bring about effectually the salvation of individuals through spiritual regeneration without cooperation from the individual.”
This post will contend that the gracious doctor taught monergism as the Jansenists believed. Monergism was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1713, though it is obscure enough that it is safely held by many prominent Roman Catholics like Dr. Peter Kreeft. Jansenists don’t really have anywhere to go these days, so they usually just remain in the Roman Church while despising the Vatican’s old decrees against their hero, Augustine.
What the RC rent-a-pologists will tell you online is that because Augustine used the term “free will” and said that man had it, this meant he taught that man could choose good or evil. This was not the case. If you read the first 10 chapters of his work “On Grace and Free Will” this will become abundantly clear. The type of ‘free’ will man has according to Augustine is basically a free will to sin. Natural man can choose whether he will get drunk on beer or wine (as my pastor likes to say), but not if he will perfectly obey all of God’s commands. The furthest Augustine goes is to name a few ‘commandments’ that natural man can fulfill. Whether these statements ought to be understood as Divine Law or merely the advice of the scripture, it is pretty clear that each of these ‘commandments’ could easily be done from selfish motives and thus not from pure goodness, making the actions sins. In laymen’s terms, Augustine teaches what the Lutheran Confessions do when they say “man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness”. This stands – it is probably fair to say – in great contrast to the Eastern fathers of the Church and the Orthodox position which seems to be openly Pelagian.
Regarding grace and salvation, here’s what Augustine says in the same treatise (ch. 16-18):
“…what avails the good fight, unless followed by victory? And who gives the victory but He of whom the apostle says himself, Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ? (1 Corinthians 15:57) Then, in another passage, having quoted from the Psalm these words: Because for Your sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for slaughter, he went on to declare: Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us. (Romans 8:37) Not by ourselves, therefore, is the victory accomplished, but by Him who has loved us. In the second clause he says, I have finished my course. Now, who is it that says this, but he who declares in another passage, So then it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. (Romans 9:16) And this sentence can by no means be transposed, so that it could be said: It is not of God, who shows mercy, but of the man who wills and runs. If any person be bold enough to express the matter thus, he shows himself most plainly to be at issue with the apostle.
His last clause runs thus: I have kept the faith. But he who says this is the same who declares in another passage, I have obtained mercy that I might be faithful. (1 Corinthians 7:25) He does not say, I obtained mercy because I was faithful, but in order that I might be faithful, thus showing that even faith itself cannot be had without God’s mercy, and that it is the gift of God. This he very expressly teaches us when he says, For by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8) They might possibly say, We received grace because we believed; as if they would attribute the faith to themselves, and the grace to God. Therefore, the apostle having said, You are saved through faith, added, And that not of yourselves, but it is the gift of God. And again, lest they should say they deserved so great a gift by their works, he immediately added, Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2:9) Not that he denied good works, or emptied them of their value, when he says that God renders to every man according to his works; (Romans 2:6) but because works proceed from faith, and not faith from works. Therefore it is from Him that we have works of righteousness, from whom comes also faith itself, concerning which it is written, The just shall live by faith. (Habakkuk 2:4)
Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the apostle’s statement: We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law, (Romans 3:28) have thought him to mean that faith suffices to a man, even if he lead a bad life, and has no good works. Impossible is it that such a character should be deemed a vessel of election by the apostle, who, after declaring that in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails anything, nor uncircumcision, (Galatians 5:6) adds at once, but faith which works by love. It is such faith which severs God’s faithful from unclean demons—for even these believe and tremble, (James 2:19) as the Apostle James says; but they do not do well. Therefore they possess not the faith by which the just man lives—the faith which works by love in such wise, that God recompenses it according to its works with eternal life. But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise comes our faith and our love, therefore the selfsame great teacher of the Gentiles has designated eternal life itself as His gracious gift. (Romans 6:23)”
Now while the Roman Catholics probably groaned for the first two paragraphs (salvation by grace alone!? justified by faith?!) they no doubt gloated in the last paragraph where Augustine attacked the Reformation doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, or at least, what Roman Catholics think the doctrine of sola fide teaches. That being a whole other issue, let’s remain on Augustine.
In short:
1. Augustine taught that a man is formally justified by grace alone through faith and works (grace is the sine qua non of salvation, not human cooperation/works), however on the last day God will declare a man righteous on the basis of his own works which were nonetheless purely the result of grace. Salvation is thus the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian. Such a system of thought is monergism, but it is in danger of the charge that it makes the Holy Spirit Lord and Saviour rather than Christ.
2. The Roman Catholic Church when it condemned Jansenism taught that a man is formally justified by grace and free will through faith and works (human cooperation/free will/works is the sine qua non of RCC doctrine) and so condemned St. Augustine. Salvation is thus the work of the Christian using the tools God has given him but by the sweat of his own brow will salvation be yielded. Such a system of thought is synergistic, and makes man his own Lord and Saviour.
3. (No one was asking, but here it is anyway) Lutheranism and Reformed theology teach that man is justified by grace alone through Christ’s works, the benefits of which are received by faith alone. (God’s grace is the sine qua non, and this is manifest in the Father’s predestination, the Son’s works and righteousness, and the Spirit’s regeneration). Salvation is thus the work of the Trinity, and Christ is the Lord and Saviour.