Prevenient grace

Grace that goes first

‘Prevenient’ comes from the Latin praevenire, ‘to come before’; older English spoke of ‘preventing grace’, in the old sense of going ahead. The phrase names God's grace already at work before anyone seeks him. Fallen people cannot turn to God in their own strength: "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him" (John 6:44). Yet Jesus also said, "I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw everyone to Myself" (John 12:32).

The true Light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.

John 1:9

John Wesley explained that Christ gives this light to every person "by what is vulgarly termed natural conscience, pointing out at least the general lines of good and evil" Wesley; if people do not hinder it, he wrote, it grows brighter. "The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to everyone" (Titus 2:11), and "We love because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

How the church came to say it

The idea goes back to Augustine, who taught against the Pelagians that even the beginning of faith is God's gift Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints; the Council of Orange (529) likewise confessed that every good will and the very beginning of faith come from grace Council of Orange. The Council of Trent taught that the justification of adults begins from God's prevenient grace through Christ, his call to those who have no merit, and that a person can freely assent to and cooperate with that grace, or reject it Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, ch. 5. The Thirty-Nine Articles confess that we can do no good works pleasing to God "without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will" Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 10.

Prevenient grace became central for the followers of Jacobus Arminius and for John Wesley. The Remonstrance of 1610 confessed that without grace no one can think, will or do anything truly good, and that grace is the beginning, continuation and completion of all good; but that it is not irresistible, since many have resisted the Holy Spirit Remonstrance, arts. 3–4. They had Stephen's words in mind: "You always resist the Holy Spirit" (Acts 7:51). Wesley taught that preventing grace stirs the first wish to please God, the first light about his will and the first conviction of having sinned Wesley, The Scripture Way of Salvation. Because Christ died for all, Wesleyans hold, this grace reaches all: no one can believe unaided, but no one is left without grace.

Where the traditions differ

Every tradition agrees that grace comes before any human response. The questions are to whom it is given and whether it can be refused. Methodists, holiness churches, many Pentecostals and other Arminian Christians teach that God gives it to all, restoring the freedom to respond, so that a person may believe or finally refuse. They read God as one "who wants everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4), and take that desire as sincere toward each person. The Catholic Church also teaches prevenient grace and free human cooperation, within its own account of justification.

Reformed churches also hold that grace goes first. The Canons of Dort reject as Pelagian the teaching that grace does not precede the will in the beginning of conversion Canons of Dort, III/IV, rejection 9; but they confess that when God calls his elect he renews their will and surely brings them to faith (effectual calling). The Reformed therefore do not speak of a grace that gives everyone an equal ability to believe, and they describe God's goodness to all as common grace. Lutherans confess that conversion is God's work alone, to which the natural will contributes nothing, yet teach that the grace offered in the Word can be resisted. For more, see free will, Arminianism and the lesson Grace and election. Whatever their view, believers can thank God that even their first desire for him was his gift.