Abstract
This article constructs a Trinitarian model of prevenient grace based on the insights of Bernard of Clairvaux and Balthasar Hubmaier. Accordingly, the three persons of the Trinity play roles in prevenient grace’s calling, convicting, illuminating, and enabling aspects. The model proposes that the Holy Spirit serves for all persons as the functional equivalent of a good cognitive faculty lost to humanity in the Fall. Hence, the Spirit suggests to each person that they enter into spiritual marriage with Christ and suggests good thoughts to unbelievers and believers alike. Without the Spirit, no one could be saved or do anything good.
“For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people” (Titus 2:11 NIV; emphasis added). Since the verse literally reads “For the grace of God appeared salvation to all people” (epephanē gar ē charis tou theou sōtērios pasin anthrōpois), translators must clarify what the author of Titus intended by claiming that God’s grace appeared salvation. Basically, there are two alternatives: the reading adopted by the NIV or the reading adopted by the NRSV (“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all”). Since, it is quite doubtful that the author of Titus was a universalist (Titus 1:10–16; 3:3, 10–11), the NIV’s reading is, in my judgment, here to be preferred. Accordingly, Titus 2:11 is describing a resistible and universal prevenient grace. Prevenient grace is the grace that “comes before” all human response to God. Such grace includes but is not limited to the grace that necessarily precedes conversion, as humanity is universally sinful and incapable of salvation without divine assistance. Any monergistic theology must assume that this grace is irresistible (with most forms of monergism denying its universality), while any synergistic theology must assume that this grace is resistible (with most forms of synergism affirming its universality). While the term gratia praeveniens originates in Augustine (De spiritu et littera 60, et passim), most contemporary theological traditions that employ the term (e.g. Roman Catholic, Anabaptist, Arminian) assume the resistibility and universality of prevenient grace. Thus, I will henceforth use “prevenient grace” as shorthand for “resistible and universal prevenient grace.” 1
But now the question arises, “How does prevenient grace work?” Most contemporary theologians who have written on this subject stress—and rightfully so—the Holy Spirit’s role in granting prevenient grace to all humanity. Here, Thomas Oden and Roger Olson are representative. Oden explains the necessity of prevenient grace:
As the Father creates creaturely life out of nothing, so the Spirit, enabling the mission of the Son, quickens spiritual life ex nihilo . . . Prevenient grace leads toward justifying grace. No one is saved by prevenient preparatory grace as such, but only by faith in God’s justifying verdict on the cross. Hence preparatory grace points toward and readies the soul for justification.
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Olson concurs, “No person can repent, believe and be saved without the Holy Spirit’s supernatural support from beginning to end.” 3 However, the roles of the Father and the Son in the bestowal of prevenient grace are frequently, if unwittingly, overlooked. Indeed, Olson points out that “prevenient grace includes at least four aspects or elements: calling, convicting, illuminating, and enabling,” 4 and it would seem that the Father and the Son play important roles alongside the Spirit in carrying out these aspects. So what theological resources can we draw upon to help us give the Father and the Son their proper due in prevenient grace?
Two theologians who gave equal attention to the roles of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in prevenient grace are Cistercian abbot Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) and Anabaptist theologian Balthasar Hubmaier (1480–1528). One of the masters of medieval spirituality, Bernard is a Roman Catholic saint and Doctor of the Church, and he stood second to none among medieval authors in the admiration of the Protestant Reformers. 5 Hubmaier was the only 16th-century Anabaptist to earn a doctor theologiae, receiving the degree in 1512 under the tutelage of John Eck at the University of Ingolstadt. Elsewhere, I have argued that Hubmaier is dependent on Bernard for his theological anthropology and soteriology. 6 While Bernard was a dichotomist, conceiving of the human being as consisting of soul and body, Hubmaier was a trichotomist, conceiving of the human being as consisting of spirit, soul, and body. I allege that Hubmaier interpreted Bernard’s distinction between spiritus and the human anima as a distinction between two human faculties rather than, as Bernard intended, a distinction between the Holy Spirit and the human soul. 7 This argument has been generally well-received in the literature, with most of my fellow Hubmaier scholars granting its possibility 8 and only one voicing strong dissent. 9 All in all, it may be safely concluded that Bernard and Hubmaier, whether or not the latter was dependent on the former, make for excellent theological conversation partners on anthropological and soteriological issues.
In this article, I aim to construct a Trinitarian model of prevenient grace based on the insights of Bernard and Hubmaier. To gain the appropriate context for this model, I will begin by briefly reviewing the conception of pre-Fall and post-Fall humanity presented by Bernard and Hubmaier. I will then build the model within the rubric of calling, convicting, illuminating, and enabling articulated by Olson. Finding the arguments for dichotomy 10 stronger than the arguments for trichotomy, 11 I will “dichotomize” Hubmaier along Bernardian lines by taking Hubmaier’s claims about the human spirit and applying them to the Holy Spirit.
Bernard and Hubmaier on Humanity as Created and as Fallen
In On Grace and Free Choice (De gratia et libero arbitrio) and Freedom of the Will, I and II (Von der Freiheit des Willens and Das andere Büchlein von der Freiwilligkeit), both Bernard and Hubmaier respectively treated, in this order, the state of humanity before the Fall, the state of humanity as a result of the Fall, and the state of humanity as a result of the work of Christ. Here, we shall examine the first two states, beginning with pre-Fall humanity.
For Bernard, Adam’s body, taken as synonymous with Adam’s flesh, possessed freedom of pleasure, or freedom from sorrow, in Eden. Hence, “man received in his very nature” the freedom of “being able not to be disturbed.”
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Adam’s body possessed the cognitive faculty to generate good thoughts as well as the cognitive faculty to generate evil thoughts. Adam’s soul possessed freedom of counsel, or “being able not to sin”
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by virtue of its ability to heed either cognitive faculty. In Bernard’s view, freedom of counsel constitutes the likeness of God (as distinct from the image of God) in humanity.
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By nature, Adam’s soul also possessed freedom of choice, which Bernard understood as “voluntary and free consent,” “a spontaneous inclination of the will,” and “a self-determining habit of the soul.”
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But freedom of choice does not demarcate the range of options to which an individual can voluntarily consent, incline, or determine itself. To illustrate, God possesses freedom of choice and can only choose between good options; Satan possesses freedom of choice and can only choose between evil options. According to Bernard, freedom of choice is an essential and ineradicable faculty of every rational being. It is the image of God in humanity, which can never be lost. Hence it
belongs alike to God and to every rational creature, good or bad. Neither by sin nor by suffering is it lost or lessened; nor is it greater in the just man than in the sinner, nor fuller in the angel than in man.
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Prior to the Fall, the range of options from which Adam could choose spanned the highest good to the worst evil and everything in between. This is because of the good and evil cognitive faculties he possessed in his body. Bernard explained why God created Adam, among all earthly beings, with both faculties:
To man alone was given the ability to sin, as part of his prerogative of free choice. But he was given it, not that he might, but rather that he might appear the more glorious did he not sin when he was capable of doing so.
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For Hubmaier, Adam’s body before the Fall was “so highly graced that he could remain . . . living eternally in rest, ecstasy, and joy . . . whatever pleases him (yes, him) is given to him.” 18 His body had both of the cognitive faculties stipulated by Bernard. Hubmaier argued that Adam’s soul was “wholly free to choose good or evil, life or death, heaven or hell.” It was “originally made good and free also in the recognition, in the capability, and performance of good and evil by God,” as God “left him free in the power of his own counsel.” 19 Hence, Hubmaier concurred with Bernard that God created the soul with freedom of counsel, namely, with the ability not to sin by heeding the good cognitive faculty. So Adam did not have to fall into sin: “God created the human being so free that he was at first able without new grace to remain in his inborn innocence and righteousness unto eternal life.” 20
Bernard maintained that when Adam fell, he lost for himself and his progeny both freedom of counsel and freedom of pleasure:
In losing completely his freedom of counsel, he fell from being able not to sin to not being able not to sin. Likewise, from being able not to be disturbed, he fell to not being able not to be disturbed, with the total loss of his freedom of pleasure . . . From . . . being able not to sin and not to be disturbed . . . he fell away through sin and we along with him.
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Hubmaier took the same position, insisting that “as soon as a person is conceived and born, he is conceived and born in sin. From the first moment already he is up to his ears in sin.”
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Both Bernard and Hubmaier held that the Fall destroyed the body’s good cognitive faculty, leaving it only with the evil cognitive faculty. Hubmaier claimed that the soul
has through the disobedience of Adam been wounded in the will in such a way and become sick unto death so that it can on its own choose nothing good. Nor can it refuse evil . . . There is nothing left to it but to sin and to die. Yes, as far as doing good goes, the soul has become entirely powerless and ineffective.
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Regarding the dire condition of the flesh, Hubmaier wrote that “the flesh has irretrievably lost its goodness and freedom through the Fall of Adam and has become entirely and wholly worthless and hopeless unto death”; in short, it is “good for nothing and wholly ruined.” 24
Nevertheless, Bernard and Hubmaier agreed that the soul still retained its freedom of choice, namely, its power to voluntarily consent or incline itself to various options within a particular range. However, that range consists exclusively of evil options due to the flesh’s possession of only the evil cognitive faculty; the soul cannot choose what is good or even neutral. As Bernard explained concerning the fallen human,
Does the fact that he cannot not sin, then, put an end to free choice? No; but he lost free counsel by which previously he had enjoyed the ability not to sin . . . And the fact that he can in no way extricate himself either from sin or sorrow signifies, not the destruction of free choice, but the privation of the other two freedoms.
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Hubmaier claimed that, just as a sick person still chooses what to eat but can only choose between unhealthy options, the sick soul still chooses what to do but can only choose between evil options:
A parable: a wounded or feverish person neither wants to nor likes to eat or drink something good and healthy. Only cold water and harmful food taste good to him. That happens because his healthy nature and whole constitution have been disordered by sickness, for he has lost the right and healthy taste of knowledge. He has an embittered tongue so that he judges to be good what is harmful to him and to be evil what is useful. Just so is it with our soul after the transgression of Adam.
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Since the soul cannot choose between the full spectrum of alternatives from the highest good to the worst evil but can only choose between the options ranging from the least severe evil to the worst evil, Hubmaier remarked that it was “half-dead.” 27 Therefore, Bernard and Hubmaier subscribed to what would later be styled the doctrine of total depravity. 28
Bernard and Hubmaier maintained that, while the human soul fell into bondage by virtue of its will, it cannot rescue itself from bondage by that same will. As Bernard stipulated concerning the human being,
If he fell by the power of his will, this does not mean that he was equally free to rise again by that same power. The ability to remain standing lest he fall was indeed given to his will, but not to get up again once he fell. It is not as easy to climb out of a pit as to fall into one. By his will alone, man fell into the pit of sin; but he cannot climb out of his will alone, since now, even if he wishes he cannot not sin.
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Hubmaier emphasized that
through the Fall, grace and freedom have been darkened and lost to such a degree that the human being does not know any longer what is good or evil without a special and new grace of God. How can one will to do good and avoid evil if one cannot will anything good, unless one has recognized it beforehand . . . Without a special and new grace of God he cannot keep the commandments nor be saved.
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Building the Bernard-Hubmaier Trinitarian Model
We start our model by proposing, with Bernard and Hubmaier, that the saving work of Christ is the foundation of prevenient grace. In particular, the condition of the soul is radically altered as a result of Christ’s work. As Bernard declared, “Through Christ the likeness which properly belongs to the divine image is restored in us . . . So he was able to reform what was deformed, strengthen what was weak.” 31 Thus, Christ’s work supernaturally restores to humanity the freedom not to sin, a power which is only accessible through prevenient grace. In the absence of prevenient grace, humans would be unable to do anything good or even neutral. Hence, we insist upon the necessity of prevenient grace for both salvation and living in Christian discipleship. In Bernard’s words, “Grace is necessary in order that we may will what is good . . . how to will the good, and how to fear God, and how to love God, we receive with grace’s touch: in this we are creatures of God.” 32 Through prevenient grace, humans regained the ability to choose between the full spectrum of alternatives from the highest good to the worst evil.
With his references to the human spirit changed into references to the Holy Spirit, Hubmaier summarized the effect of prevenient grace:
If the human being after the restoration by Christ is considered, one finds clearly that the flesh is still good for nothing and wholly ruined, as all the Scriptures lament. The [S]pirit is happy, willing, and ready to do all good. The soul, sad and troubled, standing between the [S]pirit and the flesh, knowing not what to do, is in its natural powers blind and ignorant of heavenly things. However, since it has been awakened by the heavenly Father through words of comfort, threats, promises, good things, punishment, and in other ways prodded, admonished, and drawn, as well as made whole by his dear Son, and enlightened by the Holy Spirit—as the three main articles of our Christian faith concerning God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit show—by this the soul now again knows what is good and evil. Now it has again obtained its lost freedom. It can now freely and willingly be obedient to the [S]pirit, can will and choose good, as well as it was able in Paradise. It can also reject evil and flee it.
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Worthy of note is the Trinitarian nature of prevenient grace. The Father is here viewed as calling (drawing, speaking words of comfort, making promises, and giving good things to the soul). The Father also convicts (threatening, punishing, prodding, and admonishing the soul) and enables (awakens the soul). The Son is likewise portrayed as enabling (restoring or making whole the soul). The Spirit is portrayed as illuminating (enlightening the soul). This Trinitarian nature also characterizes Bernard’s view of prevenient grace, as G. R. Evans explains, “Therefore a threefold divine task, indeed a Trinitarian work (Trinitatis operatio), came to be needed, to bring about the fulfilment of God’s original and indefectible purpose for what he had made.” 34
We further stipulate that prevenient grace was made available to humanity immediately after the Fall, a retroactive accessibility which Bernard and Hubmaier attribute to God’s providential plan and foreknowledge that rendered the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). Hubmaier brilliantly defended this point by appealing to Deuteronomy 30:10–20, in which Moses commanded the Israelites to
turn to the
Now Hubmaier’s theological opponents (most importantly, Luther) claimed that this and other Old Testament exhortations to turn to God were imperatives, not indicatives, and therefore did not indicate that the hearers actually had the power to carry them out.
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Thus, Hubmaier’s defense hinged on Moses’ indicative statement about his command:
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. (vv. 11–14, NIV; emphasis added)
In view of total depravity, the only way Moses’ command to turn to and love God could not be too difficult for the Israelites and so be obeyable was for the Israelites to have received prevenient grace. As Hubmaier exclaimed,
See here, Christian reader, how bright and clear this Scripture shows us that God has freely entrusted to the human being anew after the Fall the choice of evil and good, blessing and curse, life and death. So that even if the whole world said otherwise, heaven and earth would stand against it and testify openly on the last day before the judgment throne of Christ against all people that not God, but we ourselves, out of free will, are responsible for our sins and eternal damnation.
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Since Scripture goes on to attest that many of these Israelites remained unregenerate, it follows that God gives prevenient grace not only to the elect but to all humanity, such that “it is certain and sure that the crucified Christ wants all people to be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, 1 Tim. 2:4.” 38 Hence, the doctrine of prevenient grace guarantees the moral accountability of every person before God, as no one can legitimately blame God or Adam and Eve for their sin or unbelief.
On our model, each member of the Trinity plays a role in the calling, convicting, illuminating, and enabling that comprises prevenient grace. Their roles often overlap with each other. This makes sense in light of the fact that, although calling, convicting, illuminating, and enabling may be conceptually distinguished, these four components occur simultaneously. We shall treat these four components in turn.
Calling
Jesus affirmed that the Father calls persons to salvation by drawing them. Bernard pointed out that “the kindly Father who wills that all men be saved [1 Tim. 2:4] appears as drawing . . . many to salvation . . . we read in the Gospel: ‘No one can come to me unless my Father draws him’ [John 6:44].”
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On the basis of Christ’s merit, the Father draws persons by speaking his life-giving word into their souls. Regarding the recognition of and power to do the good that comes from prevenient grace, Hubmaier affirmed,
Therefore this recognition and power of knowledge, willing, and working must happen and be attained by a new grace and drawing of the heavenly Father, who now looks at humanity anew by the merit of Jesus Christ our Lord, blesses and draws him with his life-giving Word which he speaks into the heart of a person. This drawing and call is like an invitation to a marriage or to an evening meal.
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With Hubmaier, we identify the Father’s salvific call as his invitation to the wedding banquet described in Matthew 22:1–10 and his invitation to the evening meal described in Luke 14:16–24. The universality of the Father’s call is seen in Matthew 22:9, “So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find” (NIV), and Luke 14:21, 23,
Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame . . . Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full. (NIV)
We maintain that this universality may only be denied at the expense of the Father’s trustworthiness. As Hubmaier stressed,
That would be a perfidious God who would invite all people to a supper, offer his mercy to everyone with exalted earnestness, and would yet not want them to come, Luke 14:16ff.; Matt. 22:2ff. That would be a false God who would say with the mouth, “Come here,” but would think secretly in the heart, “Stay there,” Isa. 55:1; Matt. 11:28; John 1:12; Luke 15:22.
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That Christ calls every person to salvation is evident in Matthew 11:28–30,
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (NIV)
If every person did not have the power to respond to this invitation via prevenient grace, Hubmaier asserted that Jesus would here “be singing a song to the dead.”
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Jesus’ calling of prevenient grace to even the non-elect comprises a deep longing for them, especially to protect them from imminent danger by taking it upon himself: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing” (Matt. 23:37 NIV; emphasis added). The frequency of this longing indicates, in the words of Bernard, that Christ’s voice
speaks and makes itself heard to all, and presents itself even to the soul which does not want to hear. There is no need to make an effort to hear this voice. The difficulty is to shut your ears to it (Is 33:15). The voice speaks up; it makes itself heard; it does not cease to knock on everyone’s door. (Rv 3:20)
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Our model thus maintains that Christ, in prevenient grace, continues to call the unsaved even to the moment of death. We contend with Bernard that the Holy Spirit calls by conveying God’s love to each person, pouring this love into their souls: “Note the work of the Holy Spirit, too. ‘Love is diffused in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us’ (Rom 5:5). Love is the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
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This is because the Spirit alone is witness to the love between the Father and the Son and can therefore share this mutual, inter-Trinitarian love through his testimony and presence:
And so the Father, kissing the Son, pours into him in full the mysteries of his divinity, and breathes the sweetness of love . . . No creature has been given the privilege of witnessing this eternal unique and blessed embrace. Only the Holy Spirit is witness, and able to share their mutual knowledge and love.
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In so doing, the Spirit heals the will from the poisonous effect of the flesh and stokes it with love’s fires:
The Holy Spirit lovingly visited the second power of the soul, the will. He found it infected with the poison of the body, but already judged by reason. He cleansed it with sweetness, making it burn with love and filling it with mercy.
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Regarding Bernard’s claim that the will is already judged by reason, Evans comments that God’s prevenient grace “does not compel. It merely makes plain to the reason how the will ought to respond.” 47 Moreover, Bernard declared the soul is “led in love by the Holy Spirit to where charity is stored,” namely, to Christ, the source of all love. 48
Due to the perichoresis of Father, Son, and Spirit, when God calls sinners back to himself throughout the Old Testament, this model maintains that all three Trinitarian persons perform the act of calling simultaneously. Since examples of this phenomenon are myriad, we shall restrict ourselves here to focusing on the two discussed by Bernard or Hubmaier. In Isaiah 55:1–4, the Trinity calls all persons into saving relationship:
Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. (NIV)
This Trinitarian call, averred Hubmaier, empowers sinners to “hunger and thirst after righteousness and want gladly to do good, desiring and asking such from God who has created heaven and earth.”
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As Kenneth Davis and Thomas Finger stress, this hungering and thirsting is not a semi-Pelagian first step (initium fidei); it is the product of prevenient grace.
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In Hosea 2:14–20, 23, God the Trinity woos faithless Israel into the spiritual marriage of eternal covenant relationship:
Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her . . . There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt. “In that day,” declares the L
Bernard judged this enticement to be “the beginning of God’s speaking” in the life of each fallen individual. 51
Convicting
Hubmaier argued that the Father convicts by admonishing people not to sin, threatening them with the outcome of sin, prodding people not to sin, and punishing sin. The foundation of Hubmaier’s argument was Hebrews 12:5–10,
And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.” Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. (NIV)
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Hubmaier employed this passage, which picks out the Father among the persons of the Trinity, as the hermeneutical lens through which he read Old Testament passages about Yahweh admonishing, threatening, prodding, and punishing. Hence, all such passages refer to the Father acting in particular.
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Accordingly, the Father admonished and prodded Cain,
Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it. (Gen. 4:6–7 NIV)
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The Father laid before the Israelites the blessings and curses of the Mosaic Covenant.
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The Father warned the Israelites during the Divided Monarchy: “If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword” (Isa. 1:19–20 NIV).
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The Father further threatened the Israelites with the withdrawal of his blessings and impending doom just before the Babylonian Exile:
If at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it . . . Look! I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you. So turn from your evil ways, each one of you, and reform your ways and your actions. (Jer. 18:9–11 NIV)
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Hubmaier underscored the convicting character of the Father’s punishment. The Father punishes us specifically “because we keep before our eyes our own advantage more than his command and seek ourselves more than him in all our deeds and actions . . . because we do not want to submit our will finally to his divine will.” The anticipated result of such punishment is restorative, namely, that the Father “could use us as whatever tool he wishes.” 58
Bernard contended that Christ, as the eternal Word, convicts each person by confronting them with their sullied image as in a mirror (James 1:23–24) and disclosing to them all their sins, including their secret sins. Christ thus acts as the inner voice prompting each person’s conscience and the light allowing each person to fully see themselves:
It is a word which not only calls them back but leads them back, and brings them face to face with themselves (Ps 49:21). For it is not so much a voice of power (Ps 67:34) as a ray of light, telling men about their sins (Is 58:1) and at the same time revealing the things hidden in darkness (1 Cor 4:5). There is no difference between this inner voice and light, for they are one and the same Son of God and Word of the Father and brightness of glory. (Heb 1:3)
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In this way, Christ continues the convicting work of his earthly ministry, in which he constantly brought his hearers face to face with their sins. 60
Both Bernard and Hubmaier emphasized that the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).
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In particular, the Spirit convicts unbelievers of their refusal to enter into spiritual marriage with Christ, where Bernard and Hubmaier understood the Johannine phrase “believe in me” to denote entrance into that marriage (John 16:9).
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The Spirit convicts unbelievers of righteousness because the model of righteousness, Jesus, is not currently on the earth (John 16:10). The Spirit convicts unbelievers of the judgment under which they stand for following the way of the devil, pointing to Satan’s present condemnation as proof (John 16:11). As we shall expand upon in the section on enabling, Hubmaier pointed out that the Holy Spirit also convicts each person by counteracting every temptation of Satan with the good proposal they should carry out instead, namely, the way of escape described by Paul (1 Cor. 10:13).
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Using the temptation of Jesus as paradigmatic for the temptation of every human being, Hubmaier elucidated this convicting work of the Spirit:
So also is every person led to the heights of his feelings, and Luciferian and Eve-like thoughts rise in his heart, as to how he might acquire temporal power, glory, praise, skills, honor, fame, and riches of this world here on earth, Isa. 14:12ff.; Gen. 3:6. Immediately the devil whispers in one ear, “Cast yourself down from the temple, risk a dangerous and sacrilegious act, do not care whether it is against God.” He then uses a half-truth: “It is written: God has commanded his angels to bear you in their hands so that you do not injure a foot on a stone,” Ps. 91:11f. The Spirit of God, however, says in his other ear: “It is written: ‘You should not tempt the Lord your God’” Deut. 6:16. Satan further shows the person the riches of this world and says on the one side: “Look at the land, the people, wife, child, meadows, acres, and all the splendor of this world. All this I will give you if you serve and worship me. However, if you leave me and follow the gospel, then you will miss all that.” The Spirit of God stands against that on the other side and says, “It is written: ‘You should worship the Lord your God and serve him alone’.” Now the person hangs freely in the balance and hovers between heaven and earth. One may freely choose—for the choice is given to one—blessing or curse, fire or water, good or evil, life or death, and one is free to be obedient to God or to Satan.
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We, with Bernard and Hubmaier, assert that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together perform the convicting work of pleading with sinners to turn from their wickedness and find salvation.
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Thus, Father, Son, and Spirit collectively speak to sinners as follows:
But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the sovereign L
Illuminating
We postulate with Bernard and Hubmaier that the Father illuminates all unbelievers by casting his spiritual care on them, a work which stands as a prerequisite to their finding Christ’s way of eternal life. As Hubmaier prayed concerning those who persecuted the Anabaptist cause,
O Father, forgive us and give us strength henceforth to improve our lives, as we forgive all those who have ever done us harm. Father, forgive them; they know not what they do. Illuminate all those who are in error concerning thy holy Word, which they persecute and outlaw, that they might come to the true way which leads to eternal life.
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Bernard declared that such illumination was a good and perfect gift coming from the Father of lights (James 1:17). 67
We maintain that Christ illuminates the soul by allowing it to see the light of faith, a spiritual sight which constitutes a prerequisite to the soul’s placing faith in Christ. Hubmaier explained,
As the eye of the human being has the ability to see the light and yet cannot see unless the light enters beforehand into the eye, so does the human being have the ability to see the light of faith through the Word of God, which he cannot see unless the light enters beforehand into his soul by heavenly illumination. As now the bodily seeing is a quality of the bodily light, where that is not, there is nothing but darkness, so also is the inner and spiritual seeing a grace of God, John 6:19-21. Where that is, there is seeing, willing, and working. Where it is not, there is eternal darkness, John 12:35.
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We affirm that the Holy Spirit illuminates the soul by revealing to it the hope and spiritual riches that accompany salvation (Eph. 1:17–18). Once the reason learns these benefits, Bernard claimed that it prompts the will to receive them: “The reason suggests these things inwardly to the will, the more abundantly as it is taught the more fully by the illumination of the Spirit.”
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Hubmaier noted that the Spirit also illuminates the soul by allowing those who hear the gospel to see the divine truth it contains.
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Stanley Grenz rightly calls attention to this fact:
As the instrumentality of the risen Lord’s activity in the world, the Spirit is the agent of the triune God in opening our hearts to perceive the truth of the gospel (1 Cor. 2:10). Only as a consequence of his work can we respond to the proclaimed message in repentance and faith.
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Hubmaier delineated the collective work of the Trinity in illumination under the rubric of “the inward drawing.” According to this doctrine, at the same moment as the Father illuminates the soul so that it understands the truth, the Son and the Spirit convince the soul “in such a way that one must in one’s own conscience confess that this is the case and it cannot be otherwise.” 72
Enabling
Our model insists that the Holy Spirit plays the most prominent role in enabling persons to turn to Christ and to do any good work, with the Father and the Son playing subsidiary roles. In keeping with Trinitarian processional sequence, we shall briefly treat the roles of the Father and the Son before emphasizing the Spirit’s role.
The Father draws and calls persons in such a way that they are empowered to come to Christ if they so choose. In Hubmaier’s words, “Through . . . this drawing and call . . . God . . . the heavenly Father . . . gives power and authority to all people insofar as they themselves want to come; the free choice is left to them.”
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This drawing and calling occur by the power of the Father’s spoken word and constitute its necessary effects:
Through his spoken word he again offers anew to the human being his originally created wholeness which was lost in Adam, Isa. 55:11; John 1:12. Thus the human being, now free as in Paradise, can will, choose, and do good, although against the will of his own flesh, Gen. 3.
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Hubmaier portrayed this drawing and calling, by which we “can become children of God” and “desire and complete his fatherly will and please him,” as “the grace and favor of God which he bears to us and with which he embraces us.” 75
The Son returns to persons their free counsel, by which they can heed the Spirit (instead of the good cognitive faculty), and supplies their motivation to listen to the Spirit. Bernard wrote,
And this is where Christ comes in. In him, man possesses the necessary “power of God and the wisdom of God” [1 Cor. 1:24], who, inasmuch as he is wisdom, pours back into man true wisdom, and so restores to him his free counsel; and, inasmuch as he is power, renews his full power.
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“Such grace, health, and freedom,” Hubmaier pointed out, come “through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ,” namely, his active and passive obedience.
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In this way, the Son has rendered the Fall harmless to our spiritual condition, such that no one is predetermined to sin by the transgression of primal humanity:
Here one grasps with both hands how Christ has made the Fall of Adam wholly innocuous for us and incapable of condemning, and how he crushed the head of the old serpent through the seed of the woman, Gen. 3:15, how he took away the sting and made its poison no longer lethal to us, 1 Cor. 15:30f. Thus, henceforth, no one may decry Adam or Eve nor excuse nor gloss over his sins with Adam’s Fall.
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The Spirit enables persons after the Fall to choose between the options ranging from the highest good to neutrality. Recall that for Bernard and Hubmaier, humans after the Fall no longer have a cognitive faculty which suggests to their souls good choices, so rendering it impossible for them on their own to think or do anything good. Their flesh only has a cognitive faculty which suggests to their souls evil choices, limiting their free choice to the range of options from the least severe evil to the worst evil. For this reason, Bernard rightly remarks,
Let no one imagine that free choice is so called because it concerns itself with good and evil with equal power or facility. It was indeed able to fall of itself; but could rise up again only through the Spirit of the Lord.
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To remedy this deplorable situation, the Spirit serves for all persons as the functional equivalent of a cognitive faculty which produces in every person good thoughts, including thoughts about doing good. This production mechanism is called by Hubmaier “an inner illumination of our hearts that takes place by the Holy Spirit,”
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through which “the human being by a new grace is again taught anew what is truly good and evil before God.”
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Though not relying at all on Bernard or Hubmaier, Alvin Plantinga suggests something similar when he calls the internal invitation of the Holy Spirit “a cognitive process” making up for a human cognitive process lost in the Fall.
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Our model therefore proposes the radical dependence of all humanity on the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart” would be “only evil all the time” (Gen. 6:5). When the unbeliever does anything good, like being kind to a colleague at work or helping an elderly person across the street, this is only because the Spirit has suggested this thought to the unbeliever’s soul. Hubmaier thus declared that the Holy Spirit “is the source of the conscience in the Jews, pagans, and Christians, as Paul writes about it, Rom. 2:15.”
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Bernard explained how each human will, now standing between the flesh and the Holy Spirit, is free to choose anything on the full spectrum from the highest good to the worst evil and everything in between:
Free will stands between flesh and Spirit. Between these two: the divine Spirit and the fleshly appetite, what is called in man free choice, or, in other words, human will, occupies as it were a middle position. Able to go in either direction, it is, as it were, on the sloping side of a fairly steep mountain. It is so weakened in its desires by the flesh that only with the Spirit constantly helping its infirmity through grace is it capable of righteousness (which, to quote the Prophet, is like the mountains of God), capable of ascending from strength to strength right up to the summit. Without that help, borne by the pull of its own weight, it would tumble headlong down the precipice, from vice to vice. This pull would come not only from the law of sin originally implanted in its members, but from the habit of worldliness long implanted in its affections. Scripture recalls this twofold load on the human will in one short verse, when it says: “A perishable body weighs down the soul, and this earthly tent burdens the thoughtful mind” [Wis. 9:15]. And even as these two ills of our mortality do not injure, but test, those who do not consent, so neither do they excuse, but rather condemn, those who do. Thus there can be no salvation nor damnation without the previous consent of the will, lest freedom of choice might appear to be in any respect predetermined.
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Accordingly, the Spirit is the one who suggests to each person that they pledge their allegiance to Jesus as Lord. As indicated previously, Jesus gives each person the ability (i.e. freedom of counsel) and motivation to listen to the Spirit, but without the Spirit speaking, this ability and motivation would be moot. Grenz writes, “As in the other dimensions of the Spirit’s work, the focal point of his enabling action is the proclamation of the good news (Rom. 10:17).”
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The Spirit says to every soul,
Jesus is your physician who has come into the world to make you, a sinner, righteous. Jesus is the only giver of mercy, reconciler, intercessor, mediator, and peacemaker toward God the Father, so that whoever makes him their Lord will not be condemned but have eternal life.
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Pairing such words of comfort with Christ’s motivation, the soul is free to become joyful and henceforth surrender itself entirely to Christ. 87 If the soul does so, the Holy Spirit regenerates it, such that it is no longer “natural,” that is, primarily inclined toward the desires of the fallen flesh, but “spiritual,” that is, primarily inclined toward the desires of the Spirit (1 Cor. 2:14–15). 88 However, the body is still in its unredeemed state and will only be redeemed at the general resurrection: “We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23 NIV). Hence, regeneration does not restore to the body the cognitive faculty to think good thoughts, including thoughts about doing good; the born-again believer does not have the ability to generate such thoughts on their own. Only at the general resurrection will the body be transformed from a natural body to a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44) and so regain this good cognitive faculty. In the meantime, the Spirit continues to serve as the functional equivalent of this faculty. So to walk the path of Christian discipleship, believers must continue to be radically dependent on the Spirit for the production of good thoughts necessary to the performance of good actions. This is precisely why prevenient grace “comes before” every act which is pleasing to God until the general resurrection, not simply the salvific act. It also nicely accounts for Paul’s depictions of the struggle in the lives of believers between the flesh and the Spirit (Gal. 5:16–18, et passim).
Bernard nicely summarized the perichoretic enabling work of God the Trinity under the rubric of thinking, willing, and accomplishing the beginning of our salvation:
If, then, God works these three things in us, namely thinking, willing and accomplishing the good, the first he does without us; the second, with us; and the third, through us. By suggesting the good thought, he goes one first step ahead of us; by bringing about the change of our ill will, he joins it to himself by its consent; and by supplying consent with faculty and ability, the operator within makes his appearance outwardly through the external work that we perform. Of ourselves, we cannot, of course, take that first step. But he who can find no one who is good, can save no one without himself first stepping into the lead. There can be no doubt, therefore, that the beginning of our salvation rests with God, and is enacted neither through us nor with us. The consent and the work, however, though not originating from us, nevertheless are not without us.
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Likewise, in believers’ performance of the good, Bernard emphasized that God the Trinity
truly communicates the work he carries out through them to those who consent in will to what they do in act. Hence Paul, in telling of the many good deeds God had wrought through him, qualifies: “though it was not I, but the grace of God which is with me.” (1 Cor. 15:10)
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Conclusion
Drawing together the threads of the Bernard-Hubmaier Trinitarian model of prevenient grace, we find that the three persons of the Trinity, individually and collectively, play roles in the four aspects of prevenient grace. In calling, the Father draws all persons to the wedding banquet. The Son invites all to come to him for eternal rest, with a deep longing for them. The Holy Spirit conveys the divine love to each person, pouring it into their souls. The Trinitarian persons collectively summon sinners back to God. In convicting, the Father admonishes people not to sin, threatens them with the outcome of sin, prods them not to sin, and punishes sin. The Son brings each person face to face with their own sullied image, disclosing to them all their sin, including secret sin. The Holy Spirit confronts unbelievers with their refusal to enter into spiritual marriage with Christ and their impending judgment. The Trinitarian persons collectively plead with sinners to turn from wickedness and find salvation. In illuminating, the Father casts his spiritual care on all unbelievers. The Son allows each soul to see the light of faith. The Holy Spirit reveals to each soul the hope and spiritual riches accompanying salvation. The Trinitarian persons collectively perform an inward drawing in which the Father ensures that each soul understands truth while the Son and the Holy Spirit convince the soul of the truth’s validity. In enabling, the Father, by his spoken word, empowers persons to come to Christ if they so choose. The Son returns to all persons their free counsel, by which they can heed the Holy Spirit, and motivates all persons to listen to the Spirit. The Holy Spirit serves for all persons as the functional equivalent of a good cognitive faculty. Hence, the Spirit suggests to each person that they enter into spiritual marriage with Christ and suggests good thoughts to unbelievers and believers alike. Without the Spirit, the soul would not have entrance into spiritual marriage with Christ or the performance of good as options from which it could choose. Our model reveals the truly astonishing fact that we can do nothing good without the Holy Spirit. It discloses how fully dependent on the Spirit every human being is, whether unbeliever or believer. The Trinitarian persons collectively think without us, will with us, and accomplish through us the beginning of our salvation and every good work.
Through the prevenient grace facilitated by God the Trinity, all humans have the ability to choose between options ranging from the highest good to the worst evil and everything in between. In the realm of salvation, they can choose between pledging allegiance to Jesus as Lord or refusing to pledge such allegiance. Availing itself of Bernard and Hubmaier, the church may appropriate this Trinitarian vision.
Footnotes
Notes
Author biography
Kirk R. MacGregor is associate professor of Philosophy and Religion and Department Chair at McPherson College, McPherson, KS, USA. He is the author of five books, including Contemporary Theology: An Introduction (Zondervan, 2019) and Luis de Molina: The Life and Theology of the Founder of Middle Knowledge (Zondervan, 2015).