Moved here from notes/reasoning/salvation.md in the tier migration. The per-question reasoning now lives on each doctrine’s reasoning page: F08.2 · S11.1 · S11.2 · S13.1.

Salvation: grace, free will, predestination, perseverance: reasoning steps

Verdicts: categories/salvation.md. Weighing criteria as in justification reasoning: Scripture in context and original language; each father’s polemical setting; date and breadth of witness; explicit beats inferred; unverified texts carry no weight.

Post-750 development by tradition

Catholic

Trent VI (Waterworth, verified). Canon 4: free will “moved and excited by God” co-operates and “can refuse its consent”. Canon 15: no one is bound to believe he is “assuredly in the number of the predestinate”. Canon 16: certainty of perseverance only “by special revelation”. Canon 17 rejects predestination to evil. Close to Augustine on S4, and to Orange on S1 and S2.

Orthodox

Dositheus Decree 3 (crivoice, verified): God predestines “but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause”. Prevenient grace is “imparted to all”, and those who co-operate are granted particular grace that “makes us predestinated”. Close to the Greek pre-Augustinian line on S2 and S3 (B). Its synergy sits nearer Cassian than Orange on S1.

Lutheran

Formula of Concord SD XI (bookofconcord.org SD XI, verified): XI.8, election is “a cause which procures, works, helps, and promotes our salvation”. XI.5: eternal election “does not extend at once over the godly and the wicked, but only over the children of God” (single predestination; no decree of reprobation). XI.42: some “receive the Word with joy, but afterwards fall away again” — the cause is that they “wilfully turn away again”, not that God withholds perseverance. Close to Augustine on S1, S3 (A without C) and S4.

Presbyterian

WCF III.3 (opc.org, verified): “some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life; and others foreordained to everlasting death.” XVII.1: the effectually called “can neither totally nor finally fall away”. Close to Augustine on S1 and S3 (A). It departs on C (foreordination to death) and on S4 (B), where it goes beyond Augustine’s explicit denial ({s(‘augustine’,3)}).

Presbyterian: additional cells (nine-tradition expansion)

• S2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): WCF IX.1 natural liberty; IX.3 total inability to spiritual good.

Oriental Orthodox

Sources: Oriental Orthodox confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

• S1 (fathers n/a; Scripture n/a): Not assessed: no classic Oriental Orthodox text on grace and free will was located online.
• S2 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Shenouda III, lecture ‘The Problem of Election or Rejection’ (official-site summary): salvation offered to all, and ‘it is the human being who freely chooses the path of life or destruction’ (verified as summarized).
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Shenouda III, ‘The Problem of Election or Rejection’ (official-site summary): ‘Election is not a predestined decision by God but the result of a person’s free response to His grace’; rejects predestination to salvation or damnation (verified as summarized).
• S4 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Shenouda III, lecture ‘The Destruction of the Believer’ (official-site summary): ‘a believer can fall’ through apostasy or sin; ‘initial salvation is not enough; what matters is remaining in Christ … until the end’ (verified as summarized).

Anglican

Sources: Anglican confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

• S1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. X: ‘without the grace of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will’.
• S2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): Art. X: man ‘cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength’.
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): Art. XVII: single predestination to life, ‘by his counsel secret to us’.
• S4 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Art. XVI: ‘we may depart from grace given’; Art. XVII offers comfort of election.

Reformed Baptist

Sources: Reformed Baptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

• S1 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 10.2: effectual call ‘of God’s free and special grace alone’.
• S2 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): 1689 9.3: ‘wholly lost all ability of will to any spiritual good’.
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 4/4): 1689 3.3: ‘others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation’ (preterition; no parallel decree).
• S4 (fathers 1/4; Scripture 3/4): 1689 17.1: ‘can neither totally nor finally fall from the state of grace’.

General Baptist

Sources: General Baptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

• S1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): SC 1660 art. 7: the Spirit makes them able, ‘without which they are altogether unable’; art. 4 grace gives all a ‘capacity’.
• S2 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): SC 1660 art. 4: all men ‘put into such a capacity, as that (through the grace of God) they may be eternally saved’.
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): SC 1660 art. 8: elect are ‘such as believe’, yet election ’not … from fore-seen faith’; art. 9 ungodly ordained to condemnation ‘considered as such’.
• S4 (fathers 2/4; Scripture 3/4): Standards conflict: Orthodox Creed art. 36 says the elect ‘shall certainly persevere unto Eternal Life’ (OCR-verified); SC 1660 art. 18: true believers ‘may nevertheless for want of watchfulness, swerve and turn aside … and become as withered Branches’.

Anabaptist

Sources: Anabaptist confessional sources. Classic formulations only.

• S1 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 3/4): Dordrecht III: God calls fallen man despite ‘utter inability’ (prevenient call).
• S2 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Dordrecht III/V: salvation offered to all; only the ‘unbelieving and disobedient’ excluded.
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Dordrecht V: no one excluded ’except the unbelieving and disobedient’; no doctrine of decree.
• S4 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Dordrecht XVI: a baptised member may sin ‘unto death … forfeiting the kingdom of God’.