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.8 (bookofconcord.org, verified): election is “a cause which procures, works, helps, and promotes our salvation”. There is single predestination with no decree of reprobation (SD XI, to verify wording). Lutherans hold that the regenerate can fall away (to verify). 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 n/a/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 2/4; Scripture 3/4): Synergy, like the Greek fathers (to verify).
• S2 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 4/4): Free will strongly affirmed (to verify).
• S3 (fathers 3/4; Scripture 2/4): Election by foreknowledge (to verify).
• S4 (fathers 4/4; Scripture 2/4): Believers can fall (to verify).

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’.