The Inability Chart

I am a fan of charts.  I use them as slides while teaching and so I have developed a collection of them - In this case I have no idea where I got it but it seemed appropriate for a post.

I have ongoing discussions with folks and many support some type of "free will" that allows them to decide to choose and believe in Christ.  In some cases they think they have some kind of drawing of the Holy Spirit as they all claim to believe the Bible.  Unfortunately many think that there is some ability within themselves to believe the gospel without removal of barrier issues.  What I term barrier issues are statements in the Bible referring to man's fallen condition.  He is variously described as: desperately wicked, hater of God, thinking evil constantly, heart of stone, carnal, having no good thing in him, lover of darkness (and not light) ,dead spiritually and of course sin - personal and Inherited from Adam.

So I always hear the same verses claiming that all people everywhere have the ability to believe and of course the result of that is they believe that that is what causes God to choose them.  There is this irrational thought that God would never consider interfering with man as He is a gentleman.  What, did not this Gentleman interfere with man all through history both for their destruction and for His glory?

So here is the inability chart:

Ordo Salutis

Here is a chart I developed several; years back.  After developing it I discovered that Robert Redmond had a similar concept.  It is a cross laid on it's side with the left side being what happens before salvation and the right side the Christian Way of Life (CWOL).  The chart is Logical NOT chronological.  It sorts things by what God does fully monergistically without any human interaction or involvement - such as the header labeled "Divine Acts".  Also note that on the far left we have God's acts in eternity, then God's actions based on those declarations - many times referred to as decrees.  The column labeled "Divine Activity Human Response" are not synergistic but done through the work of the Holy Spirit (HS)  Divine repentance consists of metanoeo (a 180 degree turn) not metamelomai (regret).  Our expression of faith is in response to that gift of that divine faith.  All the divine acts are logical so do not think there needs to be time intervals between events.  On the CWOL side we have growth in our sanctification by means of the HS as well as the HS being our assurance for preservation and perseverance.  I ended up putting two boxes on the bottom due to questions when I teach this - one was relating to the universal call so I provided some scriptures and the other was related to those who seem to be believers, but turn out not to be - remain unregenerate in spite of the knowledge they have.  When I teach this I use it two ways - when given several weeks I use all the verses and discuss them.  When only given an hour I use the verses in red.  Click on image below to see larger image.