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Question 3

Finny warned that reacting against Calvinism can make people hesitant to use the word “grace,” even though he argues grace should become “even bigger”; where do you see that reaction in yourself or your church culture, and what would it look like to rebuild a gratitude-saturated view of grace without adopting Calvinist definitions?

Another way to ask: Finny said some people react against Calvinism by avoiding the word “grace,” even though grace should feel even bigger. Where do you see that reaction in yourself or your church, and what would it look like to grow a grateful view of grace without using Calvinist meanings?

Direct Answer Finny’s point is that anti-Calvinist reactions can shrink our language of grace, but a healthy response is to expand gratitude for God’s initiating help (prevenient/enabling grace) without redefining it as arbitrary unconditional election. Rebuilding grace means naming God’s many “favors” that lead people toward Christ.

Support from Transcript:

He says when people “react against Calvinism, they swing…to some very unhealthy position” and “don’t want to embrace these terms like grace.”
He insists, “for us, it should be even bigger for reasons we talked about yesterday,” and we should be “bursting with joy and gladness and gratitude for this grace.”
He lists multiple facets of prevenient grace: God sending Jesus, sending evangelists (parents/preachers), the Word’s power, the Lord opening hearts, and the Spirit convicting “the world.”
He calls these “different gifts…different favors from God,” emphasizing grace as broad, active help.
He contrasts this with Calvinist framing later: in Ephesians 1, predestination is not “arbitrary unconditional election…nowhere near this passage.”

Discussion Follow-ups How could your church’s testimonies and prayers highlight God’s “going before” without turning grace into a hidden, selective decree?

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