Grace, Human Nature, and the Mystery of Coming to Faith
One topic that continues to be discussed is how a person comes to faith in God. Scripture speaks with both clarity and mystery on this question, and the church has wrestled with it for two thousand years. The theological category for this discussion is “soteriology,” the doctrine of salvation, and it often raises questions that are deeply personal.
Different People, Different Pathways, One Grace
One thing I’ve grown to appreciate more over time is that God wires people differently. Many are non-religious but also much of the world is actually very open to spiritual things. Scripture itself acknowledges this variety. Some people are clearly resistant, others are curious, others are devout but mistaken, and others are openly hostile. Jesus encounters all of these kinds of people in the Gospels.
Paul recognizes this as well when he speaks of humanity suppressing the truth in different ways (Romans 1:18–23), and we also read how God has placed eternity in the human heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11). The openness is real, but that openness is not saving in itself.
A Narrow Audience and a Rational Faith
Teachers like Tim Keller often spoke to a fairly narrow audience, and he knew it. In many ways, he was addressing skeptical, modern, urban hearers who assumed Christianity was irrational. Having grown up in New Hampshire around deeply skeptical and cynical people, that context resonates with me.
I’ve always been interested in spiritual things, even from a young age, but I was also deeply doubtful and questioning. Writers like Keller helped me see that Christianity is not anti-intellectual, and that faith in Christ is rational. Many of my friends are open to God existing, but don’t believe He is useful, or knowable, or that an ancient book like the Bible could truly reveal Him. To them, Scripture is merely a human artifact, full of opinion and superstition.
Paul anticipated this objection long ago. “The word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing” (1 Corinthians 1:18). Rational arguments matter, but they are not sufficient on their own.
Four Views, Two Orthodox, One Shared Conviction
When Christians discuss how people come to faith, there are at least four historical views that often surface.
Two of these have been consistently rejected by the church:
- Pelagianism, which teaches that humans can come to God on their own, without divine grace.
- Semi-Pelagianism, which teaches that humans come to God mostly by grace, but initiate the process themselves.
Both views deny the biblical teaching that we are spiritually dead apart from grace (Ephesians 2:1–5), and both have been condemned throughout church history. I’ve believed versions of both at different points in my life, which is part of why I care so deeply about this discussion.
The two views that Christianity has historically affirmed are these:
- God sovereignly chooses whom He will save, allowing others to receive justice (Romans 9:14–18).
- God extends prevenient grace to all people, enabling a genuinely enlightened response from all, so that rejection rests fully on the human will (Verses used to support this popular view are found in verses like John 1:9, Titus 2:11).
While Christians disagree strongly about which view is correct, both affirm something crucial: God must act first.
No One Comes to God “Naturally”
This is where language becomes tricky. The word naturally can be misleading. No one comes to God naturally if by that we mean from human nature, upbringing, intellect, or environment.
Jesus is explicit. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44). Coming to faith is not the result of curiosity, moral sensitivity, education, or spiritual interest. Even those things can lead people in the wrong direction.
That was certainly true for me. As natural as it felt for me to read and pursue spiritual ideas, that pursuit actually led me into pursuing Wicca and the occult at a young age. I was just as lost as the person who never opens a book. Spiritual openness is not the same thing as spiritual life.
Paul says it plainly. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:14).
Born Again, Not Self-Made
God can reach the person who is most atheistic and opposed to Him just as easily as He can reach the person who is outwardly religious and searching. Jesus says it is impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven apart from God’s intervention (Matthew 19:23–26), and He tells Nicodemus, a devout and knowledgeable religious leader, that he must be born again (John 3:3). Physical birth is not something a person does. It is something that happens to them. Jesus deliberately chose that metaphor. Salvation is received, not achieved.
“Harder”, (Easier?), and the Limits of Language
At the same time, Jesus acknowledged that for some people it is “harder” to enter the kingdom (Matthew 11:20–24). That suggests that for others it is in some sense, be “easier.” This is where people reach for words like “naturally,” even if those words are imperfect.
It really is a funny word. We speak of having a “sin nature,” but even that is a kind of shorthand. Sin is not natural to humanity, ultimately. It is a corruption, not the essence of humanity. It is not necessary to be sinful in order to be human. That will be proven fully in the resurrection, when we are completely human and no longer sinning or tempted to sin (Romans 8:29–30, Revelation 21:27).
A person may have a “natural” tendency toward being around people, and reading, so that reading the Bible and attending church are the things that people say God “uses” to lead to their salvation. At the end of the day though we have to ask, why is that person that way? Rather than God just “using” what is there, a better way to think of it is, that God designed that person to be exactly who they are, who they would meet, what they would read, because He already had their salvation in mind. So no matter how “natural” faith in Christ may seem to have come to us, we can only say that it is in fact “supernatural” that any of us are the way we are.
Grace First, Always
This discussion matters because it guards humility. However open, curious, resistant, or religious a person may be, faith always begins with personal grace for each individual.
God comes to us long before we ever come to Him.
That truth unites Christians who disagree sharply on other points, and it keeps us from boasting, oversimplifying, or flattening the mystery of salvation.
This really is one of my favorite topics. I’ve learned a lot from people who think differently than I do, and I genuinely believe that God-loving, truly saved believers can disagree here and still stand shoulder to shoulder in Christ.
Sola Gratia! (Grace alone!)
Adorn the Gospel 