Oden's Schema of Grace
The psalmist taught both that "God will go before me" (Ps. 59:10), and that God's "mercy shall follow me" (Ps. 23:6, KJV).
Grace |
||||
Heals the Soul |
Moves the Will |
Enables Salutary Action |
Preserves in Resolve |
Consummates in Glory |
prevenient |
subsequent |
|||
prevenient |
subsequent |
|||
prevenient |
subsequent |
|||
prevenient |
subsequent |
|||
"Hence the grace that was subsequent at one stage becomes prevenient to a later stage" (Oden, The Transforming Power of Grace, p. 54). |
||||
Grace is always prevenient and going before us; even when encountered in sanctifying stages, grace goes before preparing and heralding the renewing of the soul. Grace goes before us, enabling and empowering us. Prior to profession of faith grace draws us to faith and empowers our faith. "Following justification, grace continues to move preveniently, preparing the way in a synergistic response to and with our acts of faith, generating elements and fore-tastes of God's perfection within us. When we 'improve' upon grace, it moves on ahead, preveniently improving us still further toward the glory which God has for us. In every act of grace, God's action is first, our faith is responsitory" (Rev. Neal, email 10/26/02).
In the sense of God's ministry of grace coming before our embodiment and subsequent cooperation, it is best to not think of the different terms used to describe grace as as different kinds of grace but as descriptions of the differing roles grace plays at differing points of a person's relationship with the Lord, our God.
In the schema above prevenient simply means the grace that "goes before." In this role our Lord gives grace before any action on the part of the person. God goes before the person encouraging the will to desire the the things of God and God goes before to effect action. God wants the person to do something, namely the things of God.
Framing the concept of prevenient and subsequent roles of grace in Calvinist terms, then prevenient grace maybe considered as a monergistic act by God that enables a synergistic cooperation between the person and God. If the person embodies and then acts upon the grace he or she has already been given, then our Lord improves upon this by again monergistically giving more grace to bring about a cooperative or synergistic action. And so on.