When it comes to the possibility of losing salvation, Catholics have their Bible passages—John 15:1-5, Galatians 5:4, Matthew 10:22. But Protestants aren’t short on comebacks.
One such comeback is employed by Protestant apologist James White. Whenever the above passages, and others like them, are brought up, White argues that such passages don’t necessarily have to be read prescriptively; they can be read descriptively.
A descriptive reading merely describes what is the case. Prescriptive readings describe what ought to be or, in the case of action, what should or must be done. The implication for a prescriptive reading is that what ought to be might not come to pass, or what ought to be done might not be done.
One occasion where White tried to use this argument was in his 2017 debate on eternal security with Trent Horn. Trent had a good response to defuse White’s rebuttal. But given the limitations of the debate, Trent could say only so much.
So I’d like to offer just a few complementary thoughts here—as I sit before my computer with time to think through this issue. (Kudos to Trent for his ability to think on his feet!)
First, regardless of whether we read the texts descriptively or prescriptively, we still arrive at the same conclusion: it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation.
Consider Jesus’ description in Matthew 10:22: “He who perseveres shall be saved.” Remaining faithful to the end is a condition that must be met to receive final salvation. But this means it’s possible that the condition might not to be met—that’s to say, a person may freely turn away from Christ and not persevere unto the end. That’s all we need to prove the view that it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation. There’s no need for the prescription “we must persevere” (a prescriptive reading).
What about John 15:2? Jesus says, “Every branch of mine that bears no fruit, [the Father] takes away.”
Consider that the description of some branches being part of the vine necessarily implies that those branches once were living with the life of the vine, but then, for whatever reason, they ended up dead, thereby failing to produce fruit.
As applied to Christians, some were living with the life of Christ (the vine), which means they were true believers who were truly saved (contra White—“These branches were not the ones in which true salvation had taken place”). Indeed, that’s a description. It’s also a description that they’re cut off from Christ, thereby no longer living with the life of Christ, and thus are spiritually dead. That Jesus describes some Christians in fact spiritually dying and thus being cut off from him logically entails that it’s possible for a Christian to spiritually die and thus be cut off.
The same line of reasoning applies to Galatians 5:4, where Paul tells the Galatians, “You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace.”
Describing how these Christians in Galatia in fact have been severed from Christ (“You are severed”—the Greek katērgēthēte is an aorist indicative, which signifies past time) implies that they were once in Christ and thus saved (contra White—“Who is being addressed there? Those who are seeking to be justified by their keeping of the law, not true believers”). Given that they are no longer in Christ, they are no longer in a state of salvation. And that these Galatians have lost their state of salvation logically entails that it’s possible to lose salvation.
So White’s contention—that a descriptive reading of these texts avoids the interpretation that it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation—doesn’t pan out.
A second thought is that, for White, the descriptive/prescriptive distinction is not the real issue. Rather, it’s what the possibility of a Christian losing his salvation necessarily entails. This becomes evident when White comments on the above passages individually. (All the emphases below are supplied.)
Consider, for example, his take on Matthew 10:22. When commenting on the prescriptive reading of the text, he states,
“He who endures to the end shall be saved”—and so by your enduring to the end you bring about your salvation.” That’s a prescriptive way of looking at things.
He then comments on what he takes to be a descriptive reading:
The descriptive way allows for the passages I presented to be true and then applies them to the application passages as to how Christians live the Christian life. And so what you then have is, “He who endures to the end shall be saved.” Amen, I agree a thousand percent, but it is not my enduring to the end that brings about my salvation, and God is not helpless unless I somehow work up an enduring faith.
For White, on the view that a Christian doesn’t end up being saved, God is “helpless,” and the final perseverance of a Christian is due solely to him “working up an enduring faith.”
In his comments on John 15, he argues, “It’s not my abiding in him that brings forth fruit; he’s the one that brings forth the fruit in me,” as if the view that a Christian can lose his salvation entails that the fruit comes solely from the Christian, without God.
Finally, when he directs his comments to Galatians 5:4, he argues that reading such a text as if a Christian can lose his salvation “adds to the finished work of Christ.”
Notice that in all these responses, White thinks that reading these texts in support of the view that a Christian can lose his salvation undermines God’s universal causality (and thus God’s sovereignty), excluding God and Christ’s work on the cross from the calculus of whether someone is finally saved or not.
There are two things that we can say in response. First, a Christian might challenge White’s assumption that God must be the cause of man’s free choice in attaining salvation, arguing that White’s prior view of divine causation, which he uses to interpret the above texts, is false, and thereby should not be a reason to reject the interpretation that these texts reveal the possibility for a Christian to lose his salvation.
Second, White’s concern that God’s causal influence (and thus his sovereignty) would somehow be excluded from the picture on the belief that a Christian can lose his salvation can be alleviated if we adopt a Thomistic/Augustinian view, where final salvation is attained by God causing the will, without doing violence to it, to freely choose him and thus be saved. And if a Christian falls from a saving relationship with God, such a fall can happen only if God permits it, a permission that’s infallibly known from all eternity, antecedent to any sin.
On this view, God is not “helpless” and excluded from the question of whether a Christian is finally saved or not. God is in the picture all the way through, causing man’s free choice when he chooses God and permitting man’s rejection when he freely rejects God, whether such choices are made before initial salvation, during one’s saving relationship with Christ, or in the end at death.
In sum, neither reason that White gives in his debate with Trent succeeds in justifying a rejection of the above texts as support for the belief that a Christian can lose his salvation. This belief can be arrived at even with a descriptive reading. And at least on some Christian views of divine causation and human freedom, such as those of Aquinas and Augustine, there’s no need to think the belief that a Christian can lose his salvation excludes God’s universal causality (and thus sovereignty) from a Christian achieving final salvation.
Now, White might contend that the above passages don’t prove the possibility to lose salvation on other grounds. That’s fine. But he can’t employ his prescriptive-versus-descriptive tactic, or his “God is helpless” charge, to undermine our appeal to these passages for proving it’s possible for a Christian to lose his salvation.