Resistible Grace without (Semi) Pelagianism

In recent years, several Christian philosophers have proposed accounts of the relationship between divine grace and human freedom designed to allow for the resistibility of grace while also avoiding (semi) Pelagianism. However, it’s controversial whether any of these accounts succeed. Critics have argued that the proposed accounts either end up smuggling in some form of Pelagianism after all, or they don’t afford fallen humans enough control over whether they come to faith for grace to be truly resistible. Here I defend an account of the relationship between grace and freedom that avoids this dilemma. It maintains that every action a person performs that is involved in, or that (non-trivially) contributes to, the person’s salvation is, and indeed must be, caused by grace. This feature enables the view to avoid even semi-Pelagianism. However, as long as God’s grace doesn’t determine the person’s salutary actions, she may remain free, on a moderate libertarian account of free will, to resist the work of grace in her life.