Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof - New Leaven

3. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DIVINE CONCURRENCE.
a. It is previous and pre-determining, not in a temporal but in a logical sense. There is no
absolute principle of self-activity in the creature, to which God simply joins His activity.
In every instance the impulse to action and movement proceeds from God. There must
be an influence of divine energy before the creature can work. It should be noted
particularly that this influence does not terminate on the activity of the creature, but on
the creature itself. God causes everything in nature to work and to move in the direction
of a pre-determined end. So God also enables and prompts His rational creatures, as
second causes, to function, and that not merely by endowing them with energy in a
general way, but by energizing them to certain specific acts. He worketh all things in all,
I Cor. 12:6, and worketh all things, also in this respect, according to the counsel of His
will, Eph. 1:11. He gave Israel power to get wealth, Deut. 8:18, and worketh in believers
both to will and to do according to His good pleasure, Phil. 2:13. Pelagians and Semi-
Pelagians of all kinds are generally willing to admit that the creature cannot act apart
from an influx of divine power, but maintain that this is not so specific that it
determines the character of the action in any way.
b. It is also a simultaneous concurrence. After the activity of the creature is begun, the
efficacious will of God must accompany it at every moment, if it is to continue. There is
not a single moment that the creature works independently of the will and the power of
God. It is in Him that we live and move and have our being, Acts 17:28. This divine
activity accompanies the action of man at every point, but without robbing man in any
way of his freedom. The action remains the free act of man, an act for which he is held
responsible. This simultaneous concurrence does not result in an identification of the
causa prima and the causa secunda. In a very real sense the operation is the product of
both causes. Man is and remains the real subject of the action. Bavinck illustrates this by
pointing to the fact that wood burns, that God only causes it to burn, but that formally
this burning cannot be ascribed to God but only to the wood as subject. It is evident that
this simultaneous action cannot be separated from the previous and pre-determining
concurrence, but should be distinguished from it. Strictly speaking it, in distinction
from the previous concurrence, terminates, not on the creature, but on its activity. Since
it does not terminate on the creature, it can in the abstract be interpreted as having no
ethical bearings. This explains that the Jesuits taught that the divine concurrence was
simultaneous only, and not previous and pre-determining, and that some Reformed
theologians limited the previous concurrence to the good deeds of men, and for the rest
satisfied themselves with teaching a simultaneous concurrence.
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