What is prevenient grace? Does Provisionism teach it?
Prevenient grace, in the Arminian sense, is a separate enabling grace given before and apart from the gospel to restore a lost ability to believe. Provisionism does not hold to it. What draws a sinner is the word preached with the Spirit's conviction, not a prior grace.
What the text states
The term gratia praeveniens is Augustine's, and the Thirty-Nine Articles use it of "the grace of God by Christ preventing us." Arminius borrowed the term and made the grace resistible and prior to the gospel. This platform holds neither: the Spirit convicts the world through the gospel (John 16:8), and "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom 10:17). The word itself is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom 1:16). No separate grace is infused ahead of the word; the word is the means.
Classical Arminianism requires prevenient grace to answer total inability, since the natural man cannot respond until enabled. Calvinism answers the same inability with regeneration before faith. We answer it with the effectual power of the gospel itself, preached to a hostile man, which leaves him convicted and able to receive or resist (Acts 2:41; 7:51).
Go deeper
Checked 2026-09-29 by Darren. 59 Scripture citations verified against the KJV rows. 59 quoted fragments table-passed against the verses table. One correction: once-saved-always-saved cited “unto the day of redemption” to Eph 1:13; the phrase is Eph 4:30, corrected to (Eph 1:13, 4:30) to match the convention used in eternal-security-vs-perseverance. 18 exhibit links checked, all resolve.
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