It does make a difference in how you interpret the gospel and how you understand the nature of God. If we are to be holy and blameless before God, we better know what we’re doing and can give a good defense. Ignorance is no excuse.
Job 42:7 It came about after the LORD had spoken these words to Job, that the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, "My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, because you have not spoken of Me what is right as My servant Job has.
Job’s friends thought they had their theology all in place and their theology was very flattering to God. But their poor doctrine did not correctly speak of God. God wants correctness, not nice words. For differences in the two views I would refer you to the following article:
Which view gives God the Glory?
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Synergism
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Monergism
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Cause of Regeneration
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| Faith is the cause of regeneration | Regeneration is the cause of faith. |
| Faith and affections for God are produced by the old nature. | Faith is not produced by our unregenerated human nature. It is the immediate and inevitable product of the new nature. |
| God and Man work together to produce the new birth. God's grace takes us part of the way to salvation, man's unregenerate will must determine the final outcome. | God, the Holy Spirit, alone produces regeneration with no contribution from the sinner. (A work of God) |
| God is eagerly awaiting the sinner's will. | God effectually enables the sinner's will. |
| The persons of the Trinity have conflicting goals in accomplishing and applying salvation: The Father elects a particular people; The Son dies for a general people and the Holy Spirit applies the atonement conditionally on those who exercize their autonomous free will. | The persons of the Trinity work in harmony - The Father elects a particular people, Christ dies for those the Father has given Him and the Holy Spirit likewise applies the benefits of the atonement to the same. |
| Restoration of spiritual faculties comes after the sinner exercizes faith with his natural (innate) capacities. Has the ability to see spiritual truth even before healed. (see 1 Cor 2:14). Has spiritual capacity to receive the truth, prior God's granting any spiritual ability. | "Light" itself is not enough for a blind man to see, his vision must first be restored. (John 3:3,6). Needs spiritual ability to receive truth prior to receiving it. |
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View of Humanity
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| The fallen sinner has the ability and potential inclination to believe even prior to the new birth | The fallen sinner has no ability or inclination to believe prior to the new birth. |
| There is enough good left in fallen man to turn his affections toward Christ. | Fallen Man has a mind at enmity with God; loves darkness, hates the light and does not have the Holy Spirit. "There is no one who seeks God" (Rom 3:11); Sinner would never turn to God without divine enablement and new affections. |
| Sinner needs help, is spiritually handicapped. | Spiritually dead sinner needs new nature (mind, heart, will), regeneration. |
| Natural man is sick and disabled like a drowning man so God would be unfeeling if He didn't help by casting a rope. | Natural man is spiritually impotent and morally culpable for both original sin and actual sins committed. Our inability is not like a physical handicap or a drowning man for which we would not be culpable but, rather, it is like a man who cannot repay a squandered financial debt. Inability to repay, therefore, does not relieve us of the moral responsibility to do so. |
| Needs salvation from the consequences of sin - unhappiness, hell, psychological pain | Needs salvation to remove the offense we've made against a holy God and from the power and bondage of sin. |
| The natural man is sovereign over his choice to accept or reject Christ - God conditionally responds to our decision. | The natural man can contribute nothing towards his salvation. Faith is a response rendered certain following the efficacious work of the Holy Spirit. We respond to God's unconditional decision. (Acts 13:48) |
| Some fallen men either created a right thought, generated a right affection, or originated a right volition that led to their salvation while some other fallen men did not have the natural wherewithal to come up with the faith that God required of them to obtain salvation. Therefore salvation is dependent on some virtue or capacity God sees in certain men. | No Fallen man will create a right thought, generate a right affection, or originate a right volition that will lead to his salvation. We would never believe unless the Holy Spirit came in and disarmed our hostility to God. Therefore salvation is dependent on God's good pleasure alone (Eph 1:4, 5, 11), not something He sees in us. |
| Man's nature & affections do not determine or give rise to his choices. He can still make a saving decision prior to the new birth while still in his unregenerate state. In this scheme God gives enough grace to place man in a neutral position which can swing either for or against Jesus. (An act of chance?) | Man's nature determines his desires/affections and give rise to the choices he makes. "No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit." Luke 6:43 Only Christ can "make a tree good and its fruit will be good." (Also see John 8:34, 42-44; 2 Pet. 2:19). |
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View of the Gospel
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| The Gospel is an invitation | The Gospel is not merely an invitation but a command (1 John 3:23) |
| Christ died for all our sins except unbelief | Christ died for all our sins including unbelief |
| Sinners have the key in their hands. Man's will determines whether or not Christ's death is efficacious. | God has the key in his hand. God's eternal counsel determines to whom the benefits of the atonement apply. |
| It would be unjust of God to not give everyone an equal chance. | If God exercized His justice then none of us would stand since each of us has rebelled against an infinitely holy God. He owes us nothing and is under no obligation to save any person. Regeneration is, therefore, an act of pure, undeserved mercy because the justice we deserved, He poured out on His Son (thereby turning His wrath away from us). |
| After God makes one's heart of stone into a heart of flesh the Holy Spirit's call to salvation can still be resisted. | After God makes one's heart of stone into a heart of flesh, no person wants to resist. By definition our desires, inclinations and affections have changed so we willingly and joyfully turn in faith toward Christ. |
| Salvation is given to fallen sinners (unregenerate) who choose and desire Christ of their free will. | Apart from grace, there is no fallen sinner (unregenerate) who fits that description. A desire for God is not part of the old nature. |
| The grace of God is conferred as a result of human prayer | It is grace itself which makes us pray to God (Rom 10:20; Isa. 65:1) |
| God has mercy upon us when we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, apart from his regenerative grace. | To desire and seek God prior to the new birth is an impossible supposition. (Rom 3:11; 1 Cor 2:14) It is the infusion and quickening of the Holy Spirit within us that we even have the faith or the strength to will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock and believe in the finished work of Christ. |
| Commands to repent and believe the gospel imply the ability of the sinner to do so. | The Command toward sinners to repent and believe does not imply ability. Divine intent is to reveal our moral impotence apart from grace (Rom 3:20, 5:20, Gal 3:19,24). The Law was not designed to confer any power but to strip us of our own. |
| God helps those who help themselves. | God only helps those who cannot help themselves. (John 9:41) |
| Unregenerate man contributes his little bit. | Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy Cross I cling. |
| Repentance is considered a work of man. | Repentance is a gift of God. (2 Tim 2:25) |
| One of the greatest gifts God gives humans is to never interfere with their free will. | The greatest judgment which God can inflict upon a man is to leave him in the hands of his own free-will. If salvation were left in the hands of the unregenerate sinners, we would indeed despair of all hope that anyone would be saved. It is an act of mercy, therefore, that God awakens the dead in sin to life since those without the Spirit cannot understand the things of God at all. (1 Cor 2:14) |
| With Man's will salvation is possible. |
With man's will salvation is impossible but with God all things are possible. (Matt 19:26; Rom 9:16; John 6:64,65) "Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit." John 3:6 |
Man was created to glorify God. True, Biblical soteriology will always glorify God, and God alone.