Eternal security

The traditional Calvinist doctrine teaches that a person is secure in salvation because he or she was predestined by God and therefore guaranteed to persevere, whereas in the Free Grace or non-traditional Calvinist views, a person is secure because at some point in time he or she has believed the Gospel message (Dave Hunt, What Love is This, p. 481).

John Calvin

In Reformed Christianity, eternal security is a logical consequence of the doctrine of perseverance of the saints, according to which true Christians will persevere in good works and faith. Because faith is God's perfect gift it will inevitably produce perseverance in faith and good works. Thus condemnation to hell because of sin, unbelief, or apostasy is not possible for true Christians.[12] Reformed theology holds that one's continued belief in Christ and good works are evidence of one's saving faith and that if one does not bear this fruit, he/she was never truly regenerated.

The Plymouth Brethren affirm eternal security as long as a Christian believer continues to have faith in Jesus.[13] In the Plymouth Brethren view "a true believer in Christ will continue in his faith."[13] Those who do not bear good works, as with Judas, never experienced the New Birth. [14]

Free grace theology says that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ will go to heaven regardless of any future actions—including future sin, unbelief, or apostasy—though Christians who sin or abandon the faith will face God's discipline.[15]

Free Grace doctrine views the person's character and life after receiving the gift of salvation as independent from the gift itself, or in other words, it asserts that justification (that is, being declared righteous before God on account of Christ) does not necessarily result in sanctification (that is, a progressively more righteous life). Charles Stanley, pastor of Atlanta's megachurch First Baptist and a television evangelist, has written that the doctrine of eternal security of the believer persuaded him years ago to leave his familial Pentecostalism and become a Southern Baptist. He sums up his conviction that salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone when he claims, "Even if a believer for all practical purposes becomes an unbeliever, his salvation is not in jeopardy… believers who lose or abandon their faith will retain their salvation."[16] For example, Stanley writes:

Look at that verse [John 3:18] and answer this question: According to Jesus, what must a person do to keep from being judged for sin? Must he stop doing something? Must he promise to stop doing something? Must he have never done something? The answer is so simple that many stumble all over it without ever seeing it. All Jesus requires is that the individual "believe in" Him.

— Charles Stanley[16] (p. 67).

In a chapter entitled "For Those Who Stop Believing", he says, "The Bible clearly teaches that God's love for His people is of such magnitude that even those who walk away from the faith have not the slightest chance of slipping from His hand (p. 74)." Later, Stanley also writes: "You and I are not saved because we have an enduring faith. We are saved because at a moment in time we expressed faith in our enduring Lord" (p. 80).

The doctrine sees the work of salvation as wholly monergistic, which is to say that God alone performs it and man has no part in the process beyond receiving it, and therefore, proponents argue that man cannot undo what they believe God has done. By comparison, in traditional Calvinism, people, who are otherwise unable to follow God, are enabled by regeneration to cooperate with him, and so the Reformed tradition sees itself as mediating between the total monergism of the non-traditional Calvinist view and the synergism of the Wesleyan, Arminian, and Roman Catholic views in which even unregenerate man can choose to cooperate with God in salvation.

One of the points of Molinism is "eternal life", Molinists believe that the only basis for assurance is the work of Christ and that saving faith always perseveres to the end, however persevarance is a promise instead of a requirement.[17]

Catholic, Methodist, Anabaptist, Oriental Orthodox and Eastern Orthodox theology hold to synergism with respect to salvation and view the doctrine of eternal security as heretical, instead teaching that one's one's salvation is conditional on one's continued faith, good works, sanctification, and avoidance of sin.[18]

In Catholicism, Christians do not have eternal security because they can commit a mortal sin.[19] The Church teach that Christians are subject to the cleansing torment of purgatory before entrance into heaven.

The Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Oriental Orthodox Churches teach "the conditional security of the believer".[20] "According to ... all of the Church’s spiritual writers, a man must be humble in order to stay on the right path and attain that for which he seeks."[20]

The Lutheran Churches teach that true Christian believers can fall away from the faith into apostasy.[21]

Anabaptists, such as Conservative Mennonites, teach that "Each member of the church has free will and can separate themselves from the body of Christ and live a sinful life, even if they once were bound to Christ."[22]

The Arminian view, inclusive of the Classical Arminian position and Wesleyan-Arminian (Methodist) position, opposes any concept of eternal security, holding that a true Christian can fall from grace and be condemned to hell.[23]