God’s Spirit is the sole agent in regeneration.
"I am the Good Shepherd" (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Acts 9:1–19 “Falling to the ground he heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul,Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord ?’” (vv. 4–5a). Every Christian tradition has formulated some doctrine of regeneration . Despite the differing formulations of this doctrine, however, there are ultimately only two different views of the role of man and the role of God in regeneration: monergism or synergism . A synergistic view of regeneration says man and God cooperate in bringing new life to a person. The Lord acts upon the heart of the unbeliever, imploring him to change. However, though God calls to the heart, regeneration cannot occur unless the unbeliever, who has the ability to say, “yes,” or “no,” embraces the divine call. There are several problems with this view. First, synergism sees the human will working with the divine will to achieve salvation. Yet we all come into the world spiritually de