Cessationism versus continuationism

Cessationism versus continuationism involves a Christian theological dispute as to whether spiritual gifts remain available to the church, or whether their operation ceased with the apostolic age of the church (or soon thereafter). The cessationist doctrine arose in the Reformed theology: initially in response to claims of Roman Catholic miracles. Modern discussions focus more on the use of spiritual gifts in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements, though this emphasis has been taught in traditions that arose earlier, such as Methodism.

Cessationism is a doctrine that spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, and healing ceased with the apostolic age. The doctrine was developed in the Reformation and is particularly associated with the Calvinists. More recent development has tended to focus on other spiritual gifts, too, owing to the advent of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic movement that have popularised continuationism, the position that the spiritual gifts are meant for all Christians in every age.

Continuationism is a Christian theological belief that the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual gifts, have continued to the present age. Continuationism as a distinct theological position arose in opposition to cessationism, and is often manifested in advocacy of the recovery of spiritual gifts in the Church today, but also encompasses any tradition that does not argue the gifts have necessarily ceased.

Despite being three broad camps, divided over a single question, there is a spectrum of views that fall under three broad headings:

Cessationist arguments may focus on the principle of whether spiritual gifts (Apostolic) are available to the church at all, or they may focus on whether the gifts found in modern charismatic forms of Christianity are authentic. These arguments need to be considered separately, because in one case the "open but cautious" continuationists may be deemed to be on one side, and on the other side in the other instance.

For example, if the cessationist position is correct that spiritual gifts are not available in the modern age, this position would be in opposition to the "open, but cautious" continuationists. On the other hand, "open but cautious" continuationists may agree with cessationist arguments against many aspects of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.

Historically, the Catholic, Methodist, Moravian, and Pentecostal traditions of Christianity have preached continuationism while Dispensationalist Baptist, the confessional Reformed and Presbyterian, and much of the Anglican traditions have been cessationist. Lutherans have held to a middle position, "open but cautious" continuationism, that views the full range of spiritual gifts as not given exclusively through the medium of the first-century canonical apostles, but also not necessarily promised in every place and time in church history.

Cessationism is, generally speaking, a doctrine of Reformed Christianity. Prior to the Protestant Reformation, there was no such explicit doctrine, yet neither was there an expectation that most of the gifts of the Holy Spirit would persist in the Church in the day-to-day experience of Christians. Nevertheless, there were sporadic mentions of some gifts, such as speaking in tongues, and more frequently, but still unusually, of healings and miracles. It was when these miracles in the Catholic Church were used as a polemic against the post-Reformation Protestant churches that John Calvin began to develop a doctrine of cessationism, and it was primarily in the Calvinist tradition that this doctrine was developed. The argument was that as the gifts of the Spirit must have necessarily ceased at the end of the Apostolic Age, it followed that the claims of miracles and healings should be met with skepticism and could not be used by believers to determine God's favour.