Posted on 01/01/2006 4:48:03 PM PST by HarleyD
Look for those onion-shaped golden domes and inquire inside.
OK, we have some common ground...
but like what happened to Israel, the simple revelation of salvation in Jesus was so obscured by man's institutional interpolations and accretions over the centuries that when the veil was once again removed and the simple message of "the just shall live by faith" was again seen and heard
Frankly, the comparison is night and day... Can you explain to me WHO EXACTLY understood the Suffering Servant prophesies as being applied to the Christ BEFORE the Resurrection??? Can the Apostles be blamed for not understanding Jesus' teachings that "I must first suffer before I am glorified"? You make it sound like the Jews should have KNOWN better that the Christ would suffer and die! It is an obscure link that is solidified only AFTER the Resurrection event.
Secondly, can you find me ANY warrant in Scripture that gives part of the faith community to break off and form their own, separate community with different beliefs? Paul said we are ONE FAITH, not many different opinions. WE eat the same loaf - not many Christs. From Moses' time all the way to Paul and John, there have been disillusioned and proud men who thought they could "know" God's Word better than the community. This idea is thoroughly refuted by Scriptures. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul even says that God will destroy those who destroy the Temple of God - through their continued destruction of unity of the community. Sorry, there is NO Scriptural warrant or precedent for the actions of the men of the Reformation. What is worse - those who started this heinous act, or those who continue in it, knowing full well they are separated from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church?
the wild fire of the Holy Spirit freed man from the shackles of second hand ignorance and opened the scriptures to the most humble cobbler to read and understand by the illumination of the Holy Spirit.
In most cases, this is a self-induced fantasy. Men, again, have a tendency to think quite highly of their opinions. It should be quite obvious that the Spirit does not define doctrine to individuals, but to the community as a whole. Otherwise, those many men who claim to be "led by the Spirit" are full of it, since the Spirit of Truth does not lead men in different directions on different doctrinal issues. The very essence of Protestantism is its diffuse number of beliefs based on the opinions of the individual who "think" they are independently being "led" by something.
Regards
"No, I think the "new thing" was more like what happened with Galileo."
LOL!
Well, "incline" does NOT mean "force" or "make necessary"! I think we agree that man's free will remains intact - even WITH this "inclination" upon man.
What is "born again" is our spirit-our will so to speak. It's DEAD. It must be reborn.
We are not "born again". We are "born from above". We are given something we never had - God's Spirit "inclining" us to do His will. Thus, I disagree with "reborn". But we are not by necessity forced to do anything.
Augustine stated: "...because God foreknew by predestination those things which He was about to do, whence it was said, "He made those things that shall be." [Isa. 46.11.] I agree with this. Do you?
I believe in predestination of the elect, as does the Catholic Church. HOW EXACTLY God does it, my opinion is my guide, as the Church has not ruled definitively on this issue. I would say, strictly speaking, that God does not foreknow what HE does, since He does not exist in time. All is one eternal now. Thus, there is no past or future, only a present. God foreknows what happens in time and how He effects it. I, as St. Augustine, do not believe that foreknowledge = ordaining or necessitating anything on God's part. If so, you take away GOD'S FREEDOM! Think about it! If God foresees something, does this necessitate that HE act in a certain way? Does God lose His freedom, too? Is God subject to some sort of higher power, some "foreknowledge" that we might call "fate"?
No one is saying that. We are saying that you MUST have God's help. God gives us our faith. This is what grace is about. The problem everyone seems to have is that God doesn't give His grace to everyone. This seems totally unfair in our PC world yet that is the way it is. That is what God's grace is about. We should all be cast into the fire.
No one is saying that man is totally corrupt? According to the quotes, it seems that man cannot do any morally good deed without God's grace. Apparently, these men haven't read the Gospel accounts and looked at the Pharisees... These faithless men were certainly able to "obey" the Commandments and do other morally good deeds. Where your Reformed quotes go wrong is assuming that ALL deeds done by an unregenerated man are sinful. This is hyperbole and ridiculous. An atheist who helps a motorist by the side of the road is NOT sinning! But please don't think I am saying that such actions will get said atheist into heaven! Paul is VERY clear that works do not save. It is faith in Christ, proper faith - as defined by John's Gospel - that saves men. Clearly, in any given moral situation, man is free to even choose the good option. But our propensity to sin will far outweigh any good actions we might have done. Thus, we will remain unsaved - in God's eyes. It is only faith working in love that will save us, not faithless works (or faith without love)
I agree that we utterly rely on God's HELP. God gives us faith. I disagree with St. Augustine's attempt to do away with God's universal salvific will. There are a large number of Fathers who hold to God's will that all be saved. I am not saying that God gives all men EQUAL grace! But there are enough Church Fathers and Church writings to show that the Spirit has guided the Church to declare that ALL men are given SUFFICIENT grace to be saved. Whether this become efficacious or not, and how it become efficacious, is again, undetermined definitively. Is it God? Is it man? Perhaps a combination? We just don't know - I am sorry if you dislike that answer in this day and age of the placing on a pedestal man's reason and rational thought.
We're all wicked and headed for hell.
Not at all. Those predestined as the elect were NEVER "headed" to hell! Have you so soon forgotten all you have defended above?
You just find it offensive that God doesn't rescue everyone.
Not at all! Man has free will. God is righteous when He judges man for perdition, despite the gifts of grace He gave that man throughout his life. St. Augustine, again, tells us that God's creation is more perfect with graduated creatures that exist. Perhaps a bit neo-Platonic, but it makes sense that some will choose God and some will not.
If He wanted to save everyone, He would save everyone.
That logic is like saying "God gave the commandments to man so that all men would obey them. It is God's will that all men would obey them. If all men don't obey them, then God is not all powerful." It should be apparent that God has two opposing desires that cannot both be fulfilled completely. This doesn't mean God is any less powerful. It means that the argument is not logically possible. Can God make a rock that He can't pick up?
If Adam's sin effected ALL men, then the Second Adam's redemption effects ALL men. God gives EVERYONE the opportunity to be saved, as His will states in Scriptures. That God has created a greater thing with a free will necessitates that some will choose to not abide in God's will. It is ALSO God's will that man have free will - just as the angels did at one timel. God allows His Will to be subverted by individuals for a greater good - to maintain His perfectly graduated and beautiful creation while maintaining the dignity of His beloved creation.
regards
When did Christ advocate a separate church outside of the Jewish faith? The Gospels appear clear that Jesus came to reform and provide corrective to Judaism, not to overthrow it. He came to FULFILL Judaism. By pointing to the Old Testament prophesies and His own miracles, many people came to understand Him and have faith that He was God's messenger and knew God in a special way, unique from anything else.
Does any reformer claim this pedigree? Where does the reformer point to, perhaps in the New Testament, that says something to the effect that the Church would be in need of disdaining and moving on to another one? What does Paul say about dissension? John? Jesus Himself in Revelation? Perhaps if Luther or Calvin could have given proof of divine intervention to back up their teachings, there might be something worthwhile to look at. But the fact of the matter is that they are ordinary men who read the Scriptures to their own destruction - as Peter prophesized. The reformers are the exact people Paul warned us about who preach a different gospel. The Church even used the same word - anathema - to refer to those men, just as Paul did to those men who allowed false teachings to tickle their ears in his day.
It is ludicrous to compare Luther and Calvin to Jesus Christ. They are much closer in kin to Mohemmed, those who claim to know God's Word, but can't back it up and refer to political power to spread their religion.
The Reformed faith isn't a different faith.
The reformed faith is most certainly a different faith than the first Christians... For example, where and when do you partake in the Body and Blood of Christ? Seems the Church has done it from the first century and continues to today in the apostolic Churches throughout the world. Where does the Early Church talk about Sola Scriptura? Or Sola Fide? Please. The reformed faith is NOT the faith of the early Church. You really think Moses would be proud of the reformers? Go read Numbers 16...
It is faith in the promises of the Father and the objective work of the Son and the internal work of the Holy Spirit and not the external forms of magical incantations.
I am not familiar with magical incantations. Which religion are you talking about?
Regards
Your Alexandrian roots are showing.
And your disingenuous misreading of Calvin does our discussion no favor. To understand a man or a faith it's a good idea to read more than one sentence plucked from hundreds of thousands of sentences and twist it to conform to your misconceptions.
The Reformed are in agreement that God is not the "author of sin," because God cannot sin, yet God is the First Cause of all things. As blue-duncan said earlier, he has no difficulty accepting this. That is because God gives eyes to see and ears to hear at His discretion.
Per the Westminster Confession, Chapter V (Of Providence)
II. Although, in relation to the foreknowledge and decree of God, the first Cause, all things come to pass immutably, and infallibly; yet, by the same providence, He orders them to fall out, according to the nature of second causes, either necessarily, freely, or contingently. III. God, in His ordinary providence, makes use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and against them, at His pleasure. IV. The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extends itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as has joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering, and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceeds only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is nor can be the author or approver of sin. V. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God does oftentimes leave, for a season, His own children to manifold temptations, and the corruption of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover unto them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled; and, to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon Himself, and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin, and for sundry other just and holy ends. VI. As for those wicked and ungodly men whom God, as a righteous Judge, for former sins, does blind and harden, from them He not only withholds His grace whereby they might have been enlightened in their understandings, and wrought upon in their hearts; but sometimes also withdraws the gifts which they had, and exposes them to such objects as their corruption makes occasion of sin; and, withal, gives them over to their own lusts, the temptations of the world, and the power of Satan, whereby it comes to pass that they harden themselves, even under those means which God uses for the softening of others. VII. As the providence of God does, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special manner, it takes care of His Church, and disposes all things to the good thereof. I. God the great Creator of all things does uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by His most wise and holy providence, according to His infallible foreknowledge, and the free and immutable counsel of His own will, to the praise of the glory of His wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and mercy.
From the Belgic Confession -- Article 13: The Doctrine of God's Providence
Yet God is not the author of, nor can he be charged with, the sin that occurs. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible that he arranges and does his work very well and justly even when the devils and wicked men act unjustly. We do not wish to inquire with undue curiosity into what he does that surpasses human understanding and is beyond our ability to comprehend. But in all humility and reverence we adore the just judgments of God, which are hidden from us, being content to be Christ's disciples, so as to learn only what he shows us in his Word, without going beyond those limits. This doctrine gives us unspeakable comfort since it teaches us that nothing can happen to us by chance but only by the arrangement of our gracious heavenly Father. He watches over us with fatherly care, keeping all creatures under his control, so that not one of the hairs on our heads (for they are all numbered) nor even a little bird can fall to the ground without the will of our Father. In this thought we rest, knowing that he holds in check the devils and all our enemies, who cannot hurt us without his permission and will. For that reason we reject the damnable error of the Epicureans, who say that God involves himself in nothing and leaves everything to chance.We believe that this good God, after he created all things, did not abandon them to chance or fortune but leads and governs them according to his holy will, in such a way that nothing happens in this world without his orderly arrangement.
And again I'll direct you to an excellent essay by John Murray...
It is obvious what questions arise in connection with this doctrine. And Calvin was well aware of the objections and faced up squarely to their apparent validity. There is, first of all, the question of authorship. Is not God, therefore, the author of the crimes which the instruments of iniquity conceive and perpetrate? At certain points Calvin does speak of God as author and cause. According to Scripture God "himself is said to give men over to a reprobate mind and cast them into vile lusts, because he is the principal author (praecipuus autor) of his own righteous vengeance, and Satan is only the minister of it." Again he says: "And I have already sufficiently shown that God is called the author (autor) of all these things which these censors wish to happen merely by his idle permission." There are, however, certain qualifications which must be appreciated if we are to assess these statements correctly. Calvin is equally emphatic to the effect that God is not the author of sin..."This insistence upon the ever-present and ever-active will of God in each particular movement obviously rules out the notion of bare permission. But Calvin takes pains to reflect on this subterfuge. It is particularly in connection with the sinful acts of Satan and of wicked men that the postulate of bare permission appears to offer escape from the allegation that the presence of the will and agency of God would be inconsistent with the responsibility and guilt which devolve upon the perpetrators of iniquity. In Calvin's esteem, this resort to the idea of permission is only to evade the difficulty. For "that men can effect nothing but by the secret will of God nor can they be exercised in deliberating anything but what he has previously with himself decreed and determines by his secret direction is proved by innumerable and express testimonies." "Whatever is attempted by men, or by Satan himself, God still holds the helm in order to turn all their attempts to the execution of his judgments." So it is nugatory and insipid to substitute for the providence of God a bare permission. The very "conceptions we form in our minds are directed by the secret inspiration of God to the end which he has designed" (arcana Dei inspiratione ad suum finem dirigi).
I've asked you several times and I'll ask you again. Did God create everything in existence or not?
Did God create resentment, anger, avarice, pettiness, anxiety, panic, dirt, error?
Did God create Satan?
It must be a fearful life indeed to believe there is something that God did not create and over which He has no control.
"For truly in this city there were gathered together against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Thy hand and Thy purpose predestined to occur" -- Acts 4:27-28.
And thus, I find your arguments to be "nugatory."
"yet God is the First Cause of all things"
This includes the "laws of effects/consequences". When a person exercizes her (I use "her" since we are talking about original sin) free will according to her inclinations the consequences occur according to the laws formed by God. That's why all men sin and come short of the glory of God. They are acting according to their natural inclinations and the consequences are sin and death.
Amen. Without that understanding, the entire point of Christ's atonement is obscured.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." -- 1 John 4:10
Perfect or blameless is what it means -- there is no "but" in them, lest perfect is not perfect. Rationalization is devising self-satisfying but incorrect reasons for anything, and that is what your sentence above is. You are making it up. You are "interpreting" the Scripture, with guidance, for sure. You are making up excuses for an apparent inconsistency; you are devising "explanations" for something that is self-evident: that perfection is just that, nothing less and nothing more.
As for your interpretation that we are already "dead" in sin perhaps you wish to ponder what dying in sin means. Certainly, we cannot die in sin if we are already dead in sin! The Scripture is clear that we must die into our own sinfulness in order to be saved. That is a very different concept than just being dead.
“for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.” 1 Pet 1:23
BTW-Why would God lose His “freedom”? God is perfect. There is only one perfect and best outcome. God makes one decision-the perfect decision. God doesn’t sit around trying to decide whether to paint the evening sky red or blue.
You assume that man has a spark of “goodness” in him. Query on evil and see how many times it refers to man.
Sure there were a bunch of Church fathers who took the counter view. But there were just as many who sided with Augustine. The Church maintained these dual theologies for many centuries. They canonized Augustine’s views, for the most part, in the Council of Orange. The Orthodox doesn’t have this problem simply because they don’t believe Augustine’s writings or the Council of Orange. Only at Trent was Augustine view done away with completely. The Catholic Church is schizophrenic because they say the hold to Augustine’s writings and then promptly say they disagree with it as you have done. What they really hold is the Orthodox position. They just don’t understand that.
Although I've searched for this passage and can't find it.
English: NewAdvent: look right above "CHAP. II [VI.]--THAT SOME MEN ARE ELECTED IS OF GOD'S MERCY."
Latin: www.augustinus.it: "quisquis audet dicere: Habeo ex me ipso fidem, non ergo accepi, profecto contradicit huic apertissimae veritati: non quia credere vel non credere non est in arbitrio voluntatis humanae, sed in electis praeparatur voluntas a Domino."
Now, you've quoted extensively from Augustine, but I'm not sure where you find there that it's untrue that "man somehow makes a choice to choose God or reject God," the statement that you said he was against.
The Pelagian, according to the paragraph you place in red, believes that God elected by foreknowledge those "who would be holy and immaculate by the choice of free will," i.e., predestination works like this: God predestines those who would have made themselves just without his predestination. Now Augustine's whole point in the Treatise on Predestination is that this isn't how predestination works: as I quoted in #4769, he says "the ordering of His future works in His foreknowledge, which cannot be deceived and changed, is absolute, and is nothing but, predestination," and argues so about the gifts of God: "if they are both given, and He foreknew that He would give them, certainly He predestinated them." What he's saying is that God predestines by determining to give to a certain man a certain gift, for instance, faith. This infallible determination to give a gift and foreknowledge of his giving is predestination. Therefore, the Pelagians are wrong when they gloss election and predestination simply as God knowing that certain persons will merit eternal life by their own virtue, and the Semi-Pelagians are wrong when they affirm the same simply about faith and not about the other gifts of grace. Even faith itself is a gift from God, who prepares the will of the elect to accept it freely: the man who claims that his faith is solely from himself and not received from God is wrong, "not because it is not in the choice of man's will to believe or not to believe, but because in the elect the will is prepared by the Lord."
The Pelagians are wrong (Augustine is arguing) not because they affirm that belief or disbelief is a free decision within the power of the will of man, but because they deny that faith is always an unmerited gift from God that, moreover, is accepted only by the elect in whom "the will is prepared by the Lord": thus he corrects his unfinished commentary on Romans in this manner: "And what I next subjoined ... I certainly could not have said, had I already known that faith itself also is found among those gifts of God which are given by the same Spirit. Both, therefore, are ours on account of the choice of the will, and yet both are given by the spirit of faith and love ... what I said a little after, 'For it is ours to believe and to will, but it is His to give to those who believe and will, the power of doing good works through the Holy Spirit, by whom love is shed abroad in our hearts,'-- is true indeed; but by the same rule both are also God's, because God prepares the will; and both are ours too, because they are only brought about with our good wills" (On the Predestination of the Saints, I:7:III).
Glossing the Treatise on Predestination as an argument that men don't make a free choice in their conversion is to totally miss the point of the work. He's looking "to show that the faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God" and to refute the opinion "that the divine testimonies which I have adduced concerning this matter are of avail for this purpose, to assure us that we have faith itself of ourselves, but that its increase is of God; as if faith were not given to us by Him, but were only increased in us by Him, on the ground of the merit of its having begun from us" (On the Predestination of the Saints, I:3:II). Such an argument in no way affirms what Augustine denies, that "men themselves in this matter [of believing] do nothing by free will" (On Grace and Free Will 31:XV). Thus in the treatise on grace and free will the opinion he argues against is that faith belongs "tantummodo," only, simply, or solely, to free choice "nec datur a Deo," and is not given by God (29:XIV).
That is to say, Augustine nowhere denies that "man somehow makes a choice to choose God or reject God." What he's saying is that God's choice is logically prior to man's choice: we are made holy because God predestined us to be so, that is, infallibly ordered or ordained in his foreknowledge the giving of the gifts of grace to us and our free acceptance.
Minor quibble on my part. Does Peter mean that we had hope at one time of Christ's great mercy, lost it, then regained it? "Born again" implies that I was born once in the same manner already. I believe your Bible translates "born again" incorrectly.
Not all deeds are sinful. Our Lord Jesus stated ”If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children…” (Matt 7:11). Evil (unregenerate) people can, and will, do “good” things for others. It’s just that unregenerate man will NEVER please God.
Well, we agree. But others on this very thread have not presented that as the Reformed opinion. I apparently was misled in that Calvinists thought something else on this matter, presuming you are providing me with correct Calvinist theology...
You assume that man has a spark of “goodness” in him. Query on evil and see how many times it refers to man.
Even an evil man is "good" in the sense that he is superior to a rock or a horse. As long as man is a rational being able to make free will decisions, he fits into the graduated and perfect creation that God has made. Such a creation will always be superior, even to a good horse or any other being that is has no God-given soul. I am surprised you didn't come across this in your St. Augustine readings.
And here is the rub in this whole mess. The only way you can disagree with Augustine’s universal salvific will is by disagreeing with God as being the instrument of moving the will.
You presume that God's moving of my will is total! St. Augustine, as you noted a few posts ago, says that man's will is INCLINED. NOT COMPLETELY OVERRIDEN! Again, would St. Augustine agree that a will without choice is free?
Sure there were a bunch of Church fathers who took the counter view. But there were just as many who sided with Augustine.
Which Church Fathers said that God does not desire that all men be saved?
They canonized Augustine’s views, for the most part, in the Council of Orange
On the universal salvific will of God? I think not. Perhaps you mean they discuss Adam's sin and that man cannot come to God without God. But does Orange address this? Look again.
The Catholic Church is schizophrenic because they say the hold to Augustine’s writings and then promptly say they disagree with it as you have done. What they really hold is the Orthodox position. They just don’t understand that.
Wonderful. I am sure our Orthodox friends will love to hear that! That's funny how you seem to know more about Catholic beliefs than Catholics. But I don't read our documents with a Reformed mindset, filtering out the vast majority of Catholic teaching that goes against some of St. Augustine's more bleak teachings on man.
You do Augustine a disservice to put words in his month that he clearly rejects in his teachings.
Does St. Augustine retract the idea that man has free will? That God judges man based on man's obedience of the Commandments? This is the problem with using Augustine against Augustine...Seems like our earlier counterparts have already done this. You would be well served to consider that some of his writings were directed at Pelagius - and as a result, may sound perfectly fine to your Reformed ears. But note this is all part of the polemics. He focuses on different things when he speaks to the Manichaeans, the opposites of the Pelagians. Perhaps we should go to "Retractions" and read more and see how much he changed his mind.
Wrong. Perfect man, Adam, was given only ONE commandment and he couldn’t even keep that.
Say what? Are you saying that God does NOT desire man to obey His commandments? You are missing the point. IF God desires His will to be obeyed, it would follow that man would obey His commands. They are not. Thus, you are again on a dilemna of God's will not being perfectly fulfilled - and asking whether God is really perfect or not. Unless, you realize that God ALSO desires that man have a free will. Thus, LOGICALLY, it is impossible for God to give man free will AND that man would ALWAYS obey EVERY commandment of God. One of God's wills will not be satisfied entirely. The same is true regarding the universal salvific will of God. The same is true regarding the question "Can God create a rock He cannot pick up"? LOGICALLY speaking, both cannot be done.
The law only serves to destroy because it shows us how we fall short of God’s glory.
That is a terrible understanding of Paul. God didn't create the Law so that man would KNOW how much he couldn't fulfill it! God doesn't place demands on His creatures that they cannot meet. With God's aid, even the OT figures could and did obey the Commandments. They were considered righteous in God's eyes.
God in His scriptures plainly records that He does not give all people the opportunity to be saved. He appeared to Abraham-not his brothers.
Scripture does not say "God did not appear to Abram's brothers". Scripture gives us salvation history. There is no point in recording things that happened outside of this history. Thus, Scripture makes no mention of them. While God appeared to Abram and Paul in a particular way, it doesn't follow that God does not appear to others in a different, more subtle way. Perhaps God appeared to all of these people AFTER they appeared to Paul/Abram. The Scripture doesn't mention this - nor does it say it didn't happen. To deny that God desires the salvation of all men is to deny that Christ died for the sin of the world or that His work did not have as far reaching of consequences as the first Adam. If Adam effected ALL men, then Christ provides the medicine for ALL men. To disagree is to say that Christ did not heal as universally as Adam damaged mankind. Scripture clearly notes that Christ redeemed the sins of the world, note just some people.
Regards
Quick, everyone act churchy. The RM is using us as an example of posters who are acting civily to each other.
Oops, you caught me. If I do an independant research project can I get out of detention?
LOLOL! Not necessary, you aren't in detention.
Sure feels like it at times!
""Born again" implies that I was born once in the same manner already. I believe your Bible translates "born again" incorrectly."
Indeed it does. The verb is a form of beget. It's not that we are "born again" but rather that God begets us again. I don't see that as a fine distinction at all, by the way. The rest of the verse, the part the Protestants tend to leave out in their proof texting, is "...to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...." Thus we see another of the verses which the Fathers used to point to Christ as the Second Adam who destroyed the power of death over us.
"Sure there were a bunch of Church fathers who took the counter view. But there were just as many who sided with Augustine."
Harley, I'd like to see even one Father who agreed with your interpretation of +Augustine.
Harley, I meant to ping you to #4819; sorry!
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