CALVINISM IN HISTORY

"The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination." -- Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1932. ^ | 1932 | Loraine Boettner

[bornacatholic]

LOL

[bornacatholic]

It is interesting that you dwell on what was just a minor part of the entire corpus oh Augustine's work.

* I thought copying and pasting everything I have access to would be a bit excessive.

His writings on the important doctrines of the faith; God, Jesus, Trinity, grace, faith and his defense against the various heresies of the day are of more importance than his politically expedient views of the church.

*LOL So, when you agree with him he is a theologian and when you don't he is a politician.

He was writing in an era of waning power of the corrupt Roman Empire and his defense of centralized authority was politically convenient.

* His sourcing of the Catholic Church's authority was anchored in his personal politically expedient thoughts rather that being sourced in Scripture and Tradition, as his own words prove. Well, yours is an iteresting idea. Prove it citing St. Augustine's words.

What is more interesting is the Roman Church, although accepting his doctrine of the church has distanced itself from his doctrine of the free grace of God; indispensable, prevenient, irresisible, indefectible; and thus founded in all its details in the intentions of God from all eternity.

*My very first post proves your assertion wrong.

[bornacatholic]

OK, Lorraine It's Loraine. He's a guy.

*Oh

As to Augustine, he got some things more right than others. But you're reading way too much into the quotes you've offered which seldom support the extra-Biblical conclusions you draw.

*Really? I thought my quotes from St. Augustine were quite specific and easily understandable and not susceptible to irrationally drawn conclusions.

But thanks for the words of Augustine, who was born in 354 and died in 430, long before so much of the debilitating, anti-Scriptural, unGodly errors of Rome permeated the church of God on earth and set themselves in stone.

*You are welcome.

I have more, you know. St. Augustine is quite Catholic. Isn't a pity you don't have any Saints you can quote? :)

[bornacatholic]

It was that formulation of the free grace, propounded by Augustine that gave us the Reformation, a restoration of the true doctrine of free grace...

*Are you sure?

Luther's works..Augustine has sometimes erred and is not to be trusted. Although good and holy, he was yet lacking in the true faith, as well as the other fathers...But when the door was opended for me in Paul, so that I understood what justification by faith is, it was all over with Augustine.

St. Augustine.... When you shall have been baptized, keep to a good life in the commandments of God so that you may preserve your baptism to the very end. I do not tell you that you will live here without sin, but they are venial sins which this life is never without. Baptism was instituted for all sins. For light sins, without which we cannot live, prayer was instituted. . . . But do not commit those sins on account of which you would have to be separated from the body of Christ. Perish the thought! For those whom you see doing penance have committed crimes, either adultery or some other enormities. That is why they are doing penance. If their sins were light, daily prayer would suffice to blot them out. . . . In the Church, therefore, there are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of penance

*And y'all think THAT is Faith alone?

[bornacatholic]

Incredible! So we are to take what all early church fathers say without discernment.

*Not you. The Church decides. If you never get that right you will be doomed to making wrong conclusions about Doctrine and Truths necessary for Salvation

[bornacatholic]

But in the fourth century a more settled time had been reached,..

*So, Ecumenical Councils called to combat heresies in 325 at Nicea and 381 in Constantinople were,um, unnecessary during the time loraine describes as "more settled."

[bornacatholic]

I'm going to bed. But, before I do, here is more St. Augustine. He sure doesn't read like a Calvinst to me...

Because there are some persons who defend grace to such an extent that they deny man's free will or who think that, when grace is defended, free will is denied, I have decided to write . . . God has revealed to us through his holy Scripture that there is free will in man . . all these precepts of love would be given to men to no purpose at all if men did not have free will [cites Jas 1:13 ff. and Prov 19:3 in support]. . . See how clearly free will is taught here .. Prov 1:8; 3:7,11,27,29; 5:2; Ps 35:4; Mt 6:19; 10:28; 1 Cor 15:34; 1 Tim 4:14; Jas 2:1; 4:11; 1 Jn 2:15].

*All one has to do to think St. Augustine was a Crypto-Calvinist is to never read him.

[Gamecock]

I just asked a happy clappy, I just want to love Jesus, WWJD (yes is still hung up on that) type the following: "Since you are so into WWJD, why aren't you sing from the Hymnbook Jesus sang from?"

[Dr. Eckleburg]

So, I can forgive Augustine's erroneous eccentricities in some minor doctrines when I read over and over his explanation of the free grace of God that saves.

Amen. Let's read some again...

TREATISE ON PREDESTINATION
"Chapter 34 [XVII.]
The Special Calling of the Elect is Not Because They Have Believed, But in Order that They May Believe.

Let us, then, understand the calling whereby they become elected,—not those who are elected because they have believed, but who are elected that they may believe. For the Lord Himself also sufficiently explains this calling when He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” For if they had been elected because they had believed, they themselves would certainly have first chosen Him by believing in Him, so that they should deserve to be elected. But He takes away this supposition altogether when He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.” And yet they themselves, beyond a doubt, chose Him when they believed on Him. Whence it is not for any other reason that He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” than because they did not choose Him that He should choose them, but He chose them that they might choose Him; because His mercy preceded them according to grace, not according to debt. Therefore He chose them out of the world while He was wearing flesh, but as those who were already chosen in Himself before the foundation of the world. This is the changeless truth concerning predestination and grace. For what is it that the apostle says, “As He hath chosen us in Himself before the foundation of the world”? And assuredly, if this were said because God foreknew that they would believe, not because He Himself would make them believers, the Son is speaking against such a foreknowledge as that when He says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you;” when God should rather have foreknown this very thing, that they themselves would have chosen Him, so that they might deserve to be chosen by Him. Therefore they were elected before the foundation of the world with that predestination in which God foreknew what He Himself would do; but they were elected out of the world with that calling whereby God fulfilled that which He predestinated. For whom He predestinated, them He also called, with that calling, to wit, which is according to the purpose. Not others, therefore, but those whom He predestinated, them He also called; nor others, but those whom He so called, them He also justified; nor others, but those whom He predestinated, called, and justified, them He also glorified; assuredly to that end which has no end. Therefore God elected believers; but He chose them that they might be so, not because they were already so. The Apostle James says: “Has not God chosen the poor in this world, rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which God hath promised to them that love Him?” By choosing them, therefore; He makes them rich in faith, as He makes them heirs of the kingdom; because He is rightly said to choose that in them, in order to make which in them He chose them. I ask, who can hear the Lord saying, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” and can dare to say that men believe in order to be elected, when they are rather elected to believe; lest against the judgment of truth they be found to have first chosen Christ to whom Christ says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you”?

Perhaps if our RC FRiends actually read the major writings of Augustine rather than rely on unattributed snippets they'd see what Luther and Calvin and all the Reformers saw -- just how far the church of Rome has strayed from the Biblical truth of God.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

Isn't a pity you don't have any Saints you can quote? :)

Nonsense. I quote many saints on FR every day.

I just don't worship them.

[Gamecock]

***Isn't a pity you don't have any Saints you can quote? :)***

I've quoted St. Eckleburg several times. ;-)

[HarleyD]

He thus became the first true interpreter of Paul and was successful in securing the acceptance of his doctrine by the Church. Following Augustine there was retrogression rather than progress.

While this is an excellent article, IMO Boettner is somewhat correct about Augustine being the first true interpreter of Paul. Not much attention was paid to the theology of the Church for the first three centuries because the focus was on evangelism. But as heresy began to enter the Church, the fathers recognized the importance of documenting the belief. While Augustine might have been the first to document the saved by grace understanding, in his Treatise Augustine states that it was Cyprian who led him to his understanding.

It was not thus that that pious and humble teacher thought—I speak of the most blessed Cyprian—when he said "that we must boast in nothing, since nothing is our own."6 And in order to show this, he appealed to the apostle as a witness, where he said, "For what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why boastest thou as if thou hadst not received it?" [1 Cor. 4.7.] And it was chiefly by this testimony that I myself also was convinced when I was in a similar error, thinking that faith whereby we believe on God is not God's gift, but that it is in us from ourselves, and that by it we obtain the gifts of God, whereby we may live temperately and righteously and piously in this world. For I did not think that faith was preceded by God's grace, so that by its means would be given to us what we might profitably ask, except that we could not believe if the proclamation of the truth did not precede; but that we should consent when the gospel was preached to us I thought was our own doing, and came to us from ourselves.

Augustine states that he simply reasoned out what Cyprian was saying; something that is dreadfully lacking in today's environment. Augustine's comment is indicative that this was a primary doctrine in the Church although not widely understood. He simply documented the fact and the Church accepted was natural.

Unfortunately Boettner is correct to say the Church regressed from this position. A favor to the Pope by John Cassian caused Augustine's position to become a "shared" view; shared until it was erased.

BTW-Augustine's Treatise was almost one of his last works at which time he recognized his error. Every other document by Augustine needs to be measured against his Treatise on Predestination. People like to pull out all sorts of quotes from Augustine from earlier writings but I think that's is a mistake.

[bornacatholic]

Sister, the usual Catholic-Calvin battleground is always prepared before we Catholics arrive. We are upon it now.


So, what is the use of continuing? It is clear the quotes of St. Augustine that I posted will not be responded to. In fact, they have just been dismissed out of hand. C'est la vie.

For lurkers, I will post this link which, in not too many words, explains the reality that predestination, as understood by the 16th century revolutionaries, is a heresy.


http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12376b.htm

And here is a link to St. Augustine which includes an explanation of what he meant in his system of Grace. And, not surprisingly,it is the Catholic System. It is not the protestant system. And, I am afraid I am gong to have to insist on the perfectly logical idea the Catholic Church is the most qualified to explain what the great Catholic Saint meant - using his own words.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02091a.htm#II

The idea that a protestant is most qualified to explain what St. Augustine REALLY meant is risible on its face. However,that is what passes for wisdom on these threads

To me, Christians accepting the idea Calvin is the best qualified to teach us what the Catholic St. Augustine REALLY meant in his system of Grace is akin to Conservatives accepting the idea Roger Baldwin is best qualified to teach us what Civil Rights really means.

[P-Marlowe]

Augustine's writings speak for themselves. We don't need some kind of mystical priestly illuminati to tell us that what he said is not what he meant.

[blue-duncan]

See post #29 for Augustine's last words on predestination and election. Since Augustine believed that God predestined the elect to salvation before the foundation of the world and only those He elected would come to Him, of necessity, those not predestined to election are damned.

The Second Council of Orange in 529 in its conclusions to the Canons, had this to say,

"We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema."

It would appear that the Roman Church anathematized Augustine, post mortem.

[bornacatholic]

Balderdash.

Council of Orange

Conclusion

According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema.

We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him. . We must therefore most evidently believe that the praiseworthy faith of the thief whom the Lord called to his home in paradise, and of Cornelius the centurion, to whom the angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zacchaeus, who was worthy to receive the Lord himself, was not a natural endowment but a gift of God's kindness.

[blue-duncan]

The question is "predestination". Augustine says explicitly only those who were predestined to election before the foundation of the world will come to Him. That means that those not so predestined won't come to Him and are therefore damned. The Second Council of Orange says that those holding that view is "anathema". Augustine is therefore "anathema" to the Roman Church. How do you get around that?

[bornacatholic]

Augustine's writings speak for themselves.

* I agree :)

[bornacatholic]

How do you get around that?

* I don't. You seem like a nice man, bd, but, if you can't see that the Council of Orange supports St. Augustine while condemning what you, wrongly ,understand predestination to mean, then that fact alone illustrates you do not understand St. Augustine and his Theology.

Said otherwise, it is you who are wrong about St. Augustine,not the Council of Orange.

I have posted a link explaining what St. Augustine taught about Predestination but such links and explanations do not appear to matter.

As Jean Cauvin might have said, C'est la vie

[bornacatholic]

*I'm posting to you because you seem to "get it." Here is something else from the Council of Orange

CANON 23.

Concerning the will of God and of man. Men do their own will and not the will of God when they do what displeases him; but when they follow their own will and comply with the will of God, however willingly they do so, yet it is his will by which what they will is both prepared and instructed.

*Does that sound like Calvinism to you?

Not so much