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To: Claud
You are saying that Calvinism wouldn’t have any problem with this, from his letter to Valentinus?

It was of this epistle that I was talking about in the first place in the different uses of the term "Free will." Here is another quote from the letter, note the bold:

"As for all others who, in the use of their free will, have added to original sin, sins of their own commission, but who have not been delivered by God's grace from the power of darkness and removed into the kingdom of Christ, they will receive judgment according to the deserts not of their original sin only, but also of the acts of their own will. The good, indeed, shall receive their reward according to the merits of their own good-will, but then they received this very good-will through the grace of God; and thus is accomplished that sentence of Scripture, "Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace to every man that works good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile."'(Augustine, Letter 215)

But more broadly, Augustine was a bishop. He founded a religious order. He followed the Christian calendar and the commemoration of the martyrs. This sounds like a Puritan to you?

This is a silly statement since, as another poster noted, the OPC, and the Reformed in general, follow the Christian calender, worship on Sundays, and believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist exactly in the way Augustine did, which is very anti-Catholic. A Church might have all these things, but if it does not have sound doctrine, all it has is empty practice, all form of God but no power.

27 posted on 06/21/2014 5:44:47 AM PDT by Greetings_Puny_Humans (I mostly come out at night... mostly.)
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans

Well heavens, EVERYONE believes it all comes from grace, except Pelagians. As long as the free will is not denied.

As for the rest, there are no bishops in the OPC. No cult of the martyrs in the OPC. No monks in the OPC that I’m aware of. If Augustine had such a Reformed theology, I wonder why he retained all of this.

And as far as Augustine’s Reformed understanding of the Real Presence, please expound on that notion...this I want to hear!


30 posted on 06/21/2014 5:59:03 AM PDT by Claud
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To: Greetings_Puny_Humans
The good, indeed, shall receive their reward according to the merits of their own good-will, but then they received this very good-will through the grace of God; and thus is accomplished that sentence o

Which agrees precisely with Catholic teaching, as expressed infallibly a few years later at 2nd Orange. In fact, most of the citations you've posted are perfectly aligned with Catholic teaching. I'm looking for one where Augustine says that the unjustified man is free only to sin; you might have a case there for a disagreement. (We don't think Augustine is infallible any more than you do.).

In re Communion, at one point Augustine said that it was a sin not to adore the consecrated Host. Sounds like idolatry in the Calvinist view, but perfectly logical in the Catholic view.

31 posted on 06/21/2014 6:02:20 AM PDT by Campion
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