The Reformers and Church Fathers on Nature, Grace, and Choice

Vanity, vanity, everything is vanity | December 29, 2001 | Andrew Reeves (me)

[AndrewSshi]

There are those who think that life has nothing left to chance,
A host of holy horrors to direct our aimless dance.

A planet of playthings,
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
“The stars aren’t aligned-
Or the gods are malign”
Blame is better to give than receive.
…
All preordained-
A prisoner in chains-
A victim of venomous fate.
Kicked in the face,
You can't pray for a place
In Heaven's unearthly estate.

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill;
I will choose a path that's clear-
I will choose Free Will.

--Rush, “Freewill,” ©1980.

When Martin Luther defied a Pope and proclaimed salvation only through the ineffable grace of God, he had no idea that he was rending the body of the ancient church that had for so long known only unity. As his revolution spread, though, all Christendom watched as the Church began to fracture like one of the rose windows smashed by a maddened Swiss mob. Northern Germany, Scandinavia, and a large portion of the Swiss cantons turned away from the faith they had known for centuries, causing no small consternation in a civilization that valued timeless truths above novelty, and which viewed the past as the repository of truth and the present and future as decay. When the reformers were accused by men like Cardinal Sadoleto of pulling away from their faith for the sake of unprecedented novelties, both Luther and Calvin responded that it was their medieval forbears who had introduced devilish novelties into the Church, and that they were merely restoring Christianity to its ancient form (“Reply,” 56).

Such claims and counter claims were absolutely vital in the spirit of those times. For if Christ had indeed left His authority with a body of believers upon his ascension, then any faction claiming to possess the true meaning of His scriptures would logically have to be in agreement with that original body that carried on Christ’s truth after His return to His Father. It is outside of the purview of the discipline of history to ask questions about the existence and nature of God or the supernatural claims of any institution. We can, however, examine the claims of historical continuity by the various parties involved: Were Doctors Luther and Calvin reclaiming an ancient theology obscured by centuries of scholastic decadence, or were they, as their opponents claimed, introducing novelties never before seen under the sun? I intend, through an examination of patristic sources in comparison to Luther and Calvin, to demonstrate that the reformers reclaimed certain Augustinian principles, but in carrying them to their logical extremes, went to lengths that were utterly without precedent.

In examining the Reformation and its dogmas, we must first understand the key fulcrum upon which the reformation turned. This point, though, is often obscured when navigating through a list of secondary issues like use of images, liturgical style, church property, etc. We would do well to note that all of these issues pale besides that which drove the reformers to the lengths they went—“Therefore it is clear that, as the soul needs only the Word of God for its life and righteousness, so it is justified by faith alone and not any works; for if it could be justified by anything else, it would not need the Word, and consequently it would not need faith.” The reformation stands or falls on the basis of the assertion that man is justified before God only through His ineffable grace, by faith alone.

At the outset, this should not seem like too much of a problem. Even the most adamant pre-Vatican II Catholic will acknowledge the corrupt nature of man and inability to approach the righteousness of Christ without divine grace. Why then, did the reformers’ preaching of grace cause such a stir? If we delve below the surface, the problem with sola fide soon becomes apparent. If salvation comes by grace through faith alone, then no works of man can have anything do to with his salvation. If that is the case, then, as Luther tells us, this discounts any act of the will, for if one were to be able to will oneself to believe, faith would simply be a meritorious work (Luther, 135). Calvin reaches a similar conclusion in his Institutes (XXI, 1), and such thinking leaves us with the uncomfortable notion that, if one is to be saved by faith alone, then man, shorn of his free will, is reduced to the role of a puppet dancing on God’s strings. This of course opens up a host of other difficulties, and the perplexed believer is left asking if God in His love also responsible for evil. In the end, the Roman Catholic Church rejected reformed dogma in order to defend the doctrine of man’s freedom (Tracy, 101).

This rejection then left the reformers in the position of standing against the ancient Catholic Church and demanding that they, rather than the ancient church, possessed apostolic truth. Erasmus of Rotterdam had this to say about Luther’s claim to have re-discovered the truth:

Even though Christ’s spirit might permit His people to be in error in an unimportant question on which man’s salvation does not depend, no one would believe that this Spirit has deliberately overlooked error in His church for 1300 years, and that He did not deem one of all the pious and saintly Church Fathers worthy to be inspired, with what, they contend, is the very essence of all evangelical teaching (Erasmus, 19).

Erasmus lays a fairly serious charge at Luther’s feet. The answer, then to the question of whether or not the reformers held views in concord with the ancient church lies in ascertaining Erasmus’s assertion that the denial of free will is completely alien to the historical record of the Church’s teachings.

Since Erasmus felt it meet to bring the Church Fathers into the discussion, I shall begin my examination with patristic sources. I intend first to examine the works of Justin Martyr, a second century convert and one of the first Christian apologists. I intend to examine Justin’s work as a case study for several reasons, chief of which are that his first and second apologies were written both to answer objections to the Christian faith and outline its basic principles, and, if we are looking for a picture of early Christianity as handed down to the apostles, we could do no better than to examine the product of a Church removed from the death of the last apostle by less than a century.

To properly comprehend the early Church’s positions on the freedom of the will, we must first examine the philosophical background of the classical world from which Christianity emerged. We quickly find that, as a general rule, the classical world was hostile to the notion of humanity possessing the free ability to choose. Democritus with his mechanistic view of the cosmos and the Eleatics with their monism both held that all events and choices were under the sway of a deterministic necessity (“Free Will”). Aristotle was a bit more optimistic, allowing for contingency, but then, with his cosmos brought into being by a primum mobile, it is hard to escape the notion that all subsequent causes must be dependent of the first cause (ibid). Nor did the stoics allow for free choice, which was precluded by their pantheistic picture of the universe (ibid). It was against such background that Christianity addressed the issue of man’s freedom.

In Chapters XLIII and XLIV of his Second Apology, Justin examines the question as to whether or not men are free. His conclusion is an unambiguous rejection of the classical world’s determinism. Martyr makes several arguments, one based on a usage of the term “devour” in Isaiah, and another on the dubious notion that Plato learned what he knew from the Hebrew prophets (Martyr, XLIV). We shall pass over these, though, in favor of the much more powerful argument of responsibility. He tells his reader “unless the human race have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions” (Martyr, XLIII). Justin hammers this point home further in stating that God made man, “not like other things, as trees and quadrupeds, which cannot act by choice” (ibid). For Martyr, the sinner would not be worthy of punishment if his action were not of his own volition, but a result of the condition in which he was made (ibid). He then quotes Deuteronomy 30:15, 19: “Behold before thy face are good and evil: choose the good” (1.2.5).

Augustine in his answer affirmed that man does evil through the use of his free choice (Free Choice, 1.16.35), and that evil comes not from God, but rather from a negation of His goodness, that is, in a man turning from the good that which is God to follow his own desires (ibid, 2.20.54). In agreement with Justin Martyr, he asks rhetorically, “How could a man be punished justly, if he used his will for the very purpose for which it was given” (ibid, 2.1.3)? He goes on to state that to be justly punished, sin must be committed by a free act of the will (ibid).

In this context, when Augustine speaks of the decrees of God, he speaks of God’s predestination as coming through the foreknowledge of His omniscience. Indeed, he goes out of his way to state that foreknowledge is not the same as compulsion (Free Choice, 3.4.10), and states that, simply because God has foreseen an evil does not mean that He is responsible (ibid, 3.4.11). He draws the notion of foreknowledge to its logical conclusion, stating that because God foreknows everything, then events must happen as He has foreseen (ibid, 3.3.8). This appears to satisfactorily wrap up the issue of God’s decrees.

All of the above would seem to create the impression that God’s only action in working out His will is in foreseeing that which will occur and thus working out His will through man’s will. But we must carefully bear in mind that Augustine is speaking of the origins of evil. We have not yet examined what Augustine taught from scripture concerning, not man’s reprobation, but his salvation. When we look to this issue, the picture of Augustine becomes much murkier.

Augustine notes that the first man fell through his own completely free choice. Adam, in Augustine’s thinking, was completely free to choose either good or evil, and opted for evil (Free Choice, 3.24.73). From this point, humanity was enslaved to original sin. The original sin came through free will, but subsequently, though still free, the will was subject to corruption, and thus, unable to rise to salvation. This can be summed up in the statement, “But, though man fell through his own will, he cannot rise through his own will” (ibid, 2.20.54).

At this point in his career, Augustine might have been willing to acknowledge that man can freely look for the grace of God in order to assist him in doing good, stating that man, though subject to concupiscence, nonetheless has the knowledge of God, by whose grace he might rise to a higher state (ibid, 3.19.53). If we were to cease our examination of Augustine here, we would find a ready partisan of Rome, affirming man’s free choice, predestination through foreknowledge, and the ability of man to choose God. Alas, the picture is not that simple.

For at the turn of the fifth century, the notorious heretic Pelagius preached that man in and of himself had the ability to be perfect, and that the fall of Adam, rather than plunging the whole of the human race into sin, served merely as a bad example (Nature and Grace, 9.10). To the dismay of the good Doctor, Pelagius and his followers sought to bolster support for their beliefs with Augustine’s very own writings on free will (Retractions, 1.9.3). Augustine’s response to this heretic’s teachings generated his later writings on the will, predestination, and divine grace.

It must be noted that Augustine’s later writings on original sin and predestination seems to show a markedly different posture from his earlier work on free will. While it has been argued that this hardened stance was due either to his reaction to the fall of Rome or the Pelagian heresy, it is more likely that his own views were gradually evolving under the influence of St. Paul, independent of external circumstances. I base my judgment on Augustine’s quotation of his Retractions in On the Predestination of the Saints:

I indeed labored in defense of the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God conquered, and only thus was I able to arrive at the point where I understood that the Apostle spoke with the clearest truth, “For who singles you out? Or what do you have that you have not received? And if you have received it, why do you glory as if you had not received it” (1 Corinthians 4:7, qtd. in Predestination, 4.8)?

The above taken into account, the later Augustine still believes that those who choose faith in Christ do so of their own free will, but with the important caveat that God has prepared the will of the elect to choose Him (Predestination, 6.11). Under these teachings of Augustine, free will alone is insufficient to believe in Christ, and indeed, if free will is enough for the believer to be saved, then “Christ has died in vain” (Nature and Grace, 40.47). The will of man is both corrupt and inadequate to seek salvation. The elect are not called because they believe, but so that they may believe (Predestination, 17.34). We see Augustine at his most Protestant when he further recounts his own changing views in stating “I said most truly: ‘For just as in those “whom God has chosen,” not works initiate merit, but faith…’ [Emphasis added.] But that merit of faith is also a gift of God…” (Predestination, 3.7) Here, then, the Catholic, to his dismay, sees what seems to be protestant doctrine issuing from the pen of the arch-Catholic.

We will be going too far, though, if we make Augustine a five point Calvinist. We must note that, for starters, when he issued a retraction concerning his first writings on the nature of evil, he stated that free will was inadequate for man to rise to God. He never, though, changed his statement that evil comes only from the free exercise of the will, and never denies that in choosing to do evil, Adam was under no compulsion. When he mentions predestination, he is quite clear that only by God’s predestination can man come to an efficacious and saving faith, but what is striking is that predestination is only mentioned regarding salvation. Those that are condemned do so merely because they follow their own corrupt will, and God justly punishes their evil deeds. Augustine takes his stand for grace and salvation through election, while at the same time avoiding the horror of double predestination.

For the next several centuries, the Church would follow this Augustinian path. The Church rejected the teachings of Pelagius, and a hundred years later at the Council of Orange, issued a series of canons affirming the Augustinian position on grace and predestination. Canon 4 states that if anyone contends that God’s cleansing of man from sin is contingent upon the will then he is in error; Canon 5 states that the beginning of faith itself comes from the grace of God rather than the will of man; Canon 6 states that grace does not depend on the cooperation of man (“Canons of Orange”). As the Church moved on through the centuries, she attempted to carry on in the steps of the African Doctor in straddling the fence between grace and free will. By the beginning of the High Middle Ages, though, the Church was pulling back towards a system that acknowledged the primacy of the human will. By the turn of the twelfth century, St. Anselm of Canterbury wrote in his De Concordia that free choice co-exists with divine grace and cooperates with it (Anselm, 453). With such pronouncements, The Church had arrived at a position specifically condemned by St. Augustine (cf. Letter 225). We shall now examine how well Luther and Calvin succeeded in their attempts to return to his teachings.

Luther would be in perfect concord with Augustine in his affirmation of salvation by grace through faith. In The Bondage of the Will, though, he arrives at Augustine, but then passes him completely, arriving in territory where none have trodden before. Augustine stated that man’s fall came through his choice, and the resulting corruption of human nature resulted in a will that commits sin of its own volition. Luther does the good doctor one better, though, and asserts that the wicked man sins “under the impulse of divine power” (Luther, 130). Luther even challenges Augustine in his definition of free will, stating that, if in a fallen state the will is unable to seek God, then it is not in fact free (ibid, 113), and that Augustine and others who have called such a will free are degrading the very word (ibid, 120). Luther goes to the extreme end of the spectrum, and then beyond the pale, but recognizes and embraces this: “Therefore, we must go to extremes, deny free will altogether, and ascribe everything to God” (ibid, 133)!

Indeed, his statement that a will unable to do good is in fact under compulsion makes fine logical sense, but the end result is a man with no freedom, and one whose evil must be the responsibility of divine omnipotence. Luther here returns to the Augustinian notion that in His omnipotence God allows but does not cause the workings of evil in order to further His divine plan (ibid, 130). It almost seems here that Luther is pulling back from the brink of a precipice to which he has been running headlong, staring into an abyss to which he dare not attempt to apply his own feeble reason. And indeed, though throughout this debate on free will with Erasmus Luther employs the techniques of reason and dialectic, in the end he felt that any attempt to use reason to fathom the mind of God was a fairly silly exercise (ibid, 129). As the reformation continued, though, another figure would arrive who would see no problem in attempting to apply human reason to the workings of the Eternal God, taking every statement on grace, sin, and God’s decrees to their horrifying ends, leaping joyfully into the abyss from which Luther held back. That man was Jean Calvin.

Even the extreme bombast of Luther’s Bondage of the Will does not take the horrific final step in the picture it paints of God’s omnipotence. Like Augustine, Luther admits that since the fall, man has been a slave to sin, but Calvin finally dares to examine from whence came the fall. His conclusion, unlike Augustine’s, is that God actively caused the fall of Adam and the whole human race into sin and damnation as part of His “wonderful plan” (Institutes, XXIII, 7). The ruthless Frenchman then goes on to state that God is nonetheless just in punishing the reprobate (ibid, XXIII, 4). Though this horribly contradicts both Augustine and Justin Martyr’s writings of responsibility, Calvin barely hesitates when he states that he is leaving behind the bulk of the Church’s traditions in favor of his alleged ruthless adherence to scripture (ibid, XXII, 1). Calvin has no problem in that asserting that, since salvation is not by works, then neither is damnation (ibid, XXII, 11), and that the reason for the eternal torment of the vast majority of the human race lies, not in their guilt, but in the arbitrary choice of God.

This horror, then, is the end result of the reformation: God has arbitrarily predestined some to eternal life, and has likewise predestined others to eternal damnation. Calvin then states that certain people might object to this, stating that it makes God a cruel tyrant, to which he responds that since God is both omnipotent and the creator of everything, then all that He decrees, ipso facto, is righteous, good, and just (Institutes, XXIII, 2). He then has the chutzpah to go on and tell the reader that his dogma is not one of absolute might, since God is “free from fault,” and the quintessence of Law and Right (ibid).

Jean Calvin then, has started from Augustine, who among the Church Fathers was most friendly to predestination, and taken the teachings of predestination to their logical extreme, crafting a dogma that would have caused St. Augustine to blanch in horror. Did St. Augustine believe in divine election and predestination of believers? Most assuredly. It was up to Jean Calvin, though, to add double predestination and eliminate Augustine’s free will theodicy in favor of a God who has decreed evil and suffering for his own amusement.

I submit, though, that such questions concerning free will and predestination would inevitably have come to the fore and been the cause of controversy even without Luther and Calvin. The reason for this is that Augustine loomed large over the western Church down through the centuries, and at times there seem to be two Augustines. Why is this the case? The reason that there seem to be two St. Augustines lies in the Bible itself, since there seem to be two St. Pauls*. We have the Paul who tells the believer in Romans Chapter 9 that God prepares some men for eternal life and some for damnation, answering the obvious objection to this with a “Who are you, O man, to talk back to God” (Romans 9:20)? On the other hand, we are also told that there is a loving God who “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). Such contradictions in the Christian faith, then, were present at its inception.

Indeed, such difficulties are inevitable in any faith that attempts to posit a God who is all-powerful, all knowing, and all good. Paul, who likely never intended to be considered a basis for systematic theology, is all over the map when it comes to how to resolve such questions. As such, there is no pat resolution to these seeming contradictions. Perhaps the error of the church was to seek one; Luther is at his best not when he is glorying in the slavery of man, but when he is proclaiming the mercy of Christ.

Works Cited

Anselm of Canterbury, Saint. The Major Works. Eds. Brian Davies and G. R. Evans. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.

Augustine of Hippo, Saint. Four Anti-Pelagian Writings: On Nature and Grace, On the Proceedings of Pelagius, On the Predestination of the Saints, On the Gift of Perseverance. Trans. John A. Mourant and William J. Collinge. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992.

---. The Problem of Free Choice. Trans. Dom Mark Pontifex. New York: Newman Press, 1955.

The Problem of Free Choice. Appendix. Excerpt from Retractions.

Calvin, Jean. Excerpts from Institutes of the Christian Religion. The Protestant Reformation. Ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968. 178-221.

---. “Reply to Sadoleto.” A Reformation Debate. Ed. John C. Olin. New York, Fordham University Press, 2000. 43-88.

"The Canons of the Council of Orange.” 529 A.D. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics.

“Free Will.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Michael Maher. 1909. Transcribed 1999.

Martyr, Justin, Saint. “The Second Apology.” The Ante-Nicene Fathers. Eds. Alexander Roberts, D.D., and James Donaldson, LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1899. 188-194.

Erasmus of Rotterdam. Excerpts from The Free Will. Winter 3-94.

Luther, Martin. Excerpts from The Bondage of the Will. Winter 98-138.

[fortheDeclaration]

Your posts 251 through 255 reveal that, no matter how much we labor to explain Scriptural verities to you, you refuse to understand even the simplest things about what the Calvinist maintains from the Bible or why. It's a predestined mess. Well, I will cheerfully leave you stuck in it. What God does in this regard is His business (2 Timothy 2:26).

Thanks Doc! You speak just like a Catholic (but then your roots are the same aren't they, that nitwit Augustine), no one really understands their heresies either.

I will pop in an out to break up your Calvinist 'lovefests' from time to time.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

The choice is yours

The 'what' is mine? Come on, you really didn't say that did you? Decisions both reveal character and shape character. The decision to remain filled with the Spirit is what 'conforms' you to the image of Christ. That is why we are told not to 'grieve' or 'quench' the Holy Spirit, since we have a choice in that area. Unless, you are going to tell me that God controls that area of your life also.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

I don't think a KJV supporter should throw quite so many stones at a man who was so instrumental in the history of the KJV and other sound Reformation bibles. You know, you never have a good word to say of Calvin's huge body of work and his influence in so many areas which has endured for centuries in both religious and political matters. He was a humble learned giant and subsequent history reveals he is the greater man when compared to Luther

He was wrong in his theological approach. Now, what Arminus stated about his commentaries is correct, because in them he stays with the scripture, even where it appears to go against his own theology.

In his Institutes he throws out the Scriptures in order to maintain a philosphical position at its expense. His adherence to Augustine (as well as the rest of the Reformers) kept the Reformation from moving as far as it should in the right direction.

As a Baptist, I have no use for either Augustine nor Calvin or any Reformer when they deviated from Scripture, which was far too often.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

Not at all. Calvinists recognize the scriptural truth that man is spiritually dead. Natural man is a spiritual corpse, spiritually stillborn. Therefore, he can receive nothing unless God gives it to him first. Corpses don't cooperate. You understand, forthe, that in this sense, a Calvinist or, more simply, those who acknowledge the utter sovereignty of God in the matter of salvation see in the newly regenerate creature a spiritual creation as fresh as Adam himself was, truly a new creation given life by God's own hand? This is not a casual idea.

The 'corpse' analogy is misplaced. In Acts 17:27 Paul states that God gave man the ability to 'seek' after God, how can a corpse seek anythng? Spiritual 'death' means separation from God. It does not mean man cannot make a decison once God reveals the Gospel to him.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

And then the question why is some ground not "turned over?" It is God's "job" to prepare the soil to receive the seed..(all we do is toss it out).....yet he leaves some ground hardened..unable to receive the seed..

It is not Gods job to prepare the soil. God has given man the ability to choose (an uncause cause). Those who choose not to believe may do so for any number of reasons. They may feel they have to give us something (remember the rich young ruler?), they may still doubt, they may be fear riducule.

It is God's will that none perish, that all men come to Him, that most do not is from their own choice not His. Do you think God loves you or I more then those going to Hell?

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

Someone has called you a Pelagian. I would hasten to say that I do not consider you a Pelagian. It is a pretty deadly insult. But you are no doubt aware that there is a great deal of careless accusation on these threads

Thank you. I just consider the source.

When you deal with Calvinists it is not long before the 'Pelagian-Arminian' name calling start. Arminius was far from Pelagian, holding to a very strong depravity while Pelagious believed man had to sin before he became depraved.

Calvinists have to set everything in the Pelagious/Arminius/Calvinist paradigm in order to maintain the veneer of orthodoxy.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

Calvinists don't have to re-write the plain wording used by the KJV translators in order to make the passage say what we want, do we?

But you do have to change it to fit Calvinism. A Calvinist would have to read

Few are called but they are chosen

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

Vulgate is a corrupt text. Go to the original Greek (as Luther did) for your most faithful translation. Vulgate contains errors that have gotten passed along. This may be one of them

You are correct that the Vulgate is corrupt. It is corrupt because it comes from a corrupt Greek text, Vaticanus (B). The same Greek text that is the basis of all 'new' translations.

Even so, come Lord Jesus.

[fortheDeclaration]

Of course your not! That is the problem. They cannot even define our position correctly

Very funny!!! Isn't that what every cult crys...you are misunderstanding what we really teach!

No, the problem is that you do not want people to really understand what you teach for it makes God a monster!

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

yet they refuse

You got it right there-THEY REFUSE

Why is this so difficult for you to understand (the wicked like being wicked (Ps.10). Satan rejected God did he not? Gee, do you think he had free will.

And before 'doc' brings in his 'song and dance' about 'cause and effect', the final cause in Satan's refusal to serve God is his own will.

Now, the reality is God accepted the fall of Satan so that the service of a Micheal would be given freely and that is pleasing to God. God takes pleasure (now there is a word foreign to Calvinism) in the free response of His creatures.

Now, all Calvinists can think of is glory, but the glory that God receives is accomplishing what pleases Him (Rev.4:11)

Even so,come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

You still don't apprehend our Biblical position. The soil is hard and barren and like a desert precisely becase man has already made his choice: Professing to be wise, we became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we in agreement. When the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us; for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves. Who are you to complain because God is pleased to leave most men to wallow in their hatred for Him? All men everywhere have made their choice. The Bible is crystal clear about this. God, in His infinite grace toward some, has chosen to redeem some of us not for our sakes but for His name's sake. If the Gospel was designed so that it resulted in salvation due to some merit on our part, it would reduce the Gospel to a monstrosity:

If, as you say we all have made out choice (being born into sin) why does not God simply save everyone?

Why are some the 'chosen'and the others left barren? It is God that who is do the choosing is it not? Yes, man has 'free will' but it is only free to choose against God! It can never seek God can it, even if God Himself makes it possible to do so! (Acts.17:27)

The Calvinist view of 'free will' is the monstrosity along with the rest of TULIP

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

It's a predestined mess

Now,thats something I do understand about Calvinism!

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

Well, I will cheerfully leave you stuck in it. What God does in this regard is His business (2 Timothy 2:26).

And Titus 3:10 right back at you!

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

We have a God of Love,and mercy

Not the God of Calvinism! Oh, no. God has made His choice who will spend eternity forever in bliss and the rest to burn forever in the Lake of Fire.

No, the god of John Calvin is not the God of Jn.3:16!. Jn.16:9 states that the reason a person goes to hell is for not believing, not because he was not chosen.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[fortheDeclaration]

list "we look through a glass darkly" .Doctrine is not the root of our salvation........Jesus Christ is.

The final plank in the Calvinist defense-we cannot understand the workings of God (Deut.29:29)even if they contradict what the Scriptures teach about His love and mercy-let Allah be praised!

So it is we who do not understand what you are saying when your ultimate answer is-we cannot really understand!

Even though it contradicts Scripture, well so, much for Scripture, we have our feelings or philosophical opinions to cling to, those are more important then any scripture.

Even so, come Lord Jesus

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Someone has called you a Pelagian. I would hasten to say that I do not consider you a Pelagian. It is a pretty deadly insult. But you are no doubt aware that there is a great deal of careless accusation on these threads. 256 posted on 1/16/02 5:11 AM Pacific by George W. Bush

FWIW, in this case the accusation is probably warranted.

While it would be tempting to avoid the danger of false accusation by simply considering fortheDeclaration to be a "Semi-Pelagian" rather than a full-blown Pelagian, in past tangles with Woody, ftD has gone so far as to deny the omniscient foreknowledge of God in regard to free human choices.

You know the only way your usage would work would be to say God knew the most private thoughts that we would have, one being, who would respond to the Gospel and who would not. - fortheDeclaration

This denial of God's Determinate Foreknowledge places fortheDeclaration well beyond the errors of mere Pelagianism, deep into the fatal error of the Socinian heresy.

The problem with a heretic who denies God's omniscient foreknowledge is that you are no longer debating with a fellow Nicene-creed Christian about the nature of God's relations to Man; you are debating with someone who is fatally confused about the nature of God Himself. Since he apprehends that God's perfect Foreknowledge of Man's choices necessarily implies predestination (for if God sovereignly intended that the Man should make different choices, He could simply create the Man differently in the first place), he has sought to resolve the difficulty in favor of "Man's Will" by denying God's omniscience.

The trouble is, a "god" whose omniscience is denied is not the God of the Bible at all, but a stupid, bumbling little "god" of ftD's own imagining. FortheDeclaration may call his "god" by the name of "Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit", but he might as well call him "Big Guy, Junior and the Spook". He's NOT the God of the Bible, he's just an impotent little Hearth Idol who doesn't know the End from the Beginning.

[George W. Bush]

While it would be tempting to avoid the danger of false accusation by simply considering fortheDeclaration to be a "Semi-Pelagian" rather than a full-blown Pelagian, in past tangles with Woody, ftD has gone so far as to deny the omniscient foreknowledge of God in regard to free human choices.

Actually, I gave this some thought. I can't decide if he belongs in the semi-Pelagian camp. But since that is where I consider the RC church to be, I don't like that.

I've decided he's an ordinary Arminian.

You know the only way your usage would work would be to say God knew the most private thoughts that we would have, one being, who would respond to the Gospel and who would not. - fortheDeclaration

This reminds me of when the Nazarene minister Randy was here and telling us that God used a crystal ball to look into the future and create the prophecy of the Bible and then threw away his crystal ball so He wouldn't violate our free will. Well, he didn't write it exactly that way. But the case is similar. One sees a retreat from obvious Bible truth in order to support the radical free-will position, a view of human history in which the entire point of God's plan was man's choice.

It seems we fight the pro-choicers on all fronts, doesn't it? They ask "What have I decided?" and we ask "What has God ordained?". It's a Great Divide.

I was reading some material by Custance on the history of the period between Augustine and the Reformation, the rise of semi-Pelagianism and such. In some respects, it seems that these classifications are a little bit plastic. And the history of this period has some strange turns, perhaps something that people would enjoy reading more about. I know I did. But the chapter from the Custance book is just too long to post on FR.

Are semi-Pelagian and Arminian essentially interchangable terms? How does one distinguish? Is the difference merely theological or is it salvific (involving fatal error)?

[OrthodoxPresbyterian]

Actually, I gave this some thought. I can't decide if he belongs in the semi-Pelagian camp.... This reminds me of when the Nazarene minister Randy was here and telling us that God used a crystal ball to look into the future and create the prophecy of the Bible and then threw away his crystal ball so He wouldn't violate our free will. Well, he didn't write it exactly that way. But the case is similar. One sees a retreat from obvious Bible truth in order to support the radical free-will position, a view of human history in which the entire point of God's plan was man's choice.

That's pretty much my point. On the one hand, we could argue that Woody over-states his case in calling ftD "Pelagian", seeing as ftD's soteriology probably is the lesser Semi-Pelagian/Arminian error, not full-blown Pelagianism per se (near as I can tell). BUT, on the other hand, ftD's theology is downright Socinian -- which is an even greater error than Pelagianism!! (Well, his Triadology might be trinitarian, sure, but his theology is still essentially Socinian)

I don't remember seeing "Randy's" posts on FR, but taking your summation as a basically-accurate run-down of his views, it illustrates my last post... these guys are making up God as they go along to satisfy the constraints of the humanocentric "It's all about Me!!" theological-construct to which they have already committed.

In other words, God and His incommunicable attributes are pretty much expendable in the cause of Man's Sovereignty.

I was reading some material by Custance on the history of the period between Augustine and the Reformation, the rise of semi-Pelagianism and such. In some respects, it seems that these classifications are a little bit plastic. And the history of this period has some strange turns, perhaps something that people would enjoy reading more about. I know I did. But the chapter from the Custance book is just too long to post on FR. Are semi-Pelagian and Arminian essentially interchangable terms? How does one distinguish? Is the difference merely theological or is it salvific (involving fatal error)?

They can be, and have been, a little "plastic" in application; but if memory serves, Augustine's exhortations towards the "Massilian heretics" (the original "semi-Pelagians") suggested to me that their views were awfully close to the mass of professing Christians whom we would call today by the name, "Arminian". And, again racking my memory (it's been like a year-and-a-half since I last read Augustine's letters to the Massilians), Augustine did regard the Massilians differently than the Pelagians... treating them as badly-confused and potentially divisive Christian heretics, but generally not regarding them as unregenerate blasphemers like (many of) the Pelagians.

HOWEVER, the Massilians did not deny the omniscince of God!! While they glorified Man's Free Will, their position was akin to that of the Arminian "Buggman" on FreeRepublic -- giving a quick-and-dirty retelling of my exchange with Bugg, when I showed Buggman the Chorazin/Bethsaida passage, his response boiled down to "Well, as long as we agree that the Tyrians and Sidonians did have a free and uncompelled choice in the matter, I have no argument with the fact that God in effect 'predestined' their choice by His sovereign control of the conditions and events which inform their free will one way or the other".

That kind of Arminian I believe I can sup with in reasonable fellowship. He's confused about the sheer depth of Man's spiritually-ruinous Fall; and he's probably misunderstood the Calvinist teaching on "Irresistible Grace" (which, as Jerry_M once explained, usually has more in common with the most irresistible cherry-cheesecake ever fixed, than the most irresistible bulldozer [though in Paul's case, Grace was akin to a bulldozer]).... But at least Bugg is willing to let God be God!! At least Bugg admits of real Omniscience and a real sort of absolute Predestination, albeit with different mechanics.

The trouble is, many Arminians these days are not so willing to let God be in charge. They are not merely looking to safeguard their understanding of "Man's Free Will", within the context of Created Time, as is Buggman; they are looking to take God out of the driver's seat altogether -- even denying His absolute Foreknowledge if they have to... which, in order to install Man upon the Throne of Sovereignty, they do.

So while their error might look like just another case of soteriological semi-Pelagianism (the spiritual equivalent of an unhealthy case of pneumonia), if you scratch underneath the surface, you'll find a far more serious case of theological Socinianism (the spiritual equivalent of fatal Pneumonic Plague).

And that's the problem. For many of today's Arminians, their arminianism is not their biggest problem... it is merely a soteriological symptom of a far more serious spiritual cancer, the question of whether God, or Man, shall be acknowledged as Lord.

[George W. Bush]

That's pretty much my point. On the one hand, we could argue that Woody over-states his case in calling ftD "Pelagian", seeing as ftD's soteriology probably is the lesser Semi-Pelagian/Arminian error, not full-blown Pelagianism per se (near as I can tell). BUT, on the other hand, ftD's theology is downright Socinian -- which is an even greater error than Pelagianism!! (Well, his Triadology might be trinitarian, sure, but his theology is still essentially Socinian)

I only made the distinction because I wouldn't call the RC's true Pelagians. They are semi-Pelagian at worst, perhaps tending toward Arminianism for ecumenical purposes. As for Socinianism, I'm not sure that ftD has really said enough in a serious enough way to conclude this. It is possible to overread a person's comments fired off in the haste of doctrinal battle. And ftD and I had our most serious disagreement on the Trinity. Go figure.

I don't remember seeing "Randy's" posts on FR, but taking your summation as a basically-accurate run-down of his views, it illustrates my last post... these guys are making up God as they go along to satisfy the constraints of the humanocentric "It's all about Me!!" theological-construct to which they have already committed.

Randy was rsdillon. Your point is well-taken. An Arminian is truly at the center of the universe and it is his choice by which he merits such placement theologically. A Calvinist is looking at his God at the center of the universe. A major difference.

That kind of Arminian I believe I can sup with in reasonable fellowship. He's confused about the sheer depth of Man's spiritually-ruinous Fall; and he's probably misunderstood the Calvinist teaching on "Irresistible Grace" (which, as Jerry_M once explained, usually has more in common with the most irresistible cherry-cheesecake ever fixed, than the most irresistible bulldozer [though in Paul's case, Grace was akin to a bulldozer]).... But at least Bugg is willing to let God be God!! At least Bugg admits of real Omniscience and a real sort of absolute Predestination, albeit with different mechanics.

Agreed. I had missed Jerry's very apt illustration before so I appreciate your recall of it. A nice presentation.

The trouble is, many Arminians these days are not so willing to let God be in charge. They are not merely looking to safeguard their understanding of "Man's Free Will", within the context of Created Time, as is Buggman; they are looking to take God out of the driver's seat altogether -- even denying His absolute Foreknowledge if they have to... which, in order to install Man upon the Throne of Sovereignty, they do.

So while their error might look like just another case of soteriological semi-Pelagianism (the spiritual equivalent of an unhealthy case of pneumonia), if you scratch underneath the surface, you'll find a far more serious case of theological Socinianism (the spiritual equivalent of fatal Pneumonic Plague).

I just liked quoting that because it was worth repeating. As I said, perhaps we should have a thread sometime on the post-Augustinian period and the predestinarians in it.

And that's the problem. For many of today's Arminians, their arminianism is not their biggest problem... it is merely a soteriological symptom of a far more serious spiritual cancer, the question of whether God, or Man, shall be acknowledged as Lord.

Sovereignty is always the issue. You write of it so well. Hopefully, one of these days you'll recognize that banking is unimportant and devote yourself to professional Christian writing on history and doctrine. Few of us are really capable of it. But you could.