FIRST, the argument that "that God foreknew that those of Tyre and Sidon would fall from the faith they embraced after they had believed the miracles" is NOT Augustine's position at all, but a position which he clearly identifies as being advanced by another disputant -- a position he goes on to criticize!! How could you possibly miss this, given that it is Augustine's very first sentence.
I'm actually somewhat embarrassed that, in my zeal, I tried to translate this passage from the Latin, and made an insignificant error. I put into his mouth the words of another whom he is citing approvingly -- whose position he is implicitly adopting.
But it seems that reading it in an English translation (and, let's remember, every translation is an interpretation), OP made a much more serious blunder.
If you will re-read this passage, Augustine is not criticizing the position of the disputant who argues that miracles were withheld from Tyre and Sidon lest they believe and therefore offend God later by abandoning the Faith. He is actually using that very theory (i.e., "that no dead person is judged for those sins which He foreknew that he would have done, if in some manner he were not helped not to do them") to argue against another theory -- the theory that God punishes souls for uncommitted but foreseen sins. That theory is a very different matter -- and that is the theory that he thinks "shame even to refute."
Having corrected your significant misreading of this passage, the remainder of your preening, self-aggrandizing strophes blow away in the wind like so much intellectual flatulence. No offense.
Why, oh why, the persistence of this self-misleading tendency among the Protestants to excise (or, better, "rip") texts out of context in breathtaking disrespect for their true meaning. This is something that must be ingrained in their youth -- and probably results from being taught to treat Holy Scripture in the same manner.
How can you possibly attribute to Augustine an argument ("IT MAY BE OBJECTED THAT THE PEOPLE OF TYRE AND SIDON MIGHT, IF THEY HAD HEARD, HAVE BELIEVED, AND HAVE SUBSEQUENTLY LAPSED FROM THEIR FAITH") which he specifically says is A.) Not his; B.) Fatally vulnerable to the critique that even if God were worried about Tyre and Sidon falling away, He could just call them from life before they fell; and C.) is therefore such a worthless objection he is not even going to waste any more of his valuable time bothering to refute?
As explained above, you have completely misapprehended this passage. But let's further examine the crux of this matter -- the Calvinist teaching on divine "reprobation without demerit," and the Calvinists' claim that St. Augustine supports this teaching.
One endorsing the Calvinist claim would have to suppose that Augustine developed his doctrine in absolute contradiction of at least six of his own writings on the subject:(1) "On Correction and Grace," 13, Para. 42; (2) "On Merits and Remission of Sins" 2, Para. 17-26; (3) "Against Felix the Manichean," 2, Para. 8; (4) "On 88 Diff. Ques.," 68, Para 4; (5) "Commentary on the Gospel of St. John," 53, Para. 6; and (6) "On Instructing the Ignorant," 52.
One must then suppose that Augustine also developed this "doctrine" in complete contradiction of all of the Greek Fathers who addressed (and rejected) the teaching -- St. John Damascene, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nazianus, and Theodoret.
One must further suppose that St. Augustine decided to place himself also in opposition to all the Latin Fathers who had decided against this "doctrine" -- St. Ambrose, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and St. Jerome.
Finally (and perhaps most tellingly), one would have to claim that St. Augustine's best and most devoted pupil, St. Prosper of Acquitaine, the great defender of Augustinian theology, just up and contradicted his master on this highly salient point. For St. Prosper, like the Greek and Latin Fathers, wholly rejects this notion of reprobation without demerit. In "Responses to Objections of the Gauls," 3, St. Prosper writes, "for this reason they were not predestined, because they were foreseen as going to be such as a result of voluntary transgression...therefore, just as good works are to be attributed to God who inspires them, so evil works are to be attributed to those who sin." And he further states at 7, Para. 85, "He foresaw that they would fall by their very own will, and for this reason He did not separate them from the sons of perdition by predestination. In "Responses to the objections of the Vincentians," 12, Proper states, "because they were foreseen as going to fall, they were not predestined."
Personally, I have always been fascinated by the way Calvinists fixate on out-of-context quotations from Augustine -- usually over-the-top, imprecise statements made in heat of debate with the Pelagians -- like so many moths to a flame. But, of course, they cannot get too close to the flame, lest they be burned. So they content themselves with their isolated quotations, but generally ignore the full body of his teaching, particularly on the issues of human freedom, the Real Presence, Petrine Primacy, and the indispensable role of the Holy Virgin in God's salvific plan.
Hello! History teaches that Tyre and Sidon were converted within three years of the Resurrection. So it was the same generation. Irrelevant to the case at hand on two grounds.
This is by no means the first time that you claim "irrelevance" on an issue on which you have been pinned. Suffice it to say that whether or not it was the same generation was quite relevant to you in a prior post. As to your two retorts, we don't know how long "long ago" was when Our Lord used the term. When someone says, "such-and-such would have happened long ago if..." the phrase "long ago" is almost always used as an emphatic figure of speech, and, moreover, in such cases time itself is not necessarily even being considered. As to why Sodom was not converted, I'm sure St. Augustine would refer to the Pauline hymn on the unfathomable depths of the Divine Mystery.
I am trying to take it easy on you. We have been examining your citations one at a time, and so far (On Predestination and On Perseverance) you are 0 for 2. That does not bode well for you as we continue.
Thanks for the kind thoughts, but meekness begins at home. I'm thinking you should learn to relax -- that might help you better understand what you read.
Or that, as he matured in the Faith, Augustine deliberately retracted many of the anti-predestinarian positions of his youth... because this learned Doctor of the Church frankly recognized that any deviation from Absolute Predestination was dead wrong.
As I demonstrate above, we know where Augustine stood not only through his own writings, but also through the writings of his most devoted pupil, St. Prosper. And St. Prosper does not endorse reprobation without demerits.
As an aside, OP's little soliloquy immediately above is interesting for an entirely different reason. It is a fine example of the curious Protestant habit of using Catholic terminology as some sort of "window dressing" on Protestant faith and practice. I suppose the point is to give some ersatz credibility to their relatively new-on-the-scene doctrinal innovations. The term "Doctor of the Church," of course, is a title of tremendous honor bestowed by the pope on souls whose writings contributed much to the fuller understanding of the Faith.
But... you've just horribly botched two in a row... not good....Especially if you can't even read that single work correctly.... Poor Calvin will have to wait. Right now, even the "simplest child" would be aghast at your string of exegetical mishaps in consideration of just two of Augustine's works. This is the problem which orthodox Protestants face. Rome thinks that we do not sufficiently respect the Patristics; meanwhile, we sometimes wonder if Rome can even manage to read them.
Rich stuff. But, as I have demonstrated above, it is you who misread the passage. I am going to assume that you were not wearing your glasses. Remember -- wearing glasses when you read is essential for the Orthodox Presbyopian.
I will not further publicly humiliate you on this issue. If you wish to continue to publicly humiliate yourself, you are, of course, free to do so.
I gave Squire fair warning about this, so when Squire protested again in his #1042, I knew he was a goat headed for the slaughter in this debate....
The proletarian triumphalism of certain strains of American Protestantism is not least among its unattractive characteristics. But I think you spoke too soon -- and, I will assume, before you read what OP actually wrote.
Since I am the fellow who first informed Squire that he didn't understand Augustine, I think I ought to give a broad outline of our overall exchange with Squire. I believe that this will be important for lurkers who care enough about the overall conflict between Protestants and RCs to go back and re-trace what was said....Squire immediately protested in his #1039 with a cute display of what I would call only a Romanist scholar's general familiarity with Augustine. I responded in #1041 that Squire was still over his head in the discussion. My point was that all Squire really knows about Augustine's position is ROME'S PARTY LINE CONCERNING AUGUSTINE--which is, to put it bluntly, an outright LIE....Unlike Squire, I did already know Augustine's position. Unlike Squire, who presupposes that the Church of Rome is honest, I knew that we could quickly prove that the Church of Rome was lying in the sixteenth century and has continued lying to this very day....My #1043--which I respectfully submit is probably worth reading if you are a lurker on this thread--reiterated my overall warning to Squire concerning his ignorance of Augustine's double-predestinarian teaching and then handed off the argument to OrthodoxPresbyterian. I knew OP would crush Squire pretty quickly.
Quick question -- do you suffer hematochezia when you unload this rubbish? As demonstrated above, you know neither Augustine, nor the Greek Fathers, nor the Latin Fathers, nor the students actually taught by Augustine.
The absolute, double predestinarian position of the Reformers, which position the RCs loathed in the sixteenth century and still loathe to this very day, was AUGUSTINE'S POSITION. And when you grasp Augustine's Scriptural understanding of the doctrine of reprobation--specifically, predestination to hell!--the whole mess is almost hilarious.
What is actually (not "almost") hilarious is how you cling to this fantasy that Augustine supports you when six of his major works (cited above) reject the idea of reprobation without demerit, all of the Greek Fathers who address the issue reject it, all of the Latin Fathers who address the issue reject it, and the great "defender of Augustine," St. Prosper rejects it.
And, oh yes, almost all Protestants reject it. Among the great Protestant theologians, we've already noted Guerillat's position against Calvin. But we also have Cunningham, Dorner, Harnack, and Barth, who cannot even find in the Scripture cited by Calvin any support for this teaching.
Again, the reason why I knew this [that "OP would crush Squire"] is because Augustine really was on the side of Luther and Calvin in this astonishingly important doctrine of the Reformation. And I knew that this is not hard to demonstrate.
Consistency is usually a plus in life, as long as one is not consistently wrong. Please see above -- you are having quite a hard time demonstrating your position.
As I said above, this is a pretty fierce controversy. But it is by no means as fierce as the Reformation itself was. My goodness, untold numbers of Protestants were murdered by Rome. The modern RC's refusal to face that murderous fact reminds me of the anti-semitic freaks who claim that the holocaust of WWII didn't really happen.
I'm assuming that you have not studied European history in depth, or, if you have, that you did not write the above statement with a straight face. Many, many people died at the hands of both Protestant and Catholic during and after the so-called Reformation. The formally canonized English martyrs under Henry VIII, Edward VII, "Queen" Elizabeth I, James I, and Charles I number in the hundreds. But those who were actually martyred at Protestant hands number in the thousands. And what of those secular martyrs, the tens of thousands of "The Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants," whom Luther offered up in sacrifice to curry princeling favor?
One of the more interesting statements of the rabidly anti-Catholic historian Edmund Gibbon is that all the auto-da-fe's of Spain [the number of which English historians habitually obscenely exaggerate] do not collectively enrage him as much as Calvin's judicial murder of Servetus. I think Gibbon traces his disgust of Calvin to the manner in which Calvin cloaked himself in pharisaical, doctrinal robes in the matter, when, in fact, he wanted Servetus dead because Servetus had bested him in a debate. And then, of course, the mendacious way in which Calvin tried to later deflect his responsibility in the matter and claim that he had sought mercy for the man. Outrageous.
No one's hands are clean in this business. The only real difference is that the Catholic Church, in the persons of Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II [the Great], has acknowledged the sins of Catholics in this matter and asked forgiveness.
Under the circumstances of what we Protestants do know and what today's RCs do not know, we cannot help but maintain this to our FReeper friends. Therefore, insinuating that we are Talibans for being so bold as to take a stand on a terribly important matter--as Squire did insinuate in his #1034--is just an example of the malevolent, truth-hating spirit of the RCs on our forum.
Actually, my reference to the Tora Bora caves was not to compare you to the Taliban per se. It was to suggest that your silence (and the silence of others) in the face of several of your friends' pleas for help was, perhaps, a little cowardly. The reference had nothing to do with religious practices. Don't be so touchy.
My take on this debate, the take of any honest lurker, is that OrthodoxPresbyterian has made good on his promise to crush Squire in the argument.
Um...that was your take on the debate before it even began.
The Church of Rome, which Squire has defended doggedly and with as much skill as a former lawyer could muster, is found guilty of the most flagrant of perjuries concerning the doctrine of predestination and specifically concerning Augustine's teachings concerning the absoluteness of God's predestination.
"My take" on this statement is that you indict yourself with this kind of twaddle. Pun intended.
The pompous defenders of the Papacy scoffed at Calvin and Luther for not understanding Augustine. But Calvin and Luther did understand Augustine, just as OrthodoxPresbyterian and I understand Augustine!)
As demonstrated above, you and OP misunderstand Augustine just as Luther and Calvin misunderstood. Call it tradition with a lower-case "t."
As for pompous, no papal bull I've ever read can touch the Institutes on the big ole "P" meter.
As an aside, I will point out to lurkers that Squire is quite bright (especially for someone who is now in medical school). No question about it.
Thanks, bro!
But when OrthodoxPresbyterian charged that Squire is intellectually incompetent to understand Augustine or the Bible, OP was merely making a spiritual observation.
Oh, okay.
Sin is intellectually incapacitating in ways which proud sinners will not face squarely. And that refusal to face reality squarely is the incapacitation itself.
Indeed.
Maybe Squire will come up to speed--and admit that he has been on the wrong side the whole time. Then again, maybe he won't. How about the rest of my FReeper friends?
What did Will Durant say about Calvin, something like, "unforgettable is the stain his teaching placed on the human consciousness." The unspeakable notion of reprobation without demerit is something that I will never endorse. But there's hope for you! The gentle St. Francis de Sales managed to re-convert to the Faith both the Chablais and most of Geneva. His has a way with the Calvinist mind, I think. For you, doc (and OP), I prescribe a healthy dose of his Introduction to the Devout Life. It's a true classic, and will help you better understand the notion of divine filiation. Also terrific (better?) on this issue is St. Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul. By the way, she's our latest "Doctor of the Church."
Time to hit the sack. It's gonna be a bad week on Gyn Onc. Time is increasingly short owing to wards responsibilities, an upcoming presentation, and a looming heinous OB/Gyn test. I'll check back when I can. It would also be helpful to me if y'all's future posts were a little more "economical." More substance, less bloviation. OK?
LOL Pot ...kettle ..black..
Insignificant?!?!
Good grief, man, your botch was, and remains, thunderous. The argument which you are attempting to use as your "escape hatch" for Matthew 11 Augustine does not endorse; he soundly refutes it.
Since you still manage to miss this point (again proving that, for your own good, you should certainly not attempt to demonstrate your "proficiency" with Augustine at the next My Ego Needs Some Affirmation show-and-tell), it appears that I shall have to hammer you with it again...
I put into his mouth the words of another whom he is citing approvingly -- whose position he is implicitly adopting.
Oh, really??
Augustine may have had kind words for the person of his fellow-Catholic disputant, but that does not constitute and endorsement of the fellow's argument. As concerns absolute predestination, Augustine refuted the fellow's argument.
Remember, squire: When considering your proposal that "It may be objected that the people of Tyre and Sidon might, if they had heard, have believed, and have subsequently lapsed from their faith", Augustine offers the devastating counter-argument...
...that if this view were true (that God foreknew a presumed potentiality that Tyre and Sidon would fall away), why then would God not call the Tyrians and Sidonians away from life, before they fell away? And he further twists the blade by which he has just felled this argument by observing that ("I am ignorant what reply can be made") He sees no possible answer to his criticism of the argument.
So tell me.... do you see anywhere in the whole of On Perseverance, or any of Augustine's other works, where Augustine sees fit to refute his own counter-argument against your Matthew 11 "escape hatch" -- that, if God were worried about the Tyrians falling from their hypothetical faith, He could simply call them from life once they had believed? Because Augustine says in On Perseverance that he does not believe that there is an answer to his criticism of the argument.
So, unless you can produce an Augustinian answer to Augustine's assault upon the "Tyre and Sidon might have subsequently lapsed from their faith" position, we shall be forced to the rather unsavory conclusion that you have somehow managed to horrifically botch the SAME passage of Augustine in the SAME way, twice in a row!!
Having corrected your significant misreading of this passage, the remainder of your preening, self-aggrandizing strophes blow away in the wind like so much intellectual flatulence. No offense.
No offense taken. After all, it is you who are now trying to play through with a 7-high Bluff... having crushed your ridiculous misreading of Augustine once, it remains only for me to crush you yet again, since you make exactly the same mistake this time around.
Indeed, while Augustine does argue against "the theory that God punishes souls for uncommitted but foreseen sins" -- saying that even if one adopted the view that Tyre and Sidon were foreknown to fall away from their hypothetical faith, this would not constitute a punishment for uncommitted but foreseen sins.
But since Neither one of us is taking that position in the first place, I can't imagine why you would think Augustine's comments thereupon are in any way relevant, so it makes little sense to me that you would bring those comments into this debate (although I suspect it is because your are looking for an intellectual "hidey-hole" in which to shelter yourself from shame). See, "punishment for uncommitted but foreseen sins" -- that's not what OUR argument even concerns. OUR argument concerns whether or not Augustine endorses the "escape hatch" from Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11 that you have proposed: God withheld grace based on foreknown falling-away.
And not only does Augustine himself not endorse the argument, but he lays down a condition enjoining you not to use the argument until you meet his objection:
In fact you have NO answer, and you know it. And so you have just horrifically botched your Augustine YET AGAIN.
Why, oh why, the persistence of this self-misleading tendency among the Protestants to excise (or, better, "rip") texts out of context in breathtaking disrespect for their true meaning. This is something that must be ingrained in their youth -- and probably results from being taught to treat Holy Scripture in the same manner.
You're playing a 7-high Bluff.
And me, I'm winning all your chips, hand after hand.
This isn't a debate, it's a slaughter.
As explained above, you have completely misapprehended this passage. But let's further examine the crux of this matter -- the Calvinist teaching on divine "reprobation without demerit," and the Calvinists' claim that St. Augustine supports this teaching.
Oops... Calvinists do not teach "reprobation without demerit".
Election confirmed by the calling of God. The reprobate bring upon themselves the righteous destruction to which they are doomed. -- chapter heading, Chapter 24 Book III, Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin.
Now, if you are not intellectually competent to read Calvin, I suppose that you will read "reprobation without demerit" into his works where it does not exist. This is not hard if you excise pieces of Calvin's work, and ignore others. But his own choice of Chapter Headings should make his over-arching view plain enough: The reprobate bring upon themselves the righteous destruction to which they are doomed, not "reprobation without demerit".
Ergo, Calvinists do not teach "reprobation without demerit", nor do we claim that Augustine taught this (why would we?).
We DO teach that Augustine did affirm Absolute and Pre-Determining Sovereign Predestination in Matthew 11, and we DO teach that Augustine specifically denied you the use of the "escape hatch" that you wish to use -- the objection "that the people of Tyre and Sidon might, if they had heard, have believed, and have subsequently lapsed from their faith".
For deny it he did. Augustine lays down the condition that, before he will permit you to use this "escape hatch" to get out of Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, you MUST ANSWER his question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"?
You have managed to completely misread Augustine in the same embarassing way twice in a row now, and you STILL don't have any answer to his question, do you?
One endorsing the Calvinist claim would have to suppose that Augustine developed his doctrine in absolute contradiction of at least six of his own writings on the subject:(1) "On Correction and Grace," 13, Para. 42; (2) "On Merits and Remission of Sins" 2, Para. 17-26; (3) "Against Felix the Manichean," 2, Para. 8; (4) "On 88 Diff. Ques.," 68, Para 4; (5) "Commentary on the Gospel of St. John," 53, Para. 6; and (6) "On Instructing the Ignorant," 52.
All of the above predicated upon your incorrect belief that Calvin taught "reprobation without demerit" and that Calvinists think Augustine did too. Calvin did not teach this, ergo, your entire paragraph is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the "escape hatch" that you NEED in order to escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, Augustine has DENIED to you with the question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"? And you STILL have no answer for him.
One must then suppose that Augustine also developed this "doctrine" in complete contradiction of all of the Greek Fathers who addressed (and rejected) the teaching -- St. John Damascene, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nazianus, and Theodoret.
All of the above predicated upon your incorrect belief that Calvin taught "reprobation without demerit" and that Calvinists think Augustine did too. Calvin did not teach this, ergo, your entire paragraph is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the "escape hatch" that you NEED in order to escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, Augustine has DENIED to you with the question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"? And you STILL have no answer for him.
One must further suppose that St. Augustine decided to place himself also in opposition to all the Latin Fathers who had decided against this "doctrine" -- St. Ambrose, St. Hilary of Poitiers, and St. Jerome.
All of the above predicated upon your incorrect belief that Calvin taught "reprobation without demerit" and that Calvinists think Augustine did too. Calvin did not teach this, ergo, your entire paragraph is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the "escape hatch" that you NEED in order to escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, Augustine has DENIED to you with the question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"? And you STILL have no answer for him.
Finally (and perhaps most tellingly), one would have to claim that St. Augustine's best and most devoted pupil, St. Prosper of Acquitaine, the great defender of Augustinian theology, just up and contradicted his master on this highly salient point. For St. Prosper, like the Greek and Latin Fathers, wholly rejects this notion of reprobation without demerit. In "Responses to Objections of the Gauls," 3, St. Prosper writes, "for this reason they were not predestined, because they were foreseen as going to be such as a result of voluntary transgression...therefore, just as good works are to be attributed to God who inspires them, so evil works are to be attributed to those who sin." And he further states at 7, Para. 85, "He foresaw that they would fall by their very own will, and for this reason He did not separate them from the sons of perdition by predestination. In "Responses to the objections of the Vincentians," 12, Proper states, "because they were foreseen as going to fall, they were not predestined."
All of the above predicated upon your incorrect belief that Calvin taught "reprobation without demerit" and that Calvinists think Augustine did too. Calvin did not teach this, ergo, your entire paragraph is irrelevant.
Meanwhile, the "escape hatch" that you NEED in order to escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, Augustine has DENIED to you with the question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"? And you STILL have no answer for him.
Personally, I have always been fascinated by the way Calvinists fixate on out-of-context quotations from Augustine -- usually over-the-top, imprecise statements made in heat of debate with the Pelagians -- like so many moths to a flame. But, of course, they cannot get too close to the flame, lest they be burned. So they content themselves with their isolated quotations, but generally ignore the full body of his teaching, particularly on the issues of human freedom, the Real Presence, Petrine Primacy, and the indispensable role of the Holy Virgin in God's salvific plan.
The "isolated question" in this case is whether or not you are mentally capable of reading Augustine.
You have just thunderously botched your reading of Augustine TWICE in the SAME way. Meanwhile, the "escape hatch" that you NEED in order to escape Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, Augustine has DENIED to you with the question, "why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding"? And you STILL have no answer for him.
Note -- While Prosper endorses the theory that "because they were foreseen as going to fall, they were not predestined", the fact remains (my constant repetition is born of the hope that maybe, just maybe, you will notice this key point of contention this time around and not hang yourself with your own Augustine a third time in a row) that Augustine requires of any (like yourself or Prosper) who would attempt to use this argument, "he perhaps might answer who was pleased in such a way to solve the above question... why this advantage should not have been given to the Tyrians and Sidonians, that they might believe and be taken away, lest wickedness should alter their understanding."
If God were worried about the Tyrians and the Sidonians falling away, why not just call them away from life?
Augustine predicted that any who would try to use the "foreseen falling-away" argument would have NO answer to this question.
Apparently, Prosper didn't.
Apparently, you don't either.
Apparently, no one in the whole of Romanism has an answer for Augustine.