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.
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...
In the immortal words of breathless Klintonite Ann Lewis, "I think we all need to step back and take a deep breath." Please re-read this paragraph on Augustine. Augustine is saying that he agrees with the notion that God did not give the Tyrians and Sidonites the Faith in order to avoid their greater guilt upon later losing it. To the quasi-objection, "why didn't God just give them the Faith and take them from this world before they lost it," he essentially answers, "good question." He is not writing in a hectoring or ironic tone -- as you seem to believe. Augustine honestly does not know how to answer that question. Here again, one can almost hear him tuning up to chant that Pauline hymn to the unfathomable depths of the Divine Mystery.
As for the MENSA crack, probably well-deserved, and, admittedly, pretty funny. But to tell the truth, I have enough self-affirmation from knowing that I am a son of God, a son of Mary, and a son of the Church of Jesus Christ -- Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman.
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.
I haven't seen any rock-solid historical evidence in support of this theory, but I believe that Calvin was somehow paid by the word. He has no desire to say in 100 words what might be said in 10,000 words. For the sake of FreeRepublic disk space, I will turn to Calvin's beloved disciple, Beza, to sum up Calvin's teaching on predestination.
In the Mombelghartes Conferences, Beza writes, "God, an infinitely wise architect, and whose wisdom is unlimited, when He determined to create the world, and especially the human race had a certain proposed end...For the eternal and immutable purpose of God was antecedent to all causes, because He decreed in Himself from eternity to create all me for His own glory. But the glory of God is neither acknowledged nor celebrated, unless his mercy and justice is declared. Therefore, He made an eternal and immutable decree by which He destined some particular individuals, of mere grace, to eternal life, and some, by an act of judgment, to eternal damnation, that He might declare His mercy in the former, but His justice in the latter...."
The Calvinist teaching then, is that certain men are created specifically for the purpose that they be damned. OP, think about it -- such a teaching represents reprobation without demerit par excellence. Calvin did not necessarily use the words "reprobation without demerit" -- he may even have denied that he was teaching that heresy -- but for all practical purposes, the created-to-be-damned model is reprobation-without-demerit on a scale of which the early heretics could not have conceived. By claiming that Augustine endorses the notion of so-called double predestination, Calvinists attempt to make Augustine complicit with Calvin in this error.
On account of this created-to-be-damned teaching, Trent sensed a neo-Manichean flavor in Calvin -- that there is a good side of God (i.e.., creating-to-save) and an evil side of God (i.e., creating-to-damn). I myself will not at this time apply the neo-Manichean label to Calvin, primarily because I don't want to insult the Manicheans.
The created-to-be-damned idea, of course, cannot fly because it makes of God the Author of Sin. While Calvin claimed not to teach that God is the Author of Sin, his theology cannot logically be reconciled with any other conclusion. His teachings were thereby unforgettably overthrown by the Dutch Protestant theologian Arminius in his epistolary discussion with Junius -- seeResponse to Junius on the Fourth Proposition.
One sad note of history, by the way, is that Beza came within a hair's breadth of converting to the Catholic Faith while taking instruction from St. Francis de Sales, Bishop of Geneva. I've always thought that at the end of his life, Beza was in the Erickson stage of "integrity vs. despair," and couldn't ultimately bring himself to convert -- it would be a tacit admission that he had deluded both himself and others for most of his life.
To sum up, I think you should reapproach the De Dons. Pers. without reading an ironic, hectoring tone into Augustine's writing. He is agreeing with the notion that God wanted to avoid loading additional guilt on the Tyrians and Sidonians, then legitimately wonders aloud -- as it were -- why God didn't just give the Tyrians and Sidonians the Faith and take them to Himself before they lost their faith. I also think that perhaps you might read Calvin a little more critically. Human nature being what it is, people often say that they don't mean "A" when "A" is exactly what they mean.
These discussion have been enjoyable, but I must now sign off. I simply have not enough time to do them justice, and I don't see what we're accomplishing. You have a certain view of God, and I, as a son of the Catholic Church, in which I hope to live and die, have a very different one. I think this difference of one of essence. When two individuals cannot agree on points of essence, discussion is rarely productive.
I will continue to pray that the Holy Spirit will guide all of us in Truth and that you, particular, will begin to hear the calling of Christ to join Him in His Spouse, the Catholic Church. The Church of the Holy Apostles; of St. Justin and all the martyrs of the Colosseum; of St. Patrick, St. Boniface, and all the great missionaries Europe; of St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Prosper; of the Irish monks who "saved civilization"; of St. Thomas and all the Dominican Order, which invented the university; of the holy mystics St. Bernard, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and all the great monastic, contemplative orders; of St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis Xavier, and all the spectacular missionaries of the Age of Discovery; of St. Francis de Sales. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Therese of Lisieux and all those who so brilliantly taught souls to hide themselves in the gentle heart of Christ; of Blessed Pius IX, who, from Peter's Throne, condemned communism before Marx and Engels had even finished their Manifesto, and, indeed, all the popes who have battled for 300 years this incessant, rising tide of secularism; of Pope John Paul [the Great] who teaches that the mercy of God and the justice of God are not independent -- that God's mercy perfects His justice.
In Christian charity, I leave a final thought for you. I hope that Our Lord will not take offense at what I am about to say. I'm going to say it because I don't think He will take offense. Here it is: when we leave this world, everything passes away, and there is nothing left but each of us as an individual -- an individual standing face-to-face with Jesus Christ and Him alone. I think at that ultimate moment in each of our individual existences, He is going to have a certain look or expression on His Holy Face congruent with the particular "issues" He has had with the way in which we've each lived our lives.
With the Calvinists, I think it will be a pained expression. And along with this expression will be two important questions:
(1) How could you convict Me of the evil of creating men for the purpose of damning them?
(2)Believing Me capable of this evil, how could you, by either divine or even human logic, still worship Me as God?