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Sorry for the further delay. Lil ole ladies just keep getting cancer. Onward.

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.

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?

He says nothing of the kind.

Augustine does not in any way endorse the "theological escape hatch" -- (that God performed not the salvific miracles amongst Tyre and Sidon due to some foreknown falling away on their parts) -- which you need in order to evade Augustine's clear treatment of Matthew 11; he merely stipulates that, even if this opinion were true, it would only serve to further prove the prior point which he has established, "that no dead person is judged for those sins" which they "would have" done if permitted to live, but only for sins actually committed:

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. ~~ A certain catholic disputant of no mean reputation so expounded this passage of the gospel as to say, that the Lord foreknew that the Tyrians and Sidonians would have afterwards departed from the faith, although they had believed the miracles done among them; and that in mercy He did not work those miracles there, because they would have been liable to severer punishment if they had forsaken the faith which they had once held, than if they had at no time held it. In which opinion of a learned and exceedingly acute man, why am I now concerned to say what is still reasonably to be asked, when even this opinion serves me for the purpose at which I aim? For if the Lord in His mercy did not do mighty works among them, since by these works they might possibly become believers, so that they might not be more severely punished when they should subsequently become unbelievers, as He foreknew that they would, -- it is sufficiently and plainly shown 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; just as Christ is said to have come to the aid of the Tyrians and Sidonians, if that opinion be true, who He would rather should not come to the faith at all, than that by a much greater wickedness they should depart from the faith, as, if they had come to it, He foresaw they would have done.

"If that opinion be true" is not an endorsement of the argument you seek.

Augustine merely entertains the opinion for the sake of discussion, and showing how, even if true, it only proves that Man is only judged for actual sins, not for potential sins.

But having enter entertained that opinion as it related to the Judgment of Sins (and shown it to be immaterial to that point even if true), Augustine goes on to indict that argument as it relates to Absolute Predestination (the subject of his foregoing Work):

Although if it be said, "Why was it not provided that they should rather believe, and this gift should be bestowed on them, that before they forsook the faith they should depart from this life"? I am ignorant what reply can be made.

Indeed, you admit that Augustine believes that there is no answer which can be made to this question -- a question for which you must have an answer if you intend to use this argument as a "theological escape hatch" to evade that Absolute Predestination which Augustine declared in his foregoing work to be the clear teaching Matthew 11: 20-27.

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."

Indeed, it is a good question... far from being a "quasi-objection" to your attempted "theological escape hatch", it wholly refutes it.

Augustine: "But where are the rest left by the righteous divine judgment except in the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have believed if they had seen Christ's wonderful miracles. But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them."
Orthodox Presbyterian: "Augustine teaches Absolute Predestination".
Squire: "Um... no, can't be!!" (Squire here adopts an argument of Prosper's which Augustine quotes in his On Perseverance, although Squire - oops - botches his reading, and attributes it to Augustine himself) "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: (responding to this attempted "theological escape hatch") "Why was it not provided that they should rather believe, and this gift should be bestowed on them, that before they forsook the faith they should depart from this life?"
Squire: (Silence).... no answer.
Orthodox Presbyterian: "Yeah, that's what I thought."

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.

Uh huh. Gee, if I visualize hard enough, I can almost hear Augustine whistling dixie, too.

P'shaw, Squire. Not only does he present to you and Prosper this question of your "theological escape hatch" for which he sees no answer -- and for which, in fact, you have no answer -- Augustine further stipulates that before you may freely use this argument as a "theological escape hatch" to evade Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11, you must answer this damning counter-argument, as the counter-argument, if left unanswered, completely invalidates your proposed "theological escape hatch".

Therefore it is an advantage also to him who is taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding. But 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, he perhaps might answer who was pleased in such a way to solve the above question.

The fact that neither Prosper, nor you, has ever sucessfully answered the question, only illustrates the fact that you have no answer.

And so, in the judgment of Augustine, your "theological escape hatch" 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", is groundless and without defense.

And so to review:

You botched your reading of Augustine's On Predestination. Augustine clearly teaches that Matthew 11:20-27 inescapably affirms Absolute Predestination.
You botched again in your attempt to evade Absolute Predestination, by attributing (falsely) to Augustine the "theological escape hatch" 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". In fact, so far from endorsing this argument, Augustine raises an objection to it for which he expects no answer is possible.
And so, you botch yet again your reading of Augustine, by admitting that you incorrectly attributed to Augustine an argument which is not his, but then failing entirely to answer Augustine's objection to that argument -- an objection which you must answer if you wish to make use of this theological escape-hatch.

This "theological escape hatch" is, has been, and remains the cornerstone of your attempted evasion of Absolute Predestination in Matthew 11: 20-27: I like St. Augustine's (and St. Jerome's) position that God foreknew that Tyre and Sidon would have believed had they seen the miracles, but that they would then have fallen away -- and therefore would have been worse off than if they had never believed.

But Augustine denies you this "escape hatch": "Therefore it is an advantage also to him who is taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding. But 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, he perhaps might answer who was pleased in such a way to solve the above question."

And so, with this "escape hatch" denied you, the fundamental question remains:

Matthew 11: 20 - 27 -- Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent. "Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day. But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you." At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
God CHOSE not to perform these Miracles in Tyre and Sidon, a choice which had as its perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance of Tyre and Sidon, just as He foreknew.
True, or False?

Once you answer that question, you will be intellectually equipped to read Augustine.

Not until then.

Remember: The Protestant critique of Rome's "authority" centers on the fact that Augustine got this critical doctrine of God's Absolute Sovereignty right --

And this the Lord, reproaching them, declares when He says, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin and Bethsaida, because if the mighty works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which have been done in you, they would long ago have repented in dust and ashes." But can we say that even the Tyrians and Sidonians would have refused to believe such mighty works done among them, or would not have believed them if they had been done, when the Lord Himself bears witness to them that they would have repented with great humility if those signs of divine power had been done among them? (On Perseverance)

And that Rome has, in progressively greater degree for over one thousand years, gotten this critical Doctrine ever more wrong:

My readers hence perceive that the doctrine which I deliver is not new, but the doctrine which of old Augustine delivered with the consent of all the godly, and which was afterwards shut up in the cloisters of monks for almost a thousand years.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion

A "salvation" of self-deception will damn millions who believe that they are saved.

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.

The Calvinist teaching is that certain men are created specifically for the purpose that they be damned according to their foreknown iniquity. This is not "reprobation without demerit", but quite specifically "reprobation in reference to demerit". There have been so-called "supralapsarian Calvinists" or "SupraCalvinists" who teach that God permitted the Fall for the express purpose of bringing about this decreed Reprobation, but the Orthodox ("infralapsarian") Calvinist position has ever been that God decreed Reprobation as punishment for the foreknown Fall (as was Calvin's own position, reading all his work on the subject holistically). Boettner reliably estimates the incidence of Calvinists versus SupraCalvinists as being on the order of 100-to-1.

Ergo, you can attempt to tar us with the SupraCalvinist view, but this is no more intellectually honest than if I were to treat SSPX-Traditionalism as being the sole legitimate expression of Romanism (despite the fact that Conservatives outnumber Traditionalists by 100-to-1).

But, though I am happy to debate Calvin with you in the proper season. our wager was not upon your ability to read Calvin, but upon your ability to read Augustine.

And on that subject, you have a question to answer :

God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
God CHOSE not to perform these Miracles in Tyre and Sidon, a choice which had as its perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance of Tyre and Sidon, just as He foreknew.
True, or False?

We already know Augustine's answer. Let's see if you can answer, without thunderously botching your Augustine yet again.

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?

As I have already noted above, your willful mis-reading and mis-representation of Calvin is a subject to be treated on its own. For the purpose of our wager (which concerns your ability to read Augustine), it serves the discussion to (temporarily) ignore Calvin's writings entirely. You may choose to congratulate yourself by supposing that I am afraid of discussing Calvin, but that ain't the case, kemosabe. I am attempting to keep our discussion to the subject agreed upon -- the Patristic Writings of Augustine.

I submit that Augustine alone -- without any reference to Calvin whatsoever -- annihilates any possible objection to Absolute Predestination.

This is the predestination of the saints,--nothing else; to wit, the foreknowledge and the preparation of God's kindnesses, whereby they are most certainly delivered, whoever they are that are delivered. But where are the rest left by the righteous divine judgment except in the mass of ruin, where the Tyrians and the Sidonians were left? who, moreover, might have believed if they had seen Christ's wonderful miracles. But since it was not given to them to believe, the means of believing also were denied them.... Therefore the eyes of the Tyrians and Sidonians were not so blinded nor was their heart so hardened, since they would have believed if they had seen such mighty works, as the Jews saw. But it did not profit them that they were able to believe, because they were not predestinated by Him whose judgments are inscrutable and His ways past finding out. ~~ (On Predestination)

But can we say that even the Tyrians and Sidonians would have refused to believe such mighty works done among them, or would not have believed them if they had been done, when the Lord Himself bears witness to them that they would have repented with great humility if those signs of divine power had been done among them? And yet in the day of judgment they will be punished; although with a less punishment than those cities which would not believe the mighty works done in them. For the Lord goes on to say, "Nevertheless, I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you.".... Therefore the former shall be punished with greater severity, the latter with less; but yet they shall be punished. Again, if the dead are judged even in respect of deeds which they would have done if they had lived, assuredly since these would have been believers if the gospel had been preached to them with so great miracles, they certainly ought not to be punished; but they will be punished.... Because no dead man is judged by the good or evil things which he would have done if he had not died, otherwise the Tyrians and Sidonians would not have suffered the penalties according to what they did; but rather according to those things that they would have done, if those evangelical mighty works had been done in them, they would have obtained salvation by great repentance, and by the faith of Christ. ~~ (On Perseverance)

We know what your escape hatch has been -- "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".

And we know that Augustine has denied you this "escape hatch" -- "Therefore it is an advantage also to him who is taken away, lest wickedness should alter his understanding. But 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, he perhaps might answer who was pleased in such a way to solve the above question."

Your preferred "escape hatch" thus denied you, you have a question to answer:

God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice NOT TO REPENT in the case of His non-performance of such Miracles; AND
God foreknew Tyre and Sidon's free choice TO REPENT in the case of His performance of such Miracles; AND
God CHOSE not to perform these Miracles in Tyre and Sidon, a choice which had as its perfectly foreknown result the NON-Repentance of Tyre and Sidon, just as He foreknew.
True, or False?

No attempt to divert the discussion to your mis-readings of Calvin will be accepted; we are not discussing your capacity for reading Calvin, but your capacity for reading Augustine.

And so you still have a question to answer.