“There were some differences, this is true, but Augustine’s views were very different than what Rome was teaching during Luther’s time or even today.”
I see no reason why I should take your word for it. What will now happen - if I were to bet - is that you’ll choose something that you think St. Augustine talked about in an exclusively Protestant mode, right? Let’s see.
“For example, Augustine taught that only the Elect can enter into heaven, and the Elect are those who specially receive grace unto salvation, which is not based on any foreseen good works, but on God’s mercy alone.”
Here are several problems. Your Protestant view of St. Augustine does not even necessarily agree with other Protestant views of St. Augustine so what is it worth as a view? You can have a Calvinist and Arminian argue over St. Augustine and both can be wrong. Also, Catholics believe that those who received into Heaven are there because of God’s grace and mercy. It is not based on any of our “foreseen good works” or our own, but God’s grace which we receive as a freely given gift in our faithfulness and in cooperating with God’s works within us. When Protestants start claiming they follow St. Augustine and others don’t I just can’t take that seriously. And I don’t see how anyone could do something like read David Meconi’s books, The One Christ: St. Augustine’s Theology of Deification, and square up St. Augustine’s theology with any Protestant soteriology. I think Protestants merely adapt St. Augustine to their liking.
“Those who do not enter into heaven were either not given grace at all, or were only given a little grace, which they could use to go very far, but ultimately had to be cast out.”
Look, I don’t claim to know what brand of Protestantism you most often buy, but if it’s Calvinism I just take that seriously. Calvinism seems like a dour concoction of samplings from Calvin’s interpretation of Scripture and St. Augustine. You might want to look at “Where Augustine Goes Beyond Calvin” in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia edited by Allan Fitzgerald, John C. Cavadini (pages 118-119) just to get a taste of what I’m talking about it. Then immediately look at the section after that, “Where Calvin Went Beyond Augustine” (pages 119-120).
“This is not what Rome teaches today, as they teach—and even explicitly interpret verses Augustine used in opposite ways—a sort of universalism, where God grants grace, or at least offers, grace to all people. Augustine taught the exact opposite.”
I think the problem is your misunderstanding of St. Augustine and not any supposed Catholic misunderstanding of St. Augustine. Case in point: http://biblehub.com/library/pohle/grace_actual_and_habitual/section_3_the_universality_of.htm
You're confusing arguments. You do not dispute that Catholicism teaches that grace is offered freely and openly to all and is actually available, since all receive some form of grace enabling them to be saved:
"Salvation is universal in that it is offered to all human persons. But this offer is not merely theoretical. Salvation is concretely available to all persons. The grace of Christ in the Spirit enables each person to obtain eternal life by free cooperation with grace. For "Christ died for all men," not only for some (Gaudium et Spes, n. 22).
Augustine does not teach this, but holds that grace is not given universally, and that where it is given it creates the cooperation infallibly, bringing men to salvation:
"Murmur not among yourselves: no man can come unto me, except the Father that sent me draw him. Noble excellence of grace! No man comes unless drawn. There is whom He draws, and there is whom He draws not; why He draws one and draws not another, do not desire to judge, if you desire not to err.” (Augustine, Tractate 26)
“And, moreover, who will be so foolish and blasphemous as to say that God cannot change the evil wills of men, whichever, whenever, and wheresoever He chooses, and direct them to what is good? But when He does this He does it of mercy; when He does it not, it is of justice that He does it not for “He has mercy on whom He will have mercy, and whom He will He hardens.” And when the apostle said this, he was illustrating the grace of God, in connection with which he had just spoken of the twins in the womb of Rebecca, who “being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calls, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.” And in reference to this matter he quotes another prophetic testimony: “Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.” But perceiving how what he had said might affect those who could not penetrate by their understanding the depth of this grace: “What shall we say then?” he says: “Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.” For it seems unjust that, in the absence of any merit or demerit, from good or evil works, God should love the one and hate the other. Now, if the apostle had wished us to understand that there were future good works of the one, and evil works of the other, which of course God foreknew, he would never have said, not of works, but, of future works, and in that way would have solved the difficulty, or rather there would then have been no difficulty to solve. As it is, however, after answering, God forbid; that is, God forbid that there should be unrighteousness with God; he goes on to prove that there is no unrighteousness in God’s doing this, and says: “For He says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.” “ (Augustine, The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love, Chapter 98. Predestination to Eternal Life is Wholly of God’s Free Grace.)
“Or, it is said, “Who will have all men to be saved;” not that there is no man whose salvation He does not will (for how, then, explain the fact that He was unwilling to work miracles in the presence of some who, He said, would have repented if He had worked them?), but that we are to understand by “all men,” the human race in all its varieties of rank and circumstances,—kings, subjects; noble, plebeian, high, low, learned, and unlearned; the sound in body, the feeble, the clever, the dull, the foolish, the rich, the poor, and those of middling circumstances; males, females, infants, boys, youths; young, middle-aged, and old men; of every tongue, of every fashion, of all arts, of all professions, with all the innumerable differences of will and conscience, and whatever else there is that makes a distinction among men. For which of all these classes is there out of which God does not will that men should be saved in all nations through His only-begotten Son, our Lord, and therefore does save them; for the Omnipotent cannot will in vain, whatsoever He may will? Now the apostle had enjoined that prayers should be made for all men, and had especially added, “For kings, and for all that are in authority,” who might be supposed, in the pride and pomp of worldly station, to shrink from the humility of the Christian faith. Then saying, “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,” that is, that prayers should be made for such as these, he immediately adds, as if to remove any ground of despair, “Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” [I Tim. 2:1-4]. God, then, in His great condescension has judged it good to grant to the prayers of the humble the salvation of the exalted; and assuredly we have many examples of this. Our Lord, too, makes use of the same mode of speech in the Gospel, when He says to the Pharisees: “Ye tithe mint, and rue, and every herb” [Luke 11:42]. For the Pharisees did not tithe what belonged to others, nor all the herbs of all the inhabitants of other lands. As, then, in this place we must understand by “every herb,” every kind of herbs, so in the former passage we may understand by “all men,” every sort of men. And we may interpret it in any other way we please, so long as we are not compelled to believe that the omnipotent God has willed anything to be done which was not done: for setting aside all ambiguities, if “He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth” [Ps. 115:3]. as the psalmist sings of Him, He certainly did not will to do anything that He hath not done.” (Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love, Ch. 103. Interpretation of the Expression in I Tim. 2:4: “Who Will Have All Men to Be Saved”.)
Note that 1 Tim 2:4 is a proof-text for universalism as used by the Catholics in their catechism. Augustine contradicts.
"... the human will does not obtain grace by freedom, but obtains freedom by grace; when the feeling of delight has been imparted through. the same grace, the human will is formed to endure; it is strengthened with unconquerable fortitude; controlled by grace, it never will perish, but, if grace forsake it, it will straightway fall; by the Lord's free mercy it is converted to good, and once converted it perseveres in good; the direction of the human will toward good, and after direction its continuation in good, depend solely upon God's will, not upon any merit of man. Thus there is left to man such free will, if we please so to call it, as he elsewhere describes: that except through grace the will can neither be converted to God nor abide in God; and whatever it can do it is able to do only through grace. "(Augustine, Aurelius. Augustine's Writings on Grace and Free WIll (Kindle Locations 45-46). Monergism Books. Kindle Edition.)
I just can’t take that seriously.
You're a partisan on the internet making flame-bating comics, as most denizens of the internet do. By definition, we cannot take what you say you don't take seriously very seriously.