How do I know what is to be kept and what is to be discarded?
That is why you have the scripture. Iraeneus said it wasn't hard to understand.
You - :::The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners before Augustine, and even after him, saw that there is no reprobation... You - Umm, the Eastern Fathers did believed in earned reprobation
Perhaps you got lost in the conversation but I didn't make the claim that you are challenging, you did. I'm mystified why you would assert a claim and then post a rebuttal as if I made this statement. My position is that the Eastern fathers did not believe in election whereas the western fathers were mixed. The predominate view of the early western church was for election and eventually this was erased.
Almighty God has justified all men;:::All men, not just the lottery winners. Calvin would not have written that.
You're correct, Calvin would not have written all men are "lottery winners". Calvin would have written (and probably did somewhere) that God justifies all men. If you divorced yourself from your paradigm for one minute, then you would understand that "God justifies all men" can only mean God justifies those who are saved.
Augustine was in error and he recognized it.
That is why he recalled his books and wrote the Treatise of Predestination
Calvin quotes Augustinian error. He doesn’t quote Augustine overly much when he is in line with Church teachings, does he?
I'm not sure. I never counted. The Church in Augustine's day was far different than in Calvin's day and is still different than is today (although not as much). I doubt if there be much that Calvin would have to say about Augustine's view of the Church's teachings at that time.
:::The Eastern Fathers, absolutely all of them, and Westerners before Augustine, and even after him, saw that there is no reprobation, not even negative, except in consideration of demerits. :::
You’ve gotta complete the sentence. It’s all that cherry picking of Scripture that you guys do, I guess. :)
The Western Fathers were not mixed; Augustine was the only one who wandered into this thought.
:::If you divorced yourself from your paradigm for one minute, then you would understand that “God justifies all men” can only mean God justifies those who are saved.:::
I don’t know about that. “God justifies all men” as a standalone phrase would seem to mean just that. Unless the Reformed use “all men” and “all elected men” interchangeably.
:::That is why he recalled his books and wrote the Treatise of Predestination:::
???