Saint Augustine is well known for (primarily) three things: His intimate Confessions, his majestic City Of God, and his heated debate with Pelagius. It is in this debate that Augustine’s positions on Predestination and Perseverence of the Saints (eternal security) finds its final and strongest articulation (1000 years before Calvin!).
Pelagius, thanks largely to the tireless efforts of Augustine, was universally recognized as a heretic. There were some at this time, however, who disagreed with both Pelagius and Augustine, and sought more of a middle road. These people came to be called “semi-Pelagian” and eventually “Arminian” (after the position’s strongest and most infamous Protestant proponent, Jakob Arminius).
Today there are no confessing Pelagians (although many evangelical Christians today have Pelagian tendencies they are largely unaware of). Thus the debate that goes on today within evangelicalism is between Calvinists and Arminians. Since I am a Calvinist, I obviously have plenty of concerns and disagreements with Arminian theology. However, I have noticed a strong tendency in many Calvinists today to simply think of their semi-Pelagian opponents as full Pelagians. Or, if they acknowledge the difference, they still tend to treat semi-Pelagianism as if it represents no improvement on Pelagianism at all. The implication of this sort of thinking is clear: Pelagianism is a universally recognized heresy, liable to lead its adherents straight to damnation. If semi-Pelagianism is no different…
But Calvinists today would do well to remember that Saint Augustine himself faced semi-Pelagian critics in his own day, and he always treated them as erring brothers, not heretics. The Augustine-Pelagius debate may have meant eternal life or death, but the Augustine-semi-Pelagian debate was an intramural one.
It is possible to hold the truths of Scripture in the highest regard without sacrificing charity. Indeed, it is possible to fight hard for those truths without sacrificing the Apostle’s command, “love one another.”
‘These people came to be called “semi-Pelagian” and eventually “Arminian”’
Uh…they came to be known as semi-Pelagian by Calvinists. In their day, they were simply known as Orthodox and occupied the majority position in the Church. St. John Cassian’s views represented much more the mainstream thought of the Church.
I appreciate your trying to be nice to us non-Reformed folk, I’m just saying the way you worded that was just a tiny bit misleading.
Also, although I know perseverance of the saints follows from determinism, I haven’t read a lot of Augustine that seems to cut against the grain of the doctrine. Do you have some specific examples in mind where he clearly articulates Perseverance of the Saints?
Hey Mark,
“I appreciate your trying to be nice to us non-Reformed folk, I’m just saying the way you worded that was just a tiny bit misleading.”
Well, they DID come to be called semi-Pelagian…I just didn’t specify WHO called them that.
“Do you have some specific examples in mind where he clearly articulates Perseverance of the Saints?”
I don’t actually. I’m just going off of what I’ve read from various biographies and whatnot. Perseverance was specifically mentioned in the context of how the elect can know that they are elect. Augustine apparently said that the only way to know for sure is to persevere in grace to the last breath.
David—
2 questions:
Do you think there is a difference between a “semi-Pelagian” and a “synergist”? Are the two categories identical?
Have you read any Cassian?
MG,
I will answer, tentatively, yes. “Semi-Pelagian” could probably refer to anything in between Pelagius and Augustine, even if there are nuances.
No, I’ve not read Cassian.
David
Can you clarify for me the Calvinist position on predestination as well as perseverence of the saints (ie eternal security)?
Hey David,
Predestination in an Augustinian/Calvinist sense is the idea that God chooses, based solely on His own good pleasure and for reasons having nothing to do with any foreseen merit, an unknown (to us) number of people for salvation (the elect). And, also for reasons unknown to us, He chooses to pass over others, allowing them to receive the just end for their sin. It is usually acknowledged that God’s ways are unfathomable to us, but one explanation for His allowing some to remain in their sin is so that He might show forth his justice.
Perseverance is the idea that God will not allow any of His elect to fall away from Him or to fail to attain salvation. Those whom He calls and justifies He will glorify.
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I have a few questions. I promise, I am not trying to be difficult…just trying to understand where you are coming from. 1) Does God then create people to go to Hell? 2) Where does free will enter in to the equation? 3) Can you direct me to the work of Augustine that might show this teaching? 4) By perseverence of the saints, do you mean “once saved, always saved?”
1) Some have accused Augustine of advocating a “double-predestination”, the idea that God not only predestines the elect for glory, but also predestines the reprobate for punishment. But most Augustinians/Calvinists reject this idea, and argue instead that God merely allows the reprobate to continue in their sins and so damn themselves of their own wills.
2) According to Augustine, Adam was free both to sin and to refrain from sinning before the fall. But after the fall, Adam and all mankind lost the ability to refrain from sinning. Men still have free wills in the sense that they are free to choose whatever they want to choose, or whatever they believe is good or best, but because their hearts and minds are corrupted by sin they will always choose what is wicked, save for the grace of God.
3) “On Free Will” would probably be the best place to start. Any introduction to his thought or overview of his debate with Pelagius would also work.
4) More or less, yes. Because God’s decree of salvation is eternal, there is no time when one of the elect is not elect. Of course, this can manifest itself in different ways in someone’s life. Someone might be raised a Christian, renounce his faith, and then return to it later in life. This is precisely why Augustine said that the only real way to know if you are elect is to persevere to the last breath.
David
I must not be understanding you clearly. It sounds like on one hand you are saying “man has no choice but to sin (ie Original Sin) and God elects to give his grace to some but not to others.” But on the other hand, those who are left without the grace of God damn themselves by their own will.
In other words: We are all born in a state of sin which means we can choose nothing but that which is wicked…God gives grace to His elect, thereby allowing them to overcome this predisposition to sinning…God passes over some, allowing them to remain in their sin, thereby condemning them.
If one is incapable of choosing something other than sin and is not given the grace necessary to combat this, how can we say that God in effect didn’t create them for Hell?
In regards to the free will question, Augustinian/Calvinists typically deny a libertarian definition of free will (their view of free will is usually called “Compatiblism”). Wicked men choose to do wicked things because they want to, no one (including God) forces them to. Thus they are responsible for their sin. Libertarians would say that they can’t really be responsible because they didn’t have the power to choose to not sin, but compatiblists reject this.
As to the second question, I’m not the best person to ask. I haven’t formally studied much Reformed theology yet. But I do know that there is sort of a debate within Reformed circles over whether God created hell for sinners or sinners for hell (there’s a technical name for each position that I can’t remember at the moment). I believe it has to do with His disposition. He doesn’t actually want to send people to Hell, as if He derives some sort of pleasure out of it, but it is a part of His sovereign plan that He lets some people send themselves there.
I would recommend reading R. C. Sproul’s “What Is Reformed Theology?” for a short but more detailed introduction to all these subjects.
So, then do the elect cooperate with God’s grace or do you believe there is irresistable grace that God simply decides to give to some but withold from others?
As I read more of Augustine, it seems to me that Augustine is between Calvin and Arminius. The Pelagians were to the extreme when it comes to Free Will, so Augustine’s arguments against Pelagianism necessitated the focus on Grace (ie. Predestination). Is it possible that Calvin took some liberties with Augustine’s arguments and ended up on the opposite extreme?
Sorry for the delay.
The Calvinist position definitely holds to irresistible grace (it is the “I” in TULIP).
Augustine and Calvin basically say the same thing about human corruption and the absolute need of grace to do anything. Calvin didn’t say anything new or extreme that Augustine didn’t already say, at least when it comes to predestination. I don’t think that Augustine ever articulated anything like the doctrine of Limited Atonement, but it’s simply a logical outworking of predestination and eternal security. So, I think Calvin sits pretty much in the same place on the spectrum as does Augustine. It is Hyper-Calvinism that sits at the opposite extreme.
I am unfamiliar with “hyper-Calvinism.” One of the most difficult things about these discussions is vocabulary. In the end, we are all trying to say the same thing. However, we must be very careful regarding that which we say is “simply a logical outworking.”
For example, I can agree that God predestines us. Any faith that I have, was given to me by the grace of God. But I cannot go so far as to say that Christs atonement was limited to the elect. I believe in the universality of redemption. Are we all redeemed? Yes. Will all be saved? No. Why? Because of free will. You quoted Augustine as saying something like “the only way to know for sure if one is counted among the elect is to persevere to the last breath.” Are all the saints counted among the elect? Yes.
The funny thing about this is that you will say that your point of view is Calvinist/Augustinian and I will say that mine is Catholic/Augustinian.
It comes down to this for me: God is a family: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is Love. Love is the gift of self. If God is eternally Love, then He must have someone to give the gift to (ie the Son). The Son then reciprocates the gift back to the Father and from the mutual gift of love procedes the Holy Spirit. (This is why Catholics say that the Spirit procedes from the Father and the Son which is a point of departure with our Orthodox brethren.)
So the entire History of Salvation can be summed up as Divine Pedagogy. God raising up a family. Look at the covenants that God made throughout history. He makes a covenant with Adam and Eve (married couple), then with Noah (Family), next is Abraham (Patriarch: head of many families), then Moses (Nation of Israel), then David (Kingdom: ruling many nations) and finally he makes his universal (catholic) covenant through Christ. I have often wondered why God took so long to fulfill the Protoevangelium (First Gospel) of Genesis 3:15. That was because he was revealing himself to humanity gradually. First to a couple, then to a family followed by many families which grows into a nation that will later include all nations.
We can understand how God’s grace works here the same way that it works in my own earthly family. I didn’t become part of my own family because of any choice or merit of my own. However, I can walk away from my family. I can disown myself. That is how I view predestination. God called me to himself way before I could even think to answer the call. I can also walk away from God. But to say that there are some that he didn’t call (or elect), in some way limits God. You mentioned “logical outworking.” I see Gods gift being universal as a very logical outworking, especially is you see how God has expanded his family through each covenant he has made.
Your understanding of Predestination is clearly in line with other theologians at the time of Augustine, those who felt both Pelagius and subsequently Augustine had strayed too far on either side, and sought to find the middle. Were you a Protestant, your view would be called Arminianism.
As far as I am aware there is really no dispute about whether or not Augustine’s understanding of predestination is the same as subsequent Calvinist thinkers. As I said, Augustine never articulated the doctrine of limited atonement, and there are other big areas of divergence (especially when it comes to the doctrine of the church), so I’m not simply arguing that Augustinianism and Calvinism are identical in every respect. But when it comes to the issue of predestination (and total depravity), they are.