Augpred

Augustine's Framing of the Predestination Debate

Gregory Johnson

(Notes and Bibliography follow)

Framing a Divisive Issue

For nearly two thousand years of church history, few issues have caused as much division within Christ's body as the question of predestination. Though nearly every church has felt compelled to hold to some doctrine of election, these interpretations of the biblical material have differed greatly. Gottschalk in the ninth century was condemned, tortured, imprisoned and denied a Christian burial for falling on the wrong (or right) side of this debate. The Greek Orthodox were divided over election in the seventeenth century, first affirming an Augustinian doctrine of predestination, only to reverse that decision a few decades later in council. And the first Protestants were divided over the question of predestination from men like Erasmus, who refused to break with Rome. Today, the doctrine of predestination divides evangelical Protestantism into two camps, the Calvinist and the Arminian. And even within the Reformed or Calvinistic camp, the question has been framed in various ways, supralapsarians differing from infralapsarians, who themselves differ from sublapsarians.

For some modern Augustinians, the doctrine of election is an outgrowth of theology proper, a necessary corollary to the sovereignty of God. The emphasis with this approach falls on an eternal decree from all eternity determining two vehicles through which God's glory should be displayed, the elect and the reprobate, the fall being decreed as a means toward this end. Thus the question is framed in light of eternity.[1] For others, the question is framed in light of God's providential outworking in history, God working all things together for the good of His elect, so as to provide the instrumentality necessary to induce faith. Here the question is framed in light of divine providence.[2] But Augustine takes neither of these approaches. The question of predestination is not primarily one of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Rather, Augustine frames the question of predestination in light of the believers experience of grace in light of man's fall. When Augustine considers the effects of Adam's sin upon his posterity, the Christian's experience of grace becomes the integrating point for Augustine's doctrine of election. Within Augustine's affectional theology, predestination explains the believer's change in affections, the grace to love God being given to one and not to another.

Augustine & Free Will

Though the fact may surprise some who frame the debate in terms of divine sovereignty, it must be stated that Augustine is not an enemy of the free will. In fact, Augustine is vehement in his defense of free will on occasion. In one of his earliest writings, On Free Will, Augustine argues for human free will over against the Manichees among whom he had once been numbered. And as his debates with the Pelagians over election flared up later in life, Augustine was equally forceful in asserting both the freedom of the will and the resulting human responsibility. It was for this reason that Augustine wrote On Grace and Free Will only one year before his primary work on election, On the Predestination of the Saints. Every man has the ability to choose that which he desires; every man has free will.

Augustine was accused by some of changing his position on free will from his earlier work, but Augustine claimed that no change in his thinking took place. Pelagius himself at times quoted from Augustine's On Free Will as an authority to defend his views. By proof-texting Augustine's affirmation of the free will in this earlier writing, the Pelagians argued that Augustine had originally held to a doctrine of the will's moral ability to believe apart from grace, as did they themselves. Augustine rejects this argument. In his Retractiones, Augustine insists that his earlier work On Free Will was simply not concerned with predestination, but with anthropology over against the Manichees.[3] For Augustine, the two debates can be distinct, for, unlike Pelagius, Augustine does not see election as a debate about God's sovereignty or man's natural freedom to choose. The will is not the center of the debate as Augustine frames it; the necessity of God's grace within the individual's experience is central.[4]

Damaged Affections and Lost Liberty

While affirming the "freedom" of the will (as a part of anthropology as defined in On Free Will) over against the Manichees, over against the Pelagians, Augustine asserts that fallen man does not enjoy the "liberty" held by Adam. Augustine's distinction approximates the distinction in later Reformed thought between the natural ability to choose and the moral ability to choose in a godly manner. "Fallen man has free choices, always of evil, but he does not enjoy freedom."[5] Due to Adam's rebellion, all humanity is born dead in its sin, without even the liberty to choose not to sin. Man is incapable of obedience precisely because man does not desire to be obedient. Humanity's problem, Augustine explains, lies not primarily with the will per se, but with the affections. Augustine himself prays:

What was not evil in my deeds or, if not in my deeds, in my words or, if not in my words, in my intention?... Your right hand had regard to the depth of my dead condition, and from the bottom of my heart had drawn out a trough of corruption. The nub of the problem was to reject my will and to desire yours. But where through so many years was my freedom of the will?[6]

Thus the problem lies, not primarily with the will, but with the affections, the desires. Man's free will, though ever present, stands impudent before the power of corrupt affections. Evil people produce evil desires, from which their free wills make evil decisions. Again, Augustine writes:

We, however, on our side affirm that the human will is so divinely aided in the pursuit of righteousness, that (in addition to man's being created with a free will, and in addition to the teaching by which he is instructed how he ought to live) he receives the Holy Ghost, by whom there is formed in his mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good which is God.[7]

The Spirit of God must change the affections, turning the mind from a delight in lesser things to a delight in God Himself, man's chief end, the unchangeable good.

This affectional emphasis runs throughout Augustine's treatment of election. M Cleary suggests, "Delight and love become key factors in Augustine's understanding of the working of grace... affectivity becomes the key factor in the theology of salvation."[8] Peter Brown writes about the role of affections in Augustine's theology:

Throughout his sermons against the Pelagians, Augustine repeats this as his fundamental assertion on the relation of grace and freedom: that the healthy man is one in whom knowledge and feeling have become united; and that only such a man is capable of allowing himself to be "drawn" by the sheer irresistible pleasure of the object of his love.[9]

Faith is God's Gift

As man's affections must change before he can ever freely choose to believe, Augustine argues that even the very beginning of faith must be accredited to God-- and to God alone. It is the Father, through the Spirit, who teaches men to follow Christ, "and He does not do this through the ear of the flesh, but of the heart."[10] To this teaching John Rist questions, "whether in the case of the 'elect' grace is irresistible and the individual has no choice but to be 'free' to act justly?"[11] Though the term "irresistible" would receive much use in later centuries, the word itself can be dangerously misleading; for Augustine, again, does not frame the question as one of God sovereignly acting against a helpless human will incapable of resistance. The will, per se, is not even the primary object of God's grace; rather, it is the heart which is the object of God's enlightening.

Nevertheless, Augustine answers the question of whether this grace can be resisted in no uncertain terms. "This grace, therefore, which is hiddenly bestowed in human hearts by the Divine gift, is rejected by no hard heart, because it is given for the sake of first taking away the hardness of heart.... [God] thus makes them children and vessels of mercy which He has prepared for glory."[12] Augustine rhetorically asks, "If God does not make men willing who were not willing, on what principle does the Church pray, according to the Lord's command, for her persecutors?"[13] Thus, without any external coercion, God gives to His elect the desire to follow Christ, the desire to believe, the affection for God greater than other affections. It is the fallen sinner's need to be freed from misdirected affections which requires a God who can effect such a change.

The Gift's Basis

And Augustine argues that this gift of grace is not given in any sense on the basis of human merit. He repeatedly comes back to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 4:7. The refrain echoes, "For what hast thou that thou hast not received? And if thou hast received it, why boastest thou as if thou hast not received it?"[14] Faith itself, rooted in the affection for God, is itself a gift from God-- not a gift merely offered to the human will, but a gift actually given to the human heart. John Rist again asks whether this grace is offered irresistibly.[15] Rist does affirm that man cannot be saved without the help of God,[16] but Augustine insists that God's grace is not merely offered to man, to be accepted or rejected at will, but that God supernaturally changes men's desires. Such action goes beyond divine assistance; all is of grace.

The Experiential Context

One could imagine that Augustine asked himself why one man believed and another man did not. Why did Augustine believe and not his neighbor? Was Augustine simply more intelligent than his neighbor? If so, who gave that intelligence? But for Augustine, the question was not one of intelligence. Was Augustine more righteous than his neighbor? How could that be, if both sinned in Adam, both receiving guilt and depravity through Adam's seed? Even if grace had been offered to them both, both being dead in sins, why would one accept it and the other reject it? What Augustine understood was that the ultimate difference between the believing sinner and the unbelieving sinner lay not in man, but in the hand of God, changing the affections of the one and leaving the other in his sin. One is inwardly taught by God to obey the gospel; the other is not-- here is Augustine's distinction between the outward (universal) and the inward (effectual) call of the gospel. He writes:

When, therefore, the gospel is preached, some believe, some believe not; but they who believe at the voice of the preacher from without, hear of the Father from within, and learn; while they who do not believe, hear outwardly, but inwardly do not hear and learn-- that is to say, to the former it is given to believe; to the latter it is not given. Because "no man," says [Jesus] , cometh to me, except the Father which sent me draw him."[17]

Hence, salvation is wrought in the elect strictly by the gracious hand of God, who gives even the faith itself to one and not to another.

Indeed, Augustine could have viewed himself in the above quotation. Augustine himself faced the difficulty of being unable to believe. "Give me chastity, but not yet."[18] Augustine drank deeply of Manichaeism, was sexually immoral, carried along from one new teaching to another. It was his own experience of grace that caused him to think about how such conversion could happen. He prays:

Your words struck fast in my heart and on all sides I was defended by You. Of Your eternal life I was certain, though I saw it 'in an enigma and as if in a mirror.'... I was attracted to the way, the Saviour Himself, but was still reluctant to go along its narrow paths. And You put into my heart, and it seemed right in my heart, that I should visit Simplicianus.[19]

From the very beginning, it was God's initiative which brought Augustine to Christ. Of his own experience, he writes:

I sighed after such freedom, but was bound not by an iron imposed by anyone else but by the iron of my own choice. The enemy had a grip on my will and so made a chain for me to hold me as a prisoner. The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude to passion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomes necessity. By these links, as it were, connected one to another (hence my term a chain), a harsh bondage held me under restraint.[20]

Augustine goes on to describe how he heard a young girl saying "Pick up and read, pick up and read," which after thought he considered a divine command. Taking up Romans 13:13-14, Augustine believed. All the changes that followed, Augustine explains, were "the effect of Your converting me to Yourself."[21] Thus God brought Augustine to faith in Christ. M. Cleary, criticizing the simplicity of the Pelagian view of human action, observes, "Personal experience had taught Augustine that the human situation was far more complicated than [the Pelagians were teaching]."[22]

Double Predestination the Only Answer

If all those who are saved are saved by grace alone, and if all those on whom this grace is shed come to faith, then the question the Christian faces is this: Why are all not saved? Augustine is not unclear in his answer here; God has not chosen to save everyone. All are not objects of God's saving grace. "For if every one who has heard from the Father, and has learned, comes, certainly every one who does not come has not heard from the Father; for if he had heard and learned, he would come."[23]

Thus a double predestination is in view-- Augustine has two categories, those chosen for grace and those not chosen for grace. This is not a double predestination in which God works, to use Luther's words, "fresh evil" into the hearts of the reprobate. This is a double predestination in which God works positively for the good in the hearts of the elect, passively leaving the reprobate in their sins. Nevertheless, this is a double predestination. Jaroslav Pelikan states:

Human history was the arena for this demonstration [of God's wrath and power], in which the 'two societies of men' were predestined, the one to reign eternally with God and the other to undergo eternal suffering with the devil.... Double predestination applied not only to the city of God and the city of the earth, but also to individuals. Some to eternal life, others to eternal death.[24]

Augustine speaks of unbelievers having been "predestined to death" and "predestined to punishment."[25] Augustine writes:

These are the great works of the Lord, sought out according to all His pleasure, and so wisely sought out, that when the intelligent creation, both Angelic and human, sinned, doing not His will but their own, He used the very will of the creature which was working in opposition to the Creator's will as an instrument for carrying out His will, the supremely Good thus turning to good account even what is evil, to the condemnation of those whom in His justice He has predestined to punishment, and for the salvation of those whom in His mercy He has predestined to grace.[26]

Here Augustine distinguishes two wills of God, namely His moral law and His eternal purpose of predestination, arguing that even human disobedience is used to disclose His predestination, both of some (contemplated before the foundation of the earth as fallen) to punishment and of others to grace. For Augustine, only a double predestination could explain the believer's experience of affectional grace in light of the fall, but at the same time, Augustine would not have conceived of God compelling man to sin in order to bring to pass an eternal decree of reprobation.

Though this double predestination is clearly presented throughout Augustine's writings, Augustine most often defines predestination itself in the positive sense. That is, when Augustine speaks of predestination, he usually has in view election, and not reprobation. This can be seen in his distinction between predestination and grace. Predestination is not grace, per se, but is God's determination before the foundation of the world of the grace He would show to some and not to others in history. "Between grace and predestination there is only this difference, that predestination is the preparation for grace, while grace is the donation itself."[27] The elect therefore love God because God chose before the foundation of the world to give to them the gifts of baptism, faith and perseverance, ultimately giving those gifts by His grace alone in history. The purpose of predestination, then, is grace.

The Goal of Predestination

If the purpose of predestination is grace, then the goal of predestination is belief, righteousness and holiness in the lives of the elect. God did not predestine men because they believe, but that they may do so. "Whence it is not for any other reason that [Jesus] says, 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you' [John 15:16], than because they did not choose Him that He should choose them, but He chose them that they might choose Him; because mercy preceded them according to grace, not according to debt."[28]

Similarly, God never predestined a man because he was (or would become) holy and righteous, but God predestined him so that he might become holy and righteous. Augustine writes, "Therefore God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, predestinating us to the adoption of children, not because we were going to be of ourselves holy and immaculate, but He chose and predestinated us that we might be so."[29] The goal of predestination is belief, righteousness and holiness in the lives of the elect, the outworking of true affection for God.

Perseverance & Assurance

This predestination to faith and holiness serves to explain the believer's experience of conversion, but it has implications for the Christian's life as well. Man was created for God, and finds no rest until found in God. And since the fall, since man is incapable of delighting in God alone, predestination brings about the grace of changed affections, resulting in rest in God. For Augustine, there is no basis for peace and assurance apart from the predestinating God. Augustine's application is pastoral, to direct our eyes forever outward to God for grace, rather than inward upon ourselves, or even upon our own faith. Augustine writes, "And, therefore, commending that grace which is not given according to any merits, but is the cause of all good merits, [Paul] says, 'Not that we are sufficient to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God.' ... So no one is sufficient for himself, either to begin or to perfect faith; but our sufficiency is of God."[30]

Augustine marvels that any man would rather rely on his own efforts at pleasing God than on God's promise to Abraham that He Himself would provide for the faith and good works of the nations. "I marvel that men would rather entrust themselves to their own weakness, than to the strength of God's promise."[31] Further, Augustine makes clear what he sees as the end of such moralism, "to fall under that condemnation which is, not poetically, but prophetically, declared, "Cursed is every man that hath hope in man."[32] A trust in human works, and perhaps even a trust in faith as a human work, is antithetical to trust in the Lord of all grace.[33]

It must be wondered whether or not Augustine enjoyed the kind of assurance which would be enjoyed by Protestants in another thousand years. Augustine clearly speaks of salvation as a present reality for the Christian, a salvation grounded in our faith, but more fundamentally in God's grace which makes the Christian believe. And like faith, though perseverance is required of the Christian, it is yet a gift-- a perseverance which flows from the preserving grace of God. Augustine argues:

As, therefore, although it is the gift of God to mortify the deeds of the flesh, yet it is required of us, and life is set before us as a reward; so also faith is the gift of God, although when it is said, 'If thou believest, thou shalt be saved,' faith is required of us, and salvation is proposed to us as a reward. For these things are both commanded us, and are shown to be God's gifts, in order that we may understand both that we do them, and that God makes us to do them.[34]

Perseverance, like faith itself, is a gift given by grace alone to God's elect. Again, Augustine explains:

Now a man is made a good tree when he receives the grace of God. For it is not by himself that he makes himself good instead of evil; but it is of Him, and through Him, and in Him who is always good. And in order that he may not only be a good tree, but also bear good fruit, it is necessary for him to be assisted by the self-same grace, without which he can do nothing good. For God Himself co-operates in the production of fruit in good trees, when He both externally waters and tends them by the agency of His servants, and internally by Himself also gives the increase.[35]

Thus God preserves the elect through both internal and external means. Not only the beginning, but also the continuance, of the Christian life is empowered by God and His grace. The Christian experience, Augustine insists, has begun by grace and continues by this same grace.

Non-Predestined Believers

Still, Augustine does qualify his doctrine of predestination with regard to perseverance. He holds out the possibility that some may come to faith, but not be predestined to persevere. All Christians may not go to heaven-- a predicament Calvin would not face within his system. So long as one remains in this life, the possibility remains that the regenerate believer might commit apostasy, failing to add to his faith love. Such are those not predestined to persevere. In On Rebuke and Grace, Augustine writes:

For who of the multitude of believers can presume, so long as he is living in the mortal state, that he is in the number of the predestinated? Because it is necessary that in this condition that should be kept hidden; since here we have to beware so much of pride, that even so great an apostle was buffeted by a messenger of Satan, lest he should be lifted up.[36]

The Christian, Augustine argues, can never be completely certain that he is numbered among the elect. Luther's sentiments were not altogether opposed to Augustine here, either, even going so far as to instruct believers on the proper method of perseverance while in the pains of death, lest they fall away at the last moment and be damned. But for Augustine particularly, the doctrine of predestination could not always be used to assure believers. There must always remain the fear of apostasy. Predestination explains the believer's believing, but it does not necessarily insure a continued belief, until death when one can be sure of his election.

The Root of Augustine's Problem with Perseverance

Mark Vanderschaaf blames Augustine's failure here on his infralapsarianism, arguing that, since in Augustine's system God's decree to elect logically follows the decree to permit the fall, that election can in no way be of assurance to believers.[37] Vanderschaaf does not substantiate his assertion that infralapsarianism is at fault, however. Nor does he demonstrate how such a lack of assurance necessarily follows from an infralapsarian position.

It seems more likely that Augustine's hesitancy to provide the believer with stronger assurance flows more from his assumption of baptismal regeneration[38] or from his largely unformed doctrine of justification than from his infralapsarianism.[39] For if all those baptized, including infants, are truly and objectively regenerate, cleansed of original sin and forgiven of all past sins, then the fact of apostasy itself requires that believers have the ability to fall fully and finally into damnation. Once baptism's efficacy was limited by the Protestant Reformers so as to not necessarily include regeneration, then the possibility arose that the baptized apostate were never truly regenerate,[40] a mainstay of the later Reformed argument.

And it should be noted that Augustine does not deny that predestination can provide any assurance to the believer, simply that the believer cannot be completely certain of his election. Augustine reassures his readers, "If God works our faith, acting in a wonderful manner in our hearts so that we believe, is there any reason to fear that He cannot do the whole?"[41] The believer looking outward to Christ, forever reliant upon God's preserving grace, there is no need for fear, for God will work the whole of salvation. Vanderschaaf is overstating his case when he writes that "Augustine offers no assurance of salvation."[42] Augustine would argue that some assurance is possible, just that certainty about perseverance is not-- we are always dependent upon grace to preserve us as we "work out our salvation in fear and trembling." Still, one does wish that Augustine had gone further in providing assurance to true believers.

Not a Wholly Improper Attitude

But let it be said that Augustine's hesitancy to provide assurance is not a wholly improper attitude. Augustine's fear is that the believer will rely on His own faith, looking inward upon his own believing for assurance, rather looking outward to Christ. By looking inward, he warns, pride can overcome the believer. For Augustine, perseverance is a dynamic rather than a static reality;[43] the Christian must add to his faith also love. Referencing James, Augustine rejects any faith that is not accompanied by good works.[44] The Christian must be kept by the power of God, always looking to Christ in His grace rather than to his own works of baptism and faith. This is a useful corrective, albeit and over-corrective, to today's common teaching that all who have professed Christ should have 100% assurance 100% of the time. The Christian's assurance should be only as strong as his reliance upon Christ for grace.

And within this dynamic understanding of perseverance, Augustine saw the discipline of God as a good thing for believers.[45] All Christians will at times be forsaken by God, Augustine asserts, but, like those Paul "handed over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme," this forsakenness is for the Christian's good, to prevent pride and to remedy the hardness of heart. Augustine explains, "God in some degree forsakes you, in consequence of which you grow proud, that you may know that you are 'not your own,' but are His, and learn not to be proud."[46] Thus God uses even our sin, as offensive to Him as it may be, to work in His children hearts reliant upon God. Even forsakenness trains the believer's affections to be always and only placed upon God.

Learning from Augustine: Teaching Election to those with Experiences

Despite the problems concerning the believer's perseverance, Reformed teachers still have much to learn from Augustine's framing of the question of predestination. More often than not, the twentieth century Christian finds the doctrine of election abhorrent. But why does it seem so abhorrent? The cry is heard again and again: "Because God has given men free will!" The Christian begins his theological reflection from his own experience, particularly his experience of conversion. And every Christian knows that it was he who had to believe. Every Christian realizes he has a will. When Reformed teachers begin by simply affirming a divine determinism, the Christian thinks his experience is being denied. Augustine's genius, however, was to use the doctrine of election, not to deny the Christian's experience, but to explain the Christian's experience.

The predestination debate today falls upon ears trained to think of it in terms of the opposition of divine sovereignty and human free will. Calvinists, many think, are those who reject free will, which most Arminians without a theological education perceive in anthropological rather than moral terms-- an affirmation in which the Calvinist can concur. Perhaps because the Reformed position is viewed as a denial of the human will, arguments from theology proper about the eternal decree simply do not resonate with most believers today. It seems to deny their experience. To present eternity as the point from which election is pondered is to remove it from its real applicability to the individual Christian's experience. The Christian's starting point is his own experience of God's changing his own heart within history. If this is where the Christian is starting, then perhaps this is where the Christian's teachers should start as well.

Augustine formulated of the doctrine of predestination in order to properly explain the believer's experience of grace. Once the fact of an historical fall was taken into account, with all its implications for the individual's affections, no other doctrine could be found to provide explanation but the one at which Augustine arrived. Was the doctrine objectively stated in the Scriptures? Of course, but again, Augustine's genius was to present it as an explanation of the believer's experience. Thus, for Augustine, to deny election was not merely to have a skewed doctrine in one's list of beliefs; to deny election was to explain one's experience in meritorious terms. To deny election was to rely ultimately upon oneself for salvation. As Warfield puts it, "Augustine was most of all disturbed that God's grace was denied and opposed."[47]

Augustine's believer-oriented approach, finding its starting point within the experience of conversion in light of the fall, is an approach that resonates well with Christians, for it conforms to their own experience. Seeing such conformity, but perhaps disliking the systematic implications of salvation by grace alone, the believer is then driven to the Scriptures to see if it is indeed biblical. Thus the believer's experience serves as the context for teaching predestination. For every Christian can understand experientially that it is God alone who has saved him; the teacher's goal is to present the biblical teaching that best explains such experience.

NOTES

[1]This approach is characteristic of supralapsarianism, and is true of WCF 3.1, though the Confession is not consistent in its supralapsarianism, at other times approaching infralapsarianism. It should be noted that, while the moderator of the Westminster Assembly was supralapsarian, the majority of the Assembly was infralapsarian.

2Millard Erickson takes this approach in his Christian Theology, which enables him to deny the necessity of prior regenerating grace while at the same time remaining Calvinistic.

3See, for example, Augustine's review of On Free Will, Retractiones I.ix in John H. S. Burleigh, ed. Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953), 103.

4Though I need to study more on this point, it would seem that supralapsarians and Pelagians are alike in framing the question of predestination in terms of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, each falling on a different side of the coin.

5John Rist. "Augustine on Free Will and Predestination," in R.A. Markus, ed. Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972), 223.

6Augustine. Confessions, IX.i. Henry Chadwick, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

7Augustine. On the Spirit and the Letter, V, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

8M. Cleary. "Augustine, Affectivity and Transforming Grace." Theology XCIII No. 753, May-June 1990. p208.

9Peter Brown. Augustine of Hippo. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967), 374.

10Augustine. On the Predestination of the Saints, XIII, in Oats.

11Rist, 229.

12Predestination, XIII.

13Predestination, XV.

14Predestination, VII.

15See, for example, Rist, 228, 229, 234, 237.

16Rist, 222, 232.

17Predestination, XV.

18Confessions, VIII.17.

19Confessions, VIII.1.

20Confessions, VIII.10.

21Confessions, VIII.29.

22M. Cleary, 207.

23Predestination, XIII.

24Jaroslav Pelikan. The Christian Tradition Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) 297.

25See De Anima et eius Origine.

26Augustine. The Enchiridion, C, in Oats.

27Predestination, XIX.

28Predestination, XXXIV.

29Predestination, XXXVII.

30Predestination, V.

31Predestination, XXI.

32Predestination, II.

33This accusation need not necessarily apply to modern evangelical Arminians, as, like Wesley, they often hold to a gracious ability to believe counteracting the effects of the fall, flowing preveniently and universally to men. Though exegetically untenable, this provides the systematic qualification that assures salvation by grace alone. Still, at the lay level, I have often found this understanding missing among the Arminians by whom I was first nurtured in Christ.

34Predestination, XXII.

35Augustine. On the Grace of Christ, XX, in Oats.

36Quoted in Mark E. Vanderschaaf, "Predestination and the Certainty of Salvation in Augustine and Calvin." Reformed Review 30:1, Autumn 1976, 5.

37Vanderschaaf, 1-3.

38See, for example, The Enchiridion, LII.

39The parallel with Luther, who did have a clear doctrine of forensic justification, would seem to make the former taching, baptismal regeneration, more likely to blame.

401 John 2:19.

41Predestination, VI.

42Vanderschaaf, 5.

43Augustine would not be pleased with the language of "eternal security."

44The Enchiridion, LXVII.

45Those believers who are damned are those who do not return to the faith before their death. Death, therefore, becomes for Augustine a blessing when it comes to one in faith. For at death, the possibility of apostasy ceases, and the believer is made unable to sin.

46Augustine. On Nature and Grace, XXIX, in Oats.

47B.B. Warfield. "Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy," in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield Vol. IV: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), 293.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Augustine. Confessions. Henry Chadwick, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

Augustine. The Enchiridion, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

Augustine. On Free Will, in John H. S. Burleigh, ed. Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953).

Augustine. On Nature and Grace, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

Augustine. On the Grace of Christ, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

Augustine. On the Predestination of the Saints, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

Augustine. On the Spirit and the Letter, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967).

Cleary, M. "Augustine, Affectivity and Transforming Grace." Theology XCIII No. 753, May-June 1990. 205-212.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Christian Tradition Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971).

Rist, John. "Augustine on Free Will and Predestination," in R.A. Markus, ed. Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972).

Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, Vol III: Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1910).

Vanderschaaf, Mark E. "Predestination and the Certainty of Salvation in Augustine and Calvin." Reformed Review 30:1, Autumn 1976, 1-8.

Warfield, Benjamin B. "Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy," in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield Vol. IV: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), 289-412.

[2]Millard Erickson takes this approach in his Christian Theology, which enables him to deny the necessity of prior regenerating grace while at the same time remaining Calvinistic.

[3]See, for example, Augustine's review of On Free Will, Retractiones I.ix in John H. S. Burleigh, ed. Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953), 103.

[4]Though I need to study more on this point, it would seem that supralapsarians and Pelagians are alike in framing the question of predestination in terms of divine sovereignty and human responsibility, each falling on a different side of the coin.

[5]John Rist. "Augustine on Free Will and Predestination," in R.A. Markus, ed. Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1972), 223.

[6]Augustine. Confessions, IX.i. Henry Chadwick, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991).

[7]Augustine. On the Spirit and the Letter, V, in Whitney J. Oats, ed. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine, Vol. 1. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1948).

[8]M. Cleary. "Augustine, Affectivity and Transforming Grace." Theology XCIII No. 753, May-June 1990. p208.

[9]Peter Brown. Augustine of Hippo. (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1967), 374.

[10]Augustine. On the Predestination of the Saints, XIII, in Oats.

[15]See, for example, Rist, 228, 229, 234, 237.

[24]Jaroslav Pelikan. The Christian Tradition Vol. 1: The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600). (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) 297.

[26]Augustine. The Enchiridion, C, in Oats.

[33]This accusation need not necessarily apply to modern evangelical Arminians, as, like Wesley, they often hold to a gracious ability to believe counteracting the effects of the fall, flowing preveniently and universally to men. Though exegetically untenable, this provides the systematic qualification that assures salvation by grace alone. Still, at the lay level, I have often found this understanding missing among the Arminians by whom I was first nurtured in Christ.

[35]Augustine. On the Grace of Christ, XX, in Oats.

[36]Quoted in Mark E. Vanderschaaf, "Predestination and the Certainty of Salvation in Augustine and Calvin." Reformed Review 30:1, Autumn 1976, 5.

[38]See, for example, The Enchiridion, LII.

[39]The parallel with Luther, who did have a clear doctrine of forensic justification, would seem to make the former taching, baptismal regeneration, more likely to blame.

[43]Augustine would not be pleased with the language of "eternal security."

[45]Those believers who are damned are those who do not return to the faith before their death. Death, therefore, becomes for Augustine a blessing when it comes to one in faith. For at death, the possibility of apostasy ceases, and the believer is made unable to sin.

[46]Augustine. On Nature and Grace, XXIX, in Oats.

[47]B.B. Warfield. "Augustine and the Pelagian Controversy," in The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield Vol. IV: Studies in Tertullian and Augustine (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1930), 293.