Author: Papa Giorgio

C.S. Lewis Would Call Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia” Blasphemous!

Published by Papa Giorgio

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Letters to:

God In The Dock Chapter 11:

Aslan is far more than a memorable character in C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis deliberately conceived of him as a divine figure, imagining what it would be like if the eternal Son of God entered another world and became incarnate as a lion, just as Christ became a man in our world. In a 1954 letter to a fifth-grade class, Lewis explicitly distinguished this idea from ordinary allegory: he was not simply using a lion to represent Jesus, but imagining Christ Himself entering a world like Narnia. Lewis took this distinction seriously. In a letter concerning a proposed adaptation, he warned that treating Aslan in a comic or irreverent manner would be “simple blasphemy.” Aslan’s identity, therefore, is central to understanding Narnia; he is not merely a character whose appearance can be changed without considering the theological meaning Lewis invested in him.

Lewis’s understanding of Aslan also connects with his convictions about masculine imagery in Christian theology. In his essay “Priestesses in the Church?”, Lewis argued that the biblical language of Father and Son is not an arbitrary convention that can be freely exchanged for Mother and Daughter without changing the meaning conveyed. He maintained that God has revealed Himself through particular imagery, and that this imagery matters to how Christians understand Him. Applied to Aslan, Lewis’s reasoning is significant: if Aslan is Lewis’s imaginative presentation of the incarnate Son of God, then Aslan’s maleness is not simply a superficial detail of the character. It belongs to the way Lewis chose to portray Christ in Narnia. Andy Shurson develops this argument in his article, “Greta Gerwig’s Aslan Would Have Horrified C. S. Lewis”, examining Lewis’s own letters and theological writings to argue that the question of Aslan’s gender is inseparable from Lewis’s understanding of the Incarnation and Christian imagery.

LOUDER w/CROWDER:

Netflix just dropped the trailer for Greta Gerwig’s “Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew,” with Meryl Streep voicing Aslan, the lion who represents Christ in C. S. Lewis’s series. Hollywood can remake a classic, but it can’t change the meaning of a Christian story and still claim to be telling the same one.

0:00 Coming Up
0:37 Intro
02:04 Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew Trailer
03:54 The Christ Figure Is a 77-Year-Old Woman
05:49 C. S. Lewis on Aslan as Christ
09:22 Jesus Is Intentionally Not a Woman
14:30 A Female Christ Is a Different Religion
17:56 Greta Gerwig Is a Feminist
24:41 Conclusion

I highly suggest reading this posting by Andy Shurson, titled: “Greta Gerwig’s Aslan Would Have Horrified C. S. Lewis“, at The L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. This is where this short letter was found from:

TO JANE DOUGLASS

Magdalen College, Oxford.
19th June 1954.

Dear Miss Douglas,

I have heard nothing from Jocelyn Gibb. I am sure you understand that Aslan is a divine figure, and anything remotely approaching the comic (above all anything in the Disney line) would be to me simple blasphemy. But how are you going to manage any of the animals? I would welcome a fuller account. Thanks for the kind things you say.

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

Over the next few days Jocelyn Gibb wrote to Douglass and Lewis, and in a letter to Lewis of 21 June 1954 he said:

The trouble about these Radio and Television adaptations is that whereas you have some control over them in this country, you have very little in the United States. In fact I suggest you would not wish to commit yourself without knowing what would be involved and that you could not know until the whole thing was irretrievably on its course towards production. However, you might like to know a little more if you think there is anything in the idea, and I will willingly write to Miss Douglas asking her for further and fuller particulars. Of course she still has to arouse someone’s interest on the Radio and Television side in a country where a good deal of both is intensely commercial.

TO JOCELYN GIBB

Magdalen College Oxford
22nd June 1954

Dear Mr. Gibb

  1. I wrote to Miss Douglass emphasising the fact that Aslan is a divine figure and I should regard any comic element in the treatment of him as blasphemous. For the rest, I left it to you. I feel we shd. allow it only under safeguards which the T.V. people will almost certainly not give us: i.e. specimen photos of the characters and a full script with a right of veto on our part.
  2. I don’t see that the play cd. do any harm and it might do good. So ‘Yes’ as far as I’m concerned. I think Monopods & even the Mouse will be rather beyond the amateur producer, but that’s their funeral.

Yours

C. S. Lewis

P.S. I’ve made two small corrections to their script.

I hunted down some of the letters Steven mentioned in the video and more that touch on the issue. Sources used for the above and below are:

Lewis, C. S. C. S. Lewis’ Letters to Children. Edited by Lyle W. Dorsett and Marjorie Lamp Mead. New York: Touchstone, 1995.

Lewis, C. S. The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis. Vol. 3, Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950–1963. Edited by Walter Hooper. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2007.

TO A FIFTH GRADE CLASS IN MARYLAND

Magdalen College, Oxford.
May 29th 1954

Dear Fifth Graders

I am so glad you liked the Narnian books and it was very kind of you to write and tell me. There are to be 7 of them altogether and you are already one behind. No. 4, The Silver Chair, is already out.

You are mistaken when you think that everything in the book ‘represents’ something in this world. Things do that in The Pilgrim’s Progress but I’m not writing in that way. I did not say to myself ‘Let us represent Jesus as He really is in our world by a Lion in Narnia’: I said ‘Let us suppose that there were a land like Narnia and that the Son of God, as He became a Man in our world, became a Lion there, and then imagine what would happen.’ If you think about it, you will see that it is quite a different thing.

So the answer to your first two questions is that Reepicheep and Nick-a-brick don’t, in that sense, represent anyone. But of course anyone in our world who devotes his whole life to seeking Heaven will be like R., and anyone who wants some worldly thing so badly that he is ready to use wicked means to get it will be likely to behave like N.

Yes, Reepicheep did get to Aslan’s country. And Caspian did return safely: it says so on the last page of the Dawn Treader. Eustace did get back to Narnia, as you will find when you read The Silver Chair. As for who reigns in Narnia to-day, you won’t know till you have had the seventh and last book.

I’m tall, fat, rather bald, red-faced, double-chinned, black-haired, have a deep voice, and wear glasses for reading.

The only way for us to Aslan’s country is through death, as far as I know: perhaps some very good people get just a tiny glimpse before then.

Best love to you all. When you say your prayers sometimes ask God to bless me.

Yours ever,

C.S. Lewis

TO MRS HOOK

Magdalen College, Oxford.
29 Dec 1958

Dear Mrs Hook

By an allegory I mean a composition (whether pictorial or literary) in wh. immaterial realities are represented by feigned physical objects e.g. a pictured Cupid allegorically represents erotic love (which in reality is an experience, not an object occupying a given area of space) or, in Bunyan, a giant represents Despair.[1]

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which Giant Despair represents Despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving an imaginary answer to the question, ‘What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?’ This is not an allegory at all. So in ‘Perelandra’. This also works out a supposition. (‘Suppose, even now, in some other planet there were a first couple undergoing the same that Adam and Eve underwent here, but successfully.’)

Allegory and such supposals differ because they mix the real and the unreal in different ways. Bunyan’s picture of Giant Despair does not start from supposal at all. It is not a supposition but a fact that despair can capture and imprison a human soul. What is unreal (fictional) is the giant, the castle, and the dungeon. The Incarnation of Christ in another world is mere supposal: but granted the supposition, He would really have been a physical object in that world as He was in Palestine and His death on the Stone Table would have been a physical event no less than his death on Calvary.

Similarly, if the angels (who I believe to be real beings in the actual universe) have that relation to the Pagan gods which they are assumed to have in Perelandra, they might really manifest themselves in real form as they did to Ransom.

Again, Ransom (to some extent) plays the role of Christ not because he allegorically represents him (as Cupid represents falling in love) but because in reality every real Christian is really called upon in some measure to enact Christ. Of course Ransom does this rather more spectacularly than most. But that does not mean that he does it allegorically. It only means that fiction (at any rate my kind of fiction) chooses extreme cases.

There is no conscious connection between any of the phonetic elements in my ‘Old Solar’ words and those of any actual language. I am always playing with syllables and fitting them together (purely by ear) to see if I can hatch up new words that please me. I want them to have an emotional, not intellectual, suggestiveness: the heaviness of glund for as huge a planet as Jupiter, the vibrating, tintillating quality of viritrilbia for the subtlety of Mercury, the liquidity (as I thought) of Maleldil. The only exception I am aware of is hnau[2] which may (but I don’t know) have been influenced by Greek nous.

Thank you for the kind things you say about my other works.

Yours sincerely

C. S. Lewis

[1] Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress, First Part, p. 113.

[2] This is the Old Solar word used in Out of the Silent Planet, ch. 11, p. 68, meaning ‘rational creatures’, such as humans and the three rational animal species on Malachandra.

HILA

[One of C. S. Lewis’s early fan letters on The Chronicles of Narnia came from the United States. Hila was eleven years old when she wrote this letter, complete with a watercolor painting that she had done of all the characters in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Her first reading of this story was three years earlier, when she experienced what she described years later as “an indefinable stirring and longing.”

At the time this letter was written, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), Prince Caspian (1951), and The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” (1952) were the only books published; The Silver Chair would appear later in 1953. However, Lewis had actually finished writing all seven volumes a year earlier, in 1952.]

June 3rd, 1953

Dear [Hila],

Thank you so much for your lovely letter and pictures. I realised at once that the coloured one was not a particular scene but a sort of line-up like what you would have at the very end if it was a play instead of stories. The Voyage of the “Dawn Treader” is not to be the last: There are to be 4 more, 7 in all. Didn’t you notice that Aslan said nothing about Eustace not going back? I thought the best of your pictures was the one of Mr. Tumnus at the bottom of the letter. As to Aslan’s other name, well I want you to guess. Has there never been anyone in this world who (1.) Arrived at the same time as Father Christmas. (2.) Said he was the son of the Great Emperor. (3.) Gave himself up for someone else’s fault to be jeered at and killed by wicked people. (4.) Came to life again. (5.) Is sometimes spoken of as a Lamb (see the end of the Dawn Treader). Don’t you really know His name in this world. Think it over and let me know your answer!

Reepicheep in your coloured picture has just the right perky, cheeky expression. I love real mice. There are lots in my rooms in College but I have never set a trap. When I sit up late working they poke their heads out from behind the curtains just as if they were saying, “Hi! Time for you to go to bed. We want to come out and play.”

All good wishes,

Yours ever,

C. S. Lewis

[6 May 1955]

Dear Mrs. K . . . ,

Tell Laurence from me, with my love:

1/ Even if he was loving Aslan more than Jesus (I’ll explain in a moment why he can’t really be doing this) he would not be an idol-worshipper. If he was an idol-worshipper he’d be doing it on purpose, whereas he’s now doing it because he can’t help doing it, and trying hard not to do it. But God knows quite well how hard we find it to love Him more than anyone or anything else, and He won’t be angry with us as long as we are trying. And He will help us.

2/ But Laurence can’t really love Aslan more than Jesus, even if he feels that’s what he is doing. For the things he loves Aslan for doing or saying are simply the things Jesus really did and said. So that when Laurence thinks he is loving Aslan, he is really loving Jesus: and perhaps loving Him more than he ever did before. Of course there is one thing Aslan has that Jesus has not—I mean, the body of a lion. (But remember, if there are other worlds and they need to be saved and Christ were to save them as He would—He may really have taken all sorts of bodies in them which we don’t know about.) Now if Laurence is bothered because he finds the lion-body seems nicer to him than the man-body, I don’t think he need be bothered at all. God knows all about the way a little boy’s imagination works (He made it, after all) and knows that at a certain age the idea of talking and friendly animals is very attractive. So I don’t think He minds if Laurence likes the Lion-body. And anyway, Laurence will find as he grows older that feeling (liking the lion-body better) will die away of itself, without his taking any trouble about it. So he needn’t bother.

3/ If I were Laurence I’d just say in my prayers something like this: “Dear God, if the things I’ve been thinking and feeling about those books are things You don’t like and are bad for me, please take away those feelings and thoughts. But if they are not bad, then please stop me from worrying about them. And help me every day to love you more in the way that really matters far more than any feelings or imaginations, by doing what you want and growing more like you.” That is the sort of thing I think Laurence should say for himself; but it would be kind and Christian-like if he then added, “And if Mr. Lewis has worried any other children by his books or done them any harm, then please forgive him and help him never to do it again.”

Will this help? I am terribly sorry to have caused such trouble, and would take it as a great favor if you would write again and tell me how Laurence goes on. I shall of course have him daily in my prayers. He must be a corker of a boy: I hope you are prepared for the possibility he might turn out a saint. I daresay the saints’ mothers have, in some ways, a rough time!

Yours sincerely,

C. S. Lewis

Priestesses in the Church?
Chapter 11 (PDF) from “God in the Dock”, by C. S. Lewis

“I should like balls infinitely better,” said Caroline Bingley, “if they were carried on in a different manner . . . It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.” “Much more rational, I dare say,” replied her brother, “but it would not be near so much like a Ball.”1 We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austen has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense conversation is more rational for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this.

These remarks are not intended as a contribution to the criticism of Pride and Prejudice. They came into my head when I heard that the Church of England2 was being advised to declare women capable of Priests’ Orders. I am, indeed, informed that such a proposal is very unlikely to be seriously considered by the authorities. To take such a revolutionary step at the present moment, to cut ourselves off from the Christian past and to widen the divisions between ourselves and other Churches by establishing an order of priestesses in our midst, would be an almost wanton degree of imprudence. And the Church of England herself would be torn in shreds by the operation. My concern with the proposal is of a more theoretical kind. The question involves something even deeper than a revolution in order.I have every respect for those who wish women to be priestesses. I think they are sincere and pious and sensible people. Indeed, in a way they are too sensible. That is where my dissent from them resembles Bingley’s dissent from his sister. I am tempted to say that the proposed arrangement would make us much more rational “but not near so much like a Church.”

For at first sight all the rationality (in Caroline Bingley’s sense) is on the side of the innovators. We are short of priests. We have discovered in one profession after another that women can do very well all sorts of things which were once supposed to be in the power of men alone. No one among those who dislike the proposal is maintaining that women are less capable than men of piety, zeal, learning and whatever else seems necessary for the pastoral office. What, then, except prejudice begotten by tradition, forbids us to draw on the huge reserves which could pour into the priesthood if women were here, as in so many other professions, put on the same footing as men? And against this flood of common sense, the opposers (many of them women) can produce at first nothing but an inarticulate distaste, a sense of discomfort which they themselves find it hard to analyse.

That this reaction does not spring from any contempt for women is, I think, plain from history. The Middle Ages carried their reverence for one Woman to a point at which the charge could be plausibly made that the Blessed Virgin became in their eyes almost “a fourth Person of the Trinity.” But never, so far as I know, in all those ages was anything remotely resembling a sacerdotal office attributed to her. All salvation depends on the decision which she made in the words Ecce ancilla,3 she is united in nine months’ inconceivable intimacy with the eternal Word; she stands at the foot of the cross.4 But she is absent both from the Last Supper5 and from the descent of the Spirit at Pentecost.6 Such is the record of Scripture. Nor can you daff it aside by saying that local and temporary conditions condemned women to silence and private life. There were female preachers. One man had four daughters who all “prophesied,” i.e. preached.7 There were prophetesses even in Old Testament times. Prophetesses, not priestesses.

At this point the common sensible reformer is apt to ask why, if women can preach, they cannot do all the rest of a priest’s work. This question deepens the discomfort of my side. We begin to feel that what really divides us from our opponents is a difference between the meaning which they and we give to the word “priest.” The more they speak (and speak truly) about the competence of women in administration, their tact and sympathy as advisers, their national talent for “visiting,” the more we feel that the central thing is being forgotten. To us a priest is primarily a representative, a double representative, who represents us to God and God to us. Our very eyes teach us this in church. Sometimes the priest turns his back on us and faces the East—he speaks to God for us: sometimes he faces us and speaks to us for God. We have no objection to a woman doing the first: the whole difficulty is about the second. But why? Why should a woman not in this sense represent God? Certainly not because she is necessarily, or even probably, less holy or less charitable or stupider than a man. In that sense she may be as “God-like” as a man; and a given women much more so than a given man. The sense in which she cannot represent God will perhaps be plainer if we look at the thing the other way round.

Suppose the reformer stops saying that a good woman may be like God and begins saying that God is like a good woman. Suppose he says that we might just as well pray to “Our Mother which art in heaven” as to “Our Father.” Suppose he suggests that the Incarnation might just as well have taken a female as a male form, and the Second Person of the Trinity be as well called the Daughter as the Son. Suppose, finally, that the mystical marriage were reversed, that the Church were the Bridegroom and Christ the Bride. All this, as it seems to me, is involved in the claim that a woman can represent God as a priest does.

Now it is surely the case that if all these supposals were ever carried into effect we should be embarked on a different religion. Goddesses have, of course, been worshipped: many religions have had priestesses. But they are religions quite different in character from Christianity. Common sense, disregarding the discomfort, or even the horror, which the idea of turning all our theological language into the feminine gender arouses in most Christians, will ask “Why not? Since God is in fact not a biological being and has no sex, what can it matter whether we say He or She, Father or Mother, Son or Daughter?”

But Christians think that God Himself has taught us how to speak of Him. To say that it does not matter is to say either that all the masculine imagery is not inspired, is merely human in origin, or else that, though inspired, it is quite arbitrary and unessential. And this is surely intolerable: or, if tolerable, it is an argument not in favour of Christian priestesses but against Christianity. It is also surely based on a shallow view of imagery. Without drawing upon religion, we know from our poetical experience that image and apprehension cleave closer together than common sense is here prepared to admit; that a child who has been taught to pray to a Mother in Heaven would have a religious life radically different from that of a Christian child. And as image and apprehension are in an organic unity, so, for a Christian, are human body and human soul.

The innovators are really implying that sex is something superficial, irrelevant to the spiritual life. To say that men and women are equally eligible for a certain profession is to say that for the purposes of that profession their sex is irrelevant. We are, within that context, treating both as neuters. As the State grows more like a hive or an ant-hill it needs an increasing number of workers who can be treated as neuters. This may be inevitable for our secular life. But in our Christian life we must return to reality. There we are not homogeneous units, but different and complementary organs of a mystical body. Lady Nunburnholme has claimed that the equality of men and women is a Christian principle.8 I do not remember the text in scripture nor the Fathers, nor Hooker, nor the Prayer Book which asserts it; but that is not here my point. The point is that unless “equal” means “interchangeable,” equality makes nothing for the priesthood of women. And the kind of equality which implies that the equals are interchangeable (like counters or identical machines) is, among humans, a legal fiction. It may be a useful legal fiction. But in church we turn our back on fictions. One of the ends for which sex was created was to symbolize to us the hidden things of God. One of the functions of human marriage is to express the nature of the union between Christ and the Church. We have no authority to take the living and semitive figures which God has painted on the canvas of our nature and shift them about as if they were mere geometrical figures.

This is what common sense will call “mystical.” Exactly. The Church claims to be the bearer of a revelation. If that claim is false then we want not to make priestesses but to abolish priests. If it is true, then we should expect to find in the Church an element which unbelievers will call irrational and which believers will call supra-rational. There ought to be something in it opaque to our reason though not contrary to it—as the facts of sex and sense on the natural level are opaque. And that is the real issue. The Church of England can remain a church only if she retains this opaque element. If we abandon that, if we retain only what can be justified by standards of prudence and convenience at the bar of enlightened common sense, then we exchange revelation for that old wraith Natural Religion.

It is painful, being a man, to have to assert the privilege, or the burden, which Christianity lays upon my own sex. I am crushingly aware how inadequate most of us are, in our actual and historical individualities, to fill the place prepared for us. But it is an old saying in the army that you salute the uniform not the wearer. Only one wearing the masculine uniform can (provisionally, and till the Parousia)9 represent the Lord to the Church: for we are all, corporately and individually, feminine to Him. We men may often make very bad priests. That is because we are insufficiently masculine. It is no cure to call in those who are not masculine at all. A given man may make a very bad husband; you cannot mend matters by trying to reverse the roles. He may make a bad male partner in a dance. The cure for that is that men should more diligently attend dancing classes; not that the ballroom should henceforward ignore distinctions of sex and treat all dancers as neuter. That would, of course, be eminently sensible, civilized, and enlightened, but, once more, “not near so much like a Ball.”

And this parallel between the Church and the Ball is not so fanciful as some would think. The Church ought to be more like a Ball than it is like a factory or a political party. Or, to speak more strictly, they are at the circumference and the Church at the Centre and the Ball comes in between. The factory and the political party are artificial creations—“a breath can make them as a breath has made.” In them we are not dealing with human beings in their concrete entirety—only with “hands” or voters. I am not of course using “artificial” in any derogatory sense. Such artifices are necessary: but because they are our artifices we are free to shuffle, scrap and experiment as we please. But the Ball exists to stylize something which is natural and which concerns human beings in their entirety—namely, courtship. We cannot shuffle or tamper so much. With the Church, we are farther in: for there we are dealing with male and female not merely as facts of nature but as the live and awful shadows of realities utterly beyond our control and largely beyond our direct knowledge. Or rather, we are not dealing with them but (as we shall soon learn if we meddle) they are dealing with us.

NOTES

1 Pride and Prejudice, ch. xi.

2 Called the Episcopal Church in the United States.

3 After being told by the angel Gabriel that she has found favour with God and that she should bear the Christ Child, the Virgin exclaims “Behold the handmaid of the Lord” (Luke i. 38). The Magnificat follows in verses 46–55.

4 Matthew xxvii. 55–6; Mark xv. 40–1; Luke xxiii. 49; John xix. 25.

5 Matthew xxvi. 26; Mark xiv. 22; Luke xxii. 19.

6 Acts ii. 1 et seq.

7 Acts xxi. 9.

8 Lady Marjorie Nunburnholme, “A Petition to the Lambeth Conference,” Time and Tide, vol. XXIX, No. 28 (10 July 1948), p. 720.

9 The future return of Christ in glory to judge the living and the dead.

Is Calvinism a Heresy? (Bonus: Allie Beth Stuckey)

Published by Papa Giorgio

VIDEO VIA IDOL KILLER!

For the entire video by Idol Killer, see: “What is the Gospel? – Allie Beth Stuckey vs John Mark Comer“

For clarity and historical depth: The first four belonged to the Western Latin Church, the historical church that developed into the Roman Catholic Church. They were not Eastern Orthodox councils. The first four gatherings occurred before the Great Schism of 1054, the conventional date associated with the separation between Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic Christianity.

They therefore belong to the history of the Western Church, although their geographical and political settings differed. Mainz and Quierzy, in particular, were Frankish synods rather than ecumenical councils of the entire Christian church.

Jerusalem in 1672 was different: it was an explicitly Eastern Orthodox synod responding to Protestant theology, including doctrines associated with Calvinism.

Council or synod Church tradition Historical setting
Arles (475–480 AD) Western Latin Church Late Roman Gaul, in what is now southern France
Orange (529 AD) Western Latin Church Southern Gaul, now France; associated with Caesarius of Arles
Mainz (848 AD) Western Latin Church The Carolingian Frankish Church, in what is now Germany
Quierzy (853 AD) Western Latin Church The Carolingian Frankish Church, in what is now northern France
Jerusalem (1672 AD) Eastern Orthodox Church Convened under Patriarch Dositheus II of Jerusalem

Council of Arles (475–480 AD)

Issue: Human freedom, predestination, and the extent of Christ’s atonement

Arles required the priest Lucidus to renounce propositions associated with an extreme form of predestinarian teaching. These included the denial of meaningful human freedom after the Fall, the claim that Christ did not die for the salvation of all, and the idea that some people were predestined to damnation.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Total Depravity: Challenges interpretations that eliminate any meaningful capacity to respond to God’s gracious initiative.
  • Limited Atonement: Challenges the claim that Christ’s death was not intended for the salvation of all.
  • Unconditional Election and Reprobation: Raises objections to certain formulations of predestination to damnation.

The central question is whether God’s sovereignty and humanity’s fallen condition require the conclusion that human responses are determined by God rather than genuinely resistible.

Second Council of Orange (529 AD)

Issue: The necessity of grace and predestination to evil

Orange affirmed that fallen humanity cannot turn to God or embrace saving faith apart from God’s prior grace. It rejected the idea that God predestines people to evil and emphasized the necessity of divine grace in salvation.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Total Depravity: Orange affirms humanity’s dependence on grace, but does not establish every later Calvinist claim about spiritual inability.
  • Unconditional Election: Its teachings raise questions about how election and condemnation should be understood, although Orange did not settle every later debate over election.
  • Determinism: Its rejection of predestination to evil challenges interpretations in which God’s decree is understood to determine sinful actions in a way that makes God the ultimate determiner of evil.

The important distinction is between God permitting and governing a world in which sin occurs and God determining that particular sinful choices must occur. The council’s rejection of predestination to evil is relevant to that distinction, though it does not by itself settle the modern debate over theological determinism.

Synod of Mainz (848 AD)

Issue: Gottschalk’s doctrine of double predestination

The Synod of Mainz condemned Gottschalk of Orbais, who taught a form of double predestination: God predestines some people to eternal life and others to eternal death. His position also included a restricted understanding of the beneficiaries of Christ’s death.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: Related to the teaching that God elects individuals to salvation independently of their response.
  • Limited Atonement: Gottschalk held that Christ died for the elect rather than for all people.
  • Double Predestination: His formulation raises the question of whether God’s decree determines not only who will be saved but also who will be condemned.

This is particularly relevant to the historical debate over whether reprobation is simply God’s decision not to elect certain people or a positive predestination to damnation.

The distinction matters because later Calvinists have offered different explanations of reprobation and do not all formulate it identically.

Synod of Quierzy (853 AD)

Issue: Predestination to salvation versus predestination to sin and damnation

The proceedings against Gottschalk began earlier, but the doctrinal statement associated with Quierzy dates to 853. It affirmed predestination to salvation while distinguishing it from God’s foreknowledge of those who would be condemned. It also affirmed God’s desire to save all and the universal scope of Christ’s redemptive provision.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: The synod’s account of election and condemnation differs from formulations of double predestination.
  • Limited Atonement: Its affirmation of universal redemption conflicts with strict formulations that limit Christ’s saving provision to the elect.
  • Determinism: Its distinction between predestination to salvation and foreknowledge of condemnation challenges the claim that both outcomes should be understood as equivalent acts of divine predetermination.

From a Provisionist perspective, this distinction is important: God’s sovereign provision of salvation does not necessarily entail that God determines which individuals will believe or refuse to believe.

Synod of Jerusalem (1672 AD)

Issue: Unconditional predestination and the Reformed understanding of salvation

The Synod of Jerusalem, associated with Patriarch Dositheus, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, responded to Protestant teachings it regarded as inconsistent with Eastern Orthodox doctrine. Its confession rejected unconditional predestination as it understood the Calvinist position and emphasized the relationship between divine grace and human response.

Connection to the “later” TULIP (explained in APPENDIX):

  • Unconditional Election: The synod rejected the Calvinist formulation of unconditional predestination that it addressed.
  • Irresistible Grace: Its understanding of grace and human response differs from the Calvinist claim that saving grace effectually brings the elect to faith.
  • Perseverance: Its broader understanding of salvation differs from the Reformed account of the perseverance of the saints.

Jerusalem is the most direct example in this list of an ecclesiastical body addressing doctrines identified with Calvinism after the Reformation.

One qualification: it was an Eastern Orthodox synod, so its decisions represent the doctrinal position of that church, rather than a universally binding judgment accepted by all Christian traditions.

Augustine, the Father of TULIP?
Examining the Historical Foundations of Augustinian-Calvinism

Introduction: Did Calvinism Begin with Augustine?

The five points of Calvinism, commonly summarized by the acronym TULIP, are among the most recognizable features of Reformed theology. They describe a system of salvation involving humanity’s inability to come to God apart from divine grace, God’s unconditional election of individuals, the particular intent of Christ’s atonement, the effectiveness of saving grace, and the perseverance of the saints.

But where did this theological framework originate?

Many Calvinists appeal to Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430), one of the most influential theologians in Western Christianity. John Calvin himself acknowledged Augustine’s enormous influence on his theology. The question, therefore, is not whether Augustine influenced Calvinism. The more significant question is whether Augustine’s later teachings on determinism, election, grace, and perseverance supplied the historical foundation for the distinctive doctrines later associated with TULIP.

Kenneth M. Wilson directly addresses this question in two works:

  • The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism (2019), which develops his historical argument concerning Augustine’s theological development and the philosophical and religious influences he believes shaped it.
  • “Calvinism Is Augustinianism,” Chapter 6 of Calvinism: A Biblical and Theological Critique (2022), which presents a more concise version of his argument within a broader critique of Calvinism’s historical foundations.

Wilson makes a particularly strong claim: Augustine was the historical father of the theological framework underlying TULIP.

According to Wilson, Augustine’s later theology represented a significant departure from the earlier Christian emphasis on human freedom to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation.

That conclusion is controversial. Nevertheless, Wilson’s historical argument raises an important question for anyone examining Calvinism:

Did Augustine recover the original Christian understanding of predestination, or did his later theology introduce a deterministic interpretation that substantially departed from earlier Christian thought?

1. Augustine’s Importance to Calvinism

Augustine is a towering figure in the history of Western Christianity. His writings influenced medieval theology, the Protestant Reformation, and subsequent debates about sin, grace, election, and salvation.

Wilson emphasizes that Calvin’s dependence on Augustine was substantial. In Calvinism Is Augustinianism, he quotes Calvin acknowledging that he could express his theology through Augustine’s writings. Wilson also notes that Calvin cited Augustine hundreds of times in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Wilson cites other Reformed writers who acknowledge this relationship. The Reformed theologian Loraine Boettner famously characterized the Reformation as essentially a revival of Augustinianism.

Wilson also cites Matthew McMahon’s (a Calvinist arguing in favor of Augustine’s influence on TULIP) argument that Augustine, rather than Calvin, had already systematized much of what later became known as the five points of Calvinism. These admissions establish an important historical connection: Calvin did not develop his theology in isolation. He inherited and adapted an extensive theological tradition, and Augustine was a major source within that tradition.

One aspect of Augustine’s understanding of grace needs further comment. As human beings were incapable of saving themselves, and as God gave his gift of grace to some (but not all), it followed that God had “preselected” those who would be saved. Developing hints of this idea to be found in the New Testament, Augustine developed a doctrine of predestination. The term “predestination” refers to God’s original or eternal decision to save some, and not others. It was this aspect of Augustine’s thought which many of his contemporaries, not to mention his successors, found unacceptable. It need hardly be said that there is no direct equivalent in Pelagius’s thought.

Alister E. McGrath, Historical Theology: An Introduction to the History of Christian Thought (Malden, MA: Wiley & Sons LTD, 2013), 34.

However, influence does not establish that Augustine and Calvin taught identical doctrines in every respect. The issue is the relationship between Augustine’s later theological framework and the distinctive doctrines subsequently associated with Calvinism.

The filtered systematization of the five points of Calvinism which have been brought to the modern church as the doctrines of grace were originally systematized and widely written on, not by Calvin, but by Augustine. This is why one finds that every four pages written in the Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin quoted Augustine. Calvin, for this reason, would deem himself not a Calvinist, but an Augustinian. And both Augustine and Calvin would really deem themselves children at the feet of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Bible, especially quoting their favorites passages from the Apostle Paul over and over again.

They are Pauline, and bibline, to the glory of Jesus Christ. To work backwards, then, one moves from the doctrines of grace today, to the Synod of Dordt, to the Institutes of the Christian Religion by Calvin, to the writings of Augustine, to the Bible. The biblical record is the foundation for all that came after concerning grace. It is no wonder why Augustine, even in his own day, was deemed the “Doctor of Grace.” Here we turn to him for this study.

This work is concerned with the writings of Augustine to determine Augustine’s views on the doctrines of grace (or what has become to be known as Calvinism or TULIP) and if his views are the same as John Calvin‘s, or for that matter the Synod of Dordt, the Westminster Confession and other reformed viewpoints on the Gospel that have been since penned. Knowing that the Bible does not change, and the matters of faith and practice in the Bible do not change, one should find Augustine’s words and thoughts about grace lying within the same veins as any reformer who believed the Gospel of grace, or any Puritan afterwards. It is easy to see where the Reformers or Puritans believed these doctrines. Again, those who believe these doctrines are referred to as “Calvinists.” But why are they not referred to as Augustinians? This is the scope of the study. Is it determinable that instead of calling one who believes the doctrines of grace a Christian Calvinist, should they be more likely deemed an Augustinian Calvinist? Are those terms interchangeable? Did Augustine believe these doctrines in the same way that Calvin, or the later Puritans did, or even Calvinists today?

C. Matthew McMahon, Augustine’s Calvinism: The Doctrines of Grace in Augustine’s Writings (Coconut Creek, FL: Puritan Publications, 2012), 7–9.

2. The Turning Point: Augustine’s Development Toward Determinism

One of Wilson’s most important arguments concerns the development of Augustine’s theology over time.

Wilson distinguishes Augustine’s earlier Christian writings from his later writings on predestination, grace, and the human will.

According to Wilson, Augustine initially defended a view of human freedom that allowed people to respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation. During this period, Augustine opposed Manichaean teachings that made human destiny dependent on a unilateral divine determination that left no genuine alternative response.

Wilson argues that this changed around AD 412, during Augustine’s controversy with Pelagius and Caelestius.

In Wilson’s reconstruction, Augustine increasingly adopted a theology in which God determined who would receive saving grace and who would not. Human beings remained responsible for their actions, but their ability to respond positively to God depended on God’s prior and decisive intervention.

Wilson calls this a form of “non-free free will”: people act voluntarily according to their desires, but their ultimate spiritual condition and saving response are determined by divine action rather than an independently exercisable ability to accept or reject God’s offer.

Why does Wilson identify AD 412 as significant?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s theological transition has often been dated too early, particularly to his work Ad Simplicianum, traditionally associated with approximately AD 396.

Wilson contends that Augustine continued defending positions compatible with human freedom for years after that work. He argues that the decisive shift becomes apparent around AD 412, when Augustine’s response to the Pelagian controversy led him to reconsider the implications of infant baptism, original sin, grace, and election.

Wilson believes this controversy was crucial because it forced Augustine to explain why some infants received baptism while others died without it, even though infants could not personally choose or reject baptism.

Wilson reconstructs Augustine’s reasoning as follows:

  1. Baptism was understood to convey forgiveness of sins and the reception of the Holy Spirit.
  2. Infants could not personally choose baptism or exercise faith in the same manner as adults.
  3. Some infants received baptism, while others died without it.
  4. If baptism was necessary for salvation, the difference between those outcomes could not be explained by the infants’ own choices.
  5. Augustine therefore concluded that God determined which infants would receive saving grace.

Wilson argues that this reasoning helped move Augustine toward unconditional election and a more comprehensive theology of divine determinism. The important point is that Wilson does not portray Augustine’s later theology as simply an unchanged continuation of his earlier writings. He argues that Augustine’s understanding of grace and predestination developed substantially in response to particular theological controversies.

3. The Philosophical and Religious Background: Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Manichaeism

Wilson’s argument goes beyond Augustine’s response to Pelagius. He contends that Augustine’s earlier philosophical and religious experiences influenced his later theology. In The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism, Wilson examines four major intellectual traditions: Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism.

His contention is that certain deterministic concepts found in these traditions reappeared in Augustine’s later Christian writings.

A. Stoicism: Meticulous providence and determinism

Stoicism taught a comprehensive understanding of providence in which events occurred within an ordered causal structure governed by fate.

Wilson argues that Augustine retained a strong conception of meticulous divine providence even after becoming a Christian. In this understanding, God’s providential ordering encompasses not merely broad historical purposes but the specific events and circumstances of human life.

Wilson sees a significant parallel between this conception and theological determinism: if every event is comprehensively determined by divine providence, then human decisions ultimately occur within an order from which they cannot finally depart.

This raises a question central to the debate between Calvinism and Provisionism:

Does God’s sovereignty require Him to determine every human choice, or can God sovereignly govern His creation while allowing people genuinely to respond to His gracious call?

Provisionists answer that God’s sovereignty does not require exhaustive divine determination of every human decision. God can accomplish His purposes while permitting meaningful human responses to His commands and offers.

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later understanding of providence moved away from the earlier Christian emphasis on divine foreknowledge and human freedom.

B. Neoplatonism: The corrupted will and the need for divine restoration

Wilson also examines the influence he attributes to Neoplatonic philosophy, particularly the writings of Plotinus and Porphyry. He argues that certain Neoplatonic concepts supplied a framework in which humanity’s fallen condition rendered the human will incapable of choosing the good without divine restoration.

Within Wilson’s comparison, this resembles the later Calvinist doctrine of total inability: the sinner cannot produce the saving response God requires unless God first acts to overcome that inability.

Wilson further argues that Neoplatonic thought offered a way to reconcile the absence of genuine alternatives with personal responsibility. A person could act voluntarily according to an existing disposition even if that disposition and the resulting action were ultimately determined. For Wilson, this resembles the compatibilist understanding of freedom found in some forms of Calvinism.

The comparison is important, but it requires precision. Neoplatonism was a diverse philosophical tradition, and its concepts should not automatically be equated with the full Reformed doctrine of total depravity. Wilson is arguing for a historical and conceptual relationship, not demonstrating that every Neoplatonic teaching is identical to Calvinist theology.

C. Gnosticism: A divinely differentiated humanity

Wilson also discusses Gnostic teachings in which humanity was divided into different spiritual categories. In some Gnostic systems, only a predetermined group possessed the capacity to receive saving knowledge, while others lacked the ability to attain salvation.

Wilson sees a structural resemblance between this idea and unconditional election understood as God’s unilateral determination of who receives the ability to believe. His comparison concerns the unequal distribution of saving ability: salvation may be proclaimed broadly, but only those specially enabled by divine action can ultimately respond.

This comparison should not be mistaken for a claim that Calvinists accept Gnostic cosmology or the Gnostic distinction between a good spiritual realm and an evil material realm. They do not need to hold those beliefs for Wilson’s narrower comparison to be relevant.

Calvinists desire to stand out among complacent Christians who might not be as educated in biblical studies as they are. At face value, being intellectual about the Bible is not an error in itself. That is, until intellectualism takes over. Dr. Ron Comfort, president and founder of Ambassador Baptist College in Lattimore, North Carolina, has noticed this. He observes the similarities between the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and present day Calvinism. He notes what the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia writes about Gnosticism:

Gnosticism is Christianity perverted by a learning and speculation. The intellectual pride of the Gnostics refined away the gospel into a philosophy making salvation exclusive and not universal. They lived under the conviction that they possessed a mysterious knowledge that could only be understood by them.

Comfort concludes with the question, “Now, I wonder, does that sound like something that is prevalent in our land today?” The parallels between Calvinism and Gnosticism are stunning. By speculative and intellectual assumptions, both Gnosticism and Calvinism deviate from orthodox Christianity in concluding that salvation is exclusive.

Micah Coate, A Cultish Side of Calvinism (2011), chap. 3, “The Marks of a Cult within Calvinism,” 66–67.

  • Gnosticism, as presented in the quotation: Salvation is associated with special knowledge unavailable to everyone.
  • Calvinism, as Coate characterizes it: Saving grace is given effectively to the elect, while others are not given the ability to respond savingly.

The question is whether a theological system that restricts the effective ability to respond to a predetermined group shares a significant structural feature with earlier systems that similarly differentiated the saved from the unsaved.

D. Manichaeism: Inability and unilateral divine intervention

Manichaeism is particularly important in Wilson’s argument because Augustine spent approximately nine years as a Manichaean hearer before becoming a Christian.

THE CORE CONNECTIONS & ACCUSATIONS

  • Augustine’s Background: Critics point to Augustine of Hippo’s approximately nine years of involvement with Manichaeism, a religious movement with dualistic teachings, before his conversion to Christianity. Because Augustine’s writings significantly influenced John Calvin and later Reformed theology, critics question whether aspects of his earlier worldview influenced his understanding of sin and human nature. [1, 2]
  • Total Inability / Total Depravity: Manichaeism presented a deeply dualistic understanding of good and evil and the human condition. Critics argue that Calvinism’s doctrine of total inability—the “T” in TULIP, which teaches that fallen humanity cannot come to faith apart from God’s enabling grace—resembles this pessimistic view of human nature. [1, 2, 3, 4]
  • The Material World and the Flesh: Gnostic movements often viewed the material world as inferior, corrupt, or even evil, although Gnostic beliefs varied. Critics argue that Augustine’s teachings concerning original sin, its transmission through human generation, and the effects of sexual desire reflect a similar pessimism about embodied human existence. They further contend that aspects of this outlook carried into later Reformed theology. [1, 2]

Wilson contends that Augustine later returned to certain deterministic interpretations associated with his former religious environment, particularly when addressing the relationship between inherited sin, the human will, and saving grace.

In Wilson’s reconstruction, the human will cannot independently escape its corrupted condition. A decisive divine intervention must restore the capacity to respond, and this intervention is not equally effective for everyone.

Wilson argues that this pattern resembles the later Calvinist understanding of regeneration and effectual calling: saving grace does not merely offer assistance to a person who may respond; it effectively brings about the saving response in those whom God has chosen.

The important qualification is that resemblance does not establish identity. Manichaeism’s cosmology, its account of matter and evil, and its understanding of salvation differ fundamentally from historic Christian theology. Wilson’s argument concerns specific parallels in determinism, inability, and divine selection—not an assertion that Calvinism is simply Manichaeism under another name.

4. Augustine and the Five Points of TULIP

Wilson brings these historical arguments together in his discussion of the five points of Calvinism. He argues that Augustine’s later theology supplied the essential framework from which these doctrines developed.

It is important to remember that TULIP is a later summary of Reformed theology. Augustine did not write a work organized under that acronym, and the five points were not formally formulated in their familiar arrangement during his lifetime.

Wilson nevertheless argues that the underlying theological ideas can be traced to Augustine’s later writings.

T — Total Depravity or Total Inability

The question: Can fallen human beings respond to God’s gracious offer of salvation, or must God first regenerate them so that they can believe?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology developed a particularly strong understanding of humanity’s inability.

According to Wilson, Augustine moved beyond the idea that humanity is sinful, morally weakened, and dependent on grace. He increasingly taught that fallen humanity lacked the ability to make a saving response to God unless God first intervened.

Wilson connects this development with Augustine’s changing understanding of original sin. He argues that Augustine’s later doctrine involved inherited guilt and condemnation, rather than merely the mortality, moral weakness, and propensity to sin associated with his earlier writings.

Wilson also examines Augustine’s interpretation of passages such as Romans 5:12 and Psalm 51:5, arguing that Augustine’s later conclusions differed from his earlier understanding.

For Wilson, this change was foundational because the remaining doctrines of TULIP followed logically once humanity was understood to be totally unable to respond to God.

The Provisionist objection:

Humanity’s universal sinfulness does not necessarily establish that people have no ability to respond to God’s gracious call. Provisionism maintains that fallen people cannot save themselves, earn salvation, or come to Christ independently of divine grace. Nevertheless, God graciously provides what is necessary for people to respond to the gospel.

The disagreement is not whether grace is necessary. It is whether grace must first regenerate a person in order to make faith possible.

U — Unconditional Election

The question: Does God choose individuals for salvation without reference to their response to His gracious offer, or is election conditional upon faith that God foreknows?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later doctrine of election developed from his understanding of humanity’s inability and the necessity of divine intervention.

His discussion of infant baptism is central. Because infants could not personally exercise faith or choose baptism, Wilson argues that Augustine concluded their salvation depended on God’s unilateral decision to provide the means of salvation.

Wilson contends that Augustine then extended this logic to humanity more generally. God determines who receives the saving grace necessary for faith, while others do not receive that grace.

Wilson uses the term “Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies” (DUPIED) to distinguish this form of determinism from election understood in relation to God’s foreknowledge of human responses.

In Wilson’s interpretation, Augustine’s later understanding of election resembles the unconditional election taught in Calvinism.

The Provisionist objection:

Conditional election does not mean that people earn their salvation. God determines the gracious provision and the condition under which its benefits are received. Faith is not payment for salvation; it is the means by which a person receives what God has provided in Christ.

Provisionists therefore distinguish God’s sovereign decision to save believers from the claim that God unconditionally determines which individuals will believe and which will remain unable to believe.

L — Limited Atonement

The question: Did Christ die with the intention of saving only the elect, or did He provide atonement for all humanity, with its saving benefits received by those who believe?

Wilson argues that limited atonement follows logically from Augustine’s later understanding of election and providence.

His reasoning is that if God unilaterally determines who will be saved, and God’s providential purposes cannot ultimately fail, then Christ’s atoning work must be understood in relation to the people God has determined to save.

Wilson believes Augustine’s later theology increasingly restricted the saving intent of Christ’s death to the elect. He examines Augustine’s attempts to interpret 1 Timothy 2:4, which says that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Wilson argues that Augustine struggled to reconcile the universal language of this passage with his increasingly deterministic understanding of divine sovereignty.

An important qualification is necessary here: Wilson acknowledges that Augustine did not always state the later doctrine of limited atonement in the explicit form familiar from Reformed confessions. Wilson’s claim is that Augustine’s later premises implied a restriction of Christ’s saving work to the elect.

The Provisionist objection:

Universal atonement does not require universal salvation. Christ’s death can be sufficient and intended for all without every person receiving its saving benefits. The atonement is God’s provision; faith is the means of receiving its benefits.

The central question is whether Christ’s death was provided for all people or exclusively for those whom God unconditionally determined to save.

I — Irresistible Grace

The question: Can a person resist God’s gracious call to salvation, or does God’s saving grace unfailingly produce the response He intends?

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology treated saving grace as an effective divine action that brings about the sinner’s saving response.

He connects this understanding with the philosophical and religious traditions he believes influenced Augustine, particularly their emphasis on divine intervention to restore an otherwise incapable will.

Wilson’s argument is that once total inability and unconditional election are accepted, irresistible grace follows naturally. If only those unconditionally elected receive the grace necessary to believe, and God’s decision to save them cannot fail, then saving grace must effectively secure their response.

In this framework, the person believes willingly, but the ultimate outcome is determined by God’s prior action.

The Provisionist objection:

Grace can be necessary, powerful, and entirely initiated by God without being irresistible. God calls, draws, convicts, reveals, and provides. A person does not overpower God by resisting His grace; rather, God has sovereignly permitted a genuine response to His gracious initiative.

Provisionism rejects the assumption that God’s saving purpose must be accomplished by determining every person’s response to the gospel.

P — Perseverance of the Saints

The question: Is perseverance guaranteed to every genuinely regenerated believer, or does final salvation depend on a special divine gift that determines who will persevere?

Wilson gives this point a distinctive historical treatment.

He argues that Augustine developed the doctrine of a special gift of perseverance to explain why some people who had received baptism and the Holy Spirit continued in faith while others subsequently fell away.

In Augustine’s developing framework, according to Wilson, the initial reception of grace did not necessarily guarantee final perseverance. God therefore had to grant an additional gift to those who would ultimately persevere.

Wilson sees this as a historical precursor to the perseverance doctrine later incorporated into TULIP.

However, this is also where an important distinction appears. Augustine’s account of perseverance does not map neatly onto the modern Calvinist assertion that everyone who is genuinely regenerated will certainly persevere to the end. Wilson argues that Augustine’s baptismal theology allowed for people who had received the Holy Spirit to fall away without receiving the additional gift of perseverance.

The historical point:

Wilson is not simply claiming that Augustine and modern Calvinists used different words for precisely the same doctrine. He is arguing that Augustine developed a theological solution to a problem that later became part of the Reformed understanding of perseverance, while the details of the two positions differ.

5. How the Five Points Fit Together

Wilson’s argument is not that Augustine independently developed five unrelated doctrines. He believes the doctrines emerged as interconnected consequences of a more fundamental change in Augustine’s understanding of the human will, divine sovereignty, and saving grace.

His proposed sequence can be summarized as follows:

  1. Total inability: Fallen humanity cannot make a saving response without prior divine intervention.
  2. Unconditional election: God determines which individuals receive the grace necessary for salvation.
  3. Effectual grace: God acts to ensure that those chosen respond to His saving call.
  4. Limited atonement: The intent and application of Christ’s saving work are restricted to those God has determined to save.
  5. Perseverance: God grants the additional grace necessary to ensure the final salvation of those who will persevere.

This is a summary of Wilson’s historical and theological reconstruction, not a claim that Augustine himself presented the doctrines in this exact order or in the modern terminology of TULIP.

Wilson’s argument is that the system developed from a foundational premise:

God’s unilateral determination of the individual’s eternal destiny, rather than a genuine human response to God’s universally offered grace.

Once that premise is accepted, Wilson contends, the remaining doctrines follow with considerable logical consistency.

The Provisionist challenge is directed at the foundational premise itself. If Scripture teaches that God graciously provides salvation to all, genuinely calls people to believe, and permits them to accept or resist His call, then the remaining points of TULIP cannot simply be assumed to follow from God’s sovereignty.

6. What About the Early Church Fathers?

One of Wilson’s strongest historical claims is that Augustine’s later determinism represented a significant departure from earlier Christian thought.

In both works, Wilson argues that the earlier Christian tradition generally defended human freedom to respond to God’s gracious provision while rejecting forms of unilateral determinism associated with Stoicism and Gnostic or Manichaean teachings.

He discusses figures such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Origen. Wilson interprets their writings as evidence that early Christian authors generally affirmed divine foreknowledge, grace, and predestination without concluding that God unilaterally determined each individual’s eternal destiny independently of that person’s response.

He also argues that Augustine’s earlier writings were more consistent with this understanding before his later theological shift.

If Wilson’s historical reconstruction is correct, this raises a significant question for appeals to church tradition:

should Augustine’s later theology be treated as the definitive interpretation of the early Christian consensus, or should it be examined against the writings of earlier Christian authors?

7. From Augustine to Luther and Calvin

Wilson traces the subsequent influence of Augustine through the Protestant Reformation.

Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk, drew heavily on Augustine in his understanding of grace and the bondage of the will. His 1525 work The Bondage of the Will became a major statement of his rejection of the idea that fallen humanity could independently choose salvation.

John Calvin likewise drew extensively on Augustine. Wilson argues that Calvin’s theological system adopted and further developed Augustine’s later understanding of predestination, human inability, and divine sovereignty.

This helps explain the term Augustinian-Calvinism. It describes the historical and theological relationship between Augustine’s later doctrines and the Reformed system associated with Calvin.

Nevertheless, Calvinism is not a single, unchanging body of thought in every historical detail. Later Reformed theologians developed, refined, and systematized their doctrines, and Calvinists disagree among themselves on a number of issues.

The five points of Calvinism were formally articulated in their familiar confessional setting at the Synod of Dort (1618–1619), long after Augustine and Calvin. Wilson’s argument is therefore best understood as a claim about the historical roots of the underlying theological ideas, not the literal existence of the TULIP acronym in Augustine’s writings.

8. Does This Mean Calvinism Is Gnosticism or Manichaeism?

No—not in the sense that the systems are identical. This distinction is essential to a responsible historical critique.

Wilson argues that certain deterministic concepts in Augustine’s later theology bear significant similarities to concepts found in Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism. He believes Augustine incorporated elements of these earlier systems into his Christian interpretation of Scripture.

That is a claim about intellectual influence, historical development, and structural resemblance.

It does not mean that Calvinists accept every doctrine of these ancient philosophical or religious traditions. Historic Calvinism affirms the Christian doctrines of creation, the incarnation, the Trinity, the resurrection, and the goodness of God’s creation—positions that distinguish it sharply from important aspects of Gnostic and Manichaean systems.

The relevant question is narrower:

Did certain concepts concerning determinism, human inability, selective divine intervention, and saving grace enter Augustine’s later theology through philosophical and religious influences that differed from earlier Christian teaching?

Wilson answers yes.

His critics dispute aspects of his historical reconstruction and the degree to which the similarities demonstrate actual doctrinal dependence.

A fair assessment should examine the primary sources, the chronology of Augustine’s writings, and the specific doctrines being compared rather than treating a historical resemblance as proof of complete theological identity.

9. The Provisionist Alternative: Grace Without Theological Determinism

For those approaching the question from a Provisionist perspective, the historical discussion raises a deeper theological issue.

Does God’s sovereignty require Him to determine every human decision, including who will believe the gospel? Or can God sovereignly provide salvation, initiate the work of grace, and genuinely call people to repentance and faith without determining their response?

Provisionism maintains that salvation is entirely dependent on God’s gracious provision in Jesus Christ. Fallen humanity cannot earn salvation or save itself. God initiates the work, Christ provides the atonement, and the gospel calls people to believe.

But the fact that salvation is entirely of grace does not necessarily mean that God must unilaterally determine which individuals will believe.

The five traditional Provisionist affirmations can be summarized this way:

  • Human sinfulness: All people are sinful and need God’s grace, but sinfulness does not automatically establish total inability to respond to God’s gracious call.
  • Conditional election: God determines the condition of faith for receiving salvation; believers do not earn their election or salvation.
  • Universal atonement: Christ’s atoning work is provided for all humanity, although not everyone receives its saving benefits.
  • Resistible grace: God graciously calls and enables people to respond, but His gracious invitation can be resisted.
  • Faith and perseverance: Faith is not a meritorious work, and genuine Christian faith is to be lived out in continuing trust and obedience to Christ.

These affirmations do not deny God’s sovereignty or the necessity of grace. They reject the conclusion that grace must operate through the unilateral determination of every individual’s saving response.

From this perspective, Wilson’s historical argument is relevant because it challenges the assumption that theological determinism is the only possible way to understand divine sovereignty, election, and grace.

Conclusion: Examining the Foundation Rather Than Merely the System

Kenneth Wilson’s The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism and his chapter “Calvinism Is Augustinianism” offer a sustained historical challenge to the idea that the distinctive doctrines of Calvinism simply represent the uncontested teaching of the earliest Christian tradition.

Wilson argues that Augustine’s later theology departed from his own earlier emphasis on human freedom and developed a deterministic framework influenced, in Wilson’s interpretation, by Stoicism, Neoplatonism, and Manichaeism. He further argues that this framework became a major historical foundation for the theology later associated with Calvin and the five points of TULIP.

His most important contention is that total inability and unconditional election were foundational changes from which the other doctrines followed. He sees irresistible grace, limited atonement, and perseverance as interconnected consequences of Augustine’s later understanding of divine providence and saving grace.

These are substantial claims, and they should not be treated as established merely because Wilson presents them forcefully. His historical reconstruction is contested, and Calvinist theologians offer alternative readings of Augustine and the early church fathers.

Nevertheless, the questions he raises deserve serious consideration:

  • Did Augustine’s theology of predestination develop significantly during his controversy with Pelagius?
  • How did Augustine’s earlier philosophical and religious experiences affect his later understanding of divine providence?
  • To what extent did Calvin inherit Augustine’s later theology, and where did later Reformed theology develop it further?
  • Does the early Christian evidence support the claim that theological determinism was the original Christian understanding of salvation?
  • Does God’s sovereignty require the unilateral determination of every individual’s eternal destiny, or can God sovereignly provide salvation while allowing a genuine response to His grace?

For Provisionists, the central concern is not simply whether Augustine influenced Calvin. That influence is well established. The deeper concern is whether the deterministic features of Augustine’s later theology faithfully represent the biblical teaching on God’s character, universal saving provision, divine grace, and human responsibility.

The historical question and the biblical question must ultimately be considered together. A doctrine’s antiquity does not prove its truth, and a doctrine’s later development does not automatically disprove it. Each must be tested against Scripture and examined in its historical context.

The issue, then, is not whether Augustine was an important Christian theologian. It is whether the particular theological framework that developed in his later writings—and that Wilson identifies as the foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism—provides the most faithful account of God’s sovereignty and His gracious offer of salvation to humanity.

BONUS:

Allie Beth Stuckey gets early church history wrong:

The Man in the Mirror (Bonus: Spurgeon’s “Arminian Prayer”)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Jump to the history of the phrase “preaching like and Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist” and a response to Spurgeon’s “Arminian prayer.”

A recent short sermon clip I listened to by a yute pastor is this one…. and I must say, it is impossible to preach like a Reformed determinist or Calvinist who agrees with TULIP.

I will critique a bit [decode] his ideas lurking behind the scenes and show a more honest interpolation of the major issues:

Guys, God’s law makes demands of you. It demands that you be something you cannot be.

But the gospel — the gospel — doesn’t demand something from you that you don’t have. The gospel gives you something you desperately need: righteousness—clean hands and a pure heart.

One man put it this way:

“Run and run, the law demands,

but gives me neither feet nor hands.

Better news the gospel brings:

it bids me fly and gives me wings.”

Amen. That’s the gospel.

The law tells you to run, and you feel that pressure: “I’ve got to work to appease God. Run and run and run.”

If you’re on that treadmill of self-righteousness today, get off it. Throw yourself at the mercy of Jesus. Collapse there, and you can be made righteous today.

Maybe you, like me, have felt ashamed and thought, “I’m not the man I’m supposed to be. I’m not the man I was meant to be. I’m not the man I should be.”

But Jesus was—and He was for you.

Okay, first, I want to deal with two issues I hear  as Josh preaches that are running around behind the scenes. Both are important. The first issue deals with “The Gospel”. While I resonate with the gospel’s message being preached, the 16th century Augustinian systematic idea of election slides into the picture.

The “Gospel of Election”
Calvary or the Cosmic Lottery of Election?

Paul declares that the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, CSB). But in Reformed determinism, the decisive question is not simply whether Christ died for sinners, whether His provision is sufficient, or whether the gospel is proclaimed. The decisive question is whom God unconditionally chose to make willing to believe before the foundation of the world.

Consider the implications.

Two sinners hear the same gospel. Both are commanded to repent. Both are told that Christ is the Savior and that they must believe in Him. Yet, according to this system, one will certainly believe because God has decreed to grant him effectual grace, while the other will remain in unbelief because God has not decreed to grant him that same grace.

What made the difference? Was it the clarity of the gospel? The sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice? The gracious invitation to repent and believe? No—not ultimately. The decisive difference was God’s prior, unconditional decree to bring one sinner to faith while withholding the effectual grace that, according to this system, would certainly bring the other to faith.

Election becomes the ultimate arbiter of who will be saved, while the gospel serves as the predetermined instrument through which the elect are brought to their predetermined response.

This is the heart of the problem: the gospel is proclaimed to both, but only one has been unconditionally chosen to receive the inward work that guarantees belief. The same message is preached; the same Savior is announced; the same command to repent and believe is issued. Yet the decisive difference was settled before either sinner heard a word.

What, then, is the ultimate explanation for the difference between them? The gospel they heard—or the decree that determined which one would certainly respond to it?

Jonah Preached, but Had Election Already Decided?

Consider Jonah and Nineveh. Jonah preached, and the Ninevites repented. Scripture presents a remarkable example of a divine warning followed by a genuine human response. God sent His messenger, the people heard the warning, and they turned from their wickedness.

Yet under Reformed determinism, their repentance was not ultimately what distinguished them from those who would remain unrepentant. God had already unconditionally determined whom He would effectually bring to repentance. Jonah’s message was the ordained means, but the decisive distinction had been settled before anyone heard him preach.

The question is not whether God ordained Jonah’s mission. He plainly did. The question is whether the proclamation itself was God’s gracious call to which the Ninevites responded, or whether the decisive explanation for their response must be found in an earlier, selective decree that guaranteed the repentance of some while withholding the same effectual grace from others.

In this framework, the preacher announces the warning, but the prior decree determines who will certainly respond. The message is indispensable as the ordained means, yet it is not the ultimate explanation for why one person repents and another does not.

That is why the image of a “cosmic lottery” presses the issue—not because Calvinists would describe their doctrine in those terms, but because the decisive distinction between the saved and the lost is assigned to an unconditional choice made before either person believes, repents, or hears the gospel.

What Does It Mean to Tell Someone, “Christ Died for You”?

The same problem becomes intensely personal when we consider the gospel invitation.

Suppose a preacher tells an unbeliever, “Christ died for you. His death is sufficient to save you. Repent and believe in Him, and you will be forgiven.”

Under a universal-provision understanding of the atonement, this is a straightforward announcement of good news: Christ provided salvation for humanity, and the sinner is called to receive that provision through faith.

But under a strict particular-redemption framework, the preacher cannot affirm that Christ bore that person’s sins in the same saving sense unless that person belongs to the elect. The preacher does not know whether the person is elect. The individual may hear the invitation, remain unconvinced, and die in unbelief—and, according to the system, Christ may never have died for that individual in the particular, saving sense being discussed.

What, then, can the preacher confidently promise that Christ has done for this specific person?

The invitation can still be sincerely offered within the Calvinistic system. Calvinists argue that the gospel command is genuine, that everyone who comes to Christ will be received, and that the preacher need not know the secret decree. But the Provisionist challenge remains:

How can the universal invitation be grounded in Christ’s provision for every person if the atonement itself is restricted to the elect?

Consider the difference between these two announcements:

  1. “Christ died for you, and He calls you to receive the salvation He has provided.”
  2. “Christ may have died for you—but whether He did depends on whether you were among the elect chosen before the foundation of the world.”

The second statement is not how Calvinists ordinarily frame their gospel invitations, and it would be unfair to suggest that every Calvinist preacher speaks that way. Nevertheless, it exposes the theological tension the Provisionist critique is addressing:

the preacher proclaims a universal command, while the scope of Christ’s particular saving work is understood to be limited to those already chosen.

The gospel invitation is heard in time. The decree, in this system, determines the outcome before time.

The Qualified-Buyer Problem

Imagine a car dealership advertising, “Good news! Qualified buyers can receive zero-percent financing.”

That offer may be perfectly honest. But notice the qualification: the offer is not available to everyone. Whether you receive the benefit depends on whether you meet the requirements.

Now apply the analogy to the question of atonement. If the announcement is, “Christ died for the elect,” the decisive question becomes:

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU QUALIFY?

In Calvinism, the answer is not that you independently meet a condition that causes God to elect you. Rather, election is unconditional, and effectual grace brings the elect to faith. Faith reveals the saving work of God; it does not determine whom God chose.

But that is precisely the issue. If you believe, it is because you were elected and effectually brought to faith. If you remain in unbelief, you were not granted that decisive grace. The difference is not ultimately found in the atoning provision offered to both, nor in a response that God graciously enables both to make. It is found in God’s selective decree.

The question is no longer simply, “Will you trust the Savior?” It is, “Has God chosen to make you willing to trust Him?”

The Calvinist will answer that those who come to Christ do so willingly because God has renewed their hearts. The Provisionist objection is that this does not remove the problem; it identifies where the problem lies. Why does God effectually renew one person’s heart but not another’s?

If that selective renewal is the decisive difference, then election—not the sinner’s response to the proclaimed gospel—is the ultimate explanation for why one person believes and another does not.

Does Election Become the Fountain, and Christ the Means?

This concern is not merely a criticism imposed from outside Reformed theology. The Canons of Dort, a foundational Reformed confession, describe election as the “fountain of every saving good,” from which faith, holiness, and the other gifts of salvation proceed, ultimately leading to eternal life.

That language makes the issue especially clear. In the Reformed account, election is not merely God’s recognition of those who will believe. It is the unconditional decree from which saving faith and the other saving benefits flow.

The second video places this claim alongside John MacArthur’s defense of sovereign election throughout redemptive history. MacArthur points to God’s choice of Israel, Jacob, and the covenant people. Such passages certainly establish that God elects and chooses according to His purposes. But the further question is whether God’s election of a people for a historical and covenantal role automatically establishes the Calvinistic claim that God unconditionally selects particular individuals for salvation and effectually determines their response to the gospel.

Those are related questions, but they are not identical. God’s choice of Israel as a people does not, by itself, settle every question about individual election, the scope of the atonement, or the nature of saving faith.

The Provisionist challenge is that the Calvinistic system takes the reality of divine election and makes unconditional individual election the fountain from which every saving response flows. The result is a theological order in which the decree explains who will believe, while Christ’s work provides the necessary basis for the salvation of those already chosen.

Here the question becomes unavoidable:

  • If election is the fountain of every saving good, what does that make the cross in the explanation of why one sinner is saved and another is lost?

Christ’s death remains necessary in the Calvinistic account. But the cross, considered by itself, does not explain why one sinner receives its saving benefits while another does not. Both need Christ. Both need forgiveness. Both need grace. Yet only one receives the effectual grace that guarantees faith.

Election supplies the decisive distinction.

Does Election Overshadow the One Who Is “The Way, the Truth, and the Life”?

Jesus declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, CSB).

Calvinists affirm this verse. They insist that no one is saved apart from Christ, His atoning death, and His resurrection. It would be inaccurate to claim that they consciously replace Jesus with election or believe that the cross is unnecessary.

But the question is one of explanatory priority.

If the ultimate reason a person believes in Christ is that God unconditionally elected that person and effectually renewed the person’s heart, while another person remains in unbelief because that same effectual grace was not granted, then election determines who will certainly come to the One who is the way, the truth, and the life.

Christ is indispensable to salvation. Yet election is the decisive explanation for why one sinner receives Christ’s saving benefits and another does not.

The Provisionist objection is not that Christ has become literally unnecessary in Calvinist theology. It is that the system makes the selective decree the decisive differentiator of salvation, even though the New Testament presents Christ and the gospel as the focus of God’s saving provision and proclamation.

Calvary provides the ground of salvation. The gospel proclaims Christ. But in this deterministic framework, election decides who will certainly believe the proclamation and receive its saving benefits.

Calvary or the Cosmic Lottery?

Return to the two sinners who hear the same gospel.

One believes. The other does not.

The Calvinist says the believer comes willingly because God effectually renews the heart; the unbeliever remains responsible because he acts according to his own desires. Yet both the believer’s renewed desires and the unbeliever’s continued resistance occur within God’s sovereign decree. The decisive question remains: Why does God grant the heart-changing grace to one and not the other?

The answer cannot ultimately be that one was more receptive, more spiritually perceptive, or more willing to respond to the gospel. In the Calvinistic account under consideration, the elect person’s willingness is itself the result of God’s effectual work. The decisive difference lies in God’s unconditional choice.

That is the issue. Not whether Calvinists believe in the cross or preach the gospel, but whether the decisive explanation for the difference between the saved and the lost is the gospel’s gracious call to faith—or God’s prior, selective decree.

Paul says the gospel “is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16, CSB). He also writes that faith comes from hearing the message about Christ (Romans 10:17). The Provisionist challenge is this:

  • Why make an unconditional decree of selective regeneration the ultimate explanation for who can and will believe, rather than understand the gospel as God’s gracious call through which sinners may respond to His provision in Christ?

The question is not whether God saves by grace. The question is whether His grace is proclaimed in Christ as a genuine provision and invitation for all, or whether the decisive saving difference has already been settled by an unconditional decree that effectually brings some to faith while leaving others without that same grace.

Calvary provides the saving provision. The gospel announces the good news. But if election alone determines who will certainly believe, then election—not the proclamation of Christ—is the ultimate explanation for who receives salvation.

And that is the question every honest discussion of election and the gospel must confront:

  • Is the good news centered on what God has done for sinners in Christ and graciously calls them to receive—or does the ultimate answer to who will be saved lie in a selective decree that determines who will ever be willing to believe?

Okay, in this second section, some ideas need to be put in place BEFORE dealing with “looking at the man in the mirror.” I have more quotes here but I have chosen a select few to make the point:

Some Quotes Before Section Two

JOHN CALVIN:

  • “Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.” — Institutes 1.16.8.
  • “Men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction.” — Institutes 1.18.1.
  • “The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.” — Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid, p. 175f.
  • “… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. … It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. … Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.” — The Eternal Predestination of God 10:11.
  • “From these statements of the inspired word … it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous.” — Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God.
  • “Does God control even the evil wills of evil men? Calvin’s answer, in accord with Scripture, was ‘yes.’ Just as God controlled the rebellion of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12), the cursing of Shimei (2 Sam. 16:10), and the rage of the Jerusalem crowds (Acts 2:23), so He controls even the will of all wicked men.” — The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79–80. (Note: The last block is Helm/Goad framing Calvin, not a continuous Calvin paragraph.)

ALL men’s acts are decreed and happen by the will and purpose of God. All.

JOHN PIPER:

QUESTION: Has God predetermined every tiny detail in the universe, such as dust particles in the air? And then I should add here, including all our besetting sins.

PIPER RESPONDS: Yes, which means yes…

— John Piper (Video)

God determines every single thing even dust but you have to make the decision about the cross… What?

“Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be? … no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin … or by denying his control of sin … is fatal.”

John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).

“God so disposes all things … so that in accordance with moral necessity all men make only those choices ordained by God from all eternity.” […] “In this way He ultimately determines all acts of volition (though not all in the same way) and yet holds man accountable only for those acts which they want most to do.”

John Piper, Desiring God, A Response to J.I. Packer on the So-Called Antinomy Between the Sovereignty of God and Human Responsibility.

Mark Talbot/John Piper:

Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ

“works all things according to the counsel of his will.” Here the Greek word for “works” is energeø, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child…

Mark Talbot, in John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2006), 42.

God can cause, actively, men to rape, torture, kill, and conduct horrendous scientific experiments on people just because they are Jewish

Theodore Zachariades:

God works all things after the Council of His will. Even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so! And when He wants to, he orders those to commit adultery when he wants to!

— Dr. Theodore Zachariades (Video)

Pastor Zachariades says that God wills [causes, not just permits] a man to be unfaithful to his wife in his comment on becoming a Calvinist via Ephesians 1.

Gordon H. Clark:

“I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so. … In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”

Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.

Excessive alcoholism? Murdering your family? All God’s fault.

End Of Quotes

The Man in the Mirror
The Man God Decreed You to Be

The preacher asks you to look in the mirror and admit, “I’m not the man I’m supposed to be. I’m not the man I was meant to be. I’m not the man I should be.”

But under theological determinism, that confession raises a deeper question: Who decreed the man staring back at you?

Who decreed his desires, his circumstances, his struggles, his failures, and the decisions that shaped his life?

John Calvin wrote that people act under God’s secret direction and that God works in human hearts to bring about His purposes. John Piper likewise affirms that God determines all things, even the smallest details of the universe, including human choices and sin. If these claims are taken seriously, then the man in the mirror is not merely a man whose choices fall within God’s foreknowledge. He is a man whose desires, decisions, and circumstances all fall within God’s exhaustive decree.

Yet the preacher still tells him to change.

  • “I need to quit drinking.”
  • “I need to stop hurting people.”
  • “I need to control my anger.”
  • “I need to become a different man.”

But here is the tension:

under theological determinism, the man cannot ultimately determine whether he will become that different man.

He must repent, yet his repentance will occur only if God has decreed to bring it about. He must believe, yet saving faith will occur only if God grants the effectual grace that ensures it.

And that raises the central question:

If God determines the desires and decisions that make one man who he is, and selectively grants the grace that transforms one man but not another, why does one change while the other remains unchanged?

The Calvinist response is that people act willingly according to their desires and are therefore responsible for their actions. But the Provisionist objection goes deeper than whether a person acts willingly. It asks where those desires ultimately came from and why the decisive, heart-changing grace is granted to one person but not another.

If God determines the circumstances and desires that shape a man, and if only God’s selective effectual grace can ensure that he will believe and be transformed, then the difference between the man who changes and the man who does not ultimately rests on God’s decree.

The law commands the man to become better. The gospel points him to Christ. Yet, in this deterministic framework, the man cannot finally be the one who determines whether he will respond to that call. The decisive difference is whether God has decreed to bring about the response in him.

IT’S GETS EVEN WORSE:

If the man in the mirror cries out to God for help in overcoming his sin, another question arises:

  • Under theological determinism, is he asking God to help him fight against desires and actions that God Himself decreed?

If God determines both the sinful desires he struggles with and the grace by which those desires are overcome, is the man essentially asking God to help him fight a battle whose opposing forces God has ultimately ordained?

So returning to the mirror. The man sees what is wrong and recognizes what needs to change. But if God decreed the very desires and decisions that made him the man he is, and also decreed whether he would receive the grace that ensures his transformation, the question cannot be avoided:

What exactly is the man being condemned for failing to become—and why was the decisive grace withheld from him?

So, that is my critique when I here these Calvinist – Reformed – TULIP types preach. They are preaching like and Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist. [As the saying goes.]

To Wit….

(GROK) The core observation—that Arminians (or those who emphasize free will/human responsibility) often sound different when preaching or talking slowly versus when praying (where dependence on God comes out more strongly)—is most famously and early associated with Charles H. Spurgeon. In his sermon “Free Will—A Slave” (preached December 2, 1855, on John 5:40), he said:

“You have heard a great many Arminian sermons, I dare say; but you never heard an Arminian prayer—for the saints in prayer appear as one in word, and deed and mind. An Arminian on his knees would pray desperately like a Calvinist. He cannot pray about free-will: there is no room for it.”

He then imagines a satirical “Arminian prayer” that no real Christian would actually pray, arguing that true prayer reveals a deeper dependence on God’s sovereign grace.

Here is that prayer:

“Fancy him praying, ‘Lord, I thank thee I am not like those poor presumptuous Calvinists. Lord, I was born with a glorious free-will; I was born with power by which I can turn to thee of myself; I have improved my grace. If everybody had done the same with their grace that I have, they might all have been saved.

“Lord, I know thou dost not make us willing if we are not willing ourselves. Thou givest grace to everybody; some do not improve it, but I do. There are many that will go to hell as much bought with the blood of Christ as I was; they had as much of the Holy Ghost given to them; they had as good a chance, and were as much blessed as I am. It was not thy grace that made us to differ; I know it did a great deal, still I turned the point; I made use of what was given me, and others did not—that is the difference between me and them.’”

Spurgeon then delivers his punchline:

“That is a prayer for the devil, for nobody else would offer such a prayer as that.”

This is the earliest clear, well-documented statement of the idea that people (especially Arminians) “pray like Calvinists.”

Related later variants and attributions

  • J.C. Ryle (in Expository Thoughts on the Gospels on John 6:44, published around 1869) made a similar point: “Many people are very low Arminians in print or in the pulpit, but excellent Calvinists on their knees.”
  • A.W. Tozer is sometimes quoted as saying something like “I preach like an Arminian but I pray like a Calvinist.” When asked about his own views, he reportedly quoted the Scottish Baptist preacher W. Graham Scroggie (1877–1958): “I am a Calvinist when I pray and an Arminian when I preach.”
  • Common modern sayings include “Work like an Arminian, sleep like a Calvinist,” “Pray/evangelize like an Arminian, but sleep like a Calvinist,” and “Be a Calvinist on your knees and an Arminian in the pulpit.” These appear frequently in 20th–21st-century Reformed discussions (e.g., critiques by John Piper and others) as popular or longstanding counsel, but they are often criticized as misleading or inconsistent with either system.

The idea has circulated as a rhetorical observation or piece of practical advice in Calvinist-leaning evangelical and Reformed circles for well over a century and a half. Spurgeon’s 1855 formulation is the earliest prominent, dated use of the core “pray like a Calvinist / Arminian on his knees” point. The exact phrasing you mentioned (“preaching or pray like an Arminian, but sleeping as a Calvinist”) is a later popular variant of that older theme rather than a phrase with one clear inventor.

A CALVINIST PRAYER

RPT: Source One | Source Two

A longer CALVINIST PRAYER using Theistic Determinisms systematic, bringing it to it’s logical conclusion:

An adaptation of the themes in Spurgeon’s “Free Will—A Slave”

O Sovereign God, I thank You that before the foundation of the world You unchangeably decreed whatsoever comes to pass. Nothing occurs outside Your eternal counsel—not a thought, not a desire, not a decision, not a word spoken in anger, not a crime committed in secret, and not a molecule that moves beyond Your meticulous determination.

I thank You that my life unfolded exactly as You ordained. You determined the circumstances of my birth, the family that raised me, the influences that shaped me, the thoughts that entered my mind, the desires that stirred within my heart, and the decisions that followed. I could not ultimately have become anyone other than the person You decreed I would be.

I thank You that even my prayer this morning was ordained before the foundation of the world. I could not have prayed it differently, for to do so would have required a different decree. I praise You for determining the words I speak, the thoughts I entertain, and the conclusions I reach concerning Your sovereignty.

Lord, I thank You that everything happens according to Your decree—even the things You command me not to do.

I thank You that when I am tempted, the temptation itself falls within Your eternal plan. When lust arises, when anger burns, when pride swells, when envy takes hold, and when hatred forms in my heart, none of these desires surprises You. You have ordained whatsoever comes to pass, and therefore these events cannot fall outside Your determination.

When I sin, I know that I act according to my own desires. I do what I want to do, and I am accountable for my actions. Yet those desires, the circumstances surrounding them, and the decision that follows all fall within Your exhaustive decree. I could not finally have desired otherwise, for the desires I possess are the desires You determined would govern my actions.

I thank You that I am responsible for doing what I could not ultimately have done otherwise.

O Lord, I thank You that You have ordained both the command and the transgression of the command, both the prohibition and the act prohibited. You command me to resist temptation, yet the temptation and my response to it are included in Your decree. You command me to repent, yet my repentance will occur only if You have decreed to bring it about.

I thank You that when I fall into sin, I have disobeyed Your revealed command, even though my disobedience has not fallen outside Your eternal decree. I thank You that You judge me for the desires and actions that You have determined would characterize my life, while I remain accountable because I acted willingly according to those desires.

Lord, I confess that I cannot resolve every question this raises. I shall therefore affirm that You ordain all things, that human beings remain responsible, and that Your decree is righteous, even when I struggle to understand how these claims fit together.

I thank You for the cross of Christ, without which there is no salvation. I thank You that Christ’s sacrifice was necessary to redeem sinners and that His blood provides the ground of forgiveness. Yet I also thank You that the benefits of His sacrifice are applied only to those whom You have unconditionally elected and effectually called to faith.

I thank You that before the foundation of the world You determined not only the provision of salvation but also which sinners would certainly believe and receive it. You ordained the preaching of the gospel, the hearing of the message, the conviction of sin, and the effectual work of grace by which Your elect are brought to faith.

When two sinners hear the same gospel, I thank You that one believes and the other remains in unbelief because You have determined to grant effectual grace to one and not the other. The believer did not ultimately supply the decisive difference, and the unbeliever cannot produce the faith that would change his condition apart from the grace You have decreed to grant.

I thank You that I cannot boast in my faith, because You determined that I would believe. But I must ask:

Why did You decree to bring me to faith while leaving another sinner without the effectual grace that would certainly bring him to faith?

I know that Your election is gracious and not based on foreseen merit. I know that You owe salvation to no one. Yet I ask why Your grace takes the form of a selective decree that guarantees the faith of some while leaving others in unbelief.

I thank You that You command all people to repent and believe, while in this system only those whom You effectually call will certainly do so. I thank You that the gospel is proclaimed to people whose ultimate response has already been settled by Your eternal counsel.

When I preach to the lost, help me proclaim Christ sincerely. Let me call sinners to repentance, urge them to believe, and tell them that everyone who comes to Christ will be received. Yet I cannot know which hearers You have elected, nor can I grant the effectual grace that will ensure their response.

So I pray for the lost: Lord, save them. Grant them the grace that brings them to faith. And when I ask You to save someone who remains unbelieving, I acknowledge that the decisive difference is not something I can produce through better preaching or more earnest prayer. It rests in Your sovereign determination.

But if I ask You to grant that person the grace You have decreed not to grant, I must also ask whether my prayer itself has been ordained to change the outcome or merely to accomplish the means by which Your already-determined outcome will occur.

O Lord, I thank You for ordaining all things, including the horrors of human history. I thank You

America First: Energy Independence Is National Security

Published by Papa Giorgio

What the 172-Million-Barrel SPR Exchange Actually Means

Why an emergency exchange is different from a permanent sale

The 172-million-barrel SPR exchange does not mean the oil was permanently given away. It is a temporary release structured like a short-term oil loan:

participating companies must return the original volume plus additional barrels.

How the exchange works

The Trump administration authorized the temporary release of up to 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to support the market during the 2026 disruption. Unlike a permanent sale, an exchange requires the companies receiving the oil to return the same amount of crude plus additional “premium” barrels—similar to paying interest in oil.

In the first exchange, 45.2 million barrels were contracted to return as 55 million barrels, adding about 9.8 million barrels to the reserve. According to DOE, the exchanges are designed to leave the SPR with more oil than it released, without requiring taxpayers to fund the replacement.

How this differs from the 2022 sale

The key difference is what happens after the oil leaves the SPR. Under Biden, the 2022 emergency action permanently sold roughly 180 million barrels: the government received the proceeds and later had to purchase crude to replenish the reserve. Under Trump, the 2026 action is structured as an emergency exchange: participating companies temporarily receive the crude and must return it with additional premium barrels.

The authorized 172 million barrels should therefore not be understood as oil permanently removed from the SPR. The exchange program is intended to return the original volume plus additional crude, rebuilding the reserve without a taxpayer-funded purchase of replacement oil.

An important clarification

The comparison is not that Biden never replenished the SPR while Trump is the only president to do so. After the 2022 sale, the Biden administration undertook a substantial replenishment program. The distinction is how each emergency release was structured. Biden’s 180.3 million barrels were sold outright, generating approximately $16.95 billion in proceeds. DOE later used those proceeds to purchase replacement crude and worked with Congress to prevent another 140 million barrels of previously mandated sales.

Trump’s 2026 program, by contrast, was structured from the outset as an exchange: participating companies borrow crude from the SPR and contractually return it with additional premium barrels. In the first exchange, DOE released 45.2 million barrels and contracted to receive 55 million barrels back—a 9.8-million-barrel premium. The central distinction is therefore sale and later repurchase versus temporary exchange and return with a premium.

Bottom line

  • Biden, 2022: 180.3 million barrels sold; proceeds received; replacement oil purchased or secured later.
  • Trump, 2026: Up to 172 million barrels exchanged; temporary market supply provided; original volume plus premium barrels contractually returned.

The 172-million-barrel figure therefore represents the maximum amount authorized for the emergency exchange—not oil permanently lost from the SPR. The U.S. Energy Information Administration describes the 2026 release as an exchange that requires the original volume plus additional barrels to be returned.

America First: Energy Independence Is National Security

The contrast between the Biden and Trump approaches to energy is clear. The Biden administration made a major policy push toward a clean-energy transition, using the Inflation Reduction Act and other measures to promote solar, wind, electric vehicles, batteries, and other alternatives while pursuing its climate goals.

Trump has taken a fundamentally different approach. Rather than treating the transition away from fossil fuels as the central objective, his administration has emphasized expanding America’s domestic energy supply—including oil and natural gas—alongside other reliable energy sources. Trump declared a national energy emergency, directed agencies to remove barriers to domestic energy development, and established the National Energy Dominance Council to expand reliable and affordable energy production.

The results are already visible in the production data. U.S. crude oil production reached a record 13.6 million barrels per day in 2025, while total U.S. energy production also reached a record.

The argument behind Trump’s approach is straightforward:

  • America is safer when it has abundant energy at home. National security should not depend on foreign suppliers or on the assumption that alternative energy can quickly replace the enormous amount of oil and natural gas the American economy still requires.

Reformed Reading of John 15 | Calvinism’s “Reading Rainbow”

Published by Papa Giorgio

(See my full series on “Calvinism’s ‘Reading Rainbow‘”)

John 15:16 says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” Does this teach the the doctrine of divine election? Albert Mohler says yes, but James White says no. Who is correct. Let’s discuss… (More at Election According to Jesus)

Here is the Calvinist/TULIP/Reformed reading

John 15:14–19 — The “Calvinized” Reading

What happens when we take Jesus’ words to His disciples and read them as though He were directly explaining the Calvinistic doctrine of unconditional individual election to a modern Reformed believer?

14 “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
I am one of Christ’s elect, and my obedience demonstrates that I am truly regenerated and therefore one of His genuine believers.

15 “I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my Father.”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
Jesus has revealed the truth to me because I am one of God’s elect. His saving revelation has been effectually given to me because God has chosen me.

16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain…”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
“I did not choose Christ. Christ unconditionally chose me for salvation before I was born. His sovereign choice preceded my faith, and His effectual calling ensured that I would believe.”

17 “This is what I command you: Love one another.”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
My obedience and love for other believers are evidence that I am genuinely elect. If I persevere in faith and obedience, I demonstrate that I was truly regenerated.

18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated me before it hated you.”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
The world hates me because I am one of God’s elect and therefore belong to Christ rather than to the world.

19 “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it, the world hates you.”

[MODERN REFORMED BELIEVER]:
“Jesus chose me out of the world because I am one of the individuals God unconditionally elected to salvation rather than one of those whom He passed over.”

Responding to the Calvinist Reading

The Calvinist reading of John 15:16 begins with something absolutely true: Jesus chose His disciples. The problem is what is then inferred from that statement. Jesus says,

“You did not choose Me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain.”

The Calvinist interpretation often moves from “I chose you” to “God unconditionally chose you for salvation,” and then from “I appointed you” to “God effectually called you.”

But those additional theological conclusions are not actually stated in the passage. The immediate context tells us what Jesus’ choice involved: He chose and appointed these disciples to go, bear fruit, remain faithful, love one another, and serve as His witnesses in the world. In fact, just three verses later Jesus explains this choice by saying, “because I have chosen you out of the world,” in the context of warning these same disciples that the world will hate and persecute them. The question is therefore not whether there is divine election in John 15:16—there clearly is—but what Jesus elected these people to do. A sound hermeneutic requires us to let the context answer that question before importing a systematic-theological definition of election into the text.

This is where hermeneutics becomes especially important. The principles of definition, usage, context, historical setting, logic, unity, and inference remind us that a conclusion may be true in a larger theological system without being the meaning of a particular verse. See my Five-Finger Life Punch that simply puts the matter thus:

biblical hermeneutics seeks to recover the meaning communicated to the original hearers, while exegesis draws meaning out of the text rather than reading our presuppositions into it.

John 15 is Jesus speaking to His disciples on the eve of His crucifixion, preparing them for continued obedience, fruitfulness, persecution, and witness. John 17 continues this same distinction: Jesus specifically prays for those given to Him and entrusted with His word, and then distinguishes them from those who will subsequently believe through their message. The apostles have a unique role as Christ’s appointed witnesses.

Therefore, when a modern Reformed believer reads “You did not choose Me” as “you were unable to choose Christ,” “I chose you” as “I unconditionally elected you to salvation,” and “I appointed you” as “I effectually called you,” he has moved beyond what John 15:16 actually says.

The issue is not whether God chooses; the issue is whether we have allowed the text to define what His choosing means, or whether we have made the Calvinistic system define it for us.

That is precisely the difference between exegesis and eisegesis.

Exegesis – (Gk. explanation) Critical exposition or explanation of the meaning of a scriptural passage in the context of the whole Bible. The reader of Scripture studies the word meanings and grammar of the text to discern what… was communicated, drawing the meaning out of the text rather than reading what he wants into the text (eisegesis).

Eisegesis – is the process of interpreting a text or portion of text in such a way that it introduces one’s own presuppositions, agendas, and/or biases into and onto the text.

[….]

  • Who was the writer?
  • To whom were they writing?
  • Is the choice of words, wording, or word order significant in this particular passage?
  • What is the cultural, historical context?
  • What was the author’s original intended meaning?
  • How did the author’s contemporaries understand him?
  • Why did he say it that way?

[….]

3) Rule of Context: Avoid using words out of context. Context must define terms and how words are used.

  • Many a passage of Scripture will not be understood at all without the help afforded by the context; for many a sentence derives all its point and force from the connection in which it stands. (Biblical Hermeneutics, Terry. M. S.. p. 117. 1896.)
  • [Bible words] must be understood according to the requirements of the context. (Thayer’s Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 97.)
  • Every word you read must be understood in the light of the words that come before and after it. (How to Make Sense, Flesch, Rudolph, p. 51, Harper & Brothers. 1959.)
  • [Bible words] when used out of context . . . can prove almost anything. [Some interpreters] twist them . . . from a natural to a non?natural sense. (Irenaeus, second century church father, quoted in Inspiration and Interpretation, p. 50, Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1957.)
  • The meaning must be gathered from the context. (Encyclopedia Britannica, Interpretation of Documents. V. 8, p. 912. 1959.)

RPT: A Study On Ways To Approach Scripture That Create Sound Doctrine

This is a slightly truncated version of a Faith On Fire video. I am not always a fan of his style, or hyperbole… but this was good.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

RPT. “A Short Study on Ways to Approach Scripture That Create Sound Doctrine.” Religio-Political Talk. Accessed October 4, 2026. Religio-Political Talk

RPT. Five-Finger Life Punch. Religio-Political Talk, August 2023. Five-Finger Life Punch

“John 15:16 De-Calvinized.” YouTube video. YouTube

Myers, Jeremy. “John 15:16—‘You Did Not Choose Me, but I Chose You.’” Redeeming God. Redeeming God

“John 15:16—‘You Did Not Choose Me, but I Chose You.’” Answering Calvinism. Answering Calvinism

BIBLICAL PASSAGES REFERENCED

The argument also draws substantially on John 6:70; John 13:18; John 15:1–27; John 17:6–20; Acts 10:39–43; Romans 3:1–2; Ephesians 3:1–12; and Genesis 12:1–3.

RPT’s General Election Voter Guide (Nov 3rd. 2026 | SCV Newhall)

Published by Papa Giorgio

(My downloadable 2-page guide is HERE)

RESOURCES USED THIS YEAR:

CITY/LOCAL

Member Of the State Assembly, 40th District: Rickey Tracy Hayes, II
United States Representative, 27th District: Jason Gibbs

DISTRICT

SCV Water Agency Member, Board of Directors, Division 1: Bill Cooper

COUNTY

Sheriff: Alex Villanueva

JUDGE OF THE SUPERIOR COURT

No. 64: Maria Ghobadi
No. 65: Anna Slotky Reitano (really a no win this round)
No. 87: David DeJute
No. 131: Donna Tryfman

COUNTY MEASURES

A: NO
E: NO

STATE

Governor: Steve Hilton
Lieutenant Governor: Gloria Romero
Secretary of State: Donald P. (Don) Wagner
Controller: Herb W. Morgan
Treasurer: Jennifer Hawks
Attorney General: Michael E. Gates
Insurance Commissioner: Ben Allen (both choices Dems, Allen is a smidge better)
Supt. of Public Instruction: Sonja Shaw

STATE PROPOSITIONS / MEASURES

Proposition 1: NO
Proposition 2: NO
Proposition 3: NO
Proposition 4: NO
Proposition 5: NO
Proposition 37: NO
Proposition 38: NO
Proposition 39: YES
Proposition 40: NO
Proposition 41: YES
Proposition 42: YES
Proposition 43: YES
Proposition 44: NO
Proposition 45: YES

STATE JUDICIAL

CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT — Yes / No Retention Vote

Joshua Groban: NO
Kellie M. Evans: NO

COURT OF APPEAL — 2nd Appellate District — Yes / No Retention Vote

PRESIDING JUSTICE

(Division 3) Rashida A. Adams: NO
(Division 4) Helen Zukin: NO
(Division 5) Brian M. Hoffstadt: YES
(Division 6) Tari L. Cody: YES
(Division 7) Gonzalo C. Martinez: NO

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE

(Division 1) Michelle C. Kim: NO
(Division 1) Gregory J. Weingart: NO
(Division 2) Anne Richardson: NO
(Division 2) Steve Goorvitch: NO
(Division 3) Mark Hanasono: NO
(Division 4) Nicholas Daum: NO
(Division 4) Audra M. Mori: NO
(Division 4) Armen Tamzarian: NO
(Division 6) Kenneth R. Yegan: YES
(Division 7) Natalie Stone: NO
(Division 8) John Wiley: YES
(Division 8) Matthew A. Scherb: YES
(Division 8) Victor G. Viramontes: NO

God Provides, Faith Receives: A Five-Point Defense of Provisionism

Published by Papa Giorgio

I got a challenge to this graphic I made (which was a response to this one)… the graphic is first, then the polite challenge:

M.M. has another response version to the Calvinist one to view as well.

Here are the questions:

  1. If mankind is not depraved from birth to adulthood then are we to say we are neutral creatures?
  2. So election depends on who comes forward rather those who are selected for salvation?
  3. Would this make Christ atonement a failure we do know that not everyone will be saved yet the atonement were meant for everyone? Cuz the purpose of Christ death is to save and if someone didnt come forward for salvation so what Christ paid is gone to waste?
  4. So Holy Spirit is reduced to a persons free will decision to overcome it rather than accept it? What if corruption has been acquired and formed in someones life from child to adulthood that it leeches to them on how they think and act, so it means they have lost all hope?
  5. So if Faith is not a gift but rather a response out of free will then we are the ones whos maintaining our Salvation? right? So free will plays a big part of whether or not we will be saved at the end of the day cuz the moment we fail on exercising our faith we are doomed? So we are ought to be perfect in order for us to be deemed worthy of salvation?

So lets deal with these a little, if only to post to fill space on RPT.

1) IF MANKIND IS NOT DEPRAVED FROM BIRTH TO ADULTHOOD
THEN ARE WE TO SAY WE ARE NEUTRAL CREATURES?

The Provisionist/Traditional Baptist position in your sources is not:

“Humans are born morally neutral and therefore don’t really need grace.”

It is:

Humans are born into a sinful condition, inherit a nature and environment inclined toward sin, inevitably sin, and desperately need God’s grace—but they are not born guilty of Adam’s personal sin or rendered incapable of responding to God’s gracious gospel.

In Anyone Can Be Saved (Article 2: The Sinfulness of Man) his distinction is explicitly stated:

humanity inherits “a nature and environment inclined toward sin,” and every morally capable person sins, but Adam’s sin does not itself incapacitate someone’s will or make that person guilty before personally sinning. (Article 2 from the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry [JBTM] Volume 9 number 2 [Fall 2012])

That gives you a useful three-category distinction:

Calvinism:

Neutralism/Pelagianism:

Provisionist/Traditional Baptist position:

That’s why the Provisionism graphic says:

“Humanity Is Sinful and Lost, Yet God’s Grace Enables a Genuine Response.”

That’s the important middle position.

And Saved by Grace through Faith or Saved by Decree? makes essentially the same argument: Robinson distinguishes depravity from the Calvinistic claim of total inability, arguing that people can be deeply corrupted without that corruption making gospel response metaphysically impossible. So the answer to the first challenge is:

“No. We aren’t saying man is neutral. We’re saying sinful does not mean incapable of responding to God’s grace.”

2) SO ELECTION DEPENDS ON WHO COMES FORWARD
RATHER THOSE WHO ARE SELECTED FOR SALVATION?

This is probably the most important clarification to address. The answer is this, and it is simple [like the Gospel]:

God’s grace establishes the condition of salvation; faith does not earn election.

The Anyone Can Be Saved statement describes election as God’s eternal plan “in Christ” to have a people who are His by repentance and faith. It specifically rejects the idea that God predestines some individuals to salvation and others to condemnation irrespective of their response. AW Tozer says that “God’s sovereign decree establishes the destination and the conditions, without requiring God to decree which individual will make the choice.”

Robinson makes the same distinction in his discussion of Ephesians 1:

believers are chosen in Christ, and he argues that the New Testament presents election to salvation as involving union with Christ through faith and repentance. Saved by Grace through Faith or…

So saying that “Man chooses himself for salvation” is the wrong way to frame it.

That’s too strong and makes the objection easy. It should be stated as:

God chooses the terms of salvation; man does not choose the terms. God graciously provides Christ, the atonement, the gospel and the call to repent and believe. The sinner responds to that provision. Chafer notes, about 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and another 35 simply on faith.

Faith isn’t competing with God’s sovereignty. Faith is the condition God established for receiving His gracious provision.

Faith does not earn salvation; it receives the salvation God has graciously provided.

And that’s why Ephesians 2:8–9 is so important: the response of faith doesn’t become a meritorious work simply because it is genuinely exercised by the person. The Anyone Can Be Saved statement explicitly says grace takes the initiative and that faith is not a meritorious work earning salvation.

Article Four: The Grace of God

We affirm that grace is God’s generous decision to provide salvation for any person by taking all of the initiative in providing atonement, in freely offering the gospel in the power of the Holy Spirit, and in uniting the believer to Christ through the Holy Spirit by faith.

We deny that grace negates the necessity of a free response of faith or that it cannot be resisted. We deny that the response of faith is in any way a meritorious work that earns salvation.

Ezra 9:8; Proverbs 3:34; Zechariah 12:10; Matthew 19:16–30, 23:37; Luke 10:1–12; Acts 15:11; 20:24; Romans 3:24, 27–28; 5:6, 8, 15–21; Galatians 1:6; 2:21; 5; Ephesians 2:8–10; Philippians 3:2–9; Colossians 2:13–17; Hebrews 4:16; 9:28; 1 John 4:19.

3) IF CHRIST DIED FOR EVERYONE BUT NOT EVERYONE IS SAVED,
DID CHRIST’S ATONEMENT FAIL?

This objection confuses “Provision” with “application.” The atonement can be:

Universal in provision

without being

universal in application.

That’s exactly the distinction Robinson makes.

He argues that the objective work of the cross is universal while its saving benefits are received by the individual through faith. Therefore, the fact that not everyone is saved does not mean Christ’s death failed. Saved by Grace through Faith or…

In Anyone Can Be Saved the authors are even more explicit. Article 3 says Christ’s sacrifice is the effective sacrifice for the sins of every person, while denying that the atonement automatically results in salvation without repentance and faith. It also explicitly denies that Christ died only for those who will ultimately be saved.

So:

Did Christ die for people who reject Him?

YES.

Does that mean those people are automatically saved?

No.

Does their rejection make Christ’s sacrifice defective?

No.

The cross accomplished what God intended it to accomplish: a sufficient and universal provision of redemption, which is savingly appropriated through faith.

Think of the distinction:

Faith simply receives what Christ provided. That’s why the objection: “What Christ paid is gone to waste” … doesn’t follow.

The cross isn’t a transaction in which Christ failed to save someone because that person rejected the benefit.

4) ISN’T THE HOLY SPIRIT REDUCED TO SOMEONE’S FREE WILL OVERCOMING HIM?

No. And this is where “resistible grace” is often badly characterized. Provisionist’s do not present the sinner as standing there with equal power to God and saying:

“My free will is stronger than the Holy Spirit!”

That’s not the argument.

The Anyone Can Be Saved statement actually describes grace as God taking all the initiative:

God provides the atonement, freely offers the gospel through the Holy Spirit, and unites the believer to Christ through the Spirit by faith. [adapted from — Anyone Can Be Saved, Article 4: “The Grace of God”]

It then specifically denies that grace cannot be resisted. THAT’S a radically different picture from:

“Man overpowers God.”

Rather:

God initiates.

God provides Christ.

God sends the gospel.

The Spirit convicts and draws.

The sinner is confronted with God’s gracious offer.

The sinner may receive or resist.

Robinson similarly describes God’s drawing, gospel proclamation, Christ’s cross and the Spirit’s conviction of the world as expressions of God’s grace available to everyone, while explicitly arguing that such grace can be resisted. Pastor Rogers puts it thus via an older post:

  • Within the Non-Calvinist camp, there are at least two nuanced views on how God allows sinners to respond in faith. The first view is the Arminian view — which says that God’s work of grace (prevenient grace) for all people is needed to enable any sinner to freely choose to respond in faith to the Gospel message. The second view is the Provisionist View — which says that the Gospel message itself [see more below]  is God’s work of grace so that when it is preached to all people, any sinner can freely choose to respond in faith. The proclamation of the Gospel is powerfully sufficient enough to bring salvation to those who will believe. While the Arminian and the Provisionist each have a different take on why all humans can respond to God’s offer, these two views both affirm the importance of God’s initiative of grace to invite all sinners to salvation. (from the book Grace For All: Understanding God’s Plan of Salvation).

— Michael R. Cariño

The “More Below”

Grace Enablements

Includes but are not limited to: God’s salvific love for all (John 3:16), God’s manifestation of his power so that all may know he is the Sovereign (Isa 45:21–22) and Creator (Rom 1:18–20), which assures that everyone has opportunity to know about him. Christ paying for all sins (John 1:29), conviction of the Holy Spirit (John 16:7–11), working of the Holy Spirit (Heb 6:1–6), enlightening of the Son (John 1:9), God’s teaching (John 6:45), God opening minds and hearts (Luke 24:45; Acts 16:14; 26:17–18;), and the power of the Gospel (Rom 1:16), without such redemptive grace, no one seeks or comes to God (Rom 3:11).

Because of these gracious provisions and workings of God, man can choose to seek and find God (Jer 29:13; Acts 17:11–12). Moreover, no one can come to God without God calling (Acts 2:39), drawing (John 6:44), and that God is drawing all individuals (John 12:32). The same Greek word for draw, helkuō, is used in both verses. “About 115 passages condition salvation on believing alone, and about 35 simply on faith.” Other grace enablements may include providential workings in and through other people, situations, and timing or circumstances that are a part of grace to provide an opportunity for every individual to choose to follow Christ.

These are grace enablements in at least three ways; first, they are provided by God’s grace rather than deserved by mankind; second, the necessary components for each and every individual to have a genuine opportunity to believe unto salvation are provided or restored by God; third, they are provided by God without respect to whether the individual will believe or reject, which response God knew in eternity past.

The offer of the Gospel is unconditional, but God sovereignly determined to condition the reception of the offer upon grace-enabled faith; therefore, faith is not reflective of a work or virtue of man, but of God’s sovereign plan of salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8). This indicates faith is the means to being regenerated and saved, not the reason for being saved. This truth of Scripture does not imply God is held captive to the choice of man, but rather it demonstrates God in eternity coextensively determined to create man with otherwise choice and provide a genuine offer of salvation, which can be accepted by grace-enabled faith or rejected. Additionally, to fulfill this plan, God is not obligated to disseminate the Gospel to people he knows have rejected the light he has given them (Rom 1:18–23) and will also reject the Gospel; although he may still send the Gospel to them.

So the question: “What if corruption has formed in someone’s life from childhood to adulthood?” — actually reinforces the need for grace.

The answer isn’t:

“People don’t need grace because they’re basically good.”

It is:

“They desperately need grace precisely because they are deeply corrupted.”

The disagreement is over whether that corruption means:

And there’s an important logical point:

Influence ≠ inability.

A person’s upbringing, habits, addictions, worldview, family, trauma, culture, desires, etc. can profoundly influence how he responds without establishing that he possesses zero capacity to respond to God’s revelation and grace.

So grace can be resisted… but our next dealing is with: assurance / security / apostasy / perseverance.

Those are related, but they’re actually two different questions:

  • Question A: Can a person resist God’s gracious call before salvation?
  • Question B: Once a person believes, what guarantees his salvation and what is the basis of assurance?

5) IF FAITH IS A RESPONSE, AREN’T WE MAINTAINING SALVATION?

This is the strongest objection rhetorically—but it also sneaks in another false equation: Human response = human merit.

It doesn’t follow.

Grace provides salvation; faith receives it.

And it specifically denies that the response of faith is a meritorious work. When Calvinists say “total depravity,” does that mean man cannot believe the gospel, or does it merely mean man cannot do anything meritorious enough to earn God’s favor?

We might raise a question at this point as to whether to understand total depravity as the lack of ability to believe (have faith) or just as the lack of ability to do something like perform a meritorious work that would obtain God’s favor. It is suggested here that the Dortian Calvinist position is both internally logically invalid and externally contradictory as it relates to the requirement to believe in Christ as the only means through which one might receive eternal life as a gift. Faith, not human works, is biblically the means through which regeneration is received from the Spirit. It is never said to be the inevitable ensuing result of such regeneration. We are not called on to be regenerated in order to believe, but we are obliged to believe as a condition for regeneration unto eternal life to take place. A life lived by faith after regeneration defines who are the overcomers in the realm of Christian life and demonstrates spiritual growth toward maturity.

A. Strong inability

The sinner cannot believe in Christ without first being regenerated.

B. Merit inability

The sinner cannot earn salvation through good works, but can nevertheless respond to God’s gracious offer in faith.

So: Faith, not human works, is biblically the means through which regeneration is received from the Spirit.

The end of that very long sentence in Ephesians says:

  • In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. 14 The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.

HEARD THE GOSPEL BELIEVED IN CHRIST SEALED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT
THE SPIRIT IS THE GUARANTEE OF OUR INHERITANCE

The basis of assurance isn’t:

“I know I’m saved because I have successfully demonstrated sufficient perseverance.”

Rather, Paul points believers to God’s action and promise:

He seals the believer with His Spirit, and the Spirit is the guarantee of the inheritance.

And there’s an important grammatical detail, Ephesians 1:13 says:

“having believed, you were sealed…”

The Greek participle pisteusantes (“having believed”) precedes esphragisthēte (“you were sealed”). So the text naturally presents believing sealing, rather than requiring us to insert a prior regeneration faith sequence into the passage. Then verse 14 describes the Spirit as:

“the guarantee [arrabōn] of our inheritance…”

That word carries the idea of a pledge, deposit, or down payment guaranteeing what is to come.

And “if I stumble, I’m doomed” is not the position. This is another important distinction.

There is a huge difference between:

“I sinned.”

and

“I deliberately and finally renounce Christ and abandon the faith.”

Robinson specifically describes apostasy in the latter terms. He says the issue isn’t accidentally “losing” salvation, but a willful, deliberate decision to abandon or renounce the faith.

The crucial question in the case of apostasy concerns whether a true believer in Christ can at some point in their lives forsake their faith, or fall from grace. A common but unhelpful term is “lose one’s salvation.” The problem with this way of stating the issue is that it is too close to being something that happens accidentally—similar to “I lost my glasses.” But here we are not talking about something in the Christian’s life that happens accidentally, but rather is a willful, deliberate decision and choice to abandon or renounce the faith. To the question as to whether a Christian can fall from grace in a final sense, typically at least three different answers have been given. The Calvinist says no; the non-Calvinist says yes; and a third position says, “Theoretically Yes, but in practice, No” (hypothetical apostasy). — Oops – I Thought I Was a Four Point Calvinist

So the challenger’s formulation:

“the moment we fail on exercising our faith we are doomed”

doesn’t accurately represent the position.

It turns apostasy into ordinary Christian failure.

But the New Testament itself distinguishes falling into sin from abandoning Christ.

Its Article 9 of Anyone Can Be Saved, says that when a person responds in faith, God promises to complete the process of salvation into eternity. It describes justification, sanctification by the indwelling Spirit, and glorification—and explicitly says the Holy Spirit-sealed relationship cannot be broken.

Article Nine: The Security of the Believer

We affirm that when a person responds in faith to the gospel, God promises to complete the process of salvation in the believer into eternity. This process begins with justification, whereby the sinner is immediately acquitted of all sin and granted peace with God; continues in sanctification, whereby the saved are progressively conformed to the image of Christ by the indwelling Holy Spirit; and concludes in glorification, whereby the saint enjoys life with Christ in heaven forever.

We deny that this Holy Spirit-sealed relationship can ever be broken. We deny even the possibility of apostasy.

John 10:28–29; 14:1–4; Romans 3:21–26; 8:29–30, 35–39; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Ephesians 1:13–14; Philippians 1:6; 3:12; Colossians 1:21–22; 2 Timothy 1:12; Hebrews 13:5; James 1:12; 1 John 2:19; 3:2; 5:13–15; Jude 24–25.

Here are the Journal articles published on the position, full PDFs linked in pictures:

So Traditional Southern Baptist/Provisionist thought isn’t necessarily identical to an Arminian “you can lose salvation every time you stumble” position.

“I know I am saved because I have believed Christ’s promise; my assurance rests on God’s testimony and Christ’s finished work, not on successfully measuring my future perseverance.” — Pastor Andy Woods

This is someone who can be said walked away from the faith:

SO TO RECAP

  1. Sinfulness doesn’t require total inability. We can be thoroughly sinful without being incapable of responding to God’s gracious revelation.
  2. Conditional election doesn’t mean man earns election. God determines the condition—repentance and faith—and salvation remains entirely God’s gracious provision.
  3. Universal atonement doesn’t require universal salvation. Christ’s death provides salvation for all, while its saving benefits are received only by those who believe.
  4. Resistible grace doesn’t mean man overpowers the Holy Spirit. God initiates, draws, convicts, reveals, and provides; the sinner can nevertheless resist that gracious work.
  5. Faith isn’t a meritorious work. Trusting Christ doesn’t make Christ’s work unnecessary; faith is the means by which the sinner receives what Christ accomplished—and assurance rests on God’s promise and Christ’s finished work, not on successfully measuring future performance.

These are my rough notes to a Bible study I am still in with people from a church I left due to the increase in Calvinism from the shadows to the forefront. You will find a lot about “assurance of faith” vs. the “perseverance” many have in mind. This does not mean I settle the question, but it may add thinking to your understanding of our position.

BOTTOM LINE:

NAZI Occultism

Published by Papa Giorgio

[UPDATED TODAY — REPLACED A DEAD VIDEO — ADDED AN APPENDIX | ORIGINAL POST: 7/09/2016]

The reason for this post is to respond to the idea that the NAZIs were in any way Christian or were supported by the Church or that Hitler was friends with the church. This post should be connected with my updated post, “GOD vs. HITLER.” As well as a post discussing Luther’s anti-Semitism and the distinction between [conservative] Confessing Lutheran’s in Germany at the time and the more socially liberal socialist [state-run] Lutherans: Defending “Lutheranism” from Martin Luther’s Fall from Grace

Between these three posts one should be equipped to respond to this lack of knowledge in regards to history.

Here is a good compendium of NAZI symbols with their occult connections:The Pink Swastika Book Scott Lively NAZI Occultism - Copy

  • Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the NAZI Party (Sacemento, CA: Veritas Aeterna Press, 2002), adapted from chapter two.

Many of the Nazi emblems, such as the swastika, the double lightning bolt “SS” symbol, and even the inverted triangle symbol used to identify classes of prisoners in the concentration camps, originated among homosexual occultists in Germany (some, such as the swastika, are actually quite ancient symbols which were merely revived by these homosexual groups).  In 1907, Jorg Lanz Von Liebenfels (Lanz), a former Cistercian monk whom the church excommunicated because of his homosexual activities,[1] flew the swastika flag above his castle in Austria.[2]  After his expulsion from the church, Lanz founded the Ordo Novi Templi (“Order of the New Temple”), which merged occultism with violent anti-Semitism.  A 1958 study of Lanz called, “Der Mann der Hitler die Ideen gab” – or, “The Man Who Gave Hitler His Ideas” – by Austrian psychologist Wilhelm Daim, called Lanz the true “father” of National Socialism.

List, a close associate of Lanz, formed the Guido Von List Society in Vienna in 1904.  The Guido Von List Society was accused of practicing a form of Hindu Tantrism, which featured sexual perversions in its rituals (the swastika is originally from India).  A man named Aleister Crowley, who, according to Hitler biographer J. Sydney Jones, enjoyed “playing with black magic and little boys,” popularized this form of sexual perversion in occult circles.[3]  List was “accused of being the Aleister Crowley of Vienna”.[4]  Like Lanz, List was an occultist; he wrote several books on the magic principles of rune letters (from which he chose the “SS” symbol).  In 1908, List “was unmasked as the leader of a blood brotherhood which went in for sexual perversion and substituted the swastika for the cross”.[5]  The Nazis borrowed heavily from Lis’s occult theories and research.  List also formed an elitist occult priesthood called the Armanen Order, to which Hitler himself may have belonged.[6]

[TO THE RIGHT] THE FIRST SWASTIKA KNOWN TO BE DISPLAYED IN PRE-WAR GERMANY ON A POLITICAL POSTER BY THE THULE SOCIETY WAS IN 1919.

CORRECTED INFO IN APPENDIX
— JUMP —

The Nazi dream of an Aryan super-race was adopted from an occult group called the Thule Society, founded in 1917 by followers of Lanz and List.  The occult doctrine of the Thule Society held that the survivors of an ancient and highly developed lost civilization could endow Thule initiates with esoteric powers and wisdom.  The initiates would use these powers to create a new race of Aryan supermen  who would eliminate all “inferior” races. 

Hitler dedicated his book, Mein Kampf, to Dietrich Eckart, one of the Thule Society’s inner circle and a former leading figure in the German Worker’s Party (when they met at the gay bar mentioned earlier).[7] 

“…And among them I want also to count that man, one of the best, who devoted his life to the awakening of his, our people, in his writings and his thoughts…”[8]

After the above dedication, the notes in this edition of Mein Kampf read, “Dietrich Eckart was the spiritual founder of the National Socialist Party.”[9] The various occult groups mentioned above were outgrowths of the Theosophical Society, whose founder, Helen Petrovna Blavatsky, was a lesbian,[10] and whose “bishop” was a notorious pederast Charles Leadbeater.  Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, was obsessed with Freemasonry,[11] which is full of occultic influences and practices.[12]

[1] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult ,(New York, NY: Dorset Press, 1989), 19

[2] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1985) p. 109

[3] J. Sydney Jones Hitler in Vienna 1907-1913 (New York, NY: Stein & Day,1983), 123.

[4] ibid., 123

[5] Dusty Sklar, The Nazis and the Occult (New York, NY: Dorset Press,1989), 23.

[6] Robert G. L. Waite, The Psychopathic God Adolf Hitler, Signet Books; New York [1977], p. 91

[7] Wulf Schwarzwaller, The Unknown Hitler: His Private Life and Fortune, National Press Book; Washington D. C. [1989], p. 67

[8] Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (translated by Ralph Manheim: New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 1971), 687.

[9] Ibid.

[10] James Webb, The Occult Underground (LaSalle, IL: Open Court Pub, 1974), 94.

[11] G. S. Graber, The History of the SS: A Chilling Look at the Most Terrifying Arm of the Nazi War Machine (New York, NY: David McKay Company, 1978), 81.

[12] see: Andre Nataf, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult (France: Wordsworth Refernce, 1994), 58-60; Debra Lardie, Concise Dictionary of the Occult and New Age (Grand Rapids: MI: Kregal Publishers, 2000), 108; D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1998),  cf.“freemasonry, 604.

Nazi Occultism 1: The Thule Society | European History | WW2 | Extra History

SERIES:

• Nazi Occultism 1: The Thule Society |  • Nazi Occultism 2: Weird Science |  • Nazi Occultism 3: Hitler vs Magic

• Nazi Occultism 4: The Indiana Jones Stuff |  • Nazi Occultism 5: Thor’s Hammer 

Here is another excerpt from another book discussing the occult symbols in the “SS”Flowers - Secret King NAZI OCCULTISM

  • Michael Moynihan and Stephen E. Flowers, The Secret King: Karl Maia Wiligut, Himmler’s Lord of the Runes: The Real Documents of NAZI Occultism (Waterbury Center, VT: Dominion Press, 2001), 22-31.

Important areas in which Wiligut worked for Himmler included his conceptualization of the Wewelsburg castle as the “center of the world”; the design of the SS-ring; creation of various rituals and design of ritual objects to be used in SS ceremonies; and a steady stream of reports on esoteric matters of theology, history and cosmology issued for the most part privately to Himmler.

The Wewelsburg castle is a 17th century structure located near Buren in Westphalia. Himmler first viewed the castle in 1933 while on a campaign trip of the Party. It is uncertain as to whether Wiligut accompanied him on this trip; however, it is certain that the colonel influenced him greatly on the conceptualization of the castle as a world­wide headquarters for an order of knights — the SS. (Hüsser 1982: 33, 40) Shortly after the Wewelsburg was transferred to the SS, it became the headquarters of the Gesellschaft zur Förderung and Pflege deutscher Kultur-denkmäler (Society for the Promotion and Care of German Cultural Monuments) and was subsequently transformed into a “Nordic academy” for the ideological education —or initiation — of SS leaders. It was increasingly conceptu­alized as an Order-Castle (Ordensburg) and was remodeled to become the ritual space for ceremonies particular to Himmler’s elite circle within the SS.

Central to this cult was the northern tower of the castle. The lowest space in this tower, the vault, came to be referred to as the “Walhalla” — the Hall of the Slain. Above this vault is the colonnade chamber, on the floor of which is emblazoned the most distinctive single symbol of the Wewelsburg:

The colonnade hall was to become the central ritual chamber of the order of SS knights which Himmler and Wiligut envisioned.Occult Symbol NAZI CLEAR

This castle was to be the ultimate command center for cultural as well as military campaigns for the spread of a new Aryan empire, and, in the conception of Himmler and Wiligut, a bulwark against the invading “subhumans” from the east — the Bolsheviks.

The Wewelsburg became a great repository for all kinds of SS traditions, rituals and objects. At the end of the war, as American troops approached the region, the castle was blown up on 31 March 1945 by SS-men acting on orders from Himmler. Three days later American troops moved in and secured the site. As to what happened to much of the material and documents originally housed in the Ordensburg, there are three answers: some of it must have been removed before the detonation of the building; some of it was looted by locals of the nearby village in the three days between the detonation and the arrival of the Americans; and the rest was looted by American soldiers.

The most important cult-object of the SS is the “death’s head ring” [Totenkopfring]. [PICTURED ABOVE ~ SEE MORE BELOW] Wiligut is widely cred­ited with its design. (Hunger 1985: 164) The text of a document which was presented the SS-men with the ring reads:

I bestow upon you the death’s head ring of the SS. It is:

A sign of our loyalty to the Führer, our unwavering obedience to our superiors and our unshakable solidarity and comradery.

The death’s head is an admonition to be prepared at any time to risk our own individual lives for the life of the collective whole.

The runes opposite the death’s head are holy signs from our past, with which we have been newly re­connected through the philosophy of National Socialism.

The two Sig-runes symbolize the name of our protection-squad [Schutzstaffel].

The Swastika and Hagall-rune are to keep our attention on our unshakable faith in the victory of our philosophy.

The ring is crowned all around with oak-leaves, the leaves of the old German tree.

This ring may not be sold, and is not allowed to be transferred to others.

Upon your withdrawal from the SS or from life, this ring is to be returned to the Reichsfiihrer-SS.

Copies and imitations are punishable by law and you are to protect it from same.

Wear the ring with honor!

~ Heinrich Himmler

According to Hüser (1982: 66-67), the rings of the SS-men who died in battle were stored in a special place in the Walhalla; those of SS-men who departed under other circumstances were generally melted down. Husker also reports that the store of “hundreds” of rings, which had resisted the explosion and fire, as well as local efforts to loot the castle, was eventually looted by American soldiers.

It also seems that Wiligut was instrumental in creating SS-rituals and designing ceremonial objects to be used in the performance of such rituals. A complete transcript has been uncovered in SS archives for a name-giving rite that Wiligut conducted for the newborn son of SS officer Karl Wolff, and at which Himmler himself was also present. A translation of the document appears as Appendix C in this book. Wiligut also presided over related rituals at the Wewelsburg. (Goodrick-Clarke 1985: 187) Much of the ritual design seems to have centered on marriage cere­monies for SS-men and their brides. There was a eugenic aspect to these ceremonies in that leading SS-men and their brides had to demonstrate their Aryan heritage by tracing it back at least to 1750. One object which Wiligut designed  was a bowl in which bread and salt were presented to the bride and groom — the cover of this vessel was decorated with a “word-sigil for Got” [TO THE RIGHT]:rune Flowers CLEAR

This is a bind-rune for rune Flowers GOT CLEAR (GOT). (Hunger 1984: 164) The commandant of the Wewelsburg, Manfred von Knobbelsdorff, was an enthusiastic follower of Wiligut and enacted many rituals of Wiligut’s tradition.One of the most important, and mysterious, aspects of Wiligut’s operative “magical” work came in the form of the aforementioned enigmatic Halgarita-Sprüche (Halgarita-Sayings), which were mantras from the Wiligut-tradition intended to enhance ancestral memory and facilitate the re­emergence of the Irminist faith. A complete collection of these, excerpted from archival material, is printed on pages 103-110 of this book.

Throughout the years 1933-1939, Wiligut produced a number of reports for Himmler on a variety of topics rele­vant to esoteric religion, theology, history, and even politi­cal policy. One document outlines Wiligut’s ideas on the necessity of re-confiscating properties appropriated by the Church from the indigenous followers of the ancient faith. (Hüser 1982: 205)

During these years of high activity, Wiligut was already an elderly man in his late sixties and early seventies. His health and general level of energy were apparently not well-suited to the hectic pace at the center of the German National Socialist bureaucracy, so he was “treated” with drugs by SS physicians. It seems that these drugs had the effect of causing certain personality changes, including the colonel’s increasing dependance on tobacco and alcohol.

In the course of Wiligut’s life he had encounters with a number of other well-known esoteric nationalists. Some of these appear to have been his teachers, many were his stu­dents and others his colleagues. It is uncertain as to how well Wiligut knew men such as Guido von List and Lanz von Liebenfels. His ties to the latter seem to have been stronger, as so many of his own contacts were members of the ONT. Of course, Wiligut’s chief students were Emil Rudiger and Friedrich Teltscher, who further developed and published ideas rooted in Wiligut’s system. But beyond these there are others whom Wiligut encountered during his SS years and who merit discussion.

One of the most enigmatic figures of the SS was Otto Rahn (1904-1939). As a young man, Rahn spent time in the late 1920s and early 1930s in the Pyrenees region of southern France conducting research on the Cathar sect and the possibility of the Holy Grail being a part of their still-hidden treasure. In 1933 he published his most impor­tant work: Kreuzzug gegen den Gral (The Crusade against the Grail). But toward the mid-1930s financial problems forced him back to Germany where, in April of 1936, swept up in the Movement, he joined the SS. Rahn had been in personal contact with Wiligut and was a civilian employee of the SS for about a year before this. He was immediately made part of the Reichsführer-SS personal staff, and so worked closely with Wiligut. Rahn, like “Weisthor,” entered the SS with a personal secret. Rahn was a homosexual, which could result in a death-sentence if discovered. While in the SS Rahn undertook research trips to locations in Germany and even to Iceland, although he was never on an official SS expedition to southern France as is sometimes reported. In 1937 Rahn published his second book: Luzifers Hofgesind: Eine Reise zu Europas guten Geistern (Lucifer’s Retinue: A Journey to the Good Spirits of Europe). This is a kind of esoteric travelogue in which Rahn recounts the significance of various landscapes and monuments from southern France, Italy, Germany and Iceland. Rahn lectured within SS-circles on the theme of Luzifers Hofgesind, i.e., that Lucifer is the bringer of enlightenment and the enemy of the Jewish God, and that the retinue of Lucifer includes all those “good spirits” who fight for this enlightenment. Rahn was very well-liked by both Wiligut and Himmler. Himmler tried to give Rahn every opportunity to survive in the SS in the face of persis­tent reports of his homosexual activity. It is most likely that Rahn came to believe he would meet a dishonorable end in the SS, so to prevent this he wandered into the mountains near Soil, Austria, drank a bottle of liquor and allowed the winter cold to take his life. Himmler personally mourned the loss of Rahn.

Another esotericist with whom Wiligut had positive relations was Gunther Kirchhoff (1892-1975). On the surface this might appear to be an unlikely alliance since Kirchhoff was a member of the Guido von List Society. Wiligut had begun to correspond with Kirchhoff in the spring of 1934, and reported enthusiastically to Himmler about Kirchhoff’s writings. With Wiligut’s good recom­mendation, Himmler supported Kirchhoff, but the Ahnenerbe, which had a higher level of scholarly standards, rejected Kirchhoff’s writings as “fanciful.” However, Himmler continued to support Kirchhoff, who wrote reports on esoteric matters for the Reichsführer-SS as late as 1944. Many of Kirchhoff’s ideas seem to have been drawn from List and/or Wiligut; however, his geomantic studies, which he blended with an esoteric geopolitics, are what make his works noteworthy. Toward the end of his life, Kirchhoff wrote an analysis of events based on his theories entitled “Das politische Ratsel Asien aus Ortung erschlossen” (The Political Riddle of Asia Solved through Location). (See Mund 1982: 260-274) Based on the idea that certain power-points on the surface of the earth are arranged in hexagonal patterns, those who know this secret could use it to their advantage. This theory explains the Austrian city of Vienna as the key to controlling Asia, and explains the secret relationship of Vienna to certain “power points” in central Asia.

Other esotericists of the day were not so well-received by Wiligut. It is said that it was the influence of Wiligut which had Ernst Lauterer arrested and interned in a con­centration camp. As observers have noted, Lauterer was a man with a personal mythology similar to that of Wiligut. In 1911 — under the name “Tarnhari” (the Hidden-High-One) — Lauterer wrote to the old master, Guido von List, and told him how he was the head of the secret Volsung-clan of the semi-divine hero Siegfried. This correspondence is outlined in J. Balzli’s official biography of Guido von List published in 1917. Lauterer-Tarnhari subsequently became a member of the Guido von List Society. One may speculate on the nature of the friction between Wiligut and Lauterer.

Here is another book speaking to what could be considered demonic forces at work in Hitler’s life. Earlier I posted an episode witnessed that also hints at that: Some of Hitlers Demonic Episodes Penned In a 1940 Book

  • Walter C. Langer, The Mind of Adolf Hitler: The Secret Wartime Report (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1972), 35-37.

Hitler’s guide is something different entirely. It seems certain that Hitler believes that he has been sent to Germany by Providence and that he has a particular mission to perform. He is probably not clear on the scope of this mission beyond the fact that he has been chosen to redeem the German people and reshape Europe. Just how this is to be accomplished is also rather vague in his mind, but this does not concern him greatly because an “inner voice” communicates to him the steps he is to take. This is the guide that leads him on his course with the precision and security of a sleepwalker.

I carry out the commands that Providence has laid upon me.langer-hitler-and-voices-330

No power on earth can shake the German Reich now, Divine Providence has willed it that I carry through the fulfillment of the Germanic task.

But if the voice speaks, then I know the time has come to act.

It is this firm conviction that he has a mission and is under the guidance and protection of Providence that is responsible in large part for the contagious effect he has had on the German people.

Many people believe that this feeling of destiny and mission have come to Hitler through his successes. This is probably false. Later in our study (Part V) we will try to show that Hitler has had this feeling for a great many years although it may not have become a conscious conviction until much later. In any case it was forcing its way into consciousness during the last war and has played a dominant role in his actions ever since. Mend (one of his comrades), for example, reports: “In this connection a strange prophecy comes to mind: Just before Christmas (1915) he commented that we would at sometime hear a lot from him. We had only to wait until his time had come.” Then, too, Hitler has reported several incidents during the war that proved to him that he was under Divine protection. The most startling of these is the following:

I was eating my dinner in a trench with several comrades. Sud­denly a voice seemed to be saying to me, “Get up and go over there.” It was so clear and insistent that I obeyed automatically, as if it had been a military order. I rose at once to my feet and walked twenty yards along the trench carrying my dinner in its tin can with me.

Then I sat down to go on eating, my mind being once more at rest. Hardly had I done so when a flash and deafening report came from the part of the trench I had just left. A stray shell had burst over the group in which I had been sitting, and every member of it was killed.

Then, also, there was the vision he had while in hospital at Pasewalk suffering from blindness allegedly caused by gas. “When I was confined to bed, the idea came to me that I would liberate Germany, that I would make it great. I knew immediately that it would be realized.”

These experiences must later have fit in beautifully with the views of the Munich astrologers, and it is possible that, under­neath, Hitler felt that if there was any truth in their predictions they probably referred to him.

(See also “The Secret Wartime Report on the Mind of Hitler.”) While reading another book, I came across some smaller excerpts, of which I include slightly larger swaths of (getting a used edition of the 1940 book, The Voice of Destruction, it has to do with an expansion of how Hitler viewed the Church as well as what could be understood as demonic episodes:

Our nocturnal conversation arose out of our anxieties regarding such a development. The two Bavarian Gauleiter, Streicher of Franconia and Wagner of Munich, had brought us the tale. It was Streicher who gave Hitler his cue in the conversation. I had not listened to the beginning of it and became attentive only when I heard Hitler’s voice behind me getting louder.

“The religions are all alike, no matter what they call themselves. They have no future—certainly none for the Germans. Fascism, if it likes, may come to terms with the Church. So shall I. Why not? That will not prevent me from tearing up Christianity root and branch, and annihilating it in Germany. The Italians are naïve; they’re quite capable of being heathens and Christians at the same time. The Italians and the French are essentially heathens. Their Christianity is only skin-deep. But the German is different. He is serious in everything he undertakes. He wants to be either a Christian or a heathen. He cannot be both. Besides, Mussolini will never make heroes of his Fascists. It doesn’t matter there whether they’re Christians or heathens. But for our people it is decisive whether they acknowledge the Jewish Christ-creed with its effeminate pity-ethics, or a strong, heroic belief in God in Nature, God in our own people, in our destiny, in our blood.”

After a pause, he resumed:

“Leave the hair-splitting to others. Whether it’s the Old Testament or the New, or simply the sayings of Jesus, according to Houston Stewart Chamberlain—it’s all the same old Jewish swindle. It will not make us free. A German Church, a German Christianity, is distortion. One is either a German or a Christian. You cannot be both. You can throw the epileptic Paul out of Christianity—others have done so before us. You can make Christ into a noble human being, and deny his divinity and his role as a savior. People have been doing it for centuries. I believe there are such Christians today in England and America—Unitarians they call themselves, or something like that. It’s no use, you cannot get rid of the mentality behind it. We don’t want people who keep one eye on the life in the hereafter. We need free men who feel and know that God is in themselves.”

Streicher or Goebbels made some remark which I did not catch—a question perhaps.

“You can’t make an Aryan of Jesus, that’s nonsense,” Hitler went on. “What Chamberlain wrote in his Principles is, to say the least, stupid. What’s to be done, you say? I will tell you: we must prevent the churches from doing anything but what they are doing now, that is, losing ground day by day. Do you really believe the masses will ever be Christian again? Non­sense! Never again. That tale is finished. No one will listen to it again. But we can hasten matters. The parsons will be made to dig their own graves. They will betray their God to us. They will betray anything for the sake of their miser­able little jobs and incomes.

“What we can do? Just what the Catholic Church did when it forced its beliefs on the heathen: preserve what can be preserved, and change its meaning. We shall take the road back: Easter is no longer resurrection, but the eternal renewal of our people. Christmas is the birth of our savior: the spirit of heroism and the freedom of our people. Do you think these liberal priests, who have no longer a belief, only an office, will refuse to preach our God in their churches? I can guarantee that, just as they have made Haeckel and Darwin, Goethe and Stefan George the prophets of their Christianity, so they will replace the cross with our swastika. Instead of worshiping the blood of their quondam savior, they will worship the pure blood of our people. They will receive the fruits of the German soil as a divine gift, and will eat it as a symbol of the eternal communion of the people, as they have hitherto eaten of the body of their God. And when we have reached that point, Streicher, the churches will be crowded again. If we wish it, then it will be so—when it is our religion that is preached there. We need not hurry the process.”

[….]

I cannot judge whether Hitler is near madness in the clinical sense. My own experience of him and what I have learned from others indicate a lack of control amounting to total demoralization. His shrieking and frenzied shouting, his stamping, his tempests of rage—all this was grotesque and unpleasant, but it was not madness. When a grown-up man lashes out against the walls like a horse in its stall, or throws himself on the ground his conduct may be morbid, but it is more certainly rude and undisciplined.

Hitler, however, has states that approach persecution mania and dual personality. His sleeplessness is more than the mere result of excessive nervous strain. He often wakes up in the middle of the night and wanders restlessly to and fro. Then he must have light everywhere. Lately he has sent at these times for young men who have to keep him company during his hours of manifest anguish. At times these conditions must have become dreadful. A man in the closest daily association with him gave me this account: Hitler wakes at night with convulsive shrieks. He shouts for help. He sits on the edge of his bed, as if unable to stir. He shakes with fear, making the whole bed vibrate. He shouts confused, totally unintelligible phrases. He gasps, as if imagining himself to be suffocating.

My informant described to me in full detail a remarkable scene—I should not have credited the story if it had not come from such a source. Hitler stood swaying in his room, looking wildly about him. “He! He! He’s been here!” he gasped. His lips were blue. Sweat streamed down his face. Suddenly he began to reel off figures, and odd words and broken phrases, entirely devoid of sense. It sounded horrible. He used strangely composed and entirely un-German word-formations. Then he stood quite still, only his lips moving. He was massaged and offered something to drink. Then he suddenly broke out—

“There, there! In the corner! Who’s that?”

He stamped and shrieked in the familiar way. He was shown that there was nothing out of the ordinary in the room, and then he gradually grew calm. After that he lay asleep for many hours, and then for some time things were durable.

[….]

There is an instructive parallel—mediums. Most of these are ordinary, undistinguished persons; yet suddenly they ac­quire gifts that carry them far above the common crowd. These qualities have nothing to do with the medium’s own personality. They are conveyed to him from without. The medium is possessed by them. He, himself, however, is un­influenced by them. In the same way undeniable powers enter into Hitler, genuinely daemonic powers, which make men his instruments. The common united with the uncom-mon—that is what makes Hitler’s personality so desperate a puzzle to those who come into contact with him. Dostoevsky might well have invented him, with the morbid derangement and the pseudo-creativeness of his hysteria.

I have frequently heard men confess that they are afraid of him, that they, grown men though they are, cannot visit him without a beating heart. They have the feeling that the man will suddenly spring at them and strangle them, or throw the inkpot at them, or do something senseless.

Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1940), 49-51, 255-257, 258.

APPENDIX – HISTORICAL CORRECTION

With the advent of AI searches, I can say the Swastika was already popular in some circles before 1919, although I believe the Thule Society poster was political in nature, and so may be the first use of it in that regard.

The following are still persons known in German culture of the time to be involved in the occult.

Order of the New Templars

In 1907 Lanz von Liebenfels’s Order of the New Templars flew a yellow flag with a swastika and fleurs-de-lis at Werfenstein Castle, also in Austria. That reconstruction shows a yellow field, a red right-facing swastika, and four blue fleurs-de-lis. Secondary accounts, including Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, describe the order’s device that way: gold for eternity, lilies for racial purity, the red swastika for the “rising Aryan.” German accounts of Christmas Day 1907 are a little plainer. Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, born Adolf Joseph Lanz, hoisted two flags on the tower of Burg Werfenstein:

  • one with the arms of the extinct von Liebenfels family, which he claimed, and one with a right-angled swastika already common in völkisch circles.

The castle is real. Lanz bought the ruined Burg Werfenstein, above the Danube near Grein in Upper Austria, in 1907 and made it the priory of the Ordo Novi Templi, which he had founded in Vienna in 1900. From 1908 he held public festivals there; guests came upriver by steamboat and were greeted with cannon shots. The order survived a generation and went underground after the 1938 annexation of Austria.

League of German Educators

The same year Wilhelm Schwaner put a Hakenkreuz on the title page of Der Volkserzieher (“The People’s Educator”) and made it the badge of the Bund deutscher Volkserzieher (“League of German Educators”). His 1913 book was titled Unterm Hakenkreuz.

Unterm Hakenkreuz translates literally as:

“Under the Swastika”

Depending on context, it could also be rendered:

“Under the Swastika Banner”

“Under the Sign of the Swastika”

Here is the original along with the translated picture:

A related survivor is Das Lichtsucherbuch unterm Hakenkreuz (Volkserzieher-Verlag, 1919).

  • Wilhelm Schwaner, The Light-Seeker’s Book Under the Swastika (Berlin-Schlachtensee: Volkserzieher Publishing House, 1919).

The Light-Seeker’s Book Under the Swastika (1919) is Wilhelm Schwaner’s heavily revised and expanded version of his earlier Schulmeisterbuch. It combines Germanic history, mythology, religion, education, and cultural renewal, presenting Schwaner’s vision of a distinctly Germanic religious and educational worldview. The book includes discussions of the Germanic peoples, the swastika, “old and new” religion, Germanic rulers and migrations, and the history of the Volkserzieher movement, with numerous illustrations, including works by Fidus and Ludwig Fahrenkrog.

This opening, drawn by Fidus, shows the paper’s device: a couple under the words “Uplandzeichen der Volkserzieher,” the swastika on the man’s belt.

[BTW, this emboldens the “Pink Swastika’s” ideas of the homo-erotic aspect of the German path to the Third Reich].


Wandering Youth

A 1916 photograph shows Wandervogel (“Wandering Youth” or “Hiking Youth Movement”) soldiers with a swastika flag, griffin in the center, at a forest camp near Verdun. In 1917 the Wandervogel adopted a swastika badge, and the Deutschvölkische Blätter used one as a title emblem.

  • Wandervogel soldiers: “Wandering Youth” or “Hiking Youth Movement” — Wandervogel (“wandering bird”) — a German youth movement centered on hiking, nature, folk culture, and a rejection of modern urban life. (As an aside, I don’t think the youth were treated “well” by the adults.)

No cloth flag from the 1907 Werfenstein hoisting is known to survive, and there is no photograph of it. What exists are later printed photographs of other right-angled swastika flags already in use in the same circles.

The earliest clear photograph is from 1916, reproduced in Jörg Lechler’s 5000 Jahre Deutschland (1936). It shows Wandervogel soldiers with a pennant at a forest camp near Verdun. The flag is a right-angled swastika in a circle, with the flying griffin of the Wandervogel in the center. Otger Gräff, a Wandervogel leader later killed in the war, is at the far left. Walter Laqueur noted that the Wandervogel used the sign often, and that it became a badge of the movement in 1917; he dated its shift into extreme antisemitic politics to after 1918.

A second surviving image is a flag associated with Freikorps Roßbach, a postwar volunteer formation organized in November 1918 and active in 1919. Jörg Lechler reproduced the photograph in his 1934 Vom Hakenkreuz and captioned the formation as 1919. The cloth shows a right-angled swastika in a wreath, with “R” and death’s-head motifs at the corners. A different Roßbach flag is also documented as black with two silver diagonal stripes and a silver “R.”

Before the NSDAP adopted its party flag, the Hakenkreuz was already appearing in German völkisch and nationalist organizations. Wilhelm Schwaner’s Der Volkserzieher displayed a Hakenkreuz on its title page beginning in 1907, while the Bund deutscher Volkserzieher used the symbol as an organizational badge. The German gymnastics movement had long used the visually similar Turnerkreuz, formed from four F’s representing “Frisch, fromm, fröhlich, frei”—a symbol that predates the later völkisch Hakenkreuz. The Germanenorden, founded in 1912, incorporated the Hakenkreuz into its ritual symbolism, and beginning in January 1917 the Deutschvölkische Blätter carried one on its masthead. These uses predated the NSDAP’s formal adoption of its familiar red-white-black swastika flag on 7 August 1920, although that design had already appeared at a Starnberg NSDAP meeting on 20 May 1920.

A PICTORIAL PROGRESSION OF THE THIRD REICH FLAG:

From Germanenorden to the NSDAP: The Development of the Hakenkreuz

The history depicted here traces a line of organizational development within the völkisch, antisemitic, and occult milieu of early 20th-century Germany, before the swastika became internationally identified with Nazi Germany.

Germanenorden — 1912–1916

The Germanenorden emerged in 1912 from the antisemitic Reichshammerbund associated with Theodor Fritsch. It was organized as a secret, lodge-like society and required prospective members to demonstrate supposed “Aryan” ancestry. Its ideology combined racial antisemitism, völkisch nationalism, and occult/esoteric elements. By 1916, its publications were displaying the Hakenkreuz as part of the organization’s symbolism. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

Germanenorden-Walvater — 1916

During the First World War, internal power struggles fractured the Germanenorden. Hermann Pohl, who had previously led the organization, lost the leadership and established the Germanenorden-Walvater faction. Pohl’s new organization retained the völkisch and antisemitic character of the Germanenorden. In autumn 1916, Pohl met Rudolf von Sebottendorff, who subsequently became an important figure in rebuilding the Bavarian branch. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

Sebottendorff’s Bavarian organization — 1917–1918

Sebottendorff was tasked in December 1917 with rebuilding the Ordensprovinz Bayern. In Munich he developed the organization that would soon operate under the name Thule-Gesellschaft. The “Thule” designation served as a cover name connected with the Germanic/Northern mythology surrounding the movement. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

Thule Society — 1918

In August 1918, Sebottendorff established the Thule Society in Munich. The Bavarian Historical Lexicon describes it as a cover organization emerging from the Germanenorden, while the German Historical Museum likewise describes the Thule Society as having emerged from the Germanenorden founded in 1912. Its emblem was a Hakenkreuz behind a vertical sword. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

The Thule Society subsequently became an important meeting point for Munich’s völkisch and counterrevolutionary circles. It also supported the development of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP), which later became the NSDAP. Its newspaper, the Münchener Beobachter, was eventually renamed the Völkischer Beobachter and was acquired by the NSDAP in December 1920. Historisches Lexikon Bayerns

NSDAP — 1920

The final panel represents the transition from these earlier völkisch organizations to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP). The NSDAP adopted its familiar red-white-black swastika flag in 1920, transforming a symbol that had already circulated among various German nationalist, völkisch, and esoteric groups into the principal emblem of the Nazi movement.

The important historical point

The graphic does not mean that the Germanenorden “invented” the swastika or that there was a single uninterrupted organization from 1912 to the NSDAP. The swastika had a much older history and was being used by numerous groups before National Socialism.

Rather, the graphic illustrates a specific organizational genealogy (AGAIN):

The German Historical Museum summarizes the broader relationship by stating that the Thule Society emerged from the 1912 Germanenorden and that the Thule emblem was a swastika with a sword.

FINNISH AIRFORCE:

 

American Military Swastikas Before World War II

The swastika was used by several American military organizations before its association with Nazi Germany became dominant. These uses had different origins and meanings and should not be confused with the later Nazi emblem.

Three different American uses:

  • 1917–1918 — Lafayette Escadrille / 103rd Aero Squadron: swastika incorporated into the Sioux-head aircraft insignia as a good-luck motif.
  • 1924–1939 — 45th Infantry Division: swastika used as a Native American-associated division insignia; replaced by the Thunderbird in 1939. Holocaust Encyclopedia
  • 1930–1932 — 55th Pursuit Squadron: yellow swastika on a blue disc used as a U.S. Army Air Corps squadron insignia on Boeing P-12 aircraft.

U.S. Army Air Corps — 55th Pursuit Squadron

The aircraft shown above is a Boeing P-12 of the U.S. Army Air Corps. The 55th Pursuit Squadron, part of the 20th Pursuit Group, used a yellow swastika superimposed on a medium-blue disc with a yellow border as its squadron insignia. The insignia remained in use until May 4, 1932. A U.S. Army Air Corps photograph from about 1931 documents the insignia on the squadron’s P-12 aircraft. Wikimedia Commons

This was a U.S. military squadron insignia, not the Nazi party emblem. The photograph is particularly useful because it demonstrates that the swastika was still appearing on American military aircraft in the early 1930s, before its Nazi association had completely displaced its earlier uses.

U.S. Army — 45th Infantry Division

The 45th Infantry Division provides another example. The division was organized in 1924 from National Guard units in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma, and its original insignia incorporated a swastika as a Native American-associated symbol. In 1939, the division adopted the golden Thunderbird as its insignia, replacing the earlier swastika because the symbol had become closely associated with the Nazi Party. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum documents this change and identifies the Thunderbird as the division’s 1939 symbol. Holocaust Encyclopedia

The change illustrates how dramatically the meaning and public perception of the symbol had changed by the late 1930s.

Lafayette Escadrille / 103rd Aero Squadron — World War I

An earlier American military example dates to World War I. The French Lafayette Escadrille used a Sioux-head insignia on its aircraft. A swastika was incorporated into the design as a good-luck motif associated with American pilot Raoul Lufbery, who used the symbol as a personal insignia. The French Army Museum identifies the swastika as a good-luck motif whose origins extended back to ancient India. Army Museum News Blog

In late 1917 the unit came under American command and was subsequently redesignated the 103rd Aero Squadron of the U.S. Army Air Service. The Sioux-head tradition continued with the unit. Army Museum News Blog

 

Just Some Determinist Quotes… That’s All

Published by Papa Giorgio

COMPILED QUOTATIONS

God’s Decree, Providence, and Evil

This file combines the two quote collections originally supplied, removes repeated passages, and adds further well-known Reformed / Calvinist statements that God decrees or ordains evil events (including the fall and particular sins) while usually denying that God is himself the sinner.

Most writers in the “classic Reformed” line use this pair: (1) God unchangeably ordains whatsoever comes to pass, including sinful acts; (2) the sinfulness of the act is from the creature, not from God as author. Vincent Cheung is included as the far edge of the same logic; his “author of sin” wording is rejected by most Westminster/Ligonier/Piper writers.

Scripture texts most often cited in this debate: Acts 2:23; 4:27–28; Ephesians 1:11; Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lamentations 3:37–38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 9.

I. Confessional standards

Westminster Confession of Faith (1646)

“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.”

WCF 3.1.

“The almighty power, unsearchable wisdom, and infinite goodness of God so far manifest themselves in His providence, that it extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission, but such as hath joined with it a most wise and powerful bounding, and otherwise ordering and governing of them, in a manifold dispensation, to His own holy ends; yet so, as the sinfulness thereof proceedeth only from the creature, and not from God, who, being most holy and righteous, neither is, nor can be, the author or approver of sin.”

WCF 5.4. The 1689 Baptist Confession uses the same structure.

“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.”

WCF 3.3.

“The rest of mankind God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of His own will … to pass by; and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath, for their sin, to the praise of His glorious justice.”

WCF 3.7.

Canons of Dort

Reprobation, on the Dort account, is not a bare foresight of unbelief. God leaves some in their fall and ordains them to condemnation for their sin, while unbelief itself is not outside the decree. See First Head of Doctrine, articles 6 and 15, and the Rejection of Errors.

Canons of Dort I.6, I.15 and Rejection of Errors under the First Head.

II. Authors, A–Z

Boettner, Loraine

“In the same manner and to an infinitely greater extent God controls our actions so that they are certain although we act freely.” […] “Even the sinful acts of men are included in this plan.”

Usually cited from The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

“Even the fall of Adam, and through him the fall of the race, was not by chance or accident, but was so ordained in the secret counsels of God.”

The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

Calvin, John

“Hence we maintain that, by his providence, not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so governed as to move exactly in the course which he has destined.”

Institutes 1.16.8.

“Men do nothing save at the secret instigation of God, and do not discuss and deliberate on anything but what he has previously decreed with himself, and brings to pass by his secret direction.”

Institutes 1.18.1.

“The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.”

Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, trans. J. K. S. Reid, p. 175f.

“… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. … It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. … Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.”

The Eternal Predestination of God 10:11.

“From these statements of the inspired word … it is, I think, sufficiently clear that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills whithersoever He wills, whether to good deeds according to His mercy, or to evil after their own deserts; His own judgment being sometimes manifest, sometimes secret, but always righteous.”

Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God.

“Does God control even the evil wills of evil men? Calvin’s answer, in accord with Scripture, was ‘yes.’ Just as God controlled the rebellion of Pharaoh (Ex. 9:12), the cursing of Shimei (2 Sam. 16:10), and the rage of the Jerusalem crowds (Acts 2:23), so He controls even the will of all wicked men.”

The Secret Providence of God, ed. Paul Helm, trans. Keith Goad (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010), 79–80.

Note: The last block is Helm/Goad framing Calvin, not a continuous Calvin paragraph.

Cheung, Vincent

“God must be the author of evil, or evil could never have come about. God must be the author of sin, or sin could never have happened.”

“God the Author” (vincentcheung.com, 2009).

“When someone alleges that my view of divine sovereignty makes God the author of sin, my reaction is ‘So what?’ … The truth is that, whether or not God is the author of sin, there is no biblical or rational problem with him being the author of sin.”

The Author of Sin (2014), p. 4.

“God controls everything that exists and everything that happens. There is not one thing that exists or that happens that he has not decreed and caused—not even a single thought in the mind of man. Since this is true, it follows that God has decreed and caused the existence of evil. … In fact, when it comes to ontology, ‘God’s permission’ is an unintelligible term.”

The Author of Sin, p. 61.

Note: Cheung is the blunt edge of decree-theology. Most Westminster, Ligonier, and Piper writers reject calling God “the author of sin.”

Clark, Gordon H.

“I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so. … In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”

Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.

Edwards, Jonathan

“That we should say that God has decreed every action of men, yea, every action that is sinful, and every circumstance of those actions; that he predetermines that they shall be in every respect as they afterwards are; that he determines that there shall be such actions, and just so sinful as they are; and yet that God does not decree the actions that are sinful, as sin, but decrees them as good,—all of this is really consistent.”

Concerning the Divine Decrees in General, and Election in Particular.

If by “the author of sin” is meant the sinner, the agent, or doer of a wicked thing, Edwards says it would be “a reproach and blasphemy” to call God the author of sin, and he “utterly deny[s]” it in that sense. If it only means that God so disposes the state of events that sin, if permitted, “will most certainly and infallibly follow,” he does not deny the substance, though he dislikes the phrase.

Freedom of the Will / related discussions; often quoted via Piper.

“So evil is necessary, in order to the highest happiness of the creature, and the completeness of that communication of God, for which he made the world; because the creature’s happiness consists in the knowledge of God, and the sense of his love.”

Cited in John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).

Frame, John M.

“The Reformed agree that God knows what would happen under all conditions, but they reject the notion that this knowledge is ever ultimately based on man’s autonomous decisions. Human decisions, they argue, are themselves the effects of God’s eternal decrees.”

“Scientia Media,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 1075.

Grudem, Wayne

God “brings about evil deeds through the willing actions of moral creatures. Moreover, Scripture never blames God for evil or shows God as taking pleasure in evil, and Scripture never excuses human beings for the wrong they do.”

Systematic Theology, discussion of God and evil (standard Grudem wording as commonly cited).

Hendryx, John

“In order to understand this better theologians have come up with the term ‘compatibilism’ to describe the concurrence of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Compatibilism is a form of determinism and it should be noted that this position is no less deterministic than hard determinism.”

Monergism.com. Related piece: “We are not Determinists!”

Hodge, A. A.

“God having from eternity absolutely decreed whatsoever comes to pass … he ALSO continually controls and directs the actions of all his creatures thus preserved, so that while he never violates the law of their several natures, he yet infallibly causes all actions and events singular and universal to occur according to the eternal and immutable plan embraced in his decree.”

“God’s decree ‘foreordains whatsoever comes to pass’; there was no event in the womb of the future, the futurition of which was not made certain to God by it.”

Outlines of Theology / systematic material.

Note: The paste’s line “If God’s plan doesn’t determine free human actions…” was a gloss and is omitted.

Hodge, Charles

“The decrees of God are certainly efficacious, that is, they render certain the occurrence of what He decrees. Whatever God foreordains, must certainly come to pass. The distinction between the efficient (or efficacious) and the permissive decrees of God, although important, has no relation to the certainty of events. All events embraced in the purpose of God are equally certain, whether He has determined to bring them to pass by his own power, or simply to permit their occurrence through the agency of his creatures.” […] “It was no less certain from eternity that Satan would tempt our first parents, and that they would fall, than that God would send his Son to die for sinners.”

“The doctrine of the Bible is, that all events, whether necessary or contingent, good or sinful, are included in the purpose of God, and that their futurition or actual occurrence is rendered absolutely certain.”

Systematic Theology, sections on the decrees.

Luther, Martin

“[The] omnipotence and foreknowledge of God, I repeat, utterly destroy the doctrine of ‘free-will’… Doubtless it gives the greatest possible offence to common sense or natural reason, that God, Who is proclaimed as being full of mercy and goodness, and so on, should of His own mere will abandon, harden and damn men, as though He delighted in the sins and great eternal torments of such poor wretches. It seems an iniquitous, cruel, intolerable thought to think of God; and it is this that has been such a stumbling block to so many great men down through the ages. And who would not stumble at it? I have stumbled at it myself more than once, down to the deepest pit of despair, so that I wished I had never been made a man. (That was before I knew how health-giving that despair was, and how close to grace.)”

The Bondage of the Will (1525).

Note: Luther is the Reformation source of this line, not a later “five-point” Calvinist. Editorial bullets from Collection 2 are omitted.

MacArthur, John

“He controls everything. He’s in complete control of evil.” […] “The devil is God’s devil; he’s totally controlled by God.” […] “Every single movement, as R. C. said, of every molecule is controlled by God, and a whole lot of it is evil.” […] “There’s not one molecule in the universe that’s out of line with His purposes.”

Grace to You.

“Then God is responsible for all the evil and all the divine judgment and the determination of eternal punishment. This is a God that some people just can’t live with; they’ve got to get Him off the hook.”

Grace to You (video).

Note: The second block describes the free-will theodicy MacArthur is rejecting.

Owen, John

On the fall: the tree, the serpent, and the taking of the fruit were not a bare permission. “Sovereign” here “means more than mere permission. God is not the author of sin, but neither is ‘allow’ the best explanation for it all. … it was all decreed.”

Discussion of Communion with God, as summarized in The Cripplegate, “John Owen on Why God Decreed the Fall” (2013).

Note: Owen’s own prose in Communion with God speaks of a “design in Christ” lodged from eternity after describing the fall’s ruin; the word “decreed” in the summary is the interpreter’s.

Palmer, Edwin H.

“All things that happen in all the world at any time and in all history … come to pass because God ordained them. Even sin—the fall of the devil from heaven, the fall of Adam, and every evil thought, word, and deed in all of history … is included in the eternal decree of our holy God.” […] “Sin is not only foreknown by God, it is also foreordained by God.”

The Five Points of Calvinism, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), pp. 24–25, 82.

Pink, A. W.

“Plainly it was God’s will that sin should enter this world, otherwise it would not have entered, for nothing happens except what God has eternally decreed. Moreover, there was more than a simple permission, for God only permits things that fulfill His purpose.” […] “Not only did God have a perfect foreknowledge of the outcome of Adam’s trial; not only did His omniscient eye see Adam eating of the forbidden fruit, but He decreed beforehand that he should do so.”

The Sovereignty of God.

Piper, John

“God so disposes all things … so that in accordance with moral necessity all men make only those choices ordained by God from all eternity.” […] “In this way He ultimately determines all acts of volition (though not all in the same way) and yet holds man accountable only for those acts which they want most to do.”

Desiring God (page/URL not in the original paste).

“Somehow, we must confess both that God has a role in bringing evil about, and that in doing so he is holy and blameless.” […] “God does bring sins about, but always for his own good purposes. So in bringing sin to pass he does not himself commit sin.”

Desiring God writing on God and evil.

“Is God less glorious because he ordained that evil be? … no, just the opposite. God is more glorious for having conceived and created and governed a world like this with all its evil. The effort to absolve him by denying his foreknowledge of sin … or by denying his control of sin … is fatal.”

John Piper, “Is God Less Glorious Because He Ordained That Evil Be?” (1998).

Shedd, W. G. T.

“In Pauline conception, predestination, or foreordination, covers and includes both the holiness that is to be rewarded with life, and the sin that is to be punished with death. The holiness of the elect is predestinated, and the sin of the non-elect likewise.” […] “the perdition of Judas was as much foreordained and free from chance, as the conversion of Saul.”

Calvinism: Mixed and Pure (Monergism reprint, 2020), 78, 34.

Sproul, R. C., Jr.

“God wills all things that come to pass.” […] “God desired for man to fall into sin.” […] “I am not accusing God of sinning; I am suggesting that God created sin.”

Almighty Over All (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), p. 54.

Note: R. C. Sproul Jr., not R. C. Sproul Sr.

Talbot, Mark

“Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ ‘works all things according to the counsel of his will.’ Here the Greek word for ‘works’ is energeō, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory … This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”

In John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 42.

Turretin, Francis

God is not the “true and proper cause” of sin; yet the fall stands under the decree so that it is certain. Secondary literature regularly pairs Turretin’s Institutes of Elenctic Theology on this point with Edwards.

Institutes of Elenctic Theology 1:611 (as cited in discussions of Edwards and the fall).

Zachariades, Theodore

“God works all things after the Council of His will. Even keeping those kings who want to commit adultery from committing so! And when He wants to, he orders those to commit adultery when he wants to!”

Video (title/date not in the paste). “Council” almost certainly = “counsel.”

Zanchius, Jerome

“Surely, if God had not willed the fall, He could, and no doubt would, have prevented it; but He did not prevent it: ergo He willed it. And if He willed it, He certainly decreed it.”

The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination, ch. II, sec. II, par. 4.

Debating TULIP on X (Quick Hits)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is from a debate [of sorts] from X… really they are a series of snipes from INTJ68, So I will post his challenge, my response…. it’ll be choppy, but that is the nature of the WWW – I just want to get it on here to keep.

It started with this being posted on Dinesh D’Souza’s X:

INTJ68 responded with this… proof texts, not dissimilar to J-Dubs proving Jehovah is Unitarian, and “disproving” the Trinity, or Mormons “showing” the Trinity is three completely separate God’s, all born through sexual acts:

I responded that these “proof” texts have been responded to, giving three examples [one mine]:

 Just to name a few.

INTJ68 responded with clarity… LOL. He said this followed by the meme: “Nobody cares. Your team is a theology trash can of heresy.”

Kinda funny, I like the “Flowers” dig. So I responded in kind: “Lol. You care enough to grab a meme? Lol.”

[Bro, I am the “memester”] After those this series took place:

[This was the linked post of mine at the bottom: Reformational Determinism Undermines the Christian Witness]

Again, INTJ68

I Respond:

This is where John Hendryx’s admission becomes particularly important…. (From a post of mine I will link after the two videos)

Hendryx explains that theologians use “compatibilism” to reconcile God’s sovereignty with human responsibility, but he explicitly acknowledges that “compatibilism is a form of determinism” and is “no less deterministic than hard determinism.” The Calvinist answer, therefore, is not to deny that God determines human choices, but to argue that a person can still be morally responsible for a choice that God has determined him to make. In other words, compatibilism doesn’t solve the determinism problem by denying that human choices are determined; it attempts to reconcile determinism with human responsibility by insisting that a determined choice can still be considered the person’s responsible choice.

And that is precisely where the problem arises. If God determines that one person will believe and another will remain in unbelief—and the latter cannot believe unless God first regenerates him—then what does “responsibility” actually mean? The Calvinist can say the unbeliever willingly rejects Christ, but the deeper question remains: could he have done otherwise without God first giving him the ability to do otherwise? If the answer is no, then simply calling him “responsible” does not explain how responsibility works; it merely asserts it.

…continued…

The founder of Monergism .com says that “compatibilism is a form of determinism” and is “no less deterministic than hard determinism.”

John MacArthur, however, shows why that distinction raises a profound problem. He argues that if God is the primary cause and humans are merely secondary causes moved by that primary cause, then the determinism ultimately extends to the secondary cause as well. God is the one who ultimately “decided,” “compelled,” and “coerced” the action. In other words, the human being remains the immediate or secondary cause of the action, but that secondary cause itself is also determined by the primary cause. God remains the ultimate determining cause behind both the action and the secondary cause through which that action occurs.

You miss-define sovereignty to mean that God exhaustively controls everything.  So does all the “Reformed” Baptist and Calvinists I listed in a previous post.

INTJ68

I Respond:

Also, did God decree and ordain me to believe in Provisionism?

  • “The hand of God rules the interior affections no less than it superintends external actions; nor would God have effected by the hand of man what he decreed, unless he worked in their hearts to make them will before they acted.” — John Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God, tr. J. K. S. Reid, p.175f

If God determines all things—including the interior affections and thoughts that precede our actions—then He determined the chain of thoughts, desires, experiences, and circumstances by which I came to believe Provisionism. As Calvin put it, God “worked in [our] hearts to make [us] will before [we] acted.”

So my belief in Provisionism is, on your own system, part of that determined chain. Why, then, mock me for believing what your theology says God determined me to believe? Before you call my theology “trash,” explain why your system requires God to determine the very thoughts and convictions you are condemning me for having.

INTJ68 said “Lol, you people always do the meme.” and then posted a meme. I did note he started this all essentially with a trash can meme.

I Respond:

Sorry Charlie, you are fighting the Paul Washers of your heretical faith

JOHN CALVIN

“… how foolish and frail is the support of divine justice afforded by the suggestion that evils come to be, not by His will but by His permission. … It is a quite frivolous refuge to say that God otiosely permits them, when Scripture shows Him not only willing, but the author of them. … Who does not tremble at these judgments with which God works in the hearts of even the wicked whatever He will, rewarding them nonetheless according to desert? Again it is quite clear from the evidence of Scripture that God works in the hearts of men to incline their wills just as he will, whether to good for His mercy’s sake, or to evil according to their merits.”

— The Eternal Predestination of God 10:11.

GORDON H. CLARK

 “I wish very frankly and pointedly to assert that if a man gets drunk and shoots his family, it was the will of God that he should do so. … In Ephesians 1:11, Paul tells us that God works all things, not some things only, after the counsel of his own will.”

— Religion, Reason and Revelation (Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1961), 221.

JOHN M. FRAME

“The Reformed agree that God knows what would happen under all conditions, but they reject the notion that this knowledge is ever ultimately based on man’s autonomous decisions. Human decisions, they argue, are themselves the effects of God’s eternal decrees.”

— “Scientia Media,” Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2nd ed., ed. Walter A. Elwell (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 1075.

JOHN PIPER

“God so disposes all things … so that in accordance with moral necessity all men make only those choices ordained by God from all eternity.” […] “In this way He ultimately determines all acts of volition (though not all in the same way) and yet holds man accountable only for those acts which they want most to do.”

— Desiring God

MARK TALBOT

 “Ephesians 1:11 goes even further by declaring that God in Christ ‘works all things according to the counsel of his will.’ Here the Greek word for ‘works’ is energeō, which indicates that God not merely carries all of the universe’s objects and events to their appointed ends but that he actually brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory … This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child.”

— In John Piper and Justin Taylor, eds., Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 42.

How bout Macarthur, Sproul, Piper and others. I grant that some “say” compatibilism, but people are not thinking to the logical conclusion of it. What is free will compatible with? Theistic determinism? That crumbles un the law of non-contradiction. Sproul teaches double predestination…. so where is the “compatiblism” in that. You are fighting not me, but ….

John Calvin, Theodore Beza, William Perkins, Francis Turretin, Amandus Polanus, Girolamo Zanchi, John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Stephen Charnock, Jonathan Edwards, A. A. Hodge, Charles Hodge, B. B. Warfield, R. L. Dabney, William G. T. Shedd, Herman Bavinck, Abraham Kuyper, Louis Berkhof, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon H. Clark, R. C. Sproul, John Piper, John MacArthur, J. I. Packer, James Montgomery Boice, Sinclair Ferguson, R. C. Sproul Jr., Michael Horton, Wayne Grudem, Thomas Schreiner, Albert Mohler, Paul Washer, James White

INTJ68

I Respond:

Thank you for proving my point. Took a while to get here. Notice what is happening here. Paul Washer says we are ‘free to will,’ but only according to our nature—and then says our fallen nature guarantees evil until God gives us a new heart. That’s not an explanation of libertarian free will; it’s an explanation of compatibilist freedom. The real question isn’t whether we voluntarily do what we want. The question is whether we could have done otherwise. If my nature determines what I will want, and God must first change that nature before I can choose Christ, then saying ‘you’re free to will’ doesn’t establish libertarian freedom—it simply redefines freedom so that determinism can still be called free will.

If the fallen man is genuinely free to choose Christ, why does he need God to give him a new heart before he can choose Christ? But if he cannot choose Christ until God changes his nature, then what exactly was his ‘free will’ doing in the first place?

FREE THINKING MINISTRIES: Free Will, Calvinism, & Romans 9

Another quick drive by continuing the above:

I respond:

It was the first 380 years of the church…. Augustinian Determinism VS. The Early Church (Updated)

And another dumb dig:

I respond:

Pelagius did not actually believe that—well, not quite. Of the fourteen charges brought against him, he accepted only half of one.

“So you deny original sin? Then you’re a Pelagian.”

That charge has been around for a long time. Luther, for example, attacked Zwingli’s view of original sin as Pelagian. But Zwingli did not simply deny that Adam’s fall affected the rest of humanity. He taught that Adam’s sin left humanity with an inherited condition of corruption, misery, bondage, and death; what he rejected was the idea that Adam’s guilt itself was personally imputed to his descendants.

That is what makes Ali Bonner’s historical analysis so useful. “Pelagianism” was not the name of a neat, clearly defined theological system into which everyone who disagreed with Augustine could be placed. Bonner argues that the category was shaped through controversy, and that the historical record is much messier than the formula “deny original sin = Pelagian” suggests. Pelagius himself believed that Adam’s sin affected his descendants, even though he rejected Augustine’s account of inherited original sin. A different view of Adam, original sin, or inherited guilt, then, does not by itself make someone a Pelagian.

A useful comparison is the label “trickle-down economics.” It became a standard way to describe—and criticize—Reagan-era economic policy, though Reagan did not use the phrase to define his own program. His administration spoke instead about cutting tax rates, encouraging growth, and supply-side economics. Nor did the broader idea begin with Reagan. JFK also pushed for major tax cuts, arguing that “tax rates are too high” and that stronger economic growth would ultimately increase revenue. He is also remembered for the line, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”

Of course, the point is not that Pelagianism and “trickle-down economics” are the same kind of thing. The comparison is about how quickly a polemical label can take the place of describing what someone actually believes.

So before calling someone a Pelagian, it is worth asking whether that person actually holds Pelagius’s theology—or merely has a different account of how Adam’s sin is transmitted and what its consequences are.

That is all I feel like cataloging here. Gotta go prep for the work week.

The Forgotten 1st Amendment | René Diaz

Published by Papa Giorgio

BEFORE THE VIDEO LECTURE… WHO IS RENE DIAZ?

Former District Judge Rene Diaz is a speaker for WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that presents America’s forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious and constitutional heritage.

WallBuilders is a name taken from the Old Testament story of Nehemiah, who led a grassroots movement to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and restore its strength and honor. In the same way, WallBuilders seeks to energize people today to become involved in strengthening their communities, states, and nation. WallBuilders has been nationally recognized for its work in education, history, law, and public policy, integrating the elements of Biblical faith and morality throughout all aspects of American life and culture.

Rene is the CEO of the Diaz Mediation & Arbitration Center, and works as a peacemaker by trying to amicably resolve legal disputes referred to him by the courts or directly by the parties. With over twenty-eight years of civil litigation experience in state and federal courts, he has handled a wide variety of cases all over the State of Texas. In 2004, he was appointed by Texas Governor, Rick Perry as the Presiding Judge for the 224th District Court of Bexar County. Judge Diaz has achieved the highest possible peer review rating of “AV – Preeminent” by Martindale-Hubbell for his ethical standards and legal ability, and he has been repeatedly listed as among the Best Lawyers in San Antonio, Texas by the Scene in SA Magazine for the last ten years.

Before becoming a judge, he served as a Texas Commissioner of the OneStar National Service Commission, the state agency that oversees AmeriCorp Volunteers as well as the Texas Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. He also served as General Counsel for the Republican Party of Texas and currently serves as Chairman of Habitat for Humanity of San Antonio and as a Board Member for the Bexar County Dispute Resolution Center. A frequent lecturer for the State Bar of Texas and San Antonio Bar Association, he has also volunteered with the Community Justice Program and the San Antonio Young Lawyers, who awarded him the “Honorary Young Lawyer of the Year Award” as the jurist who contributed most to the professional development of the young attorneys.

Born in Virginia, Judge Diaz attended the University of Virginia for his Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations and Latin American Studies and received both his Master’s Degree in Public Policy and his Law Degree from Regent University. During law school he met and married the love of his life, Cynthia Smith. They have been married for thirty years and currently reside in San Antonio, Texas.

Adapted but pretty close transcript.

WallBuilders — Session 2 of 3

November 20, 2021 — René Diaz

In the last session, I introduced WallBuilders and explained that our name comes from the Book of Nehemiah. When the children of Israel returned from Babylon, they found Jerusalem in ruins, and Nehemiah proved to be a remarkable leader. He brought the Jewish families together, and each family worked on the portion of the wall in front of its house while carrying weapons because they were attacked as they built. By cooperating and following Nehemiah’s leadership, they rebuilt the wall in 52 days. I like to say that Nehemiah tells the story of patriots who loved their country and were willing to defend it by rebuilding the foundations and protections of their homeland after they had been torn down, neglected, and forgotten.

That theme runs through today’s presentation because much of what I will share has been neglected or forgotten in elementary schools, high schools, universities, and even law schools. I am going to discuss the separation of church and state and what the founders actually meant by that concept. First Amendment cases over the last 50 years have been groundbreaking, but they have also departed dramatically from the founders’ intentions. During that period, the text of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has been cited in roughly 3,000 cases, while the metaphor “separation of church and state,” which does not appear in the amendment, has been cited in roughly 4,000 cases.

Courts often rely more heavily on the separation metaphor they encountered in law school and university than on the actual text of the First Amendment. The religion clauses have two parts: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The first part is called the Establishment Clause, and it prohibits Congress from establishing a national religion. The second part is called the Free Exercise Clause, and “thereof” refers to religion. Together, the clauses prohibit Congress from establishing religion or restricting its free exercise.

I became fascinated by the First Amendment in law school while earning both a Juris Doctor and a master’s degree in public policy. Because the joint-degree program required a thesis combining law and public policy, I chose the First Amendment and devoted two full chapters to its legislative history. The amendment was proposed by the First Congress, whose official proceedings were recorded as required by Article I of the Constitution. Court reporters used reporting machines to record members’ speeches, and everything that occurred during an official session of the House of Representatives had to be written down. To understand what Congress meant, I read every recorded word that the 90 members of the First Congress said about the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment.

The amendment we now call the First Amendment was originally the third of 12 proposed amendments; the first two were not ratified by the states, so the remaining 10 became the Bill of Rights. Congress debated the proposal from June 7 through September 25, 1789, a period of about four months that included committee work and debate on the floor. In that entire record, no one arguing for or against the amendment used the phrase “separation of church and state.” That absence made a great impression on me and challenged me to determine what the members of Congress actually intended.

A biblical principle is that one can understand people by examining the fruit of their lives, so let us examine the actions of the First Congress. One of its earliest laws was the Northwest Ordinance, which set rules for admitting future states from the territory extending through the Ohio River Valley toward Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. President George Washington signed the ordinance on August 7, 1789, and its text remains part of the U.S. Code. I encourage you to verify what I am saying by reading it for yourself. The ordinance states that “religion, morality, and knowledge” are necessary to good government and human happiness and that schools and the means of education should therefore be encouraged.

The ordinance provided for schools throughout the territory and reflected the view that religion should be taught in the schools of the future United States. The same 90 members of Congress who passed the Northwest Ordinance also passed the Bill of Rights. At about the time the amendments were sent to Washington, he prepared one of the nation’s first Thanksgiving proclamations. In it, he called on citizens to set aside a day to pray, give thanks for God’s blessings, and remember divine guidance through the Revolutionary War and the establishment of the new constitutional government.

Washington declared that it is the duty of all nations “to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.” The word “duty” carried a strong sense of obligation for Washington, a military man; it described something mandatory rather than merely a personal preference. He identified four duties: to acknowledge God, obey His will, express gratitude, and seek His protection and favor. He also described these as duties of nations, not merely of individuals. In my view, this shows that Washington believed religion belonged in the public square and that a nation should publicly acknowledge God.

The legislative purpose of the First Amendment was therefore clear: Congress was to establish no national religion and enact no law restricting, inhibiting, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion. The question is how to establish legislative intent. Thomas Jefferson advised that, when interpreting a law, we should return to the time of its adoption, recall the spirit expressed in the debates, and conform our interpretation to the most probable meaning in which the law was passed rather than inventing a meaning against its text. James Madison likewise wrote that the Constitution is legitimate in the sense in which it was accepted and ratified by the nation. Without that historical guide, he warned, there can be no secure, consistent, stable, and faithful exercise of constitutional power.

For roughly the first 150 years of the nation, the U.S. Supreme Court followed a comparatively uniform approach to the First Amendment. In Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), the Court explained that constitutional interpretation requires identifying the evil a law was intended to remedy. The key question, then, is what evil the First Amendment was designed to address. To answer it, we must examine the history the founders themselves read.

From the seventeenth into the eighteenth century, one influential work was John Wise’s treatise, A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches, Drawn from Antiquity, the Light of Nature, Holy Scriptures, Its Noble Nature, and the Dignity Divine Providence Has Put upon It. Wise wrote it in Ipswich and also preached on the subject. The speaker hesitated over the printed date, reading it first as 1720 and then correcting himself to “72.” Wise described three broad periods of church history, and I am presenting his interpretation because it was widely understood during the founding era, not because every listener must share it. He called the first three centuries of Christianity the “period of purity,” when the church dealt with theology and doctrine while civil government enforced civil law. In his account, these distinct roles most faithfully followed Christ’s teachings.

Wise taught that the roles became confused and then reversed from the fourth century through roughly the fifteenth century, a period he called the “period of apostasy” and associated with the Dark Ages. Civil government began determining theology, while church authority became entangled with the enforcement of civil law. The state declared Christianity its official religion, and rulers placed the sword at the service of the church. Government enforced attendance, doctrine, and participation in practices such as Holy Communion. This merger became brutal because civil power was used to enforce doctrinal conformity.

During the Reformation, reformers promoted literacy so individual believers could read Scripture for themselves, an idea that was illegal in some jurisdictions. William Tyndale, Martin Luther, John Wycliffe, Thomas Cranmer, and others taught that each believer should have a copy of Scripture, be able to read and understand it, and have a direct relationship with God without relying on church leaders to read Scripture or mediate communion with God. Many kings resisted these teachings and persecuted reformers. In England, people were required to acknowledge Henry VIII as head of both church and government, while those who refused were labeled dissenters. Figures such as Erasmus, Zwingli, John Knox, and John Calvin became associated with dissent; some were martyred, and Henry VIII was responsible for the martyrdom of some of these believers.

Later English monarchs continued efforts to suppress dissent, and John Wise described cruel tortures and persecutions intended to stop renewed biblical teaching. These pressures contributed to mass migration to America, including an estimated 400,000 Huguenots who fled France. In England, Edward VI, Mary I, Elizabeth I, and later monarchs continued policies that punished dissenters. James I advanced the divine right of kings and demanded complete submission and nonresistance to royal authority. The Pilgrims, followed by the Puritans, were among the dissenting groups that settled New England, where Wise later preached and published.

This history explains what the founders sought to prevent through the Establishment Clause: a union of civil government with a single church or denomination like the one they knew from England. The concise point is that Congress could not elevate one denomination above the others or make it the national church. Several colonies, and even some states after independence, still maintained official churches. In Virginia, for example, the Anglican, later Episcopal, Church received public support, and tax dollars helped fund its institutions and teaching.

In the 1850s, the National Liberal League promoted a much broader separation of religion from the federal government. A League flyer called for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing total separation of church and state, equitable taxation of church property, secularization of public schools, repeal of Sabbatarian laws, abolition of government chaplaincies, prohibition of public appropriations for religious purposes, and other measures toward the same end. The movement gained enough influence that Congress held hearings on whether this program reflected the First Amendment’s original intent. An 1853 U.S. Senate report concluded that the founders meant to prohibit an establishment like the English church, not to foster hostility or indifference toward religion. The report said they neither feared religion itself nor wished the United States to become an irreligious people, and that they did not intend to spread over public authority “the dead and revolting spectacle” of atheistic apathy.

A House report the following year likewise concluded that, when the Constitution and its amendments were adopted, the prevailing sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged without preferring any denomination. It stated that an effort to discard religion would have met widespread indignation and that religion was regarded as foundational to the national structure. This parallels Washington’s description of religion and morality as indispensable supports of constitutional government. Yet today, I believe this understanding is often dismissed or turned upside down.

Modern courts frequently treat Thomas Jefferson as the chief authority on the First Amendment, even though he did not frame either the Constitution or the amendment. Jefferson told Dr. Joseph Priestley that he had been serving as an ambassador in Europe when the Constitutional Convention was planned and did not see the Constitution until after it was published. He appears prominently in the famous painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence because he was its principal author, but he is not among the signers depicted at the Constitutional Convention. He did not claim to be the controlling authority on the Constitution or the First Amendment.

Jefferson nevertheless played a role in planning Washington, D.C., and his religious practices are instructive. Congressional records show that chaplains proposed holding divine services in the Capitol. On January 1, 1802, Jefferson wrote his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, a document now held by the University of Virginia. When I attended the university in the 1980s, students could request supervised access to examine the letter while wearing protective gloves.

The Danbury Baptists admired Jefferson because he had authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom and opposed state support for the Anglican Church. They nevertheless worried that the First Amendment might give Congress power over religious practice. Jefferson reassured them that Congress could never enact a law restricting their free exercise of religion, describing an enduring wall of separation between church and state. Read in full, I believe the letter refers to the Free Exercise Clause and describes a wall protecting religious exercise. Later courts, however, extracted the metaphor from its context and applied it to the Establishment Clause.

The full Danbury letter was first quoted in Reynolds v. United States (1878), not in Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), as I misspoke earlier; Church of the Holy Trinity later discussed the same history. In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), however, the Court quoted only the sentence about a wall of separation rather than reproducing the whole letter. The dates surrounding Jefferson’s letter are also revealing. He wrote it on Friday, January 1, 1802, and on Sunday, January 3, he attended a religious service in the Hall of the House of Representatives. Because the Danbury letter, the Congressional Record, and the published Capitol sermons are dated, we know what Jefferson was doing on that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The sermon that Sunday was preached by the Reverend John Leland, who published it as a sermon delivered in the House chamber on January 3, 1802.

We know about Jefferson’s attendance partly from the diary of Manasseh Cutler, a Federalist minister and political opponent of Jefferson. Cutler sarcastically remarked that Jefferson’s “ardent zeal” brought him through the rain on horseback to worship in the House chamber, and he recorded that Jefferson and his family regularly attended services there. Jefferson reportedly explained that no nation had existed or been governed without religion, that Christianity was the best religion given to humanity, and that as chief magistrate he was bound to sanction it by his example. He also considered the music inadequate and directed the Marine Band to provide music for services in the Capitol.

Public worship in the Capitol began shortly after the building opened in 1800 and continued for nearly 70 years, until 1867. At its height, about 2,000 people attended weekly, and four congregations met in different parts of the building. WallBuilders holds copies of sermons preached in the Hall of the House of Representatives, including examples from 1822, 1826, 1860, and 1864. These records raise an important question: if Jefferson meant separation as modern courts often define it, why did his public conduct look so different?

The turning point came with Everson v. Board of Education (1947), an opinion written by Justice Hugo Black. Black was appointed by Franklin Roosevelt. He had been Roosevelt’s political lawyer, had represented his campaign, and was serving in Congress at the time. His appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court was highly controversial because he had been a lawyer for and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Let me say that again: the justice nominated by Franklin Roosevelt was Hugo Black, who had been a lawyer for and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. He wrote the opinion that, in my view, misquoted and took out of context Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, applying the wall-of-separation metaphor to the Establishment Clause rather than the Free Exercise Clause. He did not publish the complete letter; he published only that one sentence. So, in my view, he knew what he was doing.

That precedent was later taken up by Earl Warren, the longtime governor of California. The speaker noted that Warren served four terms, was unopposed in his first two reelection campaigns, and in 1947 was nominated for governor by both the Republican and Democratic parties. Warren had been educated nearby at Stanford University and Stanford Law School. Fifteen years after Hugo Black’s Everson opinion, Warren wrote that the Constitution “must draw its meaning from the evolving standards that mark the progress of a maturing society.” The speaker described this as the living-Constitution approach taught in many law schools and contrasted it with a biblical view of law as fixed, uniform, and universal.

Did the justices know what they were doing? I think they did. Anyone researching whether Jefferson’s letter had been quoted before would have been directed by law clerks to Reynolds v. United States (1878), Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892), and the other First Amendment opinions issued during the nation’s first 150 years. In the speaker’s view, those precedents showed that the wall metaphor had been turned on its head under an evolving-standards approach.

This approach shaped Engel v. Vitale (1962), which prohibited state-sponsored prayer in public schools, and Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), which prohibited school-sponsored Bible reading. In my view, those decisions relied on a wall-of-separation metaphor that had been taken out of context. The justices and their clerks could have reviewed Reynolds, Church of the Holy Trinity, and other earlier First Amendment cases, yet the Court adopted a different interpretation. Those rulings became the foundation for later restrictions involving Bible classes, Bibles in school libraries, displays of the Ten Commandments, religious artwork, student religious expression, prayers at graduations and athletic events, Christmas displays, and Christmas cards in public schools.

The modern position is often summarized as a wall between Christian faith and the public square, with faith permitted inside a church but excluded from public life. I call this compartmentalization: practice faith privately, but never publicly. In my view, that is the opposite of Jefferson’s assurance to the Danbury Baptists and of the founders’ purpose. The text says that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise; by its terms, it speaks specifically to Congress. Courts and legislatures have often moved away from that text and from Jefferson’s instruction to interpret a law according to the historical debates and the meaning understood when it was adopted.

Like Jerusalem’s walls while Israel was in Babylon, the foundations of our religious liberty have, in my view, been neglected and abandoned by many courts, legislatures, and even churches. When I was in law school, we watched Ronald Reagan’s farewell address on January 11, 1989. He warned, “If we forget what we did, we won’t know who we are,” and spoke of an eradication of American memory that could erode the American spirit. Too many judges, lawyers, and patriots have forgotten the history of the First Amendment. ….

The Media’s Trump Outrage Has a Memory Problem

Published by Papa Giorgio

Government-media confrontations are not unique to the Trump era. The Obama administration’s Justice Department aggressively pursued journalists and their sources, including the seizure of AP phone records and the investigation of Fox News reporter James Rosen. The Trump administration is now engaged in a different kind of confrontation, restricting certain outlets’ White House workspace while arguing that they remain free to report and that the restrictions are justified by concerns over reporting practices and, according to administration officials, national security.

Whether the current restrictions are legally justified is a separate question from whether similar conflicts occurred under previous administrations. The historical record shows that the relationship between the White House, the DOJ and the press has been contentious under administrations of both parties.

The Obama-Era Press Battles—and the Current White House Fight

The controversy over the Obama administration and the press was not limited to rhetoric. During the Obama years, the Department of Justice pursued an aggressive series of leak investigations involving journalists, their sources, and major news organizations. At the same time, the current Trump administration is facing its own controversy over restricting certain news organizations’ access to the White House. The two situations are not identical, but the history is relevant when evaluating claims that government-media confrontations are uniquely a feature of one administration or political party.

The Obama-era record

In 2013, it became public that the Department of Justice had secretly obtained two months of telephone records involving the Associated Press, including records from 20 AP office lines as well as reporters’ home and cellphone numbers. The investigation concerned an AP story about a foiled al-Qaida terrorist plot in Yemen. The AP strongly objected to the seizure, arguing that it could compromise confidential sources and interfere with the organization’s newsgathering.

One important clarification is necessary: the DOJ obtained telephone records; it did not wiretap the AP reporters’ phones or listen to the contents of their calls. That distinction matters, even though the records seizure itself generated significant press-freedom concerns.

The DOJ’s actions also extended to Fox News reporter James Rosen. Investigators obtained his phone records, tracked his movements through State Department security-badge records, and obtained a warrant for his personal emails while investigating a classified-information leak. An FBI affidavit characterized Rosen as a possible criminal “co-conspirator” under the Espionage Act, although Rosen himself was never charged under the Espionage Act. The episode became one of the most controversial examples of the Obama DOJ’s treatment of journalists and their sources.

The Fox investigation also involved obtaining records associated with multiple Fox News telephone numbers, including a number reportedly connected to Rosen’s parents. Again, however, the government’s action involved obtaining telephone records, not wiretapping the phones. The U.S. Attorney’s Office denied that it had wiretapped reporters or news organizations or tracked the parents’ calls.

The broader issue went beyond the AP and Fox cases. The Obama administration made extensive use of the 1917 Espionage Act in leak cases involving government employees who provided information to journalists. The Freedom of the Press Foundation identifies eight people charged under the Espionage Act in connection with leaks to the media during the Obama administration, including Thomas Drake, Chelsea Manning, Jeffrey Sterling, John Kiriakou and Edward Snowden.

The Associated Press later reported on a Committee to Protect Journalists study that concluded the Obama administration’s aggressive prosecution of sources and seizure of journalists’ records had created a “chilling effect” on journalism. Reporters and editors interviewed for the study said potential government sources had become more reluctant to communicate with journalists. The Obama administration disputed the broader characterization and pointed to its own transparency and whistleblower initiatives.

An AP fact-check published during the Trump era also noted that Obama’s criticism of Trump’s treatment of the press overlooked some of the aggressive actions taken by his own Justice Department, including the AP records seizure and the investigation of Rosen.

What is happening with the Trump administration?

The current controversy is different in an important way.

The Trump administration has restricted CNN, MS NOW and Politico’s access to workspace inside the White House, while maintaining that these organizations remain free to report on the administration from outside that workspace. Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized this distinction:

“They can cover the White House — they just can’t have a desk there.” 

The administration’s stated rationale has several components.

Trump has accused the affected organizations of publishing what he describes as false or misleading reporting and has characterized the broader legacy-media environment as biased. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, while saying he did not know enough about the specific decision to comment on it directly, argued that the media’s coverage of the administration was badly out of balance and that Americans deserve better reporting.

Administration officials have also raised national-security concerns. In discussing the policy with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Ambassador Mike Waltz pointed specifically to reporting based on anonymous sources concerning ammunition levels, military vulnerabilities and deployment orders during an ongoing conflict. Waltz argued that disclosure of genuinely classified operational information could constitute a national-security threat.

That is an important part of the administration’s argument—but it is also important to distinguish the administration’s stated justification from the factual and legal dispute surrounding the policy. Critics argue that restricting particular organizations because of their reporting raises serious First Amendment and viewpoint-discrimination concerns. The affected organizations have sued the administration, describing the restrictions as an unconstitutional assault on press freedom.

The important distinction

This is where the Obama-era history becomes relevant—but not because the two situations are the same.

The Obama-era AP and Fox cases involved government investigations, obtaining journalists’ phone records and emails, tracking a reporter’s movements, and aggressive leak prosecutions. The present Trump controversy concerns access and workspace inside the White House for particular news organizations.

Those are materially different government actions.

At the same time, the historical record demonstrates that serious government-media conflicts did not begin with Trump. The Obama administration’s DOJ took actions against journalists and their sources that generated substantial criticism from press organizations and press-freedom advocates. The current Trump administration, meanwhile, is defending restrictions on particular outlets by arguing that White House workspace is not an inherent entitlement, that the outlets remain free to report, and that some of their reporting has raised concerns about accuracy, sourcing and national security.

AS A REMINDER OF JUST CNN HOAXES:

RUSSIA / 2016 ELECTION

  • Trump-Russia “Collusion” Narrative
  • Steele Dossier / “Pee Tape”
  • Alfa Bank Server
  • Trump Campaign–Russia Back Channel
  • Michael Cohen–Prague
  • WikiLeaks Email “Breaking News” Error
  • “Trump Was a Russian Asset”

2020 ELECTION / BIDEN

  • Hunter Biden Laptop = Russian Disinformation
  • 51 Intelligence Officials
  • Laptop Censorship / “Russian Influence” Narrative

TRUMP / RACE

  • Very Fine People
  • Covington Catholic
  • Rittenhouse
  • Jussie Smollett
  • Hands Up, Don’t Shoot
  • NASCAR Noose
  • Border Patrol “Whipping” Story
  • Georgia “Jim Crow 2.0”

TRUMP / JANUARY 6

  • Arlington Cemetery
  • “Mostly Peaceful” January 6
  • Trump/Secret Service “Beast” Story
  • Trump “Execute Liz Cheney” Claim

COVID

  • Lab-Leak Theory
  • “Lab Leak Is Racist”
  • Trump/Bleach
  • COVID Death-Count Reporting

CURRENT / SECOND TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

  • Tariffs
  • Gaza Baby/Starvation Reporting
  • Gaza Food-Distribution Claims
  • Hamas Hospital Reporting
  • Trump “Destroying the White House”
  • Trump “All-White Party”
  • Etc.