Leighton Flowers

Augustinian Determinism VS. The Early Church

Published by Papa Giorgio

Ken Wilson Rebuts James White

Description from the above video on SOTERIOLOGY 101’s YouTube:

Dr. Leighton Flowers welcomes back Dr. Ken Wilson to defend his Oxford Thesis from over 15 hours of mostly fallacious and unfounded attacks by Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries.

The Common Misconceptions in this Debate So Far:

  1. Wilson’s argument rests on Manicheanism and Augustinianism being the same worldview: This is untrue. It is not at all unreasonable to suggest that just one aspect of Manicheanism (i.e. its adherence to theistic determinism) might have influenced Augustine’s interpretation of the scripture.
  2. Wilson is saying Augustinianism is untrue because of its similarities with Manicheanism: This is inaccurate. It is possible for false worldviews to adhere to some aspects of truth, therefore proving that Calvinism has some link to Manicheanism doesn’t prove Calvinism is false. Wilson is saying Augustinianism is not rooted or founded in the early church writings therefore it most likely originated from other gnostic, neoplatonic and Manichean roots, which brings into question its validity as the correct interpretive grid.
  3. Wilson is arguing Augustinianism imports Manicheanism into Christianity because it uses similar words: This is also untrue. Just because Mani spoke of “the elect” and Calvinists also emphasize “the elect” does not mean they are necessarily linked, or even have the same definitions. Wilson is not attempting to argue that all aspects or jargon of the Manichean worldview are linked to the all aspects or jargon within the Calvinistic worldview. Wilson is only looking at the one common point of connection, namely deterministic philosophy, which was first introduced by Augustine, a former Manichean.
  4. James White’s criticism has accurately portrayed Wilson’s arguments and showed Wilson’s bias: This is demonstrably untrue as will be shown in this video and in many of the articles posted at www.soteriology101.com.
  5. If it can be proven that Wilson held to preconception of the ECFs and Augustine’s beliefs before doing his research, then his subsequent research is invalid: Again this is false. Even if it could be proven beyond all reasonable doubt that Wilson firmly believed the ECFs denied TULIP theology and that Augustine was the first to introduce it, this does not make his findings invalid. One would still need to demonstrate that Wilson’s bias lead to poor research.

Here are quotes from Reformed historians who validate the foundational claims of Wilson’s work:

Herman Bavinck:

  • In the early church, at a time when it had to contend with pagan fatalism and gnostic naturalism, its representatives focused exclusively on the moral nature, freedom, and responsibility of humans and could not do justice, therefore, to the teaching of Scripture concerning the counsel of God. Though humans had been more or less corrupted by sin, they remained free and were able to accept the proffered grace of God. The church’s teaching did not include a doctrine of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.

Loraine Boettner:

  • “It may occasion some surprise to discover that the doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century….They of course taught that salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the gospel. Some of their writings contain passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet along side of those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human will. Since they could not reconcile the two they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination… They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a co-operation between grace and free … this cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by Augustine…“

Robert Peterson and Michael Williams of Covenant Theological Seminary:

  • “The Semi-Pelagians were convinced that Augustine’s monergistic emphasis upon salvation by grace alone represented a significant departure from the traditional teaching of the church. And a survey of the thought of the apostolic father’s shows that the argument is valid… In comparison to Augustine’s monergistic doctrine of grace, the teachings of the apostolic fathers tended toward a synergistic view of redemption” (36).

Louis Berkhof [in The History of Christian Doctrines]:

  • “Their representations are naturally rather indefinite, imperfect, and incomplete, and sometimes even erroneous and self-contradictory. Says Kahnis: “It stands as an assured fact, a fact knowing no exceptions, and acknowledged by all well versed in the matter, that all of the pre-Augustinian Fathers taught that in the appropriation of salvation there is a co-working of freedom and grace.”

Berkhof goes on to admit that “they do not hold to an entire corruption of the human will, and consequently adhere to the synergistic theory of regeneration…” (130).

In other words, despite White’s assertions to the contrary, there were no “monergists” before Augustine.

An additional quote

  • “It may occasion some surprise to discover that the doctrine of Predestination was not made a matter of special study until near the end of the fourth century. The earlier church fathers placed chief emphasis on good works such as faith, repentance, almsgiving, prayers, submission to baptism, etc., as the basis of salvation. They of course taught that salvation was through Christ; yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or reject the Gospel. Some of their writings contain passages in which the sovereignty of God is recognized; yet along side of those are others which teach the absolute freedom of the human will. Since they could not reconcile the two they would have denied the doctrine of Predestination and perhaps also that of God’s absolute Foreknowledge. They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a co-operation between grace and free will. It was hard for man to give up the idea that he could work out his own salvation. But at last, as a result of a long, slow process, he came to the great truth that salvation is a sovereign gift which has been bestowed irrespective of merit; that it was fixed in eternity; and that God is the author in all of its stages. This cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by Augustine, the great Spirit-filled theologian of the West. In his doctrines of sin and grace, he went far beyond the earlier theologians, taught an unconditional election of grace, and restricted the purposes of redemption to the definite circle of the elect.” — from Loraine Boettner’s “Calvinism in History”

Here is chapter two from Ken Wilson’s book, “The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism” (PDF as well)

Here is a good review of the book via the South African Theological Seminary.

See also my first post commenting on this issue.

Chapter 2

Early Christian Authors 95–400 CE

Early Christian authors unanimously taught relational divine eternal predetermination. God elected persons to salvation based upon foreknowledge of their faith (predestination). These Christians vigorously opposed the unilateral determinism of Stoic Providence, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism.[48] So early Christians taught predestination,[49] but refuted Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies (unilateral determinism). This unilateral determinism can be identified in ancient Iranian religion, then chronologically in the Qumranites, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism, and Manichaeism. “Christian” heretics such as Basilides who taught God unilaterally bestowed the gift of faith to only some persons (and withheld that salvific gift to others) were condemned. Of the eighty-four pre-Augustinian authors studied from 95–430 CE, over fifty addressed this topic. All of these early Christian authors championed traditional free choice and relational predestination against pagan and heretical Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies.[50]

This can only be understood and appreciated by reading comprehensively through the sizeable number of works by these authors. Some persons triumphantly cite ancient Christian authors claiming they believe Augustine’s deterministic interpretations of scripture, but without reading the entire context or without understanding the way in which words were being used.[51] I am not aware of any Patristics (early church fathers) scholar who would or could make a claim that even one Christian author prior to Augustine taught Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies (DUPIED, i.e., non-relational determinism unrelated to foreknowledge of human choices).

I. Apostolic Fathers and Apologists 95–180 CE

Most of these works do not directly address God’s sovereignty or free will.[52] The Epistle of Barnabas (100–120 CE) admits the corruption of human nature (Barn.16.7) but only physical death (not spiritual) results from Adam’s fall. Personal sins cause a wicked heart (Barn.12.5). Divine foreknowledge of human choices allowed the Jews to make choices and remain within God’s plan, resulting in their own self-determination (Barn.3.6). God’s justice is connected with human responsibility (Barn.5.4). Therefore, God’s foreknowledge of human choices should affect God’s actions regarding salvation.

In The Epistle of Diognetus (120–170 CE) God does not compel anyone. Instead, God foreknows choices by which he correspondingly chooses his responses to humans. Meecham writes of Diogn.10.1–11.8, “Free-will is implied in his capacity to become ‘a new man’ (ii,I), and in God’s attitude of appeal rather than compulsion (vii, 4).”[53] Aristides (ca.125–170 CE) taught newborns enter the world without sin or guilt: only personal sin incurs punishment.[54]

II. Justin Martyr and Tatian

The first author to write more specifically on divine sovereignty and human free will is Justin Martyr (ca.155 CE). Erwin Goodenough explained:

Justin everywhere is positive in his assertion that the results of the struggle are fairly to be imputed to the blame of each individual. The Stoic determinism he indignantly rejects. Unless man is himself responsible for his ethical conduct, the entire ethical scheme of the universe collapses, and with it the very existence of God himself.[55]

Commenting on Dial.140.4 and 141.2, Barnard concurred, saying God “foreknows everything—not because events are necessary, nor because he has decreed that men shall act as they do or be what they are; but foreseeing all events he ordains reward or punishment accordingly.”[56] After considering 1 Apol.28 and 43, Chadwick also agreed. “Justin’s insistence on freedom and responsibility as God’s gift to man and his criticism of Stoic fatalism and of all moral relativism are so frequently repeated that it is safe to assume that here he saw a distinctively Christian emphasis requiring special stress.”[57] Similarly, Barnard wrote: “Justin, in spite of his failure to grasp the corporate nature of sin, was no Pelagian blindly believing in man’s innate power to elevate himself. All was due, he says, to the Incarnation of the Son of God.”[58]

Tatian (ca.165) taught that free choice for good was available to every person. “Since all men have free will, all men therefore have the potential to turn to God to achieve salvation.”[59] This remains true even though Adam’s fall enslaved humans to sin (Or.11.2). The fall is reversed through a personal choice to receive God’s gift in Christ (Or.15.4). Free choice was the basis of God’s rewards and punishments for both angels and humans (Or.7.1–2).

II. Theophilus, Athenagoras, and Melito

Theophilus (ca.180), all creation sinned in Adam and received the punishment of physical decay, not eternal death or total inability (Autol.2.17). Theophilus’ insistence upon a free choice response to God (Autol.2.27) occurs following his longer discussion of the primeval state in the Garden and subsequent fall of Adam. Christianity’s gracious God provides even fallen Adam with opportunity for repentance and confession (Autol.2.26). Theophilus exhorts Christians to overcome sin through their residual free choice (Autol.1.2, 1.7).

Athenagoras (ca.170 CE) believed infants were innocent and therefore could not be judged and used them as a proof for a bodily resurrection prior to judgment (De resurr.14). For God’s punishment to be just, free choice stands paramount. Why?—because God created both angels and persons with free choice for the purpose of assuming responsibility for their own actions (De resurr.24.4–5)[60] Humans and angels can live virtuously or viciously: “This, says Athenagoras, is a matter of free choice, a free will given the creature by the creator.”[61] Without free choice, the punishment or rewarding of both humans and angels would be unjust.

In Peri Pascha 326–388, Melito (ca.175 CE) possibly surpassed any extant Christian author in an extended description depicting the devastation of Adam’s fall.[62] The scholar Lynn Cohick explained: “The homilist leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that humans have degenerated from a pristine state in the garden of Eden, where they were morally innocent, to a level of complete and utter perversion.”[63] Despite this profound depravity, all persons remain capable of believing in Christ through their own God-given free choice. No special grace is needed. A cause and effect relationship exists between human free choice and God’s response (P.P.739–744). “There is no suggestion that sinfulness is itself communicated to Adam’s progeny as in later Augustinian teaching.”[64]  

B. Christian Authors 180–250 CE

I. Irenaeus of Lyons

Irenaeus of Lyons (ca.185) wrote primarily against Gnostic deterministic salvation in his famous work Adversus Haereses. “One position fundamental to Irenaeus is that man should come to moral good by the action of his own moral will, and not spontaneously and by nature.”[65] Physical death for the human race from Adam’s sin was not so much a punishment as God’s gracious gift to prevent humans from living eternally in a perpetual state of struggling with sin (Adv. haer.3.35.2).

Irenaeus championed humanity’s free will for four reasons: (1) to refute Gnostic Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies, (2) because humanity’s persisting imago Dei (image of God within humans) demands a persisting free will, (3) scriptural commands demand free will for legitimacy, and (4) God’s justice becomes impugned without free will (genuine, not Stoic “non-free free will”). These were non-negotiable “apostolic doctrines.” Scholars Wingren and Donovan both identify Irenaeus’ conception of the imago Dei as freedom of choice itself. As Donovan relates: “This strong affirmation of human liberty is at the same time a clear rejection of the Gnostic notion of predetermined natures.”[66]

Andia clarified that God’s justice requires free choice since Irenaeus believed God’s providence created all persons equally.[67] In refuting Gnostic determinism (Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies), Irenaeus argues that God determines persons’ eternal destinies through foreknowledge of the free choices of persons (Adv. haer.2.29.1; 4.37.2–5; 4.29.1–2; 3.12.2,5,11; 3.32.1; 4.14, 4.34.1, 4.61.2). Irenaeus attacked both Stoicism and Gnostic heresies because DUPIED made salvation by faith superfluous, and made Christ’s incarnation unnecessary.[68] Irenaeus taught God’s predestination. This was based on God’s foreknowledge of human choices without God constraining the human will as in Gnostic determinism.[69]

Irenaeus denied that any event could ever occur outside of God’s sovereignty (Adv. haer.2.5.4), but simultaneously emphasized residual human free choice to receive God’s gift, which only then results in regeneration. “The essential principle in the concept of freedom appears first in Christ’s status as the sovereign Lord, because for Irenaeus man’s freedom is, strangely enough, a direct expression of God’s omnipotence, so direct in fact, that a diminution of man’s freedom automatically involves a corresponding diminution of God’s omnipotence.”[70] Although he exalted God’s sovereignty, it was not (erroneously) defined as God receiving everything he desires.[71] The scholar Denis Minns correctly states, “Irenaeus would insist as vigorously as Augustine that nothing could be achieved without grace. But he would have been appalled at the thought that God would offer grace to some and withhold it from others.”[72]

II. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian

Clement of Alexandria (ca.190) strongly defends a residual human free choice after Adam (Strom.1.1; cf. 4.24, 5.14). Divine foreknowledge determines divine election (Strom.1.18; 6.14). Clement understood that God calls all (llĂ€v1ωv iοίvuv Ă vOρdrnωv)—every human, not a few of every kind of human —whereas, “the called” are those who respond. He believed that if God exercised Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies (as the Marcionites and Gnostics believed), then he would not be the just and good Christian God but the heretical God of Marcion (Strom.5.1).

Clement refuted the followers of the Gnostic Marcion who believed initial faith was God’s gift. Why?—it robbed humans of free choice (Strom.2.3–4; cf. Strom.4.11, Quis dives Salvetur 10). Yet Clement does not believe free choice saves persons as a human work (cf. John 1:13). He teaches God must first draw and call every human to himself, since all have the greatest need for the power of divine grace (Strom.5.1). God does not initiate a mystical (i.e., Neoplatonic) inward draw to each of his elect. Instead, the Father previously revealed himself and drew every human through Old Testament scripture, but now reveals himself and draws all humanity equally to himself through Christ and the New Testament (cf. John 12:32; Strom.7.1–2).[73]

Tertullian (ca.205) wrote that despite a corrupted nature, humans possess a residual capacity to accept God’s gift based upon the good divine image (the “proper nature”) still resident within every human (De anima 22). Every person retains the capacity to believe. He refuted Gnosticism’s discriminatory deterministic salvation (Val.29). God remains sovereign while he permits good and evil, because he foreknows what will occur by human free choice (Cult. fem.2.10). Humans can and should respond to God by using their God-given innate imago Dei free choice. Therefore, Tertullian did not approve of an “innocent” infant being baptized before responding personally to God’s gift of grace through hearing and believing the gospel (De baptismo 18). He believed that children should await baptism until they are old enough to personally believe in Christ.

III. Origen of Alexandria

Origen (ca.185–254) advances scriptural arguments for free choice that fill the third book of De principiis (P. Arch.3.1.6). “This also is definite in the teaching of the Church, every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition” that can choose the good (Princ., Pref.5). God does not coerce humans or directly influence individuals but instead only invites. Why?—because God desires willing lovers. Just as Paul asked Philemon to voluntarily (Îșατᜰ EÎșÎżuσÎčÎżv) act in goodness (Phlm. 1.14), so God desires uncoerced lovers (Hom. Jer.20.2). Origen explains how God hardens Pharaoh’s heart. God sends divine signs/events that Pharaoh rejects and hardens his own heart. God’s hardening is indirect. “Now these passages are sufficient of themselves to trouble the multitude, as if man were not possessed of free will, but as if it were God who saves and destroys whom he will” (Princ. 3.1.7). Origen distinguishes between God’s temporal blessings and eternal destinies in Romans 9–11, rejecting the Gnostic eternal salvation view from these chapters.

Initial faith is human faith, not a divine gift. “The apostles, once understanding that faith which is only human cannot be perfected unless that which comes from God should be added to it, they say to the Savior, ‘Increase our faith.'” (Com.Rom.4.5.3). God desires to give the inheritance of the promises not as something due from debt but through grace. Origen says that the inheritance from God is granted to those who believe, not as the debt of a wage but as a gift of [human] faith (Com.Rom.4.5.1).[74]

Election is based upon divine foreknowledge. “For the Creator makes vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor, not from the beginning according to His foreknowledge, since He does not pre-condemn or pre-justify according to it; but (He makes) those into vessels of honor who purged themselves, and those into vessels of dishonor who allowed themselves to remain unpurged” (P.Arch.3.1.21). Origen does not refute divine foreknowledge resulting in election but refutes the philosophical view of foreknowledge as necessarily causative, which Celsus taught:

Celsus imagines that an event, predicted through foreknowledge, comes to pass because it was predicted; but we do not grant this, maintaining that he who foretold it was not the cause of its happening, because he foretold it would happen; but the future event itself, which would have taken place though not predicted, afforded the occasion to him, who was endowed with foreknowledge, of foretelling its occurrence (C.Cels.2.20).

Origen explains the Christian interpretation of Rom 9:16.[75] The Gnostic and heretical deterministic interpretations render God’s words superfluous, and invalidate Paul’s chastisements and approbations to Christians. Nevertheless, the human desire/will is insufficient to accomplish salvation, so Christians must rely upon God’s grace (P. Arch.3.1.18). Origen does not minimize the innate human sin principle that incites persons to sin. Rather, he chastises immature Christians who blame their sins on the devil instead of their own passions (Princ.3.2.1–2; P. Arch.3.1.15).

IV. Cyprian and Novatian

Cyprian (d.254 CE) taught God stands sovereign (Treat.3.19; 5.56.8; 12.80). Yet, God rewards or punishes based upon his foreknowledge of human choices and responses (Treat.7.17, 19; Ep.59.2). Humans retain free choice despite Adam’s sin (Treat.7.17, 19).[76] “That the liberty of believing or of not believing is placed in freedom of choice” (Treat.12.52). Jesus utilized persuasion, not force (Treat.9.6). Obedience resulting in martyrdom should arise from free choice, not necessity (Treat. 7.18), especially since imitating Christ restores God’s likeness.

Novatian (ca.250 CE) teaches a personal responsibility for sin instead of guilt from Adam, because a person who is pre-determined due to (even fallen) nature cannot be held liable. Only a willful decision can incur guilt (De cib. Jud.3). Lactantius (ca.315 CE) taught Adam’s fall produced only physical death (not eternal death) through the loss of God’s perpetually gifted immortality (Inst.2.13), as Williams correctly identified.[77] Yet, mortality in a corrupted human body predisposed the human race to sin (Inst.6.13). God loves every person equally, offers immortality equally to each person, and every human is capable of responding to God’s offer—without divine intervention (Div.inst.5.15) “God, who is the guide of that way, denies immortality to no human being” but offers salvation equally to every person (Div.inst.6.3). Humanity must contend with its propensity to sin, but the corrupted nature provides no excuse since free choice persists (Inst.2.15; 4.24; 4.25; 5.1). He consistently teaches Christian free choice (Inst.5.10, 13, 14).

C. Christian Authors 250–400 CE

I. Hilary of Poitiers

Hilary (d.368 CE) referred to John 1:12–13 as God’s offer of salvation that is equally offered to everyone. “They who do receive Him by virtue of their faith advance to be sons of God, being born not of the embrace of the flesh nor of the conception of the blood nor of bodily desire, but of God […] the Divine gift is offered to all, it is no heredity inevitably imprinted but a prize awarded to willing choice” (Trin.1.10–11). Human nature has a propensity to evil (Trin.3.21; Hom. Psa.1.4) that is located in the physical body (Hom. Psa.1.13). Human free choice elicits the divine gift, yet the divine birth (through faith) belongs solely to God. A human ‘will’ cannot create the birth (Trin.12.56) yet that birth occurs through human faith.

II. The Cappadocians

Gregory of Nazianzus (ca.329–389 CE) writes frequently of the “fall of sin” from Adam (Or.1; 33.9; 40.7), including the evil consequence of that original sin (Or.45.12). “We were detained in bondage by the Evil One, sold under sin, and receiving pleasure in exchange for wickedness” (Or.45.22). Salvation (not faith) is God’s gift. “We call it the Gift, because it is given to us in return for nothing on our part” (Or.40.4). “This, indeed, was the will of Supreme Goodness, to make the good even our own, not only because it was sown in our nature, but because cultivated by our own choice, and by the motions of our free will to act in either direction.” (Or.2.17). “Our soul is self-determining and independent, choosing as it will with sovereignty over itself that which is pleasing to it” (Ref.Conf. Eun.139). Children are born blameless (Ep.206). God is sovereign, and Christ died for all humankind, including the ‘non-elect.’ (Or.45.26; cf. Or.38.14). Nevertheless, in matters of personal salvation, God limits himself, allowing humans free choice (Or.32.25, 45.8).

Basil of Caesarea (ca.330–379 CE) believed humans do not inherit sin or evil, but choose to sin resulting in death. We control our own actions, proved by God’s payment and punishment (Hom. Hex.2.4). He promotes God’s sovereignty over human temporal (not eternal) destinies, including our time of death by “God who ordains our lots” (Ep.269) yet he refutes micromanaging Stoic Providence (Ep.151). God empowers human faith for great works because mere human effort cannot accomplish divine good (Ep.260.9). Basil allowed no place for either Chaldean astrological fatalism (Hom. Hex.6.5; Ep.236), or Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies. Righteous judgment resulting in reward and punishment demands Christian traditional free choice. In contrast, any concept of inevitable evil in humans necessarily destroys Christian hope (Hom. Hex.6.7) because all humans have an innate natural reason with the ability to do good and avoid evil (Hom. Hex.8.5; cf. Ep.260.7). Basil refuted a dozen heresies, but reserved his strongest denunciation for the one teaching determinism—”the detestable Manichaean heresy” (Hom. Hex.2.4).

Gregory of Nyssa (ca.335–395 CE) pervasively teaches a post-Adamic congenital weakness, inclined to evil and in slavery to sin but without guilt (C. Eun.1.1; 3.2–3; 3.8; De opificio hom.193; Cat. mag.6, 35; Ep.18; Ref. conf. Eun.; Dial. anim. et res., etc.). Each person’s alienation from God occurs through personal sin and vice, not Adam’s sin (C. Eun.3.10). Despite an inherited tendency to evil, the divine image within humans retains goodness, just as Tertullian and others had taught (Opif. hom.164; cf. Ep.3.17).[78]  Humanity’s ruin and inability to achieve eternal life by self-effort demanded God initiate the rescue through Christ (Ref. conf. Eun.418–20). But Gregory refutes the idea of a human nature so corrupted that it would render an individual incapable of a genuine choice to receive God’s readily available gift of grace offered to everyone equally.

By appealing to the justice of God’s recompenses, Gregory refutes those [e.g., Manichaeans] who believe humans are born sinful and thus culpable (De anim.120). The choice for salvation belongs to humans, apart from God’s manipulation, coercion, or unilateral intervention (C. Eun.3.1.116–18; cf. Adv. Mac. spir. sancto 105–6; De virginitate 12.2–3). Gregory upholds Christian [not Stoic] divine sovereignty (Ref. conf. Eun. 169; cf. 126–27; Opif. hom.185).

III. Methodius, Theodore, and Ambrose

Methodius (d.312 CE) believed all humans retain genuine free will even after Adam’s fall since Christian free choice was necessary for God to be just in rewarding the good and punishing the wicked (Symp.8.16; P G 18:168d). He championed traditional Christian free choice in a major work against Gnostic determinism (Peri tou autexousiou, 73–77).[79] Cyril of Jerusalem (ca.348–386 CE) taught humans enter this world sinless (Cat.4.19) and God’s foreknowledge of human responses determines the divine choosing of them for service (Cat.1.3).

Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca.350–428 CE) defended traditional original sin against Manichaean damnable inherited guilt (Adv. def. orig. pecc.), so that, “Man’s freedom takes the first step, which is afterwards made effective by God … [with] the will of each man as being absolutely free and unbiased and able to choose either good or evil.”[80] Humans retain the ability to choose good and evil (Comm. Ioh.5.19).

Ambrose of Milan (d.397 CE) baptized Augustine in Milan on Easter in 387 CE. He taught traditional (not Augustinian) original sin (De fide 5.5, 8, 60; Exc. Satyri 2.6; cf. 1.4). Ambrose believed slavery to sin [the sin propensity] was inherited, but this was not literal sin that produced personal culpability and damnation (De Abrah.2.79). The scholar Paul Blowers noted, “Ambrosiaster (Rom.5:12ff) and Ambrose (Enar.in Ps.38.29) … both authors concluded that individuals were ultimately accountable only for their own sins.”[81]

Ambrose emphasized God predestined individuals based upon his foreknowledge of the future, concerning which God was omniscient (Ep.57; De fide 2.11, 97). God compels no one, but patiently waits for a human response in order that He may provide grace, preferring pity over punishment (Paen.1.5). He insisted upon residual free choice and views an increase in a person’s faith (not initial faith) as a divine gift given in response to faithfulness. (Paen.1.48; Ep.41.6).

D. Conclusion

Not even one early church father writing from 95–430 CE—despite abundant acknowledgement of inherited human depravity—considered Adam’s fall to have erased human free choice to independently respond to God’s gracious invitation.[82] God did not give initial faith as a gift. Humans could do nothing to save themselves—only God’s grace could save. Total inability to do God’s good works without God’s grace did not mean inability to believe in Christ and prepare for baptism. No Christian author embraced deterministic Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies (DUPIED): all who considered it rejected DUPIED as an erroneous pagan Stoic or Neoplatonic philosophy, or a Gnostic or Manichaean heresy, unbefitting Christianity’s gracious relational God. God’s gift was salvation by divine grace through human faith (cf. Eph. 2:8), not a unilateral initial faith gift, as the Gnostics and Manichaean heretics were claiming. Early Christian literature could be distinguished from Gnostic and Manichaean literature by this essential element.

In a seemingly rare theological unanimity over hundreds of years and throughout the entire Mediterranean world, a Christian regula fidei (rule of faith) of free choice (advocated by Origen as the rule of faith) combated the Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individuals’ Eternal Destinies espoused in Stoicism’s “non-free free will” and Gnosticism’s divine gift of infused initial faith into a “dead will.” The loving Christian God allowed humans to exercise their God-given free will.

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Footnotes
Abbreviations from Ken Wilsons Augustine Book (PDF)

[48] Sarah Stroumsa and Guy. G. Stroumsa, “Anti-Manichaean Polemics in Late Antiquity and under Early Islam,” HTR 81 (1988): 48.

[49] Wallace wrongly claims, “In spite of the numerous New Testament references to predestination, patristic writers, especially the Greek fathers, tended to ignore the theme before Augustine of Hippo. This was probably partly the result of the early church’s struggle with the fatalistic determinism of the Gnostics”; Dewey Wallace, Jr. “Free Will and Predestination: An Overview,” in Lindsay Jones, ed. The Encyclopedia of Religion. 2nd edn., vol.5. (Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 3203. He obviously had not read Irenaeus and other early authors. For a cogent refutation of this absurd claim, see in the same volume C.T. McIntire (2005), “Free Will and Predestination: Christian Concepts,” vol.5, 3207.

[50] Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion, Appendix III, 307–309.

[51] Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion, 41–94, and see other comments in the work revealing how this occurs.

[52] For The Shepherd of Hermas and other works not covered here see Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion, 41–50.

[53] Henry Meecham, The Epistle to Diognetus: The Greek Text (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1949), 29–30.

[54] Harold Forshey, “The doctrine of the fall and original sin in the second century,” Restoration Quarterly 3 (1959): 1122, “But in this instance the doctrinal presupposition shows through clearly—a child comes into the world with a tabula rasa.“

[55] Erwin Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr (Jena: Verlag Frommannsche Buchhandlung, 1923), 219.

[56] Leslie Barnard, Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 78.

[57] Henry Chadwick, “Justin Martyr’s Defence of Christianity,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 47.2 (1965): 284; cf., 291–292.

[58] Barnard (1967), 156.

[59] Emily Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian (New York, NY: Routledge, 2003), 49.

[60] Bernard Pouderon, AthĂ©nagore d’AthĂȘnes, philosophie chrĂ©tien (Paris: Beauchesne, 1989), 177– 178. Pouderon highlighted this requisite for God’s law and justice: “La libertĂ© humaine se tire de la notion de responsabilitĂ©: ‘L’homme est responsable (lllóöÎčÎșÎżc) en tant qu’ensemble, de toutes ses actions’ (D.R.XVIII, 4).” “Human freedom results from the concept of responsibility: ‘Man is generally responsible (lllóöÎčÎșÎżc) for all his actions.'” (my translation)

[61] David Rankin, Athenagoras: Philosopher and Theologian. Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), 180.

[62] Stuart Hall, Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments in Henry Chadwick, ed. Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), xvi, where The Petition To Antonius “is now universally regarded as inauthentic.”

[63] Lynn Cohick, The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, and Sources (Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2000), 115.

[64] Hall (1978), xlii.

[65] John Lawson, The Biblical Theology of Saint Irenaeus (London: The Epworth Press, 1948), 203.

[66] Gustaf Wingren, Man and the Incarnation, trans. by Ross Mackenzie (Lund: C.W.K. Gleerup, 1947; repr., London: Oliver and Boyd, 1959), 36; Mary Ann Donovan, “Alive to the Glory of God: A Key Insight in St. Irenaeus,” TS 49 (1988): 291 citing Adv. haer.4.37.

[67] Ysabel de Andia, Homo vivens: incorruptibilitĂ© et divinisation de l’homme selon IrĂ©nĂ©e de Lyons (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 1986), 131.

[68] E.P. Meijering, “Irenaeus’ relation to philosophy in the light of his concept of free will,” in E.P. Meijering, ed. God Being History: Studies in Patristic Philosophy (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing, 1975), 23.

[69] James Beaven, An Account of the Life and Times of S. Irenaeus (London: Gilbert and Rivington, 1841), 165–166; F. Montgomery Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum: A Study of His Teaching (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914), 260; Wingren (1947; repr., 1959), 35–36.

[70] Wingren (1947; repr., 1959), 35–36.

[71] Explained later when discussing Augustine’s later specific sovereignty view.

[72] Denis Minns, Irenaeus (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1994), 136.

[73] Modern commentaries on this gospel rarely connect God’s drawing as being through scripture and Christ (John 6:44–45; 5.38–47; 8.19, 31, 47; 12.32). Cf. 1 Pet. 2.2.

[74] This serves as an excellent example of a passage removed from its context by which some persons erroneously attempt to prove an early church father taught faith was God’s gift.

[75] Rom. 9:16, “So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy.”

[76] For a refutation of Cyprian as teaching Augustine’s inherited guilt unto damnation see Wilson, Augustine’s Conversion, 77–82.

[77] Norman Williams, The Ideas of the Fall and Original Sin from the Bampton Lectures, Oxford University, 1924 (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1927), 297.

[78] C. Eunomium 24 (on the soul’s ability to see Christ) is probably post-baptismal.

[79] Patrologia orientalis 22:797–801. Cf. Roberta Franchi, Metodio di Olimpo: Il libero arbitrio (Milano: Paoline, 2015).

[80] Henry Wace, A Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies (London: Murray, 1911), “Theodore, III.B.f.” This suggests Macarius was incorrect when he assumed that this work by Theodore was anti-Augustinian. It is defending traditional freedom of choice versus eternal damnation by inherited sin from being born physically, a Manichaean doctrine. The quotation is from Reginald Moxon, The Doctrine of Sin (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1922), 40.

[81] Paul Blowers, “Original Sin,” in Everett Ferguson, ed. Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. 2nd edn. (New York, NY: Routledge, 1999), 839–840.

What Love Is This? Calvinism’s “Evil” Problem | Determinism

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(đ•đ•†đ•ƒđ•Œđ•„đ”Œ đ•Žđ”žâ„â„•đ•€â„•đ”Ÿ!) This is not Biblical. BTW.

I have argued against philosophical naturalism for decades because of deterministic values. How could the determinist know he is correct. Example:

“He thus acknowledged the need for any theory to allow that humans have genuine freedom to recognize the truth. He (again, correctly) saw that if all thought, belief, feeling, and choice are determined (i.e., forced on humans by outside conditions) then so is the determinists’ acceptance of the theory of determinism forced on them by those same conditions. In that case they could never claim to know their theory is true since the theory making that claim would be self-referentially incoherent. In other words, the theory requires that no belief is ever a free judgment made on the basis of experience or reason, but is always a compulsion over which the believer has no control.”

Roy A. Clouser, The Myth of Religious Neutrality: An Essay on the Hidden Role of Religious Belief in Theories (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 2005), 174.

You could not argue that “evil” is really “evil.” Eastern philosophies run into the same problems as the atheist’s/evolutionist’s issue I just noted above. SEE:

The Logic of Reincarnation

The Calvinist runs into the same issue. And it is a distortion of Christianity (T.U.L.I.P.):

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 energeþ, 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: “The LORD has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Prov. 16:4, NASB ).14 “When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other” (Eccl. 7:14, NIV).

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

And God’s love is limited greatly.

  • When we say that God is Sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom He chooses. God does not love everybody. — A.W. Pink

Dr. Flowers plays a recent teaching released by Dr. John Piper on Ephesians 1:11-14 in order to demonstrate the error of the Calvinistic interpretation.

Eph. 1:11 is one of the most used proof texts to support the Calvinistic doctrine of theistic determinism, the concept that God has sovereignly and unchangeably decreed whatsoever comes to pass, including every sinful inclination and action.

 

Balthasar Hubmaier: Baptist History in the Reformation (Updated)

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Balthasar Hubmaier (1480–1528) was an influential German Anabaptist leader and one of the most well-known and respected Anabaptist theologians of the Reformation.

In the closing of his work entitled “Freedom of the Will” he laid out a very strong argument against theistic determinism and fatalism which are the undercurrent of Augustinian philosophy and Calvinist “Sovereignty”.

Let me say something to ppl who do not take the time to know what something is and dismiss with labels. Stalin called Lenin a fascist

In similar fashion, we find this “labeling” among the Reformers: See Leighton’e Full Interview of Professor Harwood

Which brings me to an excerpt from a book I have a PDF form of… so the pages and the footnotes will not be properly marked.

As I am going thru this book (pictured), I am rejecting more of my compatibilism and drilling down on a more solid foundation.

Note also how Paul wheels the argument of Romans 1—11 to a climactic conclusion: “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all” (Rom 11:32, emphasis added). Here the scope of God’s intention to have mercy matches the scope of human sinfulness, as indicated by the repeated all. If Paul has already established in Romans 1—3 that all human beings without exception have been consigned to disobedience, then the symmetry of Paul’s expression in Romans 11:32 strongly implies that God intends to have mercy in a similar scope: on all human beings without exception. Even if we allow that Paul may here be referring to Jews and Gentiles as people groups, we must not imagine that God’s desire to show mercy fails to apply to every individual within each group. After all, Paul establishes that all humans are under sin by arguing that both Gentiles (Rom 1:18-32) and Jews (Rom 2:1—3:20) as people groups are under sin. If we accept Paul’s strategy of indicting every individual through indictment of the group, then consistency requires that we allow the same extension to hold with regard to God’s mercy, as Romans 11:32 seems to say.

The Pastoral Epistles abound with passages pointing toward God’s universal saving intentions: “God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:3-4); “Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:5-6); “We have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe” (1 Tim 4:10); “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all” (Tit 2:11). Given the unqualified use of all in these passages to identify those whom God desires to save, the burden of proving otherwise is on those who hold that biblical writers assumed a limitation on those who would be saved.1

Of course Calvinists have offered their own accountings of these passages. Some argue, for example, that the “world” loved by God in John 3:16 must refer only to “the elect within the world.”2 Similarly, they read the unqualified all in restricted senses (e.g., “all types of people” or “all the elect”). Accordingly, the scriptural claim that Jesus died not only for our sins but also for the sins of the whole world means that Jesus died not only for the sins of (some) Jews but also for the sins of (some) Gentiles. But D. A. Carson, certainly no Arminian sympathizer, considers such moves to be clever but unconvincing exegetical ploys that feebly attempt to overcome “simply too many texts on the other side of the issue.”3 These restrictive interpretations of all require such textual gymnastics that they condemn themselves as invalid.

[….]

…  compatibilism is a popular position among Calvinists, particularly among the philosophically informed, we want to stress that not all Calvinists embrace it. Some Reformed theologians have argued for another option. These writers do not agree with Feinberg that a Calvinist must either give up freedom altogether or accept compatibilism. To the contrary, they hold that we are required by Scripture to accept both God’s control of all things and human freedom, but they insist that it is not up to us to find a way to reconcile these truths. Popular evangelical author J. I. Packer is a proponent of this view. He endorses this position in his widely read book Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God.

As he notes, divine sovereignty and human responsibility are both clearly taught in Scripture. And he understands sovereignty in the Calvinistic sense that God unconditionally determines everything that happens. “Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent.”4 Packer identifies this pair of claims as an “antinomy” because he believes we cannot dispense with either one of them, nor can we understand how they are compatible. From the standpoint of finite human reason, it may seem contradictory to affirm both of these claims and therefore impossible to do so. Here is Packer’s advice for dealing with such antinomies.

Accept it for what it is, and learn to live with it. Refuse to regard the apparent inconsistency as real; put down the semblance of contradiction to the deficiency of your own understanding; think of the two principles as, not rival alternatives, but, in some way that at present you do not grasp, complementary to each other.5

Apparently Packer means to affirm that both determinism and freedom in the libertarian sense are true. It is the affirmation of both of these that produces antinomy. By contrast, the affirmation of determinism and the compatibilist account of freedom produces no such intellectual tension. The resolution of antinomy will need the perspective of eternity, but it is easy to see here and now how freedom and determinism can be held together if one accepts a compatibilist account of freedom.

[….]

Second, we believe that there are large stretches of Scripture that are hard to make sense of if humans aren’t free in the libertarian sense of the word. In chapter two we examined some of these, but now let us consider another one, namely, Jeremiah 7:1-29. In this passage God calls his people to repentance. God enumerates the sins of his people and reminds them that while they were doing such things, he spoke to them again and again (Jer 7:13). But instead of repenting, they persist in idolatry and other self-destructive behavior. God promises to punish them for their sin, but he again reiterates that he repeatedly sent his prophets to them to urge them to obedience (Jer 7:20-26).

This passage is hardly unusual. The book of Jeremiah contains several other similar passages, as do most of the Prophets as well as some other biblical texts. Now the question we want to raise is, what view of freedom is implied in such texts? Of course, as we have already noted, Scripture does not expressly define the nature of our freedom or draw philosophical distinctions for us. But it is still worth asking what sort of freedom is implied by various texts of Scripture.

  1. For a helpful treatment of such terms as all and every in the Pastoral Epistles, see I. Howard Marshall, “Universal Grace and Atonement in the Pastoral Epistles,” in The Grace of God and the Will of Man: A Case for Arminianism, ed. Clark H. Pinnock (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 1989), pp. 57-63.
  2. See D. A. Carson’s characterization of this point of view in The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway, 2000), p. 17.
  3. Ibid., p. 75.
  4. John S. Feinberg, “God, Freedom and Evil in Calvinist Thinking,” in The Grace of God, the Bondage of the Will, ed. Thomas R. Schreiner and Bruce A. Ware (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 1995), 2:465.
  5. J. I. Packer, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1961), p. 23. […] 21.

So there is wiggle room in orthodoxy – is my main point. Spurgeon is wrong:

And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism.  I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly.  It is a nickname to call it Calvinism.  Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.

— Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons, vol. I (Baker Books, reprinted 2007), 88-89.

And, I can disagree with Pink:

  • When we say that God is Sovereign in the exercise of His love, we mean that He loves whom He chooses. God does not love everybody. — A.W. Pink

John MacArthur Contradicts Calvinism | Soteriology 101

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And I have my own private opinion, that there is no such thing as preaching Christ and him crucified, unless you preach what now-a-days is called Calvinism.  I have my own ideas, and those I always state boldly.  It is a nickname to call it Calvinism.  Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else.

— Charles Spurgeon, Spurgeon’s Sermons, vol. I (Baker Books, reprinted 2007), 88-89.

Calvinism IS NOT the Gospel. A theological paradigm is not that.

In my apologetic dealings with atheists, I note that even the language a person uses in life (moral categories, laws of thought, meaning of life, etc.) is in distinction to their started worldview. In other words, the Judeo-Christian God/worldview is the only paradigm where this language coherently works. Similarly, our being drawn to God is described best in the view of a sovereign God sovereignly giving his creatures agency. Here we see this at work with John MacArthur.

Free Will and Human Responsibility

Calvinism’s doctrine of Unconditional Election posits that God’s choice is independent of human action, implying humans lack agency in their salvation. However, the Bible repeatedly emphasizes human responsibility in responding to God’s grace.

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This verse clearly conditions eternal life on individual belief.

Acts 16:31: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” This directive underscores the necessity of human choice in salvation.

God’s Desire for All to Be Saved

Calvinism asserts that God decrees some to salvation and others to reprobation. This is problematic when measured against verses that show God’s universal salvific will:

1 Timothy 2:4: “[God] desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

2 Peter 3:9: “[God is] not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Foreknowledge vs. Predestination

Calvinists often argue that God’s foreknowledge necessitates predestination, but the Bible presents foreknowledge as God’s knowing in advance who will choose Him, not causing them to believe:

Romans 8:29: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.” The sequence suggests that predestination follows foreknowledge.

1 Peter 1:2: “
elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Election is grounded in foreknowledge, not arbitrary decree.

Universal Offer of Salvation

The New Testament teaches that the gospel is offered to all, not only to a predetermined group of elect individuals:

Matthew 11:28: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

Revelation 22:17: “Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.”

God’s Justice and Impartiality

Calvinism’s concept of unconditional election raises questions about God’s justice and impartiality:

Acts 10:34-35: “God shows no partiality. But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.”

Ezekiel 18:23: “Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? 
 and not that he should turn from his ways and live?”

The Role of Grace

While Calvinism emphasizes irresistible grace (that God’s grace cannot be resisted by the elect), Scripture illustrates that grace can be resisted:

Acts 7:51: “You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit.”

Matthew 23:37: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem
 How often I wanted to gather your children together
 but you were not willing!”

The scriptural problems with Calvinism’s interpretation of salvation center on the denial of human agency and the misrepresentation of God’s character as impartial and loving. The biblical narrative consistently portrays salvation as a cooperative process: God initiates through grace, and humans respond through faith. This balance ensures that God’s sovereignty and human responsibility are harmonized, honoring the scriptural testimony that God foreknows who will choose Him, and based on this knowledge, He elects them for eternal life.

Dr. Flowers responds to another John Piper Podcast in which he answers the question of one who is struggling to keep his faith…