From Augustine to Calvin: Part 1

In my last post I gave a little background as to my exposure to the Calvinist mindset and because we were new Christians (barely on “the way”) we thought there was something seriously wrong with Christianity. Again I do not refer to all Calvinists but only to those that I have had personal contact with. Many of these seem to think that if you do not agree with them as to their Calvinistic views that somehow you have strayed from the Gospel. They somehow think that the Gospel and Calvinism are synonymous and to stray from Calvinism is to be on your way to becoming “apostate” (something that really can’t happen anyway because of their doctrine of “perseverance of the saints”). If one were to “fall away” this MUST mean you weren’t really saved to begin with.  We once again have a problem with words in their plain sense not making sense.

An interesting, yet confusing example of, plain sense not making sense, is found in John Gerstner’s book Repent or Perish. In Chapter 10 (pgs  107-108) he states ….

“please note that people are capable of misunderstanding the very title of this book (an understatement I might add), Repent or Perish. The title states that the reader must repent. Most people have a general idea of what “repent” means-a turning away from sin. It is the “you” that is likely to be misconstrued. Not the “you” but the “you repent”. And not quite the “you repent”, but what must happen that “you repent”

He goes on to say that even those in Hell will not repent even though they experience it. Now I can agree with that statement because whatever state you are in when you die you will remain in forever.

Gerstner goes on “Nevertheless, the terribleness (of Hell) has never made one soul repent….. Nothing will make you repent – not even you (emphasis mine). Only God can cause you to repent and be saved. If He changes you, you will repent. If He does not, you will not (because grace is irresistible).

Now comes the confusing part..

“I did not write “Repent or Perish” thinking I could persuade you to repent. I am not that naïve. I am not an Arminian fancying that I, by my writing, my preaching, my praying, can bring you to repentance. By the grace of God I know better. I know that only God can lead you, or me, or anyone, to repent. Paul who under divine inspiration wrote “knowing the terror of the Lord we persuade men” (2 Cor 5:11).

Gerstner then goes on to show how “we persuade men” by quoting …

(1 Corinthians 3:5-7 (ESV) ⁵ What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. ⁶ I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.) and explains “when God changes you, you will repent.  Not when He warns you, threatens you, pleads with you. He must change you if you are ever to repent”

But is that what the passage is saying? If God changes you before you repent what does the word “persuade” even mean? Is it not God who speaks through men (though they are nothing) that warns, threatens and pleads? Why would God “warn, threaten and plead” through men except for the sole purpose of changing mens’ minds, something that would NOT be required if God has ALREADY changed their hearts.  The passage says nothing of irresistible grace but instead speaks about the word being planted and watered by men and then God giving the increase.

Well enough of Gerstner for now, we will return to him later. I just wanted to show that” plain sense makes no sense” when you read statements like those of Gerstner.

It was, however, not so in the beginning of church history-that is until Augustine. Early Christians were strong believers in free will. Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome, Arcelaus, Methodius (who lived near the end of the third century) all believed in free will. They actually believed the scriptures like…

(John 3:16 (ESV) ¹⁶ “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.)  and …

2 Peter 3:9 (ESV) ⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

Revelation 22:17 (ESV) ¹⁷ The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

In the early church it was the Gnostics that believed in predestination. It was Origen in his work “On First Principles” who says…

“Now when ‘in the beginning’ he created what he wished to create, that is rational beings, he had no other reason for creating them except himself, that is, his goodness. As therefore he himself, in whom was neither variation nor change nor lack of power, was the cause of all that was to be created, he created all his creatures equal and alike, for the simple reason that there was in him no cause that could give rise to variety and diversity. But since these rational creatures, as we have frequently shown and will show yet again in its proper place, were endowed with the power of free will, it was this freedom which induced each one by his own voluntary choice either to make progress through the imitation of God or to deteriorate through negligence. This, as we have said before, was the cause of diversity among rational creatures, a cause that takes its origin not from the will or judgment of the Creator, but from the decision of the creature’s own freedom. God, however, who then felt it just to arrange his creation according to merit, gathered the diversities of minds into the harmony of a single world, so as to furnish, as it were, out of those diverse vessels or souls or minds, one house, in which there must be ‘not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and of earth, and some unto honour and some unto dishonour.’

 

You see here that the “movement of the free will” is foreseen by God and diversity is the result NOT of God’s “will or judgment” but “the decision of the creature’s own freedom”.

Origen –  On Prayer, Ch. 6, par. 3.

“If, then our free will is preserved, its future, with its numerous inclinations to virtue or to vice or toward what is fitting or toward what is improper, must, like other things be known to God from the creation and foundation of the world. And in all that God prearranges in accordance with what he has seen with regard to each act of our free will it has been prearranged that what is fitting to each action under free will be met from his providence and in accordance with the succession of things to come. Yet the foreknowledge of God is not the cause of all things that are to come about, and all the actions that are to be performed out of our desire and in our free will. For if, for the sake of argument, God were ignorant of the future, we would not thereby be absolved from performing some actions and from willing them. Rather, our individual free will receives direction from his foreknowledge so that everything may be usefully arranged with a view to the constitution of the world.”

Again Origen argues that it is mans free will that causes all that came about rather than God determining all things.

One must ask, if many of the early church fathers did not hold to a Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and election and it wasn’t found in the Scriptures, from where did Calvin get it? According to Calvinists themselves it came from Augustine.

Alan Baker said “there is hardly doctrine of Calvin that does not bear the marks of Augustine” (Berkouwer’s Doctrine of Election; pg 25). Baker is not the only one who feels this way. There are many who think Augustine was “one of the greatest Christian thinkers of all time” and “the greatest Christian thinker since new testament times” (Norman Geisler-What Augustine Says; pg 9). B.B. Warfield of Princeton said “Augustine determined for all time the doctrine of grace”.  There are too many quotes for me to put them into this blog.

I can only agree with Will Durant a secular historian who said “Calvin based his ruthless creed upon Augustine’s theories of the elect and the damned” (the Age of Faith – pg 74).

I will begin my next post with a little history about the man Calvin so eloquently systemised-Saint Aurelius Augustine of Hippo

 

 

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