Augustine

I have read some blogs and listened to some podcasts¹ regarding Augustine. They seem to assert that he is the first to introduce the Reformed view of total depravity and unconditional election, as later popularised by Calvin, Luther and Zwingli. The church fathers prior to Augustine never held his view. Augustine, who was previously a Manichaean Gnostic, may have brought some of his presuppositions from that world view into his reading of the bible.

With Christian writings prior to Augustine, when they use terms like ‘Election’, ‘Predestination’, ‘Chosen’ or ‘Sovereignty’, do not automatically presume that they use them with the same meaning as the Calvinist. I too use these biblical words and I am not Calvinist.

Augustine and the origins of Calvinist soteriology is really outside the scope of this document but may be something worth looking into.

Kenneth Wilson wrote a doctoral dissertation on Augustine “Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to ‘non-Free Free Will’: A Comprehensive Methodology”². This goes into great academic depth on writings by Augustine and the early church. This sounds like the most comprehensive work available on the topic if you want to research further. I have not read this yet, but have only seen a couple interviews¹ with him, in which he gives an overview of his thesis, and have also read his book based on his thesis called “The foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism”⁷.

Lyman Beecher said³, “We must now apply this especially to Augustine. Down to his time, the free will and natural ability of man were held by the whole church… natural inability was to that of the pagan philosophers, the Gnostic’s, and the Manichaeans.”

David Bercot said⁴, “The Early Christians didn’t believe that man is totally depraved and incapable of doing any good. They taught that humans are capable of obeying and loving God.” He went on to say, “There was a religious group, labelled as heretics by the early Christians… they taught that man is totally depraved… the group I’m referring to are the Gnostics.”

Loraine Boettner, a Reformed Historian and Theologian, said⁵ “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… They taught a kind of synergism in which there was a co-operation between grace and free will.”

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