The early church (AD 100-400) was partly
right about the doctrine of the way God saves individuals.
"Calvinists", beginning with Augustine, made some corrections to
the position of the early church Fathers while at the same time
making new errors in the process. Since the time of John Calvin,
Arminians have shown valid differences between the true Biblical
view of the salvation doctrine and Calvin's view. But, since
much of the Arminian view falls back on the mediocre view of the
post-apostolic church, I have tried to show where continuing
reform of both theologies is necessary to be close to the
Biblical teaching.
My strategy is to reveal the problems
encountered as a result of a Calvinistic commitment to certain
Greek philosophical ideas. My ten little reasons for advocating
reform of both Calvinism and defective Arminianism will detail
these weaknesses in these ten little chapters and finally
suggest a direction for us both to head.
TO GET STARTED, A QUICK REVIEW OF THE TULIP
DEFINITION of Calvin's Doctrine of Salvation:
Actually from their opponents, Calvinists
have adopted a summary of the terms of their salvation doctrine,
as they understand it, in the acronym, TULIP. Like other systems
of belief, Calvinists have seen the "support" of their doctrine
on the lips of Jesus, St. Paul, and others; and from the
beginning to the end of the Bible have been able to discount, to
their satisfaction, the difficulties that various texts might
present.
T. Total Depravity (total inability)
U. Unconditional Election
L. Limited Atonement
I. Irresistible Grace
P. Perseverance of the Saints
Briefly, this is what they mean. Total
depravity is the teaching that man is so affected by the fall
that he is totally unable to do any spiritual good and it is
therefore impossible for him to do anything on his own to
contribute to his salvation. They say an unbeliever is an
"unregenerate" (not made spiritually alive) man who, because he
is dead spiritually, cannot understand spiritual truth. He,
therefore, has no capacity to choose God; meaning thereby that
he cannot have faith in God until God "regenerates" him and then
gives him faith.
Unconditional election: The term "elect",
seems, by definition, to refer to someone who is chosen by
another. Consequently, they say membership of those who are in
this group of chosen ones is not conditioned on the free actions
of men.
Limited Atonement states that Christ did not
die for the sins of all men, for it he did then supposedly
everyone would make it to heaven. Christ's death, they say, was
not meant for other than those particular individuals whom He
had decided beforehand to save.
Irresistible Grace is their doctrine which
maintains that a sinner has no capacity to refuse the special
grace of God in bringing him to salvation.
Perseverance of the Saints teaches that no
true Christian will fall away and be lost. Or, at the least, it
means that those Christians who wind up in the end as
Christians, were the ones who persevered and were the only ones
meant to be perseverers by God.
HOW DID CALVINISM ORIGINATE?
After Jesus and the apostles gave to us God's
complete revelation of Himself, it was recorded in what we have
as the New Testament. As the next few generations began to
comment on the New Testament, they began to write things about
God's foreknowledge, man's free will, election, and so on. The
writings that came forth between about AD 100 and 400 tended to
explain that men make totally free moral choices (undetermined
by God) and that God elects them (chooses them for His own)
based on His ability to foresee the choices that they would
make.
Texts such as Romans 8: 29, 30 seemed to
support such a doctrine, but given the influence of the
Greek-like philosophy of the Jewish intellectual, Philo, during
this period, I suspect that the "free" aspect of men's choices
became over-emphasized in the teachings of the church fathers.
It wasn't until much later that Calvinists explained "freedom of
the will" in a way that allowed for God's determination of an
individual's free choice. Back then, however, Philo, had written
that
man is possessed of a spontaneous and
self-determinedwill whose activities for the most part rest
ondeliberate choice.... the soul of man alone hasreceived from
God the faculty of voluntary movement,and in this way especially
is made like to Him, andthus being liberated, as far as might
be, from thathard and ruthless mistress, necessity, may justly
becharged with guilt [or commended with praise]. [ascited in
Benjamin Writ Farley, THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD(Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids)]
And on God's foreknowledge Philo leans in the
direction of making God's activities dependent on His
foreknowledge of all events:
For a mere man cannot foresee the course of
futureevents, or the judgments of others, but to God as inpure
sunlight all things are manifest. For already Hehas pierced into
the recesses of our soul, and what isinvisible to others is
clear as daylight to His eyes.He employs the forethought and
foreknowledge which arepeculiarly His own, and suffers nothing
to escape Hiscontrol or pass outside His comprehension. For
noteven about the future can uncertainty be found withHim, since
nothing is uncertain or future to God.[Ibid.]
VIEWS OF THE CHURCH FATHERS BEFORE AUGUSTINE
Justin Martyr, a defender of the Christian
faith during the mid 100's, comments in his writings that he
draws upon his training in Platonist-type philosophy. Justin
taught that
... unless the human race have the power of
avoidingevil and choosing good by free choice, they are
notaccountable for their actions... [Ibid.]
Justin also "touches on the issue of
God'sforeknowledge. He understands it to be the meanswhereby God
foresees what actions and choices mankindexercises, in light of
which God then distinguishes theelect from the non-elect. Thus
God delays the finalact of history until the number of those
foreknown byHim as good and virtuous is complete .... For
thereason why God has delayed to do this, is His regardfor the
human race. For He foreknows that some are tobe saved by
repentance, some even yet that are perhapsnot born."[Ibid.]
A few years later in the same
century,Irenaeus writes basically the same thing claiming thatin
the Bible is set forth the ancient law of humanliberty, because
God made man a free [agent] from thebeginning, possessing his
own power, even as he doeshis own soul, to obey the behests of
God voluntarily,and not by compulsion. For there is no coercion
withGod .... And in man, as well as in angels, He hasplaced the
power of choice ....But if some had beenmade by nature bad, and
others good, these latter wouldnot be deserving of praise for
being good, for suchwere they created; nor would the former
bereprehensible, for thus they were made [originally].But since
all men are of the same nature, able both tohold fast and to do
what is good; and, on the otherhand, having also the power to
cast it from them andnot to do it, --some do justly receive
praise...; butthe others are blamed.... [Ibid]
Origen, during the same time period assures
his readers that one's fate is always determined by the use of
one's will and that God is the knower of all choices but never
their cause. [Ibid.]
AUGUSTINE'S REACTION TO PELAGIUS
Just before AD 400 Ambrose was continuing to
emphasize man's free will in his work, _Jacob and the Happy
Life_. In this milieu came the teachings of Pelagius around AD
400. He taught that men are born essentially good and are
capable of doing what is necessary for salvation. Augustine
confronted the Pelagian idea in what amounted to a change in his
own views. From scripture he saw that the traditional "free
moral choices" which the church fathers and Pelagius had
presented as self-determinedly free, were not nearly as free as
they were making them out to be. Augustine recognized that his
predecessors had not adequately explained how the will is in
bondage and a slave to lusts and ignorance and not free to
choose God apart from the grace of God.
Augustine decided that the old view where God
"elected" souls _on the basis of foreseeing_ their free moral
choices was inadequate. That view seemed to make man the
determiner of his own salvation and God the one who "passively"
put his stamp of "elect" on the ones who would choose to be
saved. This view, thought Augustine, failed to grasp the depths
of corruption of human nature (caused by original sin) and it
did not seem to require much of God's grace in the matter.
In responding to all this Augustine argued
that God's role in salvation is total. Election, he said, is
_not based on what God foresees_ but is based on the mystery of
His unsearchable will. The omnipotent Creator simply decides to
graciously redeem some of Adam's posterity, while allowing the
rest to suffer the punishments of sin which they justly incur as
a fitting consequence of Adam's fall and in which they continue
willfully to concur by virtue of their own free will.
Man's inability, Augustine derived from
scripture, but the doctrine of a God uninfluenced by the actions
of men probably owes its origin to the "Unmoved Mover" of
Aristotle whom Augustine had studied in Carthage before his
conversion. Scripture itself would not evoke Augustine's
conclusion that God does not actually respond to man. I will
treat this more in depth in chapters to follow.
At that time, we, the Church, condemned
Pelagius' view as heretical but backed off a bit from accepting
Augustine's view in its totality.
FROM AUGUSTINE TO CALVIN
For the next 1100 years the church taught a
semi- Augustinian view of things. The church believed (as I do
in a certain sense) that God's predestination and calling were
rooted in God's foreknowledge. This teaching, strengthened by
Thomas Aquinas (c. 1270), seemed to be a continuation of the
view of the second and third century fathers. We also believed
during this 1100 year period that those under the influence of
the church (usually initiated by infant baptism) would be given
the grace to believe and that, if they believed, God's
"efficacious" grace cooperating with our wills, would enable us
to obey God.
As the length of time we held this view seems
to indicate, it was probably a view very close to the truth.
However, because of the influence of semi-Pelagian views in the
church there was an erosion of the justification-by- faith view.
Much was taught about salvation that required the initiative of
man. The grace of God and the will of man were both involved in
salvation, but in a sense where good works were becoming a
necessary part.
In response, the church was reformed
beginning with the challenges of men like Thomas Bradwardine,
Gregory of Rimni, John Wycliffe, and John Huss of the 14th
century and culminating with men like Luther and Calvin of the
16th century. Calvin accomplished a swing away from semi-
Pelagianism that brought his followers all the way back to
Augustinianism.
CONCLUSION
Because some of Augustine's philosophical
training seems to have wrongly influenced his ideas about God,
he was moved to introduce a new basis for the reason of the
election of Christians; that is, election not based on what God
foresees, but based on the mystery of His unsearchable will. I
will urge in chapter seven that the post-apostolic fathers did
have a slight misunderstanding regarding God's foreknowledge of
believers, and, I will also show why Augustine's attempted
correction of the post-apostolic fathers was misleading.
The post-apostolic fathers' apparent reliance
upon Philo's equation of "foresee" with the Biblical word,
"foreknow" gave undue precedence to one particular meaning
(among other meanings) of that New Testament word. It implied
that the future existed, somehow, for God to observe it, yet
without God having determined it. It favored God's all-knowing
over His all-powerfulness (as if one might dominate the other).
This may have been what roused Augustine to reverse the
prominence; favoring God's all- powerfulness as the determinant
in the election of believers. Thenceforth the Calvinists have
thought of God's foreknowing and all-powerfulness as virtually
synonymous. As we proceed through the chapters ahead I will lead
up to another, more Biblical reason why believers are elect
according to the foreknowledge of God (1 Pet. 1:2).
What I intend to do in the following chapter
is to demonstrate that the Calvinist has gotten a distorted idea
of what God is like because his idea is based on listening to
what uninspired man has had to say about God. It has served to
skew his concept of God in non-biblical ways. If we limit
ourselves to hearing what God has to say about Himself we will
learn what He is really like.