Augustine and Everything After (by the Jason Crows)

Aren't blogs the right place for woefully cheesy titles like that?

Let me preface by saying that I imagine many people will find this stuff very boring so don't read it if you don't want to. Blogs are for thoughts and these are definitely thoughts I have. On the men I talk about (Augustine, Luther and Calvin in particular), I automatically have great respect for well-repected men ... what I mean is that I am pretty new into this information and processing it as I can, but know I am far from getting the full picture. I intend to do a lot more reading on this topic and hopefully will be more estute as I go.

I have found that if I wanted to I could spend hours and hours writing and re-writing and I don't have the time for that ... so here is random thoughts on church history part 1 and I will either clean some of it up later with an additional post or make a more complete statement.

So I have almost completed two pocket history(s) related to Christianity; A History of Theology and a History of the Church. I love reading this stuff because I love seeing where all the modern thoughts came from and seeing how some of them are not new even when we think they are or they are new and ridiculous because of being new.

The biggest trouble I am currently having is figuring out what the truth is with Augustine's Grace vs. Free Will discussions and with Luther and Calvin's formulations of salvation. I honestly don't think they are straightforwardly dealing with the reality of our world or with the reality of the scriptures. They both get some grace because they formulated their thoughts as reactions to heretical thoughts ... Augustine to the british monk Pelagious and Luther and Calvin to the out of their mind at the time Roman Catholics. All of them want God to have absolute sovereignty and human beings to have absolute depravity. The only free will we have, according to Augustine, is the choosing which sin we want to pursue.

I understand the philosophical problem completely ... well as much as someone who has never taken a philosophy class. The philosophical picture needs to be black and white and very tidy ... so if God is to be in absolute control then that must include control over human will, individual or otherwise. The formulation becomes that we are completely passive while God's grace is active in saving, redeeming and everything else. Luther even says that repentance is a gift ... which follows right along with Augustine's argument.

So, it comes down to the elect and the damned, predestination or what Augustine called monergism (which I think refers to the fact that only God has any power). But, what about the Bible? All Christians are quick to say that you can only get so far with philosophy so why do all these guys keep going back to it before the Scriptures. They seem to figure it all out philosophically and then try and make the scriptures support it.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that philosophy is bad in any way and the people that push for only learning from the Bible or only using biblical language get pretty confused as well. There are times when philosophy and rational discussion is our only recourse to make sense of the world and even our task as followers of Christ. BUT, these giant systems of interpretation that have greatly influenced the church, especially Protestant thought, don't seem to line up with the Scriptures very well at all.

I mean, what about the constant call for repentance. Why do all God's men, Jesus included, always walk around telling people repent? How does this system fit, in any way, with the story of the Prodigal Son? Can you imagine Augustine's view of God (at least in this aspect) being the same father Jesus describes running down the road to meet the lost son and falling on his neck with tears ... and then turning to the older son and inviting him in as well? I imagine if Augustine had to re-write the story it would have to include a little less choice on the son's part.

But it seems the biggest problem with all this is the obvious one ... how do you establish any real human responsibility if absolute power and control and action is given to God. That is what set off Pelagious in the first place ... coming into town and finding a lot of indecent behavior and then reading Confessions with Augustine saying that decent behavior (or self-control) was a gift from God ... so instead of putting forth moral effort, we are left to wait like a bunch of island charismatics for the gift of continence.

And then the same rap could be said about Calvinists ... don't know how true it really is, but i have heard that Protestants didn't do any missionary work for nearly 200 years after Calvin worked out double predestination. There is just no way that fits with the Bible.