The Strand Study Bible

MATTHEW

MATTHEW

1563

Howbeit, Calvinists aren’t the only ones who appeal to Augustine for their system of theology. The Roman Catholic Church considers Augustine to be the founder of Roman Catholicism. He, along with Jerome (331-420), Ambrose (340-397), and Gregory the Great (c. 540-504) was one of the Roman Catholic Church’s original four “Doctors of the Church.” Thus, Augustine was first and foremost a Roman Catholic, and all Calvinists, if they are honest, will admit this. Vance continues: The most important thing about Augustine that we are concerned with is his theology. Converting to Christianity and writing volumes of material does not necessarily guarantee that one will always be correct in his doctrine. This is especially true in the case of Augustine since he has been called “the father of orthodox theology.” The theology of Augustine, even though he lived hundreds of years ago, is exceptionally relevant to the study of Calvinism because of the emphasis put on Augustine by the Calvinists themselves. 9 So what did Augustine, Calvin’s hero in the faith, believe and teach? Augustine believed in: * baptismal regeneration (a Catholic doctrine) 10 – Augustine, the great champion of predestination, held that baptism was necessary for the remission of sins ( Eph 5:19 and Heb 6:2a ). He was also an innovator when it came to infant baptism. He believed that infants who were not baptized were dammed. * Mary worship (a Catholic doctrine) 11 – Augustine taught that Mary was sinless. * purgatory (a Catholic doctrine) 12 – Augustine was the one who gave the doctrine of purgatory its first definite form ( I Cor 3:13a ). * intercession (a Catholic doctrine) 11 – Augustine allowed for the intercession of saints. * the sacraments (a Catholic doctrine) 11 – Augustine was the first who defined the so-called sacraments as a visible sign of invisible grace. * The Apocrypha (a Catholic doctrine) 13 – Augustine accepted the extra biblical books that were added to the OT as authoritative ( Lk 11:51 ). * salvation by works (a Catholic doctrine) 14 – Augustine’s doctrine of justification, like that of the Roman Catholic Church, is based on faith plus works, not faith alone ( Gal 3:1-3 ). Martin Luther, as quoted by Timothy George in Theology of the Reformers , said of Augustine:

Augustine got nearer to the meaning of Paul than all the Schoolmen, but he did not reach Paul. In the beginning I devoured Augustine, but when the door into Paul swung open and I knew what justification by faith really was, then it was out with him. 15

* a spirit of inspiration, not the Spirit of God Cyril C. Richardson in The Doctrine of the Trinity notes:

The Spirit has more frequently been conceived as “it” rather than as “he.” The Spirit has been thought of as an effluence from the Father, a power of inspiration or hallowing, rather than as a “person.” This has been partly due to Augustine’s treatment of the subject… Thus the problem for Augustine is not so much how the Spirit can properly be personalized, as how Father and Son are, in his scheme, persons in any real sense. “We say three persons,” he writes in an oft-quoted passage, “not that we wish to say it, but that we may not be reduced to silence” (7. 6. 11). His thought moves in the realm where the initial analogy between man and God, is that of one person. He understands the image of God in man as the image of the Trinity ; and he finds this in the individual human being, not in three men (7. 6. 12).

What then, are we to say about the Spirit in the Trinity? The issue has been sharply raised in modern theology by Karl Barth, who takes over much of Augustine’s way of thinking, and it may be profitable to examine his position. Now two further points may be noted. In the first place Barth does not think of the persons of the Trinity as real persons in the modern sense. They are modes of God’s being. The Spirit is not “a third spiritual subject, a third I… alongside two others,” Father and the Son, but “a third mode of existence of the one divine Subject or Lord.” 10 Personality in our sense, being an “I,” is to be attributed to the whole Trinity, not to the modes of God’s being. 11 Here Barth puts in current terms the very heart of Augustine’s view. 16 * predestination 17 – Augustine believed in the two-fold predestination of the elect and the reprobate ( I Pet 1:2a , Acts 13:48 , Rom 8:29c and Eph 1:4-5 ). Laurence M. Vance in The Other Side of Calvinism notes:

The fact that Augustine was not only doctrinally incorrect on so many things but also persecuted those whom he disagreed with should be cause for alarm, for if Augustine was wrong on so much why would anyone think he was correct when it came to the doctrine of predestination? 9

Calvin, like Luther, may have swallowed many of Augustine’s doctrines early on in his Christian life, but to Calvin’s credit he didn’t swallow everything Augustine taught ( Eph 1:17 ). Later on in life he even had had a “change of mind” concerning Augustine’s doctrine of predestination. An example of this is seen in his comments on I John 2:2:

Christ suffered for the sins of the WHOLE ( emphasis added ) world, and in the goodness of God is offered unto ALL ( emphasis added ) men without distinction, His blood being shed, not for a part of the world openly, but for the WHOLE ( emphasis added ) human race; 18

Although John Calvin changed what he believed about predestination near the end of his life, his ardent followers, who started Calvinism some sixty years after his death, did not. To this day many Calvinists adhere to all five points of the Calvinism’s