Heretical Church Fathers

[katoikei]

Mary is the mother of God. Jesus is God. Mary was Jesus mother.

Really Chuck,

Are these the words of 'truth and soberness', the sort that come from a master of translational skills, who is currently translating the written word of Yahweh ? Or are they the words of and opposser who regards the teachings of this forum to be dangerous doctrines; containing perverted and misstated views, who believes his views to be that of the true religion. Or, are you simply spying on the freedom we have in Yeshua ?

[Saint Nicholas]

Charles:
First and foremost, you accuse me of being a slanderer and making false accusations. You have a right to your own opinion, and I will respect that right. This thread was originally started with the statement that Augustine taught the concept of Purgatory which is a denial of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Also, I provided a link to support my allegation, from citations of early churchmen. So there you have it. I stand as the Plaintiff and you stand as the Defendant. The burden is on you to produce evidence to the contrary.
Secondly, we are digressing into a host of other topics that could be started in other threads.
It is not I that have hurled Anathemas and condemnations at people or governments throughout the centuries, but rather bold and arrogant pious churchman that have done these things.
On the issue of Mary the Mother of God. You and I both agree that the intent of The Council of Ephesus A.D. 431, was not at all teaching that Mary was the mother of Christ’s divine essence, however there are two concerns that I have. One is of semantic importance, and secondly of ecclesiastical authority.
In addressing the former, The term, Mary the Mother of God, standing on it’s own, and out of it’s context, can lead to all sorts of misleading views. Someone can readily jump to the conclusion, that if God had a mother, then God must have had a great grandmother, and if God had a great grandmother, God must have had a great great grandmother. Hence more confusion. The council could have proved it’s point by just reaffirming that Mary was the mother of his human essence, and the Logos has no mother.
That statement would do no violence to the God-Man Jesus. We who understand this may not see a semantic problem, however the reprobates of this world, whom God has blinded, can use this phraseology against us to their utter dismay.
In addressing the latter, no amount of creeds, confessions, dogmas, or doctrines, as helpful as some may be, cannot bind the conscience of men.
Romans 8:7 " Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." The post-apostolic church has been very violent in their treatment against dissenters.
History will prove that.
Below are extracts from the Council of Ephesus. Pay particular attention to the Anathemas...........In love, Nicholas

Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431)

EPISTLE OF CYRIL TO NESTORIUS
("Intelligo quosdam")

To the most religious and beloved of God, fellow minister Nestorius, Cyril sends greeting in the Lord.
I hear that some are rashly talking of the estimation in which I hold your holiness, and that this is frequently the case especially at the times that meetings are held of those in authority. And perchance they think in so doing to say something agreeable to you, but they speak senselessly, for they have suffered no injustice at my hands, but have been exposed by me only to their profit; this man as an oppressor of the blind and needy, and that as one who wounded his mother with a sword. Another because he stole, in collusion with his waiting maid, another's money, and had always laboured under the imputation of such like crimes as no one would wish even one of his bitterest enemies to be laden with.' I take little reckoning of the words of such people, for the disciple is not above his Master, nor would I stretch the measure of my narrow brain above the Fathers, for no matter what path of life one pursues it is hardly possible to escape the smirching of the wicked, whose months are full of cursing and bitterness, and who at the last must give an account to the Judge of all.
But I return to the point which especially I had in mind. And now I urge you, as a brother in the Lord, to propose the word of teaching and the doctrine of the faith with all accuracy to the people, and to consider that the giving of scandal to one even of the least of those who believe in Christ, exposes a body to the unbearable indignation of God. And of how great diligence and skill there is need when the multitude of those grieved is so great, so that we may administer the healing word of truth to them that seek it. But this we shall accomplish most excellently if we shall turn over the words of the holy Fathers, and are zealous to obey their commands, proving ourselves, whether we be in the faith according to that which is written, and conform our thoughts to their upright and irreprehensible teaching.
The holy and great Synod therefore says, that the only begotten Son, born according to nature of God the Father, very God of very God, Light of Light, by whom the Father made all things, came down, and was incarnate, and was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven. These words and these decrees we ought to follow, considering what is me. ant by the Word of God being incarnate and made man. For we do not say that the nature of the Word was changed and became flesh, or that it was converted into a whole man consisting of soul and body; but rather that the Word having personally united to himself flesh animated by a rational soul, did in an ineffable and inconceivable manner become man, and was called the Son of Man, not merely as willing or being pleased to be so called, neither on account of taking to himself a person, but because the two natures being brought together in a true union, there is of both one Christ and one Son; for the difference of the natures is not taken away by the union, but rather the divinity and the humanity make perfect for us the one Lord Jesus Christ by their ineffable and inexpressible union. So then he who had an existence before all ages and was born of the Father, is said to have been born according to the flesh of a woman, not as though his divine nature received its beginning of existence in the holy Virgin, for it needed not any second generation after that of the Father (for it would be absurd and foolish to say that he who existed before all ages, coeternal with the Father, needed any second beginning of existence), but since, for us and for our salvation, he personally united to himself an human body, and came forth of a woman, he is in this way said to be born after the flesh; for the was not first born a common man of the holy Virgin, and then the Word came down and entered into him, but the union being made in the womb itself, he is said to endure a birth after the flesh, ascribing to himself the birth of his own flesh. On this account we say that he suffered and rose again; not as if God the Word suffered in his own nature stripes, or the piercing of the nails, or any other wounds, for the Divine nature is incapable of suffering, inasmuch as it is incorporeal, but since that which had become his own body suffered in this way, lie is also said to suffer for us; for he who is in himself incapable of suffering was in a suffering body. In the same manner also we conceive respecting his dying; for the Word of God is by nature immortal and incorruptible, and life and life-giving; since, however, his own body did, as Paul says, by the grace of God taste death for every man, he himself is said to have suffered death for us, not as if he had any experience of death in his own nature (for it would be madness to say or think this), but because, as I have just said, his flesh tasted death. In like manner his flesh being raised again, it is spoken of as his resurrection, not as if tie had fallen into corruption (God forbid), but because his own body was raised again. We, therefore, confess one Christ and Lord, not as worshipping. a man with the Word (lest this expression "with the Word" should suggest to the mind the idea of division), but worshipping him as one and the same, forasmuch as the body of the Word, with which he sits with the Father, is not separated from the Word himself, not as if two sons were sitting with him, but one by the union with the flesh. If, however, we reject the personal union as impossible or unbecoming, we fall into the error of speaking of two sons, for it will be necessary to distinguish, and to say, that he who was properly man was honoured with the appellation of Son, and that he who is properly the Word of God, has by nature both the name and the reality of Sonship. We must not, therefore, divide the one Lord Jesus Christ into two Sons. Neither will it at all avail to a sound faith to hold, as some do, an union of persons; for the Scripture has not said that the Word united to himself the person of man, but that he was made flesh. This expression, however, "the Word was made flesh," can mean nothing else but that he partook of flesh and blood like to us; he made our body his own, and came forth man from a woman, not casting off his existence as God, or his generation of God the Father, but even in taking to himself flesh remaining what he was. This the declaration of the correct faith proclaims everywhere. This was the sentiment of the holy Fathers; therefore they ventured to call the holy Virgin, the Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word or his divinity had its beginning from the holy Virgin, but because of her was born that holy body with a rational soul, to which the Word being personally united is said to be born according to the flesh. These things, therefore, I now write unto you for the love of Christ, beseeching you as a brother, and testifying to you before Christ and the elect angels, that you would both think and teach these things with us, that the peace of the Churches may be preserved and the bond of concord and love continue unbroken amongst the Priests of God.

EPISTLE OF CYRIL TO NESTORIUSWITH THE 12 ANATHEMATISMS
("Cum Salvator Noster")

To the most reverend and God-loving fellow-minister Nestorius, Cyril and the synod assembled in Alexandria, of the Egyptian Province, Greeting in the Lord.
When our Saviour says clearly: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me," what is to become of us, from whom your Holiness requires that we love you more than Christ the Saviour of us all? Who can help us in the day of judgment, or what kind of excuse shall we find for thus keeping silence so long, with regard to the blasphemies made by you against him? If you injured yourself alone, by teaching and holding such things, perhaps it would be less matter; but you have greatly scandalized the whole Church, and have cast among the people the leaven of a strange and new heresy. And not to those there [i.e. at Constantinople] on]y; but also to those everywhere [the books of your explanation were sent]. How can we any longer, under these circumstances, make a defence for our silence, or how shall we not be forced to remember that Christ said: "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother." For if faith be injured, let there be lost the honour due to parents, as stale and tottering, let even the law of tender love towards children and brothers be silenced, let death be better to the pious than living; "that they might obtain a better resurrection," as it is written.
Behold, therefore, how we, together with the holy synod which met in great Rome, presided over by the most holy and most reverend brother and fellow-minister, Celestine the Bishop, also testify by this third letter to you, and counsel you to abstain from these mischievous and distorted dogmas, which you hold arid teach, and to receive the right faith, handed down to the churches from the beginning through the holy Apostles and Evangelists, who "were eye-witnesses, and ministers of the Word." And if your holiness have not a mind to this according to the limits defined in the writings of our brother of blessed memory and most reverend fellow-minister Celestine, Bishop of the Church of Rome, be well assured then that you have no lot with us, nor place or standing (logon) among the priests and bishops of God. For it is not possible for us to overlook the churches thus troubled, and the people scandalized, and the right faith set aside, and the sheep scattered by you, who ought to save them, if indeed we are ourselves adherents of the right faith, and followers of the devotion of the holy fathers. And we are in communion with all those laymen and clergymen cast out or deposed by your holiness on account of the faith; for it is not right that those, who resolved to believe rightly, should suffer by your choice; for they do well in opposing you. This very thing you have mentioned in your epistle written to our most holy and fellow-bishop Celestine of great Rome.
But it would not be sufficient for your reverence to confess with us only the symbol of the faith set out some time ago by the Holy Ghost at the great and holy synod convened in Nice: for you have not held and interpreted it rightly, but rather perversely; even though you confess with your voice the form of words. But in addition, in writing and by oath, you must confess that you also anathematize those polluted and unholy dogmas of yours, and that you will hold and teach that which we all, bishops, teachers, and leaders of the people both East and West, hold. The holy synod of Rome and we all agreed on the epistle written to your Holiness from the Alexandrian Church as being right and blameless. We have added to these our own letters and that which it is necessary for you to hold and teach, and what you should be careful to avoid. Now this is the Faith of the Catholic and Apostolic Church to which all Orthodox Bishops, both East and West, agree:

"We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, begotten of his Father, that is, of the substance of the Father; God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both those in heaven and those in the earth. Who for us men and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnate, and was made man. He suffered, and rose again the third day. He ascended into the heavens, from thence he shall come to judge both the quick and tile dead. And in the Holy Ghost: But those that say, There was a time when he was not, and, before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made of that which previously was not, or that he was of some other substance or essence; and that the Son of God was capable of change or alteration; those the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes."

Following in all points the confessions of the Holy Fathers which they made (the Holy Ghost speaking in them), and following the scope of their opinions, and going, as it were, in the royal way, we confess that the Only begotten Word of God, begotten of the same substance of the Father, True God from True God, Light from Light, through Whom all things were made, the things in heaven and the things in the earth, coming down for our salvation, making himself of no reputation (katheis heauton eis kenosin), was incarnate and made man; that is, taking flesh of the holy Virgin, and having made it his own from the womb, he subjected himself to birth for us, and came forth man from a woman, without casting off that which he was; but although he assumed flesh and blood, he remained what he was, God in essence and in truth. Neither do we say that his flesh was changed into the nature of divinity, nor that the ineffable nature of the Word of God has laid aside for the nature of flesh; for he is unchanged and absolutely unchangeable, being the same always, according to the Scriptures. For although visible and a child in swaddling clothes, and even in the bosom of his Virgin Mother, he filled all creation as God, and was a fellow-ruler with him who begat him, for the Godhead is without quantity and dimension, and cannot have limits.
Confessing the Word to be made one with the flesh according to substance, we adore one Son and Lord Jesus Christ: we do not divide the God from the man, nor separate him into parts, as though the two natures were mutually united in him only through a sharing of dignity and authority (for that is a novelty and nothing else), neither do we give separately to the Word of God the name Christ and the same name separately to a different one born of a woman; but we know only one Christ, the Word from God the Father with his own Flesh. For as man he was anointed with us, although it is he himself who gives the Spirit to those who are worthy and not in measure, according to the saying of the blessed Evangelist John.
But we do not say that the Word of God dwelt in him as in a common man born of the holy Virgin, lest Christ be thought of as a God-bearing man; for although the Word tabernacled among us, it is also said that in Christ "dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily"; but we understand that be became flesh, not just as he is said to dwell in the saints, but we define that that tabernacling in him was according to equality (kata ton ison en auto tropon). But being made one kata physis, and not converted into flesh, he made his indwelling in such a way, as we may say that the soul of man does in his own body.
One therefore is Christ both Son and Lord, not as if a man had attained only such a conjunction with God as consists in a unity of dignity alone or of authority. For it is not equality of honour which unites natures; for then Peter and John, who were of equal honour with each other, being both Apostles and holy disciples [would have been one, and], yet the two are not one. Neither do we understand the manner of conjunction to be apposition, for this does not suffice for natural oneness (pros henoson physiken). Nor yet according to relative participation, as we are also joined to the Lord, as it is written "we are one Spirit in him." Rather we deprecate the term of "junction" (synapheias) as not having sufficiently signified the oneness. But we do not call the Word of God the Father, the God nor the Lord of Christ, lest we openly cut in two the one Christ, the Son and Lord, and fall under the charge of blasphemy, making him the God and Lord of himself. For the Word of God, as we have said already, was made hypostatically one in flesh, yet he is God of all and he rules all; but he is not the slave of himself, nor his own Lord. For it is foolish, or rather impious, to think or teach thus. For he said that God was his Father, although he was God by nature, and of his substance. Yet we are not ignorant that while he remained God, he also became man and subject to God, according to the law suitable to the nature of the manhood. But how could he become the God or Lord of himself? Consequently as man, and with regard to the measure of his humiliation, it is said that he is equally with us subject to God; thus he became under the Law, although as God he spake the Law and was the Law-giver.
We are careful also how we say about Christ: "I worship the One clothed on account of the One clothing him, and on account of the Unseen, I worship the Seen." It is horrible to say in this connection as follows: "The assumed as well as the assuming have the name of God." For the saying of this divides again Christ into two, and puts the man separately by himself and God also by himself. For this saying denies openly the Unity according to which one is not worshipped in the other, nor does God exist together with the other; but Jesus Christ is considered as One, the Only-begotten Son, to be honoured with one adoration together with his own flesh.
We confess that he is the Son, begotten of God the Father, and Only-begotten God; and although according to his own nature he was not subject to suffering, yet he suffered for us in the flesh according to the Scriptures, and although impassible, yet in his Crucified Body he made his own the sufferings of his own flesh; and by the grace of God he tasted death for all: he gave his own Body thereto, although he was by nature himself the life and the resurrection, in order that, having trodden down death by his unspeakable power, first in his own flesh, he might become the first born from the dead, and the first-fruits of them that slept. And that he might make a way for the nature of man to attain incorruption, by the grace of God (as we just now said), he tasted death for every man, and after three days rose again, having despoiled hell. So although it is said that the resurrection of the dead was through man, yet we understand that man to have been the Word of God, and the power of death was loosed through him, and he shall come in the fulness of time as the One Son and Lord, in the glory of the Father, in order to judge the world in righteousness, as it is written.
We will necessarily add this also. Proclaiming the death, according to the flesh, of the Only-begotten Son of God, that is Jesus Christ, confessing his resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, we offer the Unbloody Sacrifice in the churches, and so go on to the mystical thanksgivings, and are sanctified, having received his Holy Flesh and the Precious Blood of Christ the Saviour of us all. And not as common flesh do we receive it; God forbid: nor as of a man sanctified and as sociated with the Word according to the unity of worth, or as having a divine indwelling, but as truly the Life-giving and very flesh of the Word himself. For he is the Life according to his nature as God, and when he became united to his Flesh, he made it also to be Life-giving, as also he said to us: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood. For we must not think that it is flesh of a man like us (for how can the flesh of man be life-giving by its own nature?) but as having become truly the very own of him who for us both became and was called Son of Man. Besides, what the Gospels say our Saviour said of himself, we do not divide between two hypostases or persons. For neither is he, the one and only Christ, to be thought of as double, although of two (ek duo) and they diverse, yet he has joined them in an indivisible union, just as everyone knows a man is not double although made up of soul and body, but is one of both. Wherefore when thinking rightly, we transfer the human and the divine to the same person (par henos eiresthai).
For when as God he speaks about himself: "He who hath seen me hath seen the Father," and "I and my Father are one," we consider his ineffable divine nature according to which he is One with his Father through the identity of essence--"The image and impress and brightness of his glory." But when not scorning the measure of his humanity, he said to the Jews: "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth." Again no less than before we recognize that he is the Word of God from his identity and likeness to the Father and from the circumstances of his humanity. For if it is necessary to believe that being by nature God, he became flesh, that is, a man endowed with a reasonable soul, what reason can certain ones have to be ashamed of this language about him, which is suitable to him as man? For if he should reject the words suitable to him as man, who compelled him to become man like us? And as he humbled himself to a voluntary abasement (kenosin) for us, for what cause can any one reject the words suitable to such abasement? Therefore all the words which are read in the Gospels are to be applied to One Person, to One hypostasis of the Word Incarnate. For the Lord Jesus Christ is One, according to the Scriptures, although he is called "the Apostle and High Priest of our profession," as offering to God and the Father the confession of faith which we make to him, and through him to God even the Father and also to the Holy Spirit; yet we say he is, according to nature, the Only-begotten of God. And not to any man different from him do we assign the name of priesthood, and the thing, for be became "the Mediator between God and men," and a Reconciler unto peace, having offered himself as a sweet smelling savour to God and the Father. Therefore also he said: "Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not; but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God." For on account of us he offered his body as a sweet smelling savour, and not for himself; for what offering or sacrifice was needed for himself, who as God existed above all sins? For "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God," so that we became prone to fall, and the nature of man has fallen into sin, yet not so he (and therefore we fall short of his glory). How then can there be further doubt that the true Lamb died for us and on our account? And to say that he offered himself for himself and us, could in no way escape the charge of impiety. For he never committed a fault at all, neither did he sin. What offering then did he need, not having sin for which sacrifices are rightly offered? But when he spoke about the Spirit, he said: "He shall glorify me." If we think rightly, we do not say that the One Christ and Son as needing glory from another received glory from the Holy Spirit; for neither greater than he nor above him is his Spirit, but because he used the Holy Spirit to show forth His own divinity in his mighty works, therefore he is said to have been glorified by him just as if any one of us should say concerning his inherent strength for example, or Iris knowledge of anything, "They glorified me."For although the Spirit is the same essence, yet we think of him by himself, as he is the Spirit and not the Son; but he is not different from him; for he is called the Spirit of truth and Christ is the Truth, and he is sent by him, just as, moreover, he is from God and the Father. When then the Spirit worked miracles through the hands of the holy apostles after the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ into heaven, he glorified him. For it is believed that he who works through his own Spirit is God according to nature. Therefore he said: "He shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you." But we do not say this as if the Spirit is wise and powerful through some sharing with another; for he is all perfect and in need of no good thing. Since, therefore, he is the Spirit of the Power and Wisdom of the Father (that is, of the Son), he is evidently Wisdom and Power.
And since the holy Virgin brought forth corporally God made one with flesh according to nature, for this reason we also call her Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh.
For "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God," and he is the Maker of the ages, coeternal with the Father, and Creator of all; but, as we have already said, since he united to himself hypostatically human nature from her womb, also he subjected himself to birth as man, not as needing necessarily in his own nature birth in time and in these last times of the world, but in order that he might bless the beginning of our existence, and that that which sent the earthly bodies of our whole race to death, might lose its power for the future by his being born of a woman in the flesh. And this: "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children," being removed through him, he showed the truth of that spoken by the prophet," Strong death swallowed them up, and again God hath wiped away every tear from off all faces." For this cause also we say that he attended, having been called, and also blessed, the marriage in Cana of Galilee, with his holy Apostles in accordance with the economy. We have been taught to hold these things by the holy Apostles and Evangelists, and all the God-inspired Scriptures, and in the true confessions of the blessed Fathers.
To all these your reverence also should agree, and give heed, without any guile. And what it is necessary your reverence should anathematize we have subjoined to our epistle.
Anathema I. If anyone will not confess that the Emmanuel is very God, and that therefore the Holy Virgin is the Mother of God (Theotokos), inasmuch as in the flesh she bore the Word of God made flesh [as it is written, "The Word was made flesh"]: let him be anathema.
Anathema II. If anyone shall not confess that the Word of God the Father is united hypostatically to flesh, and that with that flesh of his own, he is one only Christ both God and man at the same time: let him be anathema.
Anathema III. If anyone shall after the [hypostatic] union divide the hypostases in the one Christ, joining them by that connection alone, which happens according to worthiness, or even authority and power, and not rather by a coming together (synodo), which is made by natural union (enosin physiken): let him be anathema.
Anathema IV. If anyone shall divide between two persons or subsistences those expressions (phonas) which are contained in the Evangelical and Apostolical writings, or which have been said concerning Christ by the Saints, or by himself, and shall apply some to him as to a man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others to the only Word of God the Father, on the ground that they are fit to be applied to God: let him be anathema.
Anathema V. If anyone shall dare to say that the Christ is a Theophorus [that is, God-bearing] man and not rather that he is very God, as an only Son through nature, because "the Word was made flesh," and "hath a share in flesh and blood as we do:" let him be anathema.
Anathema VI. If anyone shall dare say that the Word of God the Father is the God of Christ or the Lord of Christ, and shall not rather confess him as at the same time both God and Man, since according to the Scriptures, "The Word was made flesh": let him be anathema.
Anathema VII. If anyone shall say that Jesus as man is only energized by the Word of God, and that the glory of the Only-begotten is attributed to him as something not properly his: let him be anathema.
Anathema VIII. If anyone shall dare to say that the assumed man (analephthenta) ought to be worshipped together with God the Word, and glorified together with him, and recognised together with him as God, and yet as two different things, the one with the other (for this "Together with" is added [i.e., by the Nestorians] to convey this meaning); and shall not rather with one adoration worship the Emmanuel and pay to him one glorification, as [it is written] "The Word was made flesh": let him be anathema.
Anathema IX. If any man shall say that the one Lord Jesus Christ was glorified by the Holy Ghost, so that he used through him a power not his own and from him received power against unclean spirits and power to work miracles before men and shall not rather confess that it was his own Spirit through which he worked these divine signs; let him be anathema.
Anathema X. Whosoever shall say that it is not the divine Word himself, when he was made flesh and had become man as we are, but another than he, a man born of a woman, yet different from him (idikos anthropon), who is become our Great High Priest and Apostle; or if any man shall say that he offered himself in sacrifice for himself and not rather for us, whereas, being without sin, he had no need of offering or sacrifice: let him be anathema.
Anathema XI. Whosoever shall not confess that the flesh of the Lord giveth life and that it pertains to the Word of God the Father as his very own, but shall pretend that it belongs to another person who is united to him [i.e., the Word] only according to honour, and who has served as a dwelling for the divinity; and shall not rather confess, as we say, that that flesh giveth life because it is that of the Word who giveth life to all: let him be anathema.
Anathema XII. Whosoever shall not recognize that the Word of God suffered in the flesh, that he was crucified in the flesh, and that likewise in that same flesh he tasted death and that he is become the first-begotten of the dead, for, as he is God, he is the life and it is he that giveth life: let him be anathema.

[Saint Nicholas]

Nicholas,

I enjoyed your early references to William Webster's work and wondered where you are obtaining your information from. (sources) Also it is mainly because you have tweeked the ears of certain members of my family who were once part of RCC.

I found the William Webster has a great series of real audio from tape lectures that are used as syllabus for Whitfield Theological Seminary in Lakeland, Florida, titled: Roman Catholic Tradition , It's roots and evolution.

I have over the years enjoy the work of ex-Catholic priest, Richard Bennet, who has plenty of written and audio material to make one aware of what is going on a grass roots level in the Catholic Church. He has interview with ex-nuns, and priests, but so far no Popes.

Eric: I am familiar with Richard Bennet. What amazes me, is that when a Roman Catholic is Truly saved and born from on high, like myself and many others, we will not try to defend the mother of harlots. We expose her for who she really is. On the other hand, those who were never born into her fold, and have not experienced her vial and putrid essence, try and defend her as just another denomination within Christondom. This defense of Rome is a display of complete ignorance and blindness on their part. Their defense of Rome is a further symptom of them being minions to their almighty clergy.
Furthermore, any defense and unity with her would be a condemnation against them, in that they would share in her plagues. It is utter contempt against God almighty and His Christ, and is a vile and repugnant act on their part against the Blessed Trinity.

In the years 1983 & 1984, I had a radio broadcast ministry in Cleveland, Ohio, on station WSUM AM. The title of the program was "NO COMPROMISE". Those were my earlier days in the Lord subsequent to my conversion, in where I was still under the either of Arminian thought, however I mounted a polemic against Rome, with the support of dear brothers and sisters in Christ, who like myself, were saved from the mother of harlots. At that time as I recall, there were two other ministies, besides ours, that were also engaged in polemics against Rome. When the Cleveland Diocesan Roman Catholic bishop Pilla, became utter furious at me and the other ministries, he sent a letter to the radio station and demanded that our voices would be silenced. There were also a few others letters the Diocese sent. I was able to obtain one of those letters and still have it in my possession. The dumb protestants and non-catholics of this world, have no clue to what awaits them, for having ecumenical unity with Rome. Rome is government and also an ecclesiastical system. She also has concordats in place here in the US. That is what is meant by Rome's two symbols of authority. There are many such materials on the subject. The Lord has blessed me with a pretty good home library of official Roman Catholic books along with others from Protestant ministries. However we as God's elect must always glean truth from whatever source. This is what is called the epistemological work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will always reveal truth to the Elect. Not all at once, but on a gradual basis. That is why it is impossible for the elect to ever be ultimatley deceived. The folks who defend and unite with Rome, are led by another spirit, and not the Spirit of Christ. Why? Because the Holy Spirit guides Christ People away from error. Joining forces with Rome is a clear sign of Apostacy.

In love for Christ, and the martyred saints of Christ, whom the papacy killed and tortured.

Nicholas

[katoikei]

Coming out of Roman Catholicism is pretty much the same as coming out of the Hare Krishnas, or for that matter any of the Hindu religions where it is about devotion to various so called divine beings. Everything is measured in terms of devotion and merit. There is such wonderful FREEDOM in Yeshua!

As a young lad, I was taught some of the religious practices of the Roman Catholic Church by my Grandmother, but not being very religious it only clung momentarily. My wife was a Roman Catholic but rejected the irrelevant religious nature of it as a child and now serves Yeshua.

During my studies over the last 3-5 years I have explored the teaching of the Scriptures in answer to the matter of annihilationism as taught by the Jehovah's Witnesses. The idea of Purgatory is a fiction that I believe C.S. Lewis took a shining to it and many other Roman Catholic ideas.

One of the lessons I hope I have learned is that when you research a doctrine, make sure that you have a bible-ography, instead of a biblio-graphy. So many like to quote this writer and that writer as if adding creedance to their work. Now for a University thesis, or for you doctorate in Theology, or Philosophy, such a thing is called for and is neccessary to win the points to pass but not if you are going to study doctrine. It is all there in the Scriptures.

I would greatly appreciate reading some of your literature.

[Saint Nicholas]

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The writings below were written from a Roman Catholic apologist. Both Reformed Protestants and Roman Catholics try to claim Augustine for their own. This tug-a-war approach with Augustine, should be shameful to the Protestants, for Augustine shurley belongs to Rome. The Roman Church could have him. Justification by an imputed righteousness should forever put away Augustine from our mind...............In love for our Lord Jesus, Nicholas.


St. Augustine: Which Christian Body is Closer Theologically to His Teaching?:
Reformed Protestants or Present-Day Catholics?




I expressed to a Protestant apologist friend:
At the same time you (and people like R.C. Sproul - especially him -, as on his radio show today) pretend that Augustine and Aquinas were these wonderful, spiritual "proto-Protestants" and theological ancestors and overlook the fact that they are in actuality the quintessential Catholics. These are our guys! You can't respect them so much and claim them as your own, ignoring large aspects of their teaching which you claim to despise when others express the same thing, and then read their true legatees out of the Church. The whole enterprise is ridiculous, laughable (if it weren't so tragic and aggravating) and fundamentally intellectually dishonest. I. Augustine and Sola Fide (Faith Alone)

To begin, I would like to cite at length Joe Willcoxson's excellent paper: Did St. Augustine Teach Sola Fide?:

In a previous tract on St. Augustine, I made the case that St. Augustine would properly be classified as Catholic and not Protestant. In their attempts to make St. Augustine into a Protestant, men like John Calvin and other Reformed Protestants (RP) have tried to make the case that St. Augustine taught justification by faith alone, also known by the Latin slogan "sola fide". RPs cite all the bountiful (but IMHO, selective) quotes of St. Augustine in Calvin's "Institutes of the Christian Religion" as proof that Augustine taught sola fide. Like all other myths, the myth that Augustine was some kind of proto-Protestant in the fifth century dies hard. I have found that proving that Augustine is a Catholic is like trying to prove Karl Marx was a Communist to someone who believes Marx was a capitalist.

Regarding St. Augustine, Luther wrote:

Augustine has sometimes erred and is not to be trusted. Although good and holy, he was
yet lacking in the true faith, as well as the other fathers...But when the door was opended for
me in Paul, so that I understood what justification by faith is, it was all over with Augustine.
(Luther's Works 54, 49)
It was Augustine's view that the law...if the Holy Spirit assists, the works of the law do
justify...I reply by saying "No".
(Luther's Works 54, 10)
Well, why would Luther say Augustine erred by not teaching sola fide? Every RP knows that St.
Augustine was a Protestant, right? Well, before we say that, let's take a look at what St. Augustine has written:
When you shall have been baptized, keep to a good life in the commandments of God so
that you may preserve your baptism to the very end. I do not tell you that you will live here
without sin, but they are venial sins which this life is never without. Baptism was instituted for
all sins. For light sins, without which we cannot live, prayer was instituted. . . . But do not
commit those sins on account of which you would have to be separated from the body of
Christ. Perish the thought! For those whom you see doing penance have committed crimes,
either adultery or some other enormities. That is why they are doing penance. If their sins
were light, daily prayer would suffice to blot them out. . . . In the Church, therefore, there
are three ways in which sins are forgiven: in baptisms, in prayer, and in the greater humility of
penance
(St. Augustine, Sermon to Catechumens on the Creed 7:15, 8:16).
In the above quote, Augustine writes that sins are forgiven in baptism, prayer, and in penance.
Does that sound like sola fide to you? However, there is more:
CHAP. 18.--FAITH WITHOUT GOOD WORKS IS NOT SUFFICIENT FOR
SALVATION.
Unintelligent persons, however, with regard to the apostle's statement: "We conclude that a
man is justified by faith without the works of the law," have thought him to mean that faith
suffices to a man, even if he lead a bad life, and has no good works. Impossible is it that
such a character should be deemed "a vessel of election" by the apostle, who, after declaring
that "in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision," adds at once,
"but faith which worketh by love." It is such faith which severs God's faithful from unclean
demons,--for even these "believe and tremble," as the Apostle James says; but they do not
do well. Therefore they possess not the faith by which the just man lives,--the faith which
works by love in such wise, that God recompenses it according to its works with eternal life.
But inasmuch as we have even our good works from God, from whom likewise comes our
faith and our love, therefore the selfsame great teacher of the Gentiles has designated
"eternal life" itself as His gracious "gift."
CHAP. 19 [VIII.]--HOW IS ETERNAL LIFE BOTH A REWARD FOR SERVICE
AND A FREE GIFT OF GRACE?
And hence there arises no small question, which must be solved by the Lord's gift. If eternal
life is rendered to good works, as the Scripture most openly declares: "Then He shall reward
every man according to his works:" how can eternal life be a matter of grace, seeing that
grace is not rendered to works, but is given gratuitously, as the apostle himself tells us: "To
him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt;" and again: "There is a
remnant saved according to the election of grace;" with these words immediately subjoined:
"And if of grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace"? How, then,
is eternal life by grace, when it is received from works? Does the apostle perchance not say
that eternal life is a grace? Nay, he has so called it, with a clearness which none can possibly
gainsay. It requires no acute intellect, but only an attentive reader, to discover this. For after
saying, "The wages of sin is death," he at once added, "The grace of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord."
CHAP. 20.--THE QUESTION ANSWERED. JUSTIFICATION IS GRACE SIMPLY
AND ENTIRELY, ETERNAL LIFE IS REWARD AND GRACE.
This question, then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we
understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life,
belong to the grace of God, because of what is said by the Lord Jesus: "Without me ye can
do nothing." And the apostle himself, after saying, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast;" saw, of
course, the possibility that men would think from this statement that good works are not
necessary to those who believe, but that faith alone suffices for them; and again, the
possibility of men's boasting of their good works, as if they were of themselves capable of
performing them. To meet, therefore, these opinions on both sides, he immediately added,
"For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them." What is the purport of his saying, "Not of
works, lest any man should boast," while commending the grace of God? And then why
does he afterwards, when giving a reason for using such words, say, "For we are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works"? Why, therefore, does it run, "Not
of works, lest any man should boast"? Now, hear and understand. "Not of works" is spoken
of the works which you suppose have their origin in yourself alone; but you have to think of
works for which God has moulded (that is, has formed and created) you. For of these he
says, "We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works." Now he does
not here speak of that creation which made us human beings, but of that in reference to
which one said who was already in full manhood, "Create in me a clean heart, O God;"
concerning which also the apostle says, "Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. And all things are
of God." We are framed, therefore, that is, formed and created, "in the good works which"
we have not ourselves prepared, but "God hath before ordained that we should walk in
them."
It follows, then, dearly beloved, beyond all doubt, that as your good life is nothing else than
God's grace, so also the eternal life which is the recompense of a good life is the grace of
God; moreover it is given gratuitously, even as that is given gratuitously to which it is given.
But that to which it is given is solely and simply grace; this thereforeis also that which is given
to it, because it is its reward;--grace is for grace, as if remuneration for righteousness; in
order that it may be true, because it is true, that God "shall reward every man according
to his works."
(A Treatise on Grace and Free Will)
Now, if the wicked man were to be saved by fire on account of his faith only, and if this is
the way the statement of the blessed Paul should be understood--"But he himself shall be
saved, yet so as by fire"--then faith without works would be sufficient to salvation. But then
what the apostle James said would be false. And also false would be another statement of
the same Paul himself: "Do not err," he says; "neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor the unmanly, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards,
nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God."
(Enchiridion, Chapter XVIII, paragraph 3). II. Augustine, Predestination, and Human Free Will

From the Catholic Encyclopedia (vol. II, 1907), TEACHING OF ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, by Eugene Portalie:
Absolute sovereignty of God over the will
This principle, in opposition to the emancipation of Pelagius, has not always
been understood in its entire significance. We think that numberless texts of the
holy Doctor signify that not only does every meritorious act require supernatural
grace, but also that every act of virtue, even of infidels, should be ascribed to a
Gift of God, not indeed to a supernatural grace (as Baius and the Jansenists
pretend), but to a specially efficacious providence which has prepared this good
movement of the will (Retractations, I, ix, n. 6). It is not, as theologians very
wisely remark, that the will cannot accomplish that act of natural virtue, but it is a
fact that without this providential benefit it would not. Many misunderstandings
have arisen because this principle has not been comprehended, and in particular
the great medieval theology, which adopted it and made it the basis of its system
of liberty, has not been justly appreciated. But many have been afraid of these
affirmations which are so sweeping, because they have not grasped the nature of
God's gift, which leaves freedom intact. The fact has been too much lost sight of
that Augustine distinguishes very explicitly two orders of grace: the grace of
natural virtues (the simple gift of Providence, which prepares efficacious motives
for the will); and grace for salutary and supernatural acts, given with the first
preludes of faith. The latter is the grace of the sons, gratia fliorum; the former is
the grace of all men, a grace which even strangers and infidels (filii
concubinarum, as St. Augustine says) can receive (De Patientiâ, xxvii, n. 28).
Man remains free, even under the action of grace
The second principle, the affirmation of liberty.... under the action of efficacious
grace, has always been safeguarded, and there is not one of his anti-Pelagian
works even of the latest, which does not positively proclaim a complete power of
choice in man; "not but what it does not depend on the free choice of the will to
embrace the faith or reject it, but in the elect this will is prepared by God" (De
Prædest. SS., n. 10). The great Doctor did not reproach the Pelagians with
requiring a power to choose between good and evil; in fact he proclaims with
them that without that power there is no responsibility, no merit, no demerit; but
he reproaches them with exaggerating this power. Julian of Eclanum, denying the
sway of concupiscence, conceives free will as a balance in perfect equilibrium.
Augustine protests: this absolute equilibrium existed in Adam; it was destroyed
after original sin; the will has to struggle and react against an inclination to evil,
but it remains mistress of its choice (Opus imperfectum contra Julianum, III,
cxvii). Thus, when he says that we have lost freedom in consequence of the sin
of Adam, he is careful to explain that this lost freedom is not the liberty of
choosing between good and evil, because without it we could not help sinning,
but the perfect liberty which was calm and without struggle, and which was
enjoyed by Adam in virtue of his original integrity.
The reconciliation of these two truths
But is there not between these two principles an irremediable antinomy? On the
one hand, there is affirmed an absolute and unreserved power in God of directing
the choice of our will, of converting every hardened sinner, or of letting every
created will harden itself; .... on the other hand, it is affirmed that the rejection or
acceptance of grace or of temptation depends on our free will. Is not this a
contradiction? Very many modern critics, among whom are Loofs and Harnack,
have considered these two affirmations as irreconcilable. But it is because,
according to them, Augustinian grace is an irresistible impulse given by God, just
as in the absence of it every temptation inevitably overcomes the will. But in
reality all antinomy disappears if we have the key of the system; and this key is
found in the third principle: the Augustinian explanation of the Divine government
of wills, a theory so original, so profound, and yet absolutely unknown to the
most perspicacious critics, Harnack, Loofs, and the rest.
Here are the main lines of this theory: The will never decides without a motive,
without the attraction of some good which it perceives in the object. Now,
although the will may be free in presence of every motive, still, as a matter of fact
it takes different resolutions according to the different motives presented to it. In
that is the whole secret of the influence exercised, for instance, by eloquence
(the orator can do no more than present motives), by meditation, or by good
reading. What a power over the will would not a man possess who could, at his
own pleasure, at any moment, and in the most striking manner, present this or
the other motive of action? - But such is God's privilege. St. Augustine has
remarked that man is not the master of his first thoughts; he can exert an
influence on the course of his reflections, but he himself cannot determine the
objects, the images, and, consequently, the motives which present themselves
to his mind. Now, as chance is only a word, it is God who determines at His
pleasure these first perceptions of men, either by the prepared providential action
of exterior causes, or interiorly by a Divine illumination given to the soul. - let us
take one last step with Augustine: Not only does God send at His pleasure those
attractive motives which inspire the will with its determinations, but, before
choosing between these illuminations of the natural and the supernatural order,
God knows the response which the soul, with all freedom, will make to each of
them. Thus, in the Divine knowledge, there is for each created will an indefinite
series of motives which de facto (but very freely) win the consent to what is good.
God, therefore, can, at His pleasure, obtain the salvation of Judas, if He wishes,
or let Peter go down to perdition. No freedom, as a matter of fact, will resist what
He has planned, although it always keeps the power of going to perdition.
Consequently, it is God alone, in His perfect independence, who determines, by
the choice of such a motive or such an inspiration (of which he knows the future
influence), whether the will is going to decide for good or for evil. Hence, the man
who has acted well must thank God for having sent him an inspiration which was
foreseen to be efficacious, while that favour has been denied to another. A
fortiori, every one of the elect owes it to the Divine goodness alone that he has
received a series of graces which God saw to be infallibly, though freely, bound
up with final perseverance.
Assuredly we may reject this theory, for the Church, which always maintains the
two principles of the absolute dependence of the will and of freedom, has not yet
adopted as its own this reconciliation of the two extremes. We may ask where
and how God knows the effect of these graces. Augustine has always affirmed
the fact; he has never inquired about the mode; and it is here that Molinism has
added to and developed his thoughts, in attempting to answer this question. But
can the thinker, who created and until his dying day maintained this system
which is so logically concatenated, be accused of fatalism and Manichæism?
It remains to be shown that our interpretation exactly reproduces the thought of
the great Doctor. The texts are too numerous and too long to be reproduced
here. But there is one work of Augustine, dating from the year 397, in which he
clearly explains his thought - a work which he not only did not disavow later on,
but to which in particular he referred, at the end of his career, those of his
readers who were troubled by his constant affirmation of grace. For example, to
the monks of Adrumetum who thought that liberty was irreconcilable with this
affirmation, he addressed a copy of this book "De Diversis quæstionibus ad
Simplicianum," feeling sure that their doubts would be dissipated. There, in fact,
he formulates his thoughts with great clearness. Simplician had asked how he
should understand the Epistle to the Romans 9, on the predestination of Jacob
and Esau. Augustine first lays down the fundamental principle of St. Paul, that
every good will comes from grace, so that no man can take glory to himself for
his merits, and this grace is so sure of its results that human liberty will never in
reality resist it, although it has the power to do so. Then he affirms that this
efficacious grace is not necessary for us to be able to act well, but because, in
fact, without it we would not wish to act well. From that arises the great difficulty:
How does the power of resisting grace fit in with the certainty of the result? .... It
is here that Augustine replies: There are many ways of inviting faith. Souls being
differently disposed, God knows what invitation will be accepted, what other will
not be accepted. Only those are the elect for whom God chooses the invitation
which is foreseen to be efficacious, but God could convert them all: "Cujus autem
miseretur, sic cum vocat, quomodo scit ei congruere ut vocantem non respuat"
(op. cit., I, q. ii, n. 2, 12, 13).
Is there in this a vestige of an irresistible grace or of that impulse against which it
is impossible to fight, forcing some to good, and others to sin and hell? It cannot
be too often repeated that this is not an idea flung off in passing, but a
fundamental explanation which if not understood leaves us in the impossibility of
grasping anything of his doctrine; but if it is seized Augustine entertains no
feelings of uneasiness on the score of freedom. In fact he supposes freedom
everywhere, and reverts incessantly to that knowledge on God's part which
precedes predestination, directs it, and assures its infallible result. In the "De
Done perseverantiæ" (xvii, n. 42), written at the end of his life, he explains the
whole of predestination by the choice of the vocation which is foreseen as
efficacious. Thus is explained the chief part attributed to that external providence
which prepares, by ill health, by warnings, etc., the good thoughts which it
knows will bring about good resolutions. Finally, this explanation alone
harmonizes with the moral action which he attributes to victorious grace.
Nowhere does Augustine represent it as an irresistible impulse impressed by the
stronger on the weaker. It is always an appeal, an invitation which attracts and
seeks to persuade. He describes this attraction, which is without violence, under
the graceful image of dainties offered to a child, green leaves offered to a sheep
(In Joannem, tract. xxvi, n. 5). And always the infallibility of the result is assured
by the Divine knowledge which directs the choice of the invitation.
(4) The Augustinian predestination presents no new difficulty if one has
understood the function of this Divine knowledge in the choice of graces. The
problem is reduced to this: Does God in his creative decree and, before any act
of human liberty, determine by an immutable choice the elect and the reprobate?
- Must the elect during eternity thank God only for having rewarded their merits,
or must they also thank Him for having, prior to any merit on their part, chosen
them to the meriting of this reward? One system, that of the Semipelagians,
decides in favour of man: God predestines to salvation all alike, and gives to all
an equal measure of grace; human liberty alone decides whether one is lost or
saved; from which we must logically conclude (and they really insinuated it) that
the number of the elect is not fixed or certain. The opposite system, that of the
Predestinationists (the Semipelagians falsely ascribed this view to the Doctor of
Hippo), affirms not only a privileged choice of the elect by God, but at the same
time (a) the predestination of the reprobate to hell and (b) the absolute
powerlessness of one or the other to escape from the irresistible impulse which
drags them either to good or to evil. This is the system of Calvin.
Between these two extreme opinions Augustine formulated (not invented) the
Catholic dogma, which affirms these two truths at the same time:
the eternal choice of the elect by God is very real, very gratuitous, and
constitutes the grace of graces;
but this decree does not destroy the Divine will to save all men, which,
moreover, is not realized except by the human liberty that leaves to the
elect full power to fall and to the non-elect full power to rise.
Here is how the theory of St. Augustine, already explained, forces us to conceive
of the Divine decree: Before all decision to create the world, the infinite
knowledge of God presents to Him all the graces, and different series of graces,
which He can prepare for each soul, along with the consent or refusal which
would follow in each circumstance, and that in millions and millions of possible
combinations. Thus He sees that if Peter had received such another grace, he
would not have been converted; and if on the contrary such another Divine appeal
had been heard in the heart of Judas, he would have done penance and been
saved. Thus, for each man in particular there are in the thought of God, limitless
possible histories, some histories of virtue and salvation, others of crime and
damnation; and God will be free in choosing such a world, such a series of
graces, and in determining the future history and final destiny of each soul. And
this is precisely what He does when, among all possible worlds, by an absolutely
free act, He decides to realize the actual world with all the circumstances of its
historic evolutions, with all the graces which in fact have been and will be
distributed until the end of the world, and consequently with all the elect and all
the reprobate who God foresaw would be in it if de facto He created it.
Now in the Divine decree, according to Augustine, and according to the Catholic
Faith on this point, which has been formulated by him, the two elements pointed
out above appear:
The certain and gratuitous choice of the elect - God decreeing, indeed, to
create the world and to give it such a series of graces with such a
concatenation of circumstances as should bring about freely, but infallibly,
such and such results (for example, the despair of Judas and the
repentance of Peter), decides, at the same time, the name, the place, the
number of the citizens of the future heavenly Jerusalem. The choice is
immutable; the list closed. It is evident, indeed, that only those of whom
God knows beforehand that they will wish to co-operate with the grace
decreed by Him will be saved. It is a gratuitous choice, the gift of gifts, in
virtue of which even our merits are a gratuitous benefit, a gift which
precedes all our merits. No one, in fact, is able to merit this election. God
could, among other possible worlds, have chosen one in which other
series of graces would have brought about other results. He saw
combinations in which Peter would have been impenitent and Judas
converted. It is therefore prior to any merit of Peter, or any fault of Judas,
that God decided to give them the graces which saved Peter and not
Judas. God does not wish to give paradise gratuitously to any one; but He
gives very gratuitously to Peter the graces with which He knows Peter will
be saved. - Mysterious choice! Not that it interferes with liberty, but
because to this question: Why did not God, seeing that another grace
would have saved Judas, give it to him? Faith can only answer, with
Augustine: O Mystery! O Altitudo! (De Spiritu et litterae, xxxiv, n. 60).
But this decree includes also the second element of the Catholic dogma:
the very sincere will of God to give to all men the power of saving
themselves and the power of damning themselves. According to
Augustine, God, in his creative decree, has expressly excluded every
order of things in which grace would deprive man of his liberty, every
situation in which man would not have the power to resist sin, and thus
Augustine brushes aside that predestinationism which has been attributed
to him. Listen to him speaking to the Manichaeans: "All can be saved if
they wish"; and in his "Retractations" (I, x), far from correcting this
assertion, he confirms it emphatically: "It is true, entirely true, that all men
can, if they wish." But he always goes back to the providential
preparation. In his sermons he says to all: "It depends on you to be elect"
(In Ps. cxx, n. 11, etc.); "Who are the elect? You, if you wish it" (In Ps.
Lxxiii, n. 5). But, you will say, according to Augustine, the lists of the
elect and reprobate are closed. Now if the non-elect can gain heaven, if all
the elect can be lost, why should not some pass from one list to the
other? You forget the celebrated explanation of Augustine: When God
made His plan, He knew infallibly, before His choice, what would be the
response of the wills of men to His graces. If, then, the lists are definitive,
if no one will pass from one series to the other, it is not because anyone
cannot (on the contrary, all can), it is because God knew with infallible
knowledge that no one would wish to. Thus I cannot effect that God should
destine me to another series of graces than that which He has fixed, but,
with this grace, if I do not save myself it will not be because I am not able,
but because I do not wish to.
Such are the two essential elements of Augustinian and Catholic predestination.
This is the dogma common to all the schools, and formulated by all theologians:
predestination in its entirety is absolutely gratuitous (ante merita). We have to
insist on this, because many have seen in this immutable and gratuitous choice
only a hard thesis peculiar to St. Augustine, whereas it is pure dogma (barring
the mode of conciliation, which the Church still leaves free). With that
established, the long debates of theologians on special predestination to glory
ante or post merita are far from having the importance that some attach to them.
(For a fuller treatment of this subtile problem see the "Dict. de theol. cath., I, coll.
2402 sqq.) I do not think St. Augustine entered that debate; in his time, only
dogma was in question. But it does not seem historically permissible to
maintain, as many writers have, that Augustine first taught the milder system
(post merita), up to the year 416 (In Joan. evang., tract. xii, n. 12) and that
afterwards, towards 418, he shifted his ground and went to the extreme of harsh
assertion, amounting even to predestinationism. We repeat, the facts absolutely
refute this view. The ancient texts, even of 397, are as affirmative and as
categorical as those of his last years, as critics like Loofs and Reuter have
shown. If, therefore, it is shown that at that time he inclined to the milder opinion,
there is no reason to think that he did not persevere in that sentiment . . .
(6) Does this mean that we must praise everything in St. Augustine's explanation
of grace? Certainly not. And we shall note the improvements made by the
Church, through her doctors, in the original Augustinism. Some exaggerations
have been abandoned, as, for instance, the condemnation to hell of children
dying without baptism. Obscure and ambiguous formulae have been eliminated.
We must say frankly that Augustine's literary method of emphasizing his thought
by exaggerated expressions, issuing in troublesome paradoxes, has often
obscured his doctrine, aroused opposition in many minds, or led them into error.
Also, it is above all important, in order to comprehend his doctrine, to compile an
Augustinian dictionary, not a priori, but after an objective study of his texts. The
work would be long and laborious, but how many prejudices it would dispel! . . .
We must note here that even Protestant critics, with a loyalty which does them
honour, have in these latter times vindicated Augustine from the false
interpretations of Calvin. Dorner, in his "Gesch. der prot. Theologie," had already
shown the instinctive repugnance of Anglican theologians to the horrible theories
of Calvin. W. Cunningham (Saint Austin, p. 82 sqq.) has very frankly called
attention to the complete doctrinal opposition on fundamental points which exists
between the Doctor of Hippo and the French Reformers. In the first place, as
regards the state of human nature, which is, according to Calvin, totally
depraved, for Catholics it is very difficult to grasp the Protestant conception of
original sin which, for Calvin and Luther, is not, as for us, the moral degradation
and the stain imprinted on the soul of every son of Adam by the fault of the father
which is imputable to each member of the family. It is not the deprivation of grace
and of all other super-natural gifts; it is not even concupiscence, understood in
the ordinary sense of the word, as the struggle of base and selfish instincts
against the virtuous tendencies of the soul; it is a profound and complete
subversion of human nature' it is the physical alteration of the very substance of
our soul. Our faculties, understanding, and will, if not entirely destroyed, are at
least mutilated, powerless, and chained to evil. For the Reformers, original sin is
not a sin, it is the sin, and the permanent sin, living in us and causing a continual
stream of new sins to spring from our nature, which is radically corrupt and evil.
For, as our being is evil, every act of ours is equally evil. Thus, the Protestant
theologians do not ordinarily speak of the sins of mankind, but only of the sin,
which makes us what we are and defiles everything. Hence arose the paradox of
Luther: that even in an act of perfect charity a man sins mortally, because he
acts with a vitiated nature. Hence that other paradox: that this sin can never be
effaced, but remains entire, even after justification, although it will not be any
longer imputed; to efface it, it would be necessary to modify physically this
human being which is sin. Calvin, without going so far as Luther, has
nevertheless insisted on this total corruption. "Let it stand, therefore, as an
indubitable truth which no engines can shake," says he (Institution II, v, § 19),
"that the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that
he cannot conceive, desire, or design anything but what is weak, distorted, foul,
impure or iniquitous, that his heart is so thoroughly environed by sin that it can
breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally
make a show of goodness their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and
deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness." "Now," says
Cunningham, "this doctrine, whatever there may be to be said for it, is not the
doctrine of Saint Austin. He held that sin is the defect of a good nature which
retains elements of goodness, even in its most diseased and corrupted state,
and he gives no countenance, whatever to this modern opinion of total depravity."
It is the same with Calvin's affirmation of the irresistible action of God on the will.
Cunningham shows that these doctrines are irreconcilable with liberty and
responsibility, whereas, on the contrary, "St. Austin is careful to attempt to
harmonize the belief in God's omnipotence with human responsibility" (St.
Austin, p. 86). The Council of Trent was therefore faithful to the true spirit of the
African Doctor, and maintained pure Augustinism in the bosom of the Church, by
Its definitions against the two opposite excesses. Against Pelagianism it
reaffirmed original sin and the absolute necessity of grace (Sess. VI, can. 2);
against Protestant predestinationism it proclaimed the freedom of man, with his
double power of resisting grace (posse dissentire si velit - Sess. VI, can. 4) and
of doing good or evil, even before embracing the Faith (can. 6 and 7).
From: Christ and the Soul: Augustine on Grace, Salvation, and Pelagianism by James J. O'Donnell. O'Donnell is a Professor of Classics (whether he is Catholic or Protestant I don't know), who runs the Augustine of Hippo website. Jaroslav Pelikan said of him, in his review of Gary Wills' biography of Augustine: ". . . James J. O'Donnell, the prodigy of current Augustinian studies, who has produced not only the definitive three-volume critical edition of the Confessiones but also the celebrated Augustine Web Site . . .":

Free Will
Readers with little taste for paradox find many frustrations in Augustine. Those frustrations are about to come to a peak. For the fallen human intellect to understand the workings of divine salvation is, for Augustine, a task destined to glorious failure. Failure, because such understanding will be incomplete, but glorious, because the more intensely that failure is realized, the closer the
knowing person comes to God.
To begin with, as always for Augustine, there is God. To God, all that transpires is intelligible and reasonable. God is omniscient, but also omnipotent. All that is, is of God; creation is encompassed by God and dwarfed by him. Appearances are only complicated shadows cast by simple realities we will never fully comprehend. Human beings, created in the image and likeness of God, possess the faculty of reason, and in theory nothing should prevent them from sharing divine knowledge. But
in practice something does interfere. Sin leads to ignorance and misunderstanding, and in this life grace itself leads only to partial and incomplete restoration of the intellect.
But human beings pretend otherwise. They perceive small fragments of the reasonableness of divine creation and think they know the whole story. They grasp a piece of the truth and identify it with the whole. Then attention is drawn to a crucial theological puzzle, a system of logic fails to resolve all the issues that are raised, and scapegoats are sought. Men blame the system, blame the puzzle, blame God himself, but never blame themselves.
The problems raised by Augustine's theology of sin and grace and its limitations were thrust upon with most painful force in the last decade of his life, when some monks in Africa and Gaul, concerned that the value of their own self-denying way of life was undermined by what they saw as defeatist quietism, began propagating ideas that have received in modern times the inaccurate name of "semi-Pelagianism" . . . . The conclusion they reached was that God's grace is a reward for well-intentioned initial efforts by human beings. In other words, some limited role for human merit remains at the root of the theology of salvation. What matters about this opposition is not so much its conclusions as the line of reasoning that led to the dispute.
The monks observed that a thoroughgoing system of divine grace leads to logical difficulties. If grace is absolutely sovereign and human merit entirely nonexistent, does not freedom of the will disappear? Worse, does it not mean that it is God who chooses, not only who will go to heaven, but also who will go to hell? Cannot those who go to hell rightly blame the negligence and cruelty of a God who denied them the free gift given to others just as undeserving? Can God be just if such whimsy reigns? Is God really merciful?
A related question attacks the problem neatly: Is grace resistible? This would seem to suggest an attractive escape route, for if grace is resistible, then those who are damned are responsible for their own damnation. But if the answer to this question is affirmative, we must ask if that means that grace is also acceptable, that is, if it is in the power of human beings to reject it, is it not also in their power to accept it? And has not merit returned to the system? If it is not in our power to accept
grace, but only to reject it, the justice and mercy of God remain in question, for God must foreordain which people will be allowed to resist and which will be compelled to accept--and divine whimsy, a terrifying notion, re-enters.
Augustine does not have a simple, comprehensive solution acceptable to all for these dilemmas. His principle, as in the question of original sin, is to cling to what he knows for certain, to attempt to provide explanations for difficulties, but then to stand with what he knows by faith even when logical difficulties remain. Here as always, revelation and experience are everything for Augustine; the arguments of the dialecticians have no authority.
With those warnings, we can turn with trepidation to the Augustinian solution. Augustine believes in predestination, but only in single predestination. God actively chooses certain individuals to be the recipients of his grace, confers it on them in a way that altogether overpowers their own will to sin, and leaves them utterly transformed, to live a life of blessedness. But God does not choose beforehand to send others to hell. God wills that all men be saved (cf. 1 Tim. 2.4), even as he takes
actions that save only certain individuals. Those who are damned, are damned by their own actions.
On these points, Augustine will not be shaken. His opponents (and a fair number of would-be friends) through the centuries will insist that this solution is indistinguishable from double predestination. It will be claimed that this view is pessimistic and proclaims a tyrannical and arbitrary God. Psychology will be invoked to explain the growing gloom of the aging Augustine.
Before we judge Augustine, however, we should attempt to understand him. He knew his answer could only be half a solution. Evil and its sources were still wrapped in mystery for him as the manifestation of non-being in the world of being. Augustine can only attempt to explain the workings of God and his goodness, which are clear and intelligible. To understand the condition of the evil creatures who will not win eternal blessedness is painfully difficult. All this makes hard doctrine.
If the divine deliberation by which some are saved and some are damned is a mystery, however, something less obscure can be said about the condition of the will of the redeemed creature. We must consider for a moment the nature of the faculty of will itself.
In practical terms, it is scarcely too strong to say that the will is the personality. The will is the part of the soul that chooses and acts. All choices are choices of will, and all acts are acts of appetite, hence acts of love, either the divinely inspired love Augustine calls caritas, or the sinful selfish love he calls cupiditas. Personal, conscious existence is not somewhere outside the instrumental faculty
we call will, rationally deliberating how to employ that faculty to achieve its ends. Instead, existence, knowledge, and will are an indissociable whole, and all deliberation and choice is of the will--of love. Given this psychology, it is then logical to argue that the power of sin over the individual must be considered when freedom is assessed. The will is always free of external control. There is no such thing as a compelled act for Augustine, one that goes "against the will." Even when
we are "compelled" to do something, it is only that the conditions in which the will freely operates are altered.
So freedom of the will from external constraint is always absolute. Its freedom becomes impaired when it begins to choose the wrong kind of love and so to bind itself to inferior choices in a self-perpetuating, self-damning process. When divine grace intervenes, it liberates the individual from the bondage of wrong past choices. Precisely how this happens is a little unclear to Augustine, but it is clear that God, without ever tampering with the interior working of the will itself, can still
direct its choices by altering, in perfect omniscience, the circumstances that affect the will.
The whole process of grace is seen by God, eternally knowing all things, as a single unity, but it appears to men as a series, sometimes a lifelong series, of events no one of which necessarily entails any further event. Thus when human beings speak of grace, they speak imperfectly. God's grace cannot be said to be working in the life of an individual even when that individual is destined, at a later date, to rebel, fall into sin, and choose damnation. Augustine describes this process best
in another late treatise, The Gift of Perseverance. From a human point of view, the divine grace that effects salvation is best described as Initial Grace plus the Grace of Perseverance. From the divine point of view, it is better to say that unless the Grace of Perseverance is present, the Initial Grace is not finally grace at all but only some lesser gift . . .
Practically, therefore, the life of the Christian is lived on the horns of a dilemma. Grace must be firmly believed to be omnipotent; without grace nothing good can be done. All that is good in the soul must come from God, while all that is bad is of one's own doing. And yet all this appears to the individual as a matter of individual choices of that frustratingly free will. The faithful Christian, therefore, is one who believes utterly in God but who responds to the exigencies of daily life by living as though everything, salvation included, depends on his own actions. God is all-powerful and
predestining, but the will is free, and the one who believes and hopes in God must act as though for himself, but act out of a completely disinterested, selfless love--caritas, not cupiditas . . .
One further irony must be faced. The dilemmas of predestination create an urgent sense of frustration by the absence of clear, logically compelling answers. Believers wonder at the ineptitude of the theologians, while skeptics take the failure of the Christians to settle the problem as evidence of the incoherence of the creed. The irony is that both positions are correct, but neither is complete. For what is most significant is precisely that insistence of the human mind on being given a straight
answer. The human mind, here and now, naturally expects all problems to have solutions. Men expect, even demand, to make sense of the world. But that quality of the human mind is, to Augustine, a proud and Pelagian trait. The intellect does not willingly yield its control over action. Rebellion and skepticism are more characteristic, as is evident from (and explained by, Augustine
would say) the story of Adam and Eve.
The Pelagian position on Christianity is finally a pagan one. God creates the world and issues his commands. Men are to learn the commands, obey them, and so win salvation. The situation is simple, requiring merely that the rules be clear and intelligible and devoid of paradox and confusion. The entire Augustinian system is radically opposed to this. That God appears to us as a master of paradox tells him something about mankind, but nothing about God. Faith, which is what grace
instills in the heart, is the assertion that God is God, despite the paradoxes that make him seem arbitrary, unjust, or mysterious. For Augustine, God was always God, he was himself always a sinner, and paradox and mystery were the price he had to pay. ================================================== ========================

I assert, therefore, that the perseverance by which we persevere in Christ even to the
end is the gift of God; and I call that the end by which is finished that life wherein
alone there is peril of falling. Therefore it is uncertain whether any one has received
this gift so long as he is still alive. For if he fall before he dies, he is, of course, said not
to have persevered; and most truly is it said.

(On The Gift Of Perseverance)
He was handed over for our offenses, and he rose again for our justification. "What
does this mean, "for our justification" So that He might justify us; so that he might
make us just. You will be a work of God, not only because you are a man, but also
because you are just. For it is better that you be just than that you be a man. If God
made you a man, and you made yourself just, something you were doing would be
better than what God did. But God made you without any cooperation on your part.
For you did not lend your consent so that God could make you. How could you have
consented when you did not exist? But He who made you without your consent does
not justify you without your consent. He made you without your knowledge but He
does not justify you without your willing it.
{Sermons 169,13}
Alister McGrath - certainly no enemy of Calvin (he published a biography of him in 1990) - writes:
Predestination, for Augustine, refers only to the divine decision to redeem, not to the act of
abandoning the remainder of fallen humanity.
For Calvin, logical rigour demands that God actively chooses to redeem or to damn. God
cannot be thought of as doing something by default: he is active and sovereign in his actions.
Therefore God actively wills the salvation of those who will be saved and the damnation of
those who will not.
[Reformation Thought, 2nd ed., Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1993, p.125]
Salvation thus lies outside the control of the individual, who is powerless to alter the situation.
[Ibid, p.127]
Likewise, his description of Zwingli's belief seems to me to illustrate that he held to essentially the same idea:
Whether an individual is saved or condemned is totally a matter for God, who freely makes his
decision from eternity. [Ibid., p.121]
But to recognize that Calvin taught double predestination . . . is not to say that this must be
taken to be the very centre of his teaching . . .
Calvin was never content with the statement that God, in his goodness, elected to salvation a
certain number of men taken from the mass of sinners; he thought that those who had not
been chosen had also been the object of a special decree, that of reprobation . . . on this
particular point Calvin diverges from St. Augustine, for whom the elect alone are the object of
a special decision which withdraws them from the 'massa perditionis,' while the reprobate are
simply abandoned by God to the ruin they have incurred by their sins (De correptione et
gratia, 7,12, M.L. xliv, 923).
[Francois Wendel, Calvin: The Origins and Development of His Religious Thought, tr. Philip Mairet, NY: Harper & Row, 1963, pp. 264, 280]
Calvin advanced beyond Augustine in two ways. The great African theologian had
represented God as active in election to life only. The lost were simply passed over and left to
the deserved consequences of sin. To Calvin's thinking, election and reprobation are both alike
manifestations of the divine activity. In Augustine's estimate, not all believers even are given
the grace of perseverance . . . Calvin's severe logic, insistent that all salvation is independent
of merit, led him to assert that damnation is equally antecedent to and independent of demerit
.... The sole cause of salvation or of loss is the divine choice.
[Williston Walker, John Calvin, NY: Schocken Books, 1969 (orig. 1906), p. 417]
Calvin goes beyond Augustine in his explicit assertion of double predestination, in which the
reprobation of those not elected is a specific determination of God's inscrutable will . . . He
feels under obligation to close the door to the notion that anything happens otherwise than
under the control of the divine will . . .
He is not content to confine the function of God's will to his having 'passed by' the nonelect in
bestowing his saving grace: the action of his will is not 'preterition' but 'reprobation' . . .
This passage briefly shows Calvin as FAVORING THE SUPRALAPSARIAN as opposed to the
infralapsarian view of the decrees of God. The issue became controversial in the Netherlands
shortly after Calvin's death.
[John T. McNeill, editor of Calvin's Institutes, from his own edition, tr. Ford Lewis Battles, Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960, v. 1, pp. lviii-lix, 469]
Deacon John Whiteford (Orthodox):
Even St. Augustine said that Adam's will was neither inclined towards evil or good, but as as such,
a neutral power, as can either incline toward faith, or turn towards unbelief... (NPNF2, Vol 5,
p 109).
He also says:
God no doubt wishes all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the Truth; but yet not
so as to take away from them free will... (Ibid, p.109)
...if he had willed by his own free will to continue in this state of uprightness . . . without
any experience of death and unhappiness he would have received by the
merit of that continuance the fulness of blessing with which the holy Angels are also blessed;
that is the impossibility of falling any more, and the knowledge of this with absolute certainty.
(On Rebuke and Grace, ch 28, NPNF2 5:483)
The first man had not that grace by which he should never will to be evil, but assuredly he had
that in which if he willed to abide he would never be evil, and without which, moreover, he
could not by free will be good, but which, nevertheless, by free will he could forsake. God
therefore, did not will even him to be without his grace, which he left in his free will: because
free will is sufficient for evil but is too little for good, unless it is aided by omnipotent good.
And if that man had not forsaken that assistance of his free will, he would always have been
good; but he forsook it, and he was forsaken. (Ibid., 484)
St. Augustine on merit:
The Lord made Himself a debtor not by receiving something, but by promising something. One
does not say to Him "Pay for what You received," but, "Pay what You promised."
[Commentary on Psalms 83:16. From Jurgens, William A., ed. and tr., The Faith of the
Early Fathers, 3 volumes, Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1970, vol. 3, p.19]
You are glorified in the assembly of your Holy Ones, for in crowning their merits you are
crowning your own gifts. (En. in Ps. 102:7)
What merit of man is there before grace by which he can achieve grace, as only grace works
every one of our good merits in us, and as God, when He crowns our merits, crowns nothing
else but His own gifts?
[Ep. 194,5,19; in Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, p.265]
From my Biblical Treatise on Justification (part of my upcoming book, A Biblical Defense of Catholicism):

In 427 St. Augustine wrote a book entitled Grace and Free Will, in which he sought toinstruct those "who believe that free will is denied, if grace is defended . . ." . . . Thus, he espoused a view on human free agency which is diametrically opposed to the positions of Luther and Calvin, even though they constantly attempted to cite him as their forerunner . . . St. Augustine's perspective (and that of the Catholic Church) on human free will is that it mysteriously and paradoxically coexists with God's sovereign prevenient grace, which encompasses it within the sphere of His Providence. It is one thing to acknowledge inscrutable mysteries, another altogether to thereby outright deny elements such as human free will, because we don't possess full understanding of God's ways.

From my Dialogue on Grace and Predestination:

Calvinism claims to uphold the legacy of St. Augustine, yet St. Augustine wrote in one of his last
works, Against Julian (c.428-430):
It is certain that in willing anything, it is we that do the willing, but it is He that enables us to
will what is good . . . It is certain that in doing anything, it is we that act but it is He that
enables us to act, by His bestowing efficacious powers upon our will.
[II, 157, CSEL, 85.1, 279; from Robert Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone, Santa Barbara, CA:
Queenship Pub. Co., 1997, p. 652]
Again, this is the orthodox Catholic, Tridentine, "paradoxical," and Pauline view (Phil 2:13-14). It is not Luther's and Calvin's view.
Augustine wrote in The City of God (c.426):

We are, therefore, in no way compelled, if we retain the foreknowledge of God, to discard our choice of will, or, if we retain choice of will, to deny - which were shocking - God's foreknowledge of future events. Rather, we embrace both . . . Man, therefore, does not sin because God foreknew that he would sin.

[PL 41, 5, 10, 2; in Sungenis, ibid., p. 653]

Likewise, in Grace and Free Choice (427):

Because there are some persons who defend grace to such an extent that they deny man's free will or who think that, when grace is defended, free will is denied, I have decided to write . . . God has revealed to us through his holy Scripture that there is free will in man . . . all these precepts of love would be given to men to no purpose at all if men did not have free will [cites Jas 1:13 ff. and Prov 19:3 in support]. . . See how clearly free will is taught here [goes on to cite accordingly Prov 1:8; 3:7,11,27,29; 5:2; Ps 35:4; Mt 6:19; 10:28; 1 Cor 15:34; 1 Tim 4:14; Jas 2:1; 4:11; 1 Jn 2:15].

[PL 44, 1, 1 / 44, 2, 2 / 44, 18, 37 / 44, 2, 3-4; in Sungenis, ibid., pp. 654-655; many other supporting Augustinian passages given as well]

To sum up: if the Holy Scripture, the Fathers, St, Augustine, Trent, Catholic Tradition, and much of (Arminian) evangelical Protestant theology all espouse this same paradoxical dialectic between grace and free will, I will accept it also. The thought of Luther and Calvin on this is a late-breaking "tradition of men." Why would or should I accept their word on this, if I am serious about following apostolic and patristic Christianity?

And hence there arises no small question, which must be solved by the Lord's gift. If eternal life is rendered to good works, as the Scripture most openly declares: Then He shall reward every man according to his works: how can eternal life be a matter of grace, seeing that grace is not rendered to works, but is given gratuitously, as the apostle himself tells us: To him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt; and again: There is a remnant saved according to the election of grace; with these words immediately subjoined: And if of grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace? How, then, is eternal life by grace, when it is received from works? Does the apostle perchance not say that eternal life is a grace? Nay, he has so called it, with a clearness which none can possibly gainsay. It requires no acute intellect, but only an attentive reader, to discover this. For after saying, The wages of sin is death, he at once added, The grace of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This question, then, seems to me to be by no means capable of solution, unless we understand that even those good works of ours, which are recompensed with eternal life, belong to the grace of God, because of what is said by the Lord Jesus: Without me ye can do nothing. And the apostle himself, after saying, By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast; saw, of course, the possibility that men would think from this statement that good works are not necessary to those who believe, but that faith alone suffices for them; and again, the possibility of men's boasting of their good works, as if they were of themselves capable of performing them. To meet, therefore, these opinions on both sides, he immediately added, For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them."

(On Grace and Free Will, 19-20)

Despite the astonishing theological diversity of the late medieval period, a consensus relating to the nature of justification was maintained throughout. The Protestant understanding of the nature of justification represents a theological novum . . . . It will be clear that the medieval period was astonishingly faithful to the teaching of Augustine on the question of the nature of justification, where the Reformers departed from it.

[Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, the
Beginnings to the Reformation. 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 1:184-5]

Through this mediator there is reconciled to God the mass of the entire human race which is alienated from Him through Adam.

[Sermons 293,8]

Free will is not taken away because it is assisted, but is assisted in order that it not be taken away.

[Ep 152,2,10]

If grace does not exist, how does he save the world? If there is no free will, how does he judge the world?

[Ep 214,2]

Augustine thought that God condemns but cannot cause wickedness (Ep 194,6,30). He distinguishes between predestination and foreknowledge and explained that sins are the object of the latter (De an. et eius or. 1,7,7; De praed. s. 10,19)

God is good. God is just. Because He is good, He can set free without any merits; because He is just, He cannot condemn anyone without blameworthy actions.

[C. Iul. 3,18,36]

Someone says to me: 'Since we are acted upon, it is not we who act.' I answer, 'No, you both act and are acted upon; and if you are acted upon by the good, you act properly. For the spirit of God who moves you, by so moving, is your Helper. The very term helper makes it clear that you yourself are doing something.'

[Sermons 156,11]

But if someone already regenerate and justified should, of his own will, relapse into his evil life, certainly that man cannot say: 'I have not received'; because he lost the grace he received from God and by his own free choice went to evil.

[Admonition and Grace 6,9]

III. Augustine on Prayers for the Dead, Intercession of the Saints, Penance, and Purgatory

Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. For it is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended.

[Sermons: 159,1]

By the prayers of the Holy Church, and by the salvific sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided . . . For the whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers . . . If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death.

[Sermons: 172,2]

The man who perhaps has not cultivated the land and has allowed it to be overrun with brambles has in this life the curse of his land on all his works, and after this life he will have either purgatorial fire or eternal punishment.

[Genesis Defended Against the Manicheans, 2,20,30]

Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment.

[The City of God, 21,13]

The prayer . . . is heard on behalf of certain of the dead; but it is heard for those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not for the rest of their life in the body do such wickedness that they might be judged unworthy of such mercy, nor who yet lived so well that it might be supposed they have no need of such mercy.

[The City of God, 21,24,2]

That there should be some such fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, - through a certain purgatorial fire.

[Enchiridion of Faith, Hope & Love, 18,69]

The time which interposes between the death of a man and the final resurrection holds souls in hidden retreats, accordingly as each is deserving of rest or hardship, in view of what it merited when it was living in the flesh. Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead find relief through the piety of their friends and relatives who are still alive, when the Sacrifice of the Mediator is offered for them, or when alms are given in the church.

[Enchiridion of Faith, Hope & Love, 29,109-110]

We read in the books of the Maccabees [2 Macc 12:43] that sacrifice was offered for the dead. But even if it were found nowhere in the Old Testament writings [Augustine regarded 1st and 2nd Maccabees as Scripture], the authority of the universal Church which is clear on this point is of no small weight, where in the prayers of the priest poured forth to the Lord God at His altar the commendation of the dead has its place.

[The Care That Should be Taken of the Dead, 1,3]

Yet the all-knowing, all-wise John Calvin opines (interspersed with my critical comments in red):

Purgatory is constructed out of many blasphemies . . . it was devised apart from God's Word in curious and bold rashness [32 biblical arguments are given in my biblical treatise on the topic, of which many were multi-faceted and cross-referenced; Calvin deals with five in this obscurantist diatribe in his Institutes] . . . some passages of Scripture were ignorantly distorted to confirm it [Calvin, of course, knows better than all the Liturgies and the Fathers, including St. Augustine!] ...
When expiation of sins is sought elsewhere than in the blood of Christ, when satisfaction is transferred elsewhere, silence is very dangerous [false dichotomies, based on Calvin's own "ignorance" of Catholic soteriology] . . . Purgatory is a deadly fiction of Satan, which nullifies the cross of Christ [ditto], inflicts unbearable contempt upon God's mercy [ditto], and overturns and destroys our faith [where, then, was the faith for 1500 years before Calvin?] . . . When the notion of satisfaction is destroyed, purgatory itself is straightway torn up by the very roots [17 biblical arguments for penance, satisfaction, etc. are given in my treatise on that subject as well]. But if it is perfectly clear . . . that the blood of Christ is the sole satisfaction for the sins of believers, the sole expiation, the sole purgation, what remains but to say that purgatory is simply a dreadful blasphemy against Christ? [It indeed would be if it required the false dichotomy that Calvin attributes to it, i.e., isolating our meritorious acts from God's grace which always and necessarily precedes and engulfs them] . . .
Surely, any man endowed with a modicum of wisdom easily recognizes that whatever he reads among the ancient writers concerning this matter was allowed because of public custom and common ignorance. I admit that the fathers themselves were also carried off into error. For heedless credulity commonly deprives men's minds of judgment [ah, luckily we have Calvin to enlighten us, when far inferior guides such as St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Ambrose, and St. Augustine have been foolishly led down the primrose path of incredulity!] . . .
Though I concede to the ancient writers of the church that it seemed a pious act to help the dead [gee, thanks for small favors], we ought ever to keep the rule that cannot deceive: that it is not lawful to interject anything of our own in our prayers. But our requests ought to be subjected to the Word of God [i.e., Calvin's interpretation of it, over against the universal Tradition of the Church up to his time] . . . The ancients rarely and only perfunctorily commended their dead to God in the communion of the Sacred Supper [above historical data would lead one to think otherwise].

[Institutes, Book 3, ch. 5, sec. 6,10; first volume, pp. 676, 682-683 in 1960 edition]
IV. Various Other Catholic Beliefs

Augustine's many explicit statements concerning the literal, actual, Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist and the Sacrifice of the Mass are detailed in my paper St. Augustine's Belief in the Real Presence.
St. Augustine also accepted baptismal regeneration, papal supremacy and jurisdiction and the primacy of Rome, Mary's sinlessness, apostolic succession, authoritative Tradition (even oral), and the so-called Apocryphal books of the Old Testament.
Some Protestant, huh? Some precursor of Calvin and Luther . . . If Augustine was more Protestant than Catholic, then I am more the man in the moon, made of green cheese than I am an Anglo-Saxon, half-Canadian middle class Michigander. Those of us who believe such things detailed above today are supposedly not even Christians, and lost in gross idolatry and paganism, according to our (anti-Catholic brand) "Reformed" overlords and judges, yet those same people heap praise upon the greatness of St. Augustine and pretend that he is one of them. Go figure. I always believed that truth was stranger than fiction.
See the closely-related companion piece:
Dialogue: Is Sola Fide (Faith Alone) a Legitimate Development of Patristic and Augustinian Soteriology?

Main Index / Blog Uploaded by Dave Armstrong on 24 November 2000, from public list discussions. Typesetting revised on 22 August 2006.

[Kentucky Kid]

"Even so then at this present time there is a REMNANT according to the election of grace" (Romans 11:5)..............KK (an ex-Romanist who is at war against Rome; not trying to "Reform" it!!!!!!!!!

[B.W. McCann]

Nicholas,

I think you're right re Augustine. In addition to the things which you have already noted, the man taught celibacy and refraining from certain foods, fulfilling the Apostles prophecy.

1 Timothy 4:1 ¶ Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; 2 Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; 3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.

Many within Christendom may perhaps gloss over what they would call these "minor points", but the Apostle condemns these so-called "minor points" with the strongest language imaginable, calling them the doctrines of demons.

Augustine was a rank heretic.

[GraceAmbassador]

Mary is the mother of God. Jesus is God.

If Mary is the mother of God and God is my father, then Mary is my grandmother! Whoopydooo! Hi granny!

I would suggest that these long posts be broken in different ones. They take a lot of bandwidth... Please, use the same method as Robert Hibgy does who writes posts in sequence if the study requires it to be so.

Milt

[katoikei]

If Mary is the mother of God and God is my father, then Mary is my grandmother! Whoopydooo! Hi granny!

I would suggest that these long posts be broken in different ones. They take a lot of bandwidth... Please, use the same method as Robert Hibgy does who writes posts in sequence if the study requires it to be so.

Milt

'In the beginning was the Granny." I like it.

[Brandan Kraft]

The evil grip of Rome on protestantism never ceases to amaze me. Rome and its leader, the POPE - PAPA - DADDY, can clearly be called THE antichrist for it has set the tone for all of christenDUMB!

The doctrine of original sin propagated by Augustine is the doctrine of protestantism. Original sin is a doctrine that teaches men are born sinful because they are descendents of Adam! What?!?!! I thought men are born sinful because God makes them that way. How dare I say such things - for that would make God the "author of sin", right? I'd be thrown out of every single church for making that claim! But "original sin" and transducianism is at the heart of Protestantism. All of the great reformers and many in today's reformed church stubbornly hold this doctrine close and dear to their souls. But why? Because it's tradition!!!! It was tradition started by Augustine and his cohorts in crime. The antichrist is alive and well today, and it has all of evangelicalism under its control....

James - look at the book of James! Sheesh, some people on here have called it the "gospel of James!!!" Martin Luther originally called James an epistle of straw compared to the letters of Paul that announced the PRISTINE GRACE of God! James is about works works works! It is the joy of Rome, and it forced the reformers at Regensburg to embrace James as "canon." AT that point, all questioning of James was considered heresy. Why? Because Rome has protestantism/evangelicalism/christendumb under its control.

God being the "author of sin" is the language of Rome used to attack the essential Gospel doctrine of the Sovereignty of God and His absolute Predestination of all things. God causes and determines all events - even things that are evil. He made mankind evil for it was pleasing in HIS SIGHT! He had a purpose for it - and He will be glorified in its defeat. So the scheming Augustine affirms predestination - big deal. He gives lip service to the doctrine. The insidious plot of Rome is to use gospel language and teach exactly the opposite. How many evangelicals do you know talk against predestination by using the phrase, "author of sin?"

Why do the reformed hold up Augustine in high regard? Because He is their pope! They would gladly submit themselves to Augustine's church of Rome for they make excuses for him. 100% of today's reformed students believe what they perceive is the gospel to be true because it's been handed down to them by the "received" text! That's another ROMISH doctrine! GAG! Received? From whom was it received? The antichrist! I do not at all accept the 66 books of Scripture because they were received! Yes the ones quoted in the confessions by which Protestants pledge allegiance to - because they were "received!" To do so is to tip a hat to Rome and acknowledge them as "church fathers."

The Gospel is true and every man is a liar. The elect know the Gospel is true because they have been given ears to hear and eyes to see. They love the Gospel for it is "GOOD NEWS" to their soul. They can lift their voices to God and thank Him for they see Him as the doer of ALL things including their salvation. They look back to the cross and see their redemption completely in Christ. They then look to the Bible and they affirm that it is true because they KNOW the Gospel is true. The Gospel gives affirmation to the Scriptures - the so called "received" text - not the other way around.

Protestants and "reformers" - please go ahead and defend Augustine and embrace tradtion. Enjoy your "church" and look down upon us "lone rangers" who do not fall in line with your marching orders. We, the elect of God will be victorious, and one day the antichrist will be exposed. It will be cast down and the elect sing praises to God as the smoke and ashes of the whore will rise forever and ever! It will be a glorious day when Christ returns and stomps His enemies. The great marriage supper of the lamb will be a great victory celebration! I for one am looking forward to it!

[Highlyfavored]

I know this isn't done any more but should be this time.

Noteworthy Post

The evil grip of Rome on protestantism never ceases to amaze me. Rome and its leader, the POPE - PAPA - DADDY, can clearly be called THE antichrist for it has set the tone for all of christenDUMB!

The doctrine of original sin propagated by Augustine is the doctrine of protestantism. Original sin is a doctrine that teaches men are born sinful because they are descendents of Adam! What?!?!! I thought men are born sinful because God makes them that way. How dare I say such things - for that would make God the "author of sin", right? I'd be thrown out of every single church for making that claim! But "original sin" and transducianism is at the heart of Protestantism. All of the great reformers and many in today's reformed church stubbornly hold this doctrine close and dear to their souls. But why? Because it's tradition!!!! It was tradition started by Augustine and his cohorts in crime. The antichrist is alive and well today, and it has all of evangelicalism under its control....

James - look at the book of James! Sheesh, some people on here have called it the "gospel of James!!!" Martin Luther originally called James an epistle of straw compared to the letters of Paul that announced the PRISTINE GRACE of God! James is about works works works! It is the joy of Rome, and it forced the reformers at Regensburg to embrace James as "canon." AT that point, all questioning of James was considered heresy. Why? Because Rome has protestantism/evangelicalism/christendumb under its control.

God being the "author of sin" is the language of Rome used to attack the essential Gospel doctrine of the Sovereignty of God and His absolute Predestination of all things. God causes and determines all events - even things that are evil. He made mankind evil for it was pleasing in HIS SIGHT! He had a purpose for it - and He will be glorified in its defeat. So the scheming Augustine affirms predestination - big deal. He gives lip service to the doctrine. The insidious plot of Rome is to use gospel language and teach exactly the opposite. How many evangelicals do you know talk against predestination by using the phrase, "author of sin?"

Why do the reformed hold up Augustine in high regard? Because He is their pope! They would gladly submit themselves to Augustine's church of Rome for they make excuses for him. 100% of today's reformed students believe what they perceive is the gospel to be true because it's been handed down to them by the "received" text! That's another ROMISH doctrine! GAG! Received? From whom was it received? The antichrist! I do not at all accept the 66 books of Scripture because they were received! Yes the ones quoted in the confessions by which Protestants pledge allegiance to - because they were "received!" To do so is to tip a hat to Rome and acknowledge them as "church fathers."

The Gospel is true and every man is a liar. The elect know the Gospel is true because they have been given ears to hear and eyes to see. They love the Gospel for it is "GOOD NEWS" to their soul. They can lift their voices to God and thank Him for they see Him as the doer of ALL things including their salvation. They look back to the cross and see their redemption completely in Christ. They then look to the Bible and they affirm that it is true because they KNOW the Gospel is true. The Gospel gives affirmation to the Scriptures - the so called "received" text - not the other way around.

Protestants and "reformers" - please go ahead and defend Augustine and embrace tradtion. Enjoy your "church" and look down upon us "lone rangers" who do not fall in line with your marching orders. We, the elect of God will be victorious, and one day the antichrist will be exposed. It will be cast down and the elect sing praises to God as the smoke and ashes of the whore will rise forever and ever! It will be a glorious day when Christ returns and stomps His enemies. The great marriage supper of the lamb will be a great victory celebration! I for one am looking forward to it!

[katoikei]

The evil grip of Rome on protestantism never ceases to amaze me. Rome and its leader, the POPE - PAPA - DADDY, can clearly be called THE antichrist for it has set the tone for all of christenDUMB!

The doctrine of original sin propagated by Augustine is the doctrine of protestantism. Original sin is a doctrine that teaches men are born sinful because they are descendents of Adam! What?!?!! I thought men are born sinful because God makes them that way. How dare I say such things - for that would make God the "author of sin", right? I'd be thrown out of every single church for making that claim! But "original sin" and transducianism is at the heart of Protestantism. All of the great reformers and many in today's reformed church stubbornly hold this doctrine close and dear to their souls. But why? Because it's tradition!!!! It was tradition started by Augustine and his cohorts in crime. The antichrist is alive and well today, and it has all of evangelicalism under its control....

'Traducianism was supported byTertullian, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory of Nyssa, many in the early Western church (but Roman Catholicism is creationist), the Lutheran Church, and some theologians such as BaptistAugustus H. Strong and PresbyteriansW. G. T. Shedd and Gordon Clark. Most theologians, especially the Reformed, are creationists.' (link)

Darth..cont:

James - look at the book of James! Sheesh, some people on here have called it the "gospel of James!!!" Martin Luther originally called James an epistle of straw compared to the letters of Paul that announced the PRISTINE GRACE of God! James is about works works works! It is the joy of Rome, and it forced the reformers at Regensburg to embrace James as "canon." AT that point, all questioning of James was considered heresy. Why? Because Rome has protestantism/evangelicalism/christendumb under its control.

It puzzles me as to why you struggle with the epistle of James. It is in the same form and style of all of Yeshua's teaching in the Gospels, and is a neccessary and integral part of the instruction in righteousness.

[Brandan Kraft]

'Traducianism was supported byTertullian, the Eastern Orthodox Church, Gregory of Nyssa, many in the early Western church (but Roman Catholicism is creationist), the Lutheran Church, and some theologians such as BaptistAugustus H. Strong and PresbyteriansW. G. T. Shedd and Gordon Clark. Most theologians, especially the Reformed, are creationists.' (link)

Even reformed creationists still hold to "original sin." Augustinianism has corrupted the minds of even the most enlightened authors.

It puzzles me as to why you struggle with the epistle of James. It is in the same form and style of all of Yeshua's teaching in the Gospels, and is a neccessary and integral part of the instruction in righteousness.

There is NO struggle with me on James. It is good for burning and has no part beingi a part of what we call the "bible." Anyone who has any objectivity and knows the Gospel of GRACE should clearly see that it teaches a works righteosness apart from grace. Tell me Eric, what is a necessary teaching in James? Wait - please don't answer that publicly - we've gone over this in the past threads. Read those dilligently, and you will see that all of your responses have already been countered.

[katoikei]

There is NO struggle with me on James. It is good for burning and has no part beingi a part of what we call the "bible." Anyone who has any objectivity and knows the Gospel of GRACE should clearly see that it teaches a works righteosness apart from grace. Tell me Eric, what is a necessary teaching in James? Wait - please don't answer that publicly - we've gone over this in the past threads. Read those dilligently, and you will see that all of your responses have already been countered.

Dear Brandan,

Burning Scripture ?

Do you remember when crazed religious fanatics burned Beatles albums ? I once heard it rumoured that Rastafarians sometimes smoke the Holy Books, one page at a time. I have even heard that some revolutionary leaders used the pages of the Scriptures as toilet paper, but I think that you are going to find that a statement like this one does not earn you any approval from true scholars.

[Brandan Kraft]

Dear Brandan,

Burning Scripture ?

Do you remember when crazed religious fanatics burned Beatles albums ? I once heard it rumoured that Rastafarians sometimes smoke the Holy Books, one page at a time. I have even heard that some revolutionary leaders used the pages of the Scriptures as toilet paper, but I think that you are going to find that a statement like this one does not earn you any approval from true scholars.

I really don't care what "true scholars" think of my statement. James is simply ANTI-Christ. It will be shown one day for what it is and it will be burned up along with all those who oppose the Gospel of Pristine Grace.

[Saint Nicholas]

Why do some feel they need to stand on the writings of Augustine & James ? For they both teach Justification by Works. That should be enough for us to ditch to Ditch the Garbage !

Nicholas

[sinned]

Re: Heretical Church Fathers

There is NO struggle with me on James. It is good for burning and has no part being a part of what we call the "bible." Anyone who has any objectivity and knows the Gospel of GRACE should clearly see that it teaches a works righteousness apart from grace. Tell me Eric, what is a necessary teaching in James?

Greetings Darth Gill, I am new to the Predestinarian Network and while reading the post on the heretical church fathers, noticed your comments on James.

Concerning the “necessary teaching in James?”…. I kind of liken it as the blood that was struck upon the two-side post and on the upper doorpost of the house. (Exodus 12)

I gather from this post that you think James should not be included in the canon of scripture? Is it the only book?

Peace
Sinned

“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.”

[lionovjudah]

The doctrine of original sin propagated by Augustine is the doctrine of protestantism. Original sin is a doctrine that teaches men are born sinful because they are descendents of Adam! What?!?!! I thought men are born sinful because God makes them that way. How dare I say such things - for that would make God the "author of sin", right? I'd be thrown out of every single church for making that claim! But "original sin" and transducianism is at the heart of Protestantism. All of the great reformers and many in today's reformed church stubbornly hold this doctrine close and dear to their souls. But why? Because it's tradition!!!! It was tradition started by Augustine and his cohorts in crime. The antichrist is alive and well today, and it has all of evangelicalism under its control....

Brandan, what is your explination of Total Depravity then? Is the term original sin what bothers you? Augustine did not start this line of thinking. Jews questioned the proclvity to sin for centuries before him. Men are not born sinful becasue God made them that way, you know there is less evidence in the writ to confirm this statement then there is to form an opinion on biological sin passed by generation or creationism. And isaiah 45:7, your mantra, is not close to proving this. It is not as cut and dry as you bark out and attempt to make it. And if you are equating a belief in the doctrine of original sin as being the teaching of antichrist you honestly are not alone. You can join ranks with thousands throught history. The topic is very interesting, and relates to much more than the absolute predestination of all things. In fact, Scripture is not explicit. But it does reveal one thing that the inspired Paul wrote.

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned. [Rom 5:12]

Thats it. There would have been many opportunities for the Holy Spirit to inspire the writers of the 66 books, or the 62 for you, to say clearly why men inherit this disease of the soul and attribute it to God Himself. But it does not. SO why go beyond what is written and revealed?

We have a sin nature. That is 100% true. Where it comes from can be a tremendous discussion without the demonizing antics in your above post. Both sides have strenghths and weaknesses. Both sides have had meany learned blessed people defending them. Where does this sin nature lie? Is it in the soul, spirit, or flesh? Why was Christ kept from having a sin nature? WHat made Him to differ? Is our sin nature real or is it only imputed to us? or both?

One of the things I am sure about is the sin nature cannot come from the mother at all. This is one area where Christ differs from mankind. He did not have an earthly father, but he had a mother. This also proves the soul does not come from the mother, therefore our sin nature cannot be in our flesh.

Brandan, if I use one of the plays out of your book and use 'logic', you would appear to deny the imputation of Adams sin to mankind. This creates a chaotic mess of both Adam's as explained in the writ. It would also deny the teaching of the federal headship of Adam, and Christ being the second Adam.

Also my biggest issue with Creationism, is it denies a triunity of the nature of man. It combines the spirit and soul. Yet I see scripture making a distinction. The biggest problem i have with this view is it makes us no different than animals. We have an eternal spirit. Animals dont. Animals have flesh and a soul, but no spirit. Creationists have to deny this distinction.

This topic is much wider than you make it BK. One that myriads of words have been written, but I have yet to find any with the sentiment that either side is antichrist. And it insults me. Therefore I am yellow carding you for your above post. 'yellow card' which will expire in 1 week.

[lionovjudah]

I will also state that i am nowhere sure of this dichotomy vs trichotomy debate. I have not studied it enough, and see good and bad in both sides. But this would be a whole other topic. I only mentioned this becasue creationists, by making soul and spirit equal, would have a problem with animals in my opinion.

[Brandan Kraft]

Brandan, what is your explination of Total Depravity then? Is the term original sin what bothers you? Augustine did not start this line of thinking. Jews questioned the proclvity to sin for centuries before him.

And roman catholicism is simply an extension of talmudic judaism - that doesn't prove anything. There were very few true jews at the time of Christ's birth - He was practically born into a roman catholic society even at that time.

Men are not born sinful becasue God made them that way, you know there is less evidence in the writ to confirm this statement then there is to form an opinion on biological sin passed by generation or creationism.

Ummm - what about Adam? Who made Adam that way? Who made Adam with the proclivity to sin? In your profile you state that you believe God wanted to Adam to fall into sin. Therefore Adam WAS MADE to fall into sin. You cannot deny this. God made Adam this way. And He made all of the elect just like He did Adam. Oh, and I don't see how this affects Total Depravity. I believe all of the elect are fashioned in iniquity (just like Adam) because it is God who creates men - not because it is inherited. Traducianism is simply an attempt to absolve God as the creator of evil and sin and deny His sovereign rule over everything.

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned. [Rom 5:12]

Thats it. There would have been many opportunities for the Holy Spirit to inspire the writers of the 66 books, or the 62 for you, to say clearly why men inherit this disease of the soul and attribute it to God Himself. But it does not. SO why go beyond what is written and revealed?

We've gone over Rom 5:12 so many times before - it's amazing you forget this - search the forum. This says nothing about the transmission of sin from Adam to his elect posterity by the way (yes "all men" = "the elect"). It says that sin first manifested itself in this world when Adam fell and death came as a result. Furthe, death came to all men (the elect) JUST LIKE ADAM because they too sinned. Adam is a picture of the elect - the elect are not sinners because Adam sinned (original sin doctrine). They are sinners because God made them that way (not a denial of total depravity).

Brandan, if I use one of the plays out of your book and use 'logic', you would appear to deny the imputation of Adams sin to mankind. This creates a chaotic mess of both Adam's as explained in the writ. It would also deny the teaching of the federal headship of Adam, and Christ being the second Adam.

You are correct - I do not believe sin is EVER imputed to the elect. The sin of the elect is only imputed to Christ.

Also my biggest issue with Creationism, is it denies a triunity of the nature of man. It combines the spirit and soul. Yet I see scripture making a distinction. The biggest problem i have with this view is it makes us no different than animals. We have an eternal spirit. Animals dont. Animals have flesh and a soul, but no spirit. Creationists have to deny this distinction.

I'm sorry, but that's a bunch of hogwash. Men are men. They are made up of a zillion particles. They are God's creation. I don't delve into the dichotomy vs. trichotomy debates because I find them to be pointless.

This topic is much wider than you make it BK. One that myriads of words have been written, but I have yet to find any with the sentiment that either side is antichrist. And it insults me. Therefore I am yellow carding you for your above post. 'yellow card' which will expire in 1 week.

LOL!