Better known as "Saint Augustine". Born: 354 A.D. in Tagaste in North Africa. His father was a pagan and a minor Roman official, his mother Monica, was a fervent Christian. Augustine was a very precocious child, what we would call today a "child prodigy". Everyome expected great things of him. After a long struggle, Augustine became a Christian. He became bishop of Hippo in 391.
Augustines' magnum opus "Civitus Dei" (City of G-d). In this work he defended the Christian Faith against pagan opposition. When Rome fell in 410 A.D. the pagans accused the Christianity as being the cause of its fall, in departing from the old Roman "gods".[1] He refuted this assumption.
AUGUSTINE ON "THE TWO KINGDOMS"
"City of God" explained The Two Kingdoms: G-ds' Kingdom as opposed to "the kingdoms of this world". Both Kingdoms are establised on Love. The Kingdom of G-d is established on the Love of Yeshua (Jesus) and the "kingdoms of this world" are established on Love of Self.
AUGUSTINE ON "FREE WILL"
The work also explained about the nature of "Free Will" and sin. The unregenerate human will is powerless against sin at various intervals. This is a result of Adams' Fall. Before the Fall, mans' will was free to choose both good and evil. But he had no "yetzer hara" (evil inclination) in his flesh because he was in Innocence. After the Fall and before Redemption, all of mankind makes choices, but they are all sinful choices because man became a complete sinner. Man is unable to "will" Divine Good.
Mans' Freedom has still not disappeared, however. He may as "category sinner" choose among many alternatives. The choice that does not remain open to him however, is to choose to stop sinning. Man cannot stop sinning apart from G-ds' Intervention on mans' behalf. Between the Fall and Redemption, the only "choice" available to man is sin. Even his works are mere "human good". Unregenerate man does not possess the Divine Power necessary to "award himself" Salvation. When Salvation occurs as a Gift of G-ds' Grace, man is Led away by Grace from the sinful state he was once in to a New State in which his Freedom is Restored. We are then Free to choose Good. Not by any merit in himself, but by G-ds' Grace. Man at Salvation becomes "free" to sin or not to sin.
In Heaven, we shall also be Totally Free, but we will not have the option to sin. None of our Freedom is removed. We will continue to have Free Choices, but none of them will be sin.
In the unregenerate state, mans' will is Free, but is not "free" to decide to accept Grace as he is still in his sins. Man is not free not to sin. The Initiative is not human but Divine. G-ds' Grace is Irresitable, and no man has the power to refuse it. G-d Freely Bestows His Grace on those whom He has Predestinated. These are the Elect. (Ephesians 1:4, John 1:12,13)
Pelagius argued that man was born into the world with the freedom to either sin or not sin. There was no such thing as the corruption of the entire human race with Pelagius. He believed that was only true of Adam, but not the rest of mankind. According to Pelagius, man was not born with a sin nature and so therefore not totally fallen. Pelagius taught that new-born babies were also "born free" from sin until they were old enough to excersize their "free will" to commit sin. Until then they were not actually sinners. This later became the nebulous "Age of Accountability" teaching. Augustine opposed and defeated these arguments.
Pelagianism was Ruled a Heresy at the Councils of Meleve and Carthage, then the Jerusalem Council, then the Roman Council and then the Council of Ephesus. Likewise, "Semi-Pelagianism" (the doctrine that unregenerate man somehow "co-operates with G-d" in his Salvation) was Ruled a Heresy at the Synod of Orange.
AUGUSTINE ON DOUBLE PREDESTINATION
As Augustines' studies progressed, he affirmed the Doctrine of Double Predestination.[1] Men are either Predestined to Heaven, or Predestined to Hell. The Assemblies agreed with Augustine in the 5th Century. It should be remembered they were using the LXX (Septuagint, Greek Old Testament) and were closer to the original Greek meanings. There was no Hebrew "Masoretic Text" as we see today in the King James Bible (KJV) as the rabbis assembled it in the Middle Ages. It took them about 400 years (800 A.D.-1200 A.D.) to complete it, and no two "Masoretic Texts" agree 100%. It was "standardized" by the rabbis about 1200 A.D.
Later, the papacy drifted away from what had previously been Ruled upon. This then became a major dividing point between Protestants and Roman Catholics beginning in the 16th-Century Reformation and has ever since. Some persons have erroneously been told this is called "Calvinism"; in truth, John Calvin only reaffirmed what Luther had taught nased on Augustine in the 5th Century. Martin Luther also fully agreed with Calvin because Luther taught Double Predestination as well.
Surprisingly today, both Protestants and Roman Catholics both claim Augustine as "their own". Only the Protestants, however, ever fully taught what Augustine actually said.[2]
To be exact, any individual or denomination that does not believe in the Doctrine of Double Predestination cannot be called truly "Protestant" at all. The teachings of Augustine were used almost exclusively by all the Protestant Reformers: Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, John Knox, Farel, the Puritans and Pilgrims who came to America, and all the others, from William Shakespeare[3], John Milton to Sir Isaac Newton.
Opposition by the Roman Catholic Church and Arminianism resulted in the restatement of the teachings based on Augustine at the Synod of Dort. The Synod of Dort precisely defined True Protestantism. There was unanimous agreement. Go HERE for the Synod of Dort.
Because of the favorable (to Rome) use of Arminianism as a means of combatting "Calvinism", Rome denyed the teachings of Augustine at thr Council of Trent. Here is what they Ruled:
"It proceeded from the combined influence of the pre-Augustinian synergism and monastic legalism. Its leading idea is, that divine grace and the human will jointly accomplish the work of conversion and sanctification, and that ordinarily man must take the first step. It rejects the Pelagian doctrine of the moral soundness of man, but rejects the Augustinian doctrine of the entire corruption and bondage of the natural man, and substitutes the idea of a diseased or crippled state of the voluntary power. It disowns the Pelagian conception of grace as a mere external auxiliary; but also, quite as decidedly, the Augustinian doctrines of the sovereignty, irresistibleness, and limitations of grace; and affirms the necessity and the internal operation of grace with and through human agency, a general atonement through Christ, and a predestination to salvation conditioned by foreknowledge of faith."
Council of Trent. See Canons IV, IX, XVII. 6th Session on Justification.
It should be remembered that the early Reformers never sought to break with the Roman Catholic Church. They fervently sought to return to the original teachings of Christianity and the One Holy Church such as Anselm, Augustine, Bernard, Jerome and the Councils had previously Ruled as being what True Christianity really is.
Augustine today is considered to be a great intellect of Christianity, if not the greatest, while at the same time, vast numbers of the same people have very little or no idea what he actually wrote.
PEOPLE OF G-D MINISTRIES
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FOOTNOTES
[1
[2
Gregory I, (the great) took Augustines' musings and simply declared Purgatory to be a valid Doctrine; as if that is what Augustine asserted as a known fact: a Doctrine. Augustine made no such absolute assertion of Purgatory as Doctrine at all!
Another thing: Gregory I maintained that he exalted all of Augustines' teachings. He (Gregory), amazingly, reversed Augustines' teaching on Double Predestination (which Augustine absolutely did teach as Doctrine), rejected it, and instead took Purgatory, which Augustine never did teach as a Doctrine, and Gregory unilaterally pronounced it (Purgatory) a Doctrine!
[3