After being referred to a noteworthy quote from Augustine posted on the Catholic Encyclopedia article on "Justification", I wondered how Augustinian Calvin truly was.
The excellent Introduction to Calvin's Institutes provided with the McNeil Edition, citing B. B. Warfield, says "the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine's doctrine of grace over Augustine's doctrine of the church. (Intro. X, on predestination)" Fascinating. Augustine's predestinarian thought (which was integral to Calvin's reformational 'doctrine of grace') prevailed by way of a methodology of which he would have disapproved. But was this thought even really Augustine's thought?
Now to Augustine: "He who made you without your doing does not without your action justify you. Without your knowing He made you, with your willing He justifies you, but it is He who justifies, that the justice be not your own. (emphasis mine) (Serm. clxix, c. xi, n.13)"
The McNeil Edition is frank in admitting that 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." And further, "He feels under obligation to close the door to the notion that anything happens otherwise than under the control of the divine will." If the former quote means that Augustine may have implicitly agreed with double predestination, I think Augustine above (...'does not without your action justify you.') belies the idea. Further, Calvin seems boxed in by the idea of God possessing a single will equally in force in creation as it is within the Godhead. "They will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven." Could double predestination (i.e., double election), if novel to Calvin in the 16th Century, be right?
Showing posts with label Augustine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Augustine. Show all posts
Saturday, September 22, 2007
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