Category: Calvinism

Discussions and defense of Calvinism and Covenant Theology

Considering the "Multiple Intentions View" of the Atonement

~ fundyreformed ~ 24 Comments

In my last post I introduced the debate on the atonement that Seth McBee is hosting over at Contend Earnestly. Seth calls himself a 6 Point Calvinist, and dubs his view the “Unlimited/Limited Atonement” position. Yet Bruce Ware also calls that same view “4 Point Calvinism”, and I read an article which claims Benjamin Warfield interacted with what we would call “4 Point Calvinism” today, when he took on “Post-Redemptionism”. To confuse matters even more, Eric Svendsen posits a similar view which he calls “4.5 Point Calvinism”. Then there is the historical variety of this position called Amyraldianism, which seems to be specifically what Warfield was opposing.

In light of the confusion of determining whether we are really discussing 4, 4.5, or 6 point Calvinism, and to simplify things somewhat, I’m going to simply go by another name Bruce Ware has for this position: “The Multiple Intentions View”.

Now if someone else can straighten me out on how the various positions listed above differ from each other, by all means make an attempt! But for now, let me update where I’m at in evaluating the “Multiple Intentions View”.

1) I recently read an excellent article by Dr Roger Nicole entitled “John Calvin’s view of Limited Atonement“. Nicole explains why it is that both sides of the debate can claim Calvin for support. He makes a good case for Calvin actually supporting limited atonement, and does an excellent job tracing the history of this particular debate surrounding Calvin. Of special note was this quote from Calvin: “I should like to know how the wicked can eat the flesh of Christ which was not crucified for them, and how they can drink the blood which was not shed to expiate their sins.”

So all that is to say, quoting Calvin one way or another isn’t going to really win the debate. And ultimately Scripture matters much more than the opinion of Calvin or Spurgeon or anyone else.

2) Next, I should point out a convincing exegesis of John 3:16 which does not demand a universal atonement and does not do violence to the term “world”. In this open letter to Dave Hunt, James White gives a good exegesis of the passage (scroll about half-way down and look for the heading “John 3:16”). [So far only John 3:16 has been discussed in the debate at Contend Earnestly.]

3) While I do see how this “multiple intentions view” would be easier to hold to, when it comes to explaining some seemingly universal passages, I have to wonder how different it actually is to the normal limited atonement position anyway.

a) In both systems a bona fide offer of the gospel is made. There is no necessary connection between such an offer and an actual payment/provision for sins having been made. It is enough that God knows who will respond to the offer and has secured the payment for those as part of his intent in Christ’s death.

b) And isn’t it doublespeak to talk of a propitiation and atonement for all, yet actual redemption only for the elect? What does “save the world” in John 3:17 really mean if “world” is “every person”? What kind of saving is a mere potential salvation?

c) Basically, I see no reason to have to hold to a universal atonement for sins in order to legitimately hold to a universal preaching of the gospel to all people.

4) Another problem area concerns the bearing of God’s wrath which Christ accomplished in His death. His death satisfied God’s wrath in a substitutionary way for a certain people. I don’t see how the “multiple intentions view” adequately owns up to a substitutionary idea of the atonement. Is not an intentional substitution for certain, specific people inherent in the idea of substitutionary atonement?

5) Along the lines of point 4 (which someone did email me about to caution me in this debate), I also came across an excellent excerpt from Benjamin Warfield opposing Amyraldianism. That brief post is well worth your time, in considering this debate.

6) I also found the following summary by Bruce Ware to be helpful in explaining and distinguishing the three main positions.

7) Finally I should admit there is much more that can be studied with regard to this position. David of Calvin and Calvinism has compiled tons of info and quotes from various theologians which touch on this topic. Browse his “For Whom Did Christ Die?” category for many pertinent articles. Personally, I want to review my blogging pal Bnonn’s articles on the issue as well [here, here & here]. And I think it would also be worthwhile to explore Eric Svendsen’s posts on his “4.5 Point Calvinism”.

Now if there were just more time for all this reasearch!……

6 Point Calvinism & The Atonement Question

~ fundyreformed ~ 18 Comments

Lately, I’ve been struggling to get back to blogging. With the birth of our fourth daughter, 24 days of having company at our house in October, & with pressing issues at work, coupled with studying Biblical Theology at my church Bible institute, & gearing up for teaching through 1 Peter in our new Church small group, I’ve been a little busy! We also just got back from a trip to WI for another cousin’s wedding.

Amidst all of that, the comments around here have been quite busy lately, too! And most of the action has centered on the Calvinism issue, in one respect or another. See this post for an explanation. Part of blogging involves following other blogs, and so I have recently been distracted by a debate on the atonement question at Contend Earnestly (which now has a permanent spot on my blogroll, by the way) and Theology Online.

The question intrigues me as it asks whether Christ’s death on the cross atoned for the sins of all the world, or just the elect. I have had debates on my blog concerning Calvinism’s infamous “limited atonement” point (see this post). And while I do defend Calvinism’s understanding that Christ gave his life for his sheep in a special sense that he did not do for all people equally, yet I have also come to understand that on this particular question there is room for disagreement (see this post & this post).

So as I find myself looking into the question more closely, I don’t know which side to take. The “6 Point Calvinists” (Seth McBee and others) hold to an unlimited expiation, but a limited application of Christ’s atonement. All the sins of all are paid for, but only those who will believe (the elect) will be forgiven. So on the one hand, John 3:16 is taken to refer to Christ dieing for all people, with the goal of saving the world, yet on the other hand John 10:15ff. is understood to refer to Christ’s singular aim to actually save the elect alone. Their view is called the “unlimited/limited” view of the atonement.

If you are a little confused, or if that seems a little odd, join the club. But we should know that there have been various church leaders throughout history who have affirmed this view in one form or another, notably John Calvin, John Davenant, J.C. Ryle, R.L. Dabney, and W.G.T. Shedd.

I want to encourage anyone with time, to follow the debate over at Contend Earnestly. There are some helpful comments over there, and they are posting both views in an honest attempt at a fair and even-handed debate. Here are links to the posts so far: introduction, John 3:16–limited view, John 3:16–unlimited/limited view.

Finally, I’m open to input from the peanut gallery. Please if you know of some good articles on this issue, or if you have a couple of cents worth of input on the topic, feel free to give it here in the comments of this post. Of course, I’d encourage you to join the fray over at Contend Earnestly.

May God help us to learn and appreciate one another more through this, not just to waste time bickering over obscure points of doctrine. May we not lose sight of the glorious truth that Christ died in our place, and may we not forget to worship, even as we study!

Calvinism: A Man-Made Philosophy??

~ fundyreformed ~ 36 Comments

Recently in the comments of an earlier post of mine “Regeneration, Reception, and Faith“, the charge has again been made that Calvinism is a man-made philosophy.

Many of the Calvinist faithful are rolling their eyes and muttering “not again!” Yes, again.

I’m sure we’ll continue to hear this charge, and so I think it is worth addressing in a post. Hence I’m breaking my blog-silence and giving you a substantive post for a change!

Before I begin, let me say I have nothing against C. Hartline. She levied the charge (you can see the relevant exchange by clicking here and scrolling all the way down until you see comments from October 2007–about the last 4 or 5 comments) and I do plan on addressing many of her specific comments. But I will keep that in the comments of the post in question.

Here I hope to address the larger issue: the common claim that Calvinism is a man-made philosophy. So let’s begin.

The Anatomy of the Charge

Now I will attempt to be fair to the non-Calvinist side in this post. But it should be obvious that saying Calvinism is a “man-made philosophy” is designed to be a pretty strong blow to our side. The charge insinuates that we don’t follow the Bible, but man. And to be frank, the charge is often hollow: there is little or no proof. It’s just thrown out there as fact, and it is designed to predispose people to not trust Calvinism. That is called “poisoning the well”.

When a proof is given for this assertion, often it is given “pit bull style“. I’m referring to “verse pitting“. I suppose a whole post could be devoted to this one thought, but let me try to explain. “Verse pitting” involves throwing proof texts at someone in a debate. I’m not saying whether context is considered or not, quantity is the issue. Rather than dealing with each text brought up for either side, one side just dodges the bullets and keeps firing yet another proof text. If one text gets explained away, fine, they reach for another. And they feel no compulsion to deal with texts which might contradict their side, because after all their verses need answering too. Jehovah’s Witnesses are master of this technique, by the way.

What’s wrong with this approach is that Scripture is belittled. Based on Scripture’s testimony to itself, we would expect all of Scripture to harmonize and agree. Rather than compiling a list of texts that prove our side and contradict the opposing side’s texts, we should seek to harmonize all the texts and really do honest exegesis.

The Myth of Neutrality

Moving beyond the logic of the charge itself, we must consider the claim to neutrality. Non-Calvinists who levy this charge turn around and set up their own man-made philosophy in the place of Calvinism. You can say “it’s just plain Bible” until you’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t make your interpretation obviously neutral. All of us are men, and all of us are trying to fit together verses and passages from all over the Bible into an intelligent system of thought.

We all are trying to follow what the Bible says. Just because you think you are right and I’m not, doesn’t let you impugn motives on me, or assume that I am just resisting the plain teaching of the Bible. We all come to the Bible with different assumptions and with holes in our thinking. I know what I’m saying here won’t really make sense until I move on to the next point. So let’s do that.

The Evidence to Explore

It’s time to back up what I’m saying with some evidence. Let me do it this way. Non-Calvinists will unfurl their list of proof texts that they claim Calvinists “explain away” in favor of their man-made philosophy/system. Then they point to the Calvinists’ explanation of these texts as proof that Calvinists really are all about “logic”, “intellect”, or whatever. And they very neatly conclude that Calvinism is just a man-made philosophy that doesn’t come from Scripture.

With this background, let me marshal some of the non-Calvinist texts for you. Then I’ll show what Calvinists do in explaining them that seems so “man-made” to the other side. Next I’ll turn around and marshal some Calvinist texts for you, and show that non-Calvinists do a similar job of explaining away texts in a “man-made” fashion. Finally, I will list some texts that both sides of this debate “philosophize” together on. You be the judge!

Calvinist “Philosophizing”

John 3:16 — Calvinists explain away “whosoever will”, claiming only the elect can believe and be saved. In this verse, and others, Calvinists redefine “whosoever” to mean “the elect”.

2 Pet 3:9 & 1 Tim 2:4 — Calvinists explain away “[God is] not willing/wishing that any should perish” and “[God] desires all (people) to be saved”, claiming that God only wants the elect to be saved. In these verses Calvinists either redefine “all” or “wish/desire”.

1 Jn 2:2 — Calvinists explain away the truth that Christ is a propitiation for “the sins of the whole world”, claiming that Christ died only for the elect. Here Calvinists twist “whole world” into “world of the elect”.

1 Pet 1:1-2 — Calvinists explain away the qualification that people are elected “according to the foreknowledge of God”, claiming people are elected apart from God’s knowing beforehand that they will choose to believe. Here Calvinists ignore the above phrase altogether.

Heb. 2:9 — Calvinist’s explain away the assertion that Jesus died to “taste death for everyone”, claiming instead that Jesus only tasted death for the elect. In this verse Calvinists redefine “every”.

Non-Calvinist “Philosophizing”

Acts 13:48 — Non-Calvinists explain away “as many as were appointed/ordained to eternal life believed”, claiming instead that because people believe they are elected/ordained. In this verse they redefine “appointed/ordained” to mean “predisposed to”.

Jn1:13 & 1 Jn 5:1 — Non-Calvinists explain away both that the new birth is “not of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God” and that belief in Jesus indicates one “has been born of God” (rather than resulting in a subsequent new birth), claiming that the new birth results from human-originated faith. In these verses, non-Calvinists seem to ignore the above phrases altogether.

Jn 10:26 — Non-Calvinists explain away Jesus statement that people “do not believe because [they] are not part of [Jesus’] flock”, claiming instead that it is belief which makes people members of his flock. Here, non-Calvinists ignore the cause relationship between being of Jesus’ flock (which comes first) and believing. [Cf. Jn. 8:47]
2 Pet 2:8b — Non-Calvinists explain away the statement “they disobey the word, as they were destined to do”, claiming rejection of the Gospel and disobedience in general does not result from any choice on God’s part or any outside force at all. In this verse, non-Calvinists either redefine “destined (or appointed)” or explain this as referring only to national Israel.

Rom. 9:11,15-16, 22-23 — Non-Calvinists explain away such clear statements as “though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad–in order that God’s purpose of election might continue, not because of works but because of his call”, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy….So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy”, and “vessels of wrath prepared for destruction…vessels of mercy, which [God] has prepared beforehand to glory”, claiming instead that the passage does not touch on individual election or salvation at all. For these verses non-Calvinists claim that only national Israel and national election is in view, not individual salvation.

Calvinist & Non-Calvinist “Philosophizing”

Rom. 5:18 — Both groups explain away the statement “one act of justification leads to justification and life for all men”, claiming instead that only some men receive justification and new life. In this verse, both groups redefine “all” to be referring to a specific segment of humanity: “the saved/elect”.

1 Cor. 15:22 — Both groups explain away the truth that “as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive”, claiming that only some men will be made alive in Christ. Here both groups claim the first “all” refers to all people and the second “all” only refers to “the saved/elect”.

Jn. 14:28b — Both groups explain away Jesus’ statement that His “Father is greater than [He]”, claiming instead that Jesus is co-equal in essence with God the Father in the Trinity. In this verse, both groups look at the larger context of the phrase and define it in light of Jesus’ subjecting Himself as a man under the authority of God the Father.

Rom. 2:7 — Both groups explain away the assertion that those who “by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [God] will give eternal life”, claiming rather that eternal life is given on the basis of faith alone not as a reward for “well-doing”. Both groups interpret the verse in light of the whole teaching of Romans and harmonize it with other clear verses which say salvation is given on the basis of faith in Christ alone.

A Final Appeal to Non-Calvinists

Now we come to the conclusion. From the above list of texts let us make a couple points. First notice that both sides do some “philosophizing”. We cannot escape the need to fit the various texts into our heads and try to harmonize them. So no side can truly claim neutrality. There isn’t just a completely simple “Biblical” interpretation that can be taken for granted.

Secondly, I hope you would agree that we can’t just “keep score”. We don’t give the prize to the group with the longest list. Each and every text on both lists must be brought into harmony with one another. We can’t ignore Acts 13:48 if we don’t have an answer for it, simply because we can find 20 verses that have “whosoever will” in them.

Finally, let me encourage any non-Calvinists to do some homework. Don’t lash out against the imagined evils of Calvinism. Seek to truly understand our position. Many of us, myself included, used to dwell in your ranks. It was Scripture which caused us to change our thinking in this area. It is so easy to just attack the opposite position and claim they’re just plain wrong, and go on to imply they’re unBiblical. I have to guard against the temptation to be lazy in my debating myself, as well.

If you really want to understand Calvinism, please do yourself a favor and read one or two articles written by Calvinists. Get the scoop from the horse’s mouth himself! I recommend this short booklet written by my pastor John Piper. In the comment thread linked to at the top of this post, there is evidence of a non-Calvinist reading that booklet and coming to understand he was much closer to being a Calvinist than he thought. At the least he gained an appreciation for Calvinism and understood us better.

So please, before you claim we’re just a man-made philosophy, check out the evidence for yourself. Try to understand how we arrive at our conclusions. If you stop and listen, at the least you will have to see we are moved by many many texts to come to the conclusions we arrive at.

If God Merely Allows Suffering and Pain, How Is He Not Responsible?

~ fundyreformed ~ 36 Comments

People sometimes instinctively blame God for pain and suffering. Evangelical Christians for the most part grimace at this.

Open Theists counter that God didn’t cause it, and couldn’t prevent it–but He loves you anyway. Arminians respond that God merely allows evil, he is not responsible directly for your pain.

Calvinists, however, claim that God ordains and ultimately causes all things, even pain and suffering. He does so generally as a judgment of the wickedness of evil in this world. All are evil, and the world is cursed from sin. Any joy and blessing is a gift from a loving God, and pain reminds us we are fallen and we need salvation.

Without getting into the specific Biblical proofs claimed for each view, let me share a brilliant argument I found recently against the Arminian viewpoint. To use my title, if as Arminians assert, God is merely allowing suffering, how does he ultimately avoid responsibility?

Imagine the following situation: I’m out for an evening stroll when I smell something burning. I look around and notice flames in one of the second floor windows of a neighbor’s house. In the other window, I can see a little girl pounding on the glass and can hear her cries for help. I do nothing. I don’t even use my cell phone to call 911. I just stand there watching until the entire house is engulfed in flames and the little girls dies. Now, since I was perfectly capable of saving her, but chose not to, how could anyone with a conscience say that I was not responsible for her death?

From a basic human perspective, there wouldn’t be any doubt. By standing there and doing nothing as that little girl burned to death, I would be just as culpable as if I had started the fire in the first place. And that’s really what we humans care about, isn’t it, deciding who’s to blame in tragic situations?

So, here’s the question I have for you Arminians: If a sovereign, loving, all-powerful God neither ordains nor causes bad things to happen, but simply stands by and allows them to happen, then how does he escape responsibility for the pain and suffering of those involved? (Keep in mind that the “bad things” being talked about here can refer to everything from the stubbing of one’s toe to the eternal damnation of one’s soul.)

I submit that you cannot answer that question without betraying your own Arminian worldview. You cannot answer it without resorting to the same theological gymnastics you accuse Calvinists of performing. And you certainly cannot answer it if you have a problem conceiving of a truly sovereign God who works all things for his ultimate glory.

excerpted from “A Burning Question for Arminians” by The Contemporary Calvinist [HT: Worlds Apart]

Interpreting Augustine: Was He "Reformed"?

~ fundyreformed ~ 8 Comments

augustine_wikipic.jpgA recent post of mine on Augustine spawned a debate concerning Augustine’s views on predestination. Someone asked if I knew what Augustine really believed on grace and free will. He had read a former Reformed Protestant turned Catholic who claimed Augustine actually taught what Catholics affirm. Of course, Calvin and Luther must have been mistaken in their reading of Augustine, then.

I was hesitant to discuss the matter since radical claims made by a single author are often just speculation. Yet my blogging friend John Chitty opened up the standard Catholic encyclopedia and was surprised at what he found. He posted a quote which he says claims Augustine affirmed prescience, that God foresaw all possibilities and elected in such a way as to conform to one set of possibilities which He wanted and simultaneously did not interfere with man’s free will.

I told John I didn’t think that quote exactly asserts that Augustine held to prescience. Upon reading more closely from that Catholic encyclopedia, it is apparent the quote is the Encyclopedia’s not Augustine’s. And they are arguing for a specific interpretation of Augustine. Still though, how could they claim Augustine on this view, if he was so surely Reformed as Protestants would claim?

The Dilemma

I rummaged through several online articles looking for some light on this question. In the introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (only the intro is available online) I found the following assessment which speaks to our problem.

The next chapter, my “Augustine on free will,” is concerned with Augustine’s struggle to understand the nature of the freedom to be found in the will. There is widespread controversy over this part of Augustine’s thought, so much so that it is sometimes hard to believe the participants in the controversy can be reading the same texts of Augustine’s. I argue that part of the problem stems from the fact that contemporary theories about free will have formed the lenses through which scholars have read Augustine’s texts, and that these theories are inadequate to capture his position…. (emphasis added)

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that Augustine was often writing in response to heresies. His statements on free will directed against the Manichees will look different than those directed against Pelagius. Yet each is a response and so is not his full orbed view, necessarily.

“Extreme” on Predestination

So this explains that we are right to be puzzling over this, but it doesn’t help solve our dilemma. However, it is fairly mainstream to understand Augustine as being extreme in his views on predestination. Consider the following.

Even those who most usually agree with his theological standpoint will hardly deny that, while he did much in these writings to vindicate divine truth and to expound the true relations of the divine and human, he also, here as elsewhere, was hurried into extreme expressions as to the absoluteness of divine grace and the extent of human corruption. — 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Though revering Augustine, many theologians have refused to accept his more extreme statements on grace. — Columbia Encyclopedia

While Augustine’s massive influence on Christian thought has mainly been for the good, his teaching on Predestination has been rightly criticized. Although he has always been regarded as the Doctor of Grace, he developed an obsessive concern with the massa peccati and the massa damnata which led to a Predestinarian pessimism which consigned unbaptized infants and others to eternal perdition. — The Dictionary of Saints (as seen at Answers.com)

While Augustine argued for predestination, he seems not to have held to a rigid double predestination view that John Calvin had. He does speak of the non-elect as “predestined to punishment”, yet this is viewed passively [see the section on double predestination here]. The Philosophy Dictionary (as seen at Answers.com) claims Augustine held to “the predestination of the elect” yet “It was left to Calvinism to add the predestination of the damned”.

Augustine’s Unique Approach

In his excellent article (replete with quotes) “Augustine’s Framing of the Predestination Debate”, Greg Johnson points out that Augustine approached the question of predestination differently than most Reformed people do today.

For some modern Augustinians, the doctrine of election is an outgrowth of theology proper, a necessary corollary to the sovereignty of God. The emphasis with this approach falls on an eternal decree from all eternity determining two vehicles through which God’s glory should be displayed, the elect and the reprobate, the fall being decreed as a means toward this end. Thus the question is framed in light of eternity. For others, the question is framed in light of God’s providential outworking in history, God working all things together for the good of His elect, so as to provide the instrumentality necessary to induce faith. Here the question is framed in light of divine providence. But Augustine takes neither of these approaches. The question of predestination is not primarily one of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Rather, Augustine frames the question of predestination in light of the believers experience of grace in light of man’s fall. When Augustine considers the effects of Adam’s sin upon his posterity, the Christian’s experience of grace becomes the integrating point for Augustine’s doctrine of election. Within Augustine’s affectional theology, predestination explains the believer’s change in affections, the grace to love God being given to one and not to another.

This I’m sure makes it more difficult to understand Augustine’s true position, since he is looking at the problem differently than most moderns.

Free Will yet Fettered Affections

Another hindrance to interpreting Augustine is his distinction between free will and liberty. R.C. Sproul expounds on this point in his helpful book Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will.

At times Augustine seems to deny all freedom to the will of fallen man. In The Enchiridion, for example, he writes: “…when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost.”

How can we square this statement with Augustine’s insistence elsewhere that man always has freedom of the will? Some critics of Augustine think that anyone who attempts to resolve this difficulty is on a fool’s errand. They assert that Augustine simply hardened his position in his later years in light of the Pelagian crisis and contradicted his earlier teaching.

To square the problem let us look at two matters. The first is Augustine’s crucial distinction between free will (liberum arbitrium) and liberty (libertas)…. When he speaks of free will, he means the ability to choose without external constraining.

The sinner sins because he chooses to sin, not because he is forced to sin…. He is in bondage to his own sinful influences. To escape this bondage the sinner must be liberated by the grace of God. For Augustine the sinner is both free and in bondage at the same time, but not in the same sense. He is free to act according to his own desires, but his desires are only evil…. This corruption greatly affects the will, but it does not destroy it as a faculty of choosing. (Willing to Believe, pg. 68)

The Triumph of Grace

With man’s will thus enslaved to his desires, God must triumph through grace. God gives the new desires which free man’s will to trust and believe Christ. Greg Johnson provides a helpful quote by Augustine on this point.

We, however, on our side affirm that the human will is so divinely aided in the pursuit of righteousness, that (in addition to man’s being created with a free will, and in addition to the teaching by which he is instructed how he ought to live) he receives the Holy Ghost, by whom there is formed in his mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and unchangeable good which is God.

R.C. Sproul adds this quote which should put the question of whether Augustine is “Reformed” in his beliefs, to rest.

When, therefore, He predestinated us, He foreknew His own work by which He makes us holy and immaculate. He, therefore, worketh the beginning of our belief who worketh all things; because faith itself does not precede that calling…. For He chose us, not because we believed, but that we might believe…. Neither are we called because we believed, but that we may believe; and by that calling which is without repentance it is effected and carried through that we should believe. (Augustine, On the Predestination of the Saints, translated by R.E. Wallis, 1:810-11; quoted in Willing to Believe, pg. 66)

In conclusion, let me stress this is not the definitive answer regarding Augustine. I don’t profess that all of his views are correct on this issue. He may well have held to some form of prescience as he sought to explain and harmonize his views on free will and predestination. Yet he was clearly “Reformed” in his predestination views. I should stress that I do strongly object to many of Augustine’s other positions (for more on that see my previous article). But I am thankful for his influential teaching on predestination. Calvin and Luther would likely say the same.

picture above is Botticelli’s depiction of Augustine from Wikipedia