For much of the Church’s history the understanding has been that God’s benign providence is restricted to faithful Jews and those subsequently elected to Christian salvation; the prospects for the rest of humanity being worse than oblivion. That is in stark contrast to what is being presented here, namely that God’s elect people are, under Christ, the agents of restoring and reconciling the world back to God, not the sole beneficiaries.
Humanly speaking it was the Roman African Aurelius Augustinus (AD354-430) and his especially forthright and uncompromising manner in defending the catholic faith against potential heresies together with the extraordinary regard with which he has been held in the Western Church that has resulted in doctrinal errors being incorporated in their understanding of God’s intentions for wider creation and the nature of the human condition.
Pelagius, a contemporary of Augustine, is understood to have taught61 that human nature had not been profoundly wounded by Adam’s sin, so humans were able to fulfil the law without divine aid. Augustine, still more perversely came to affirm that fallen man could 55 Mt24:14
56 Col1:27
57 Acts11:17-18
58 Mt21:43
59 Mt22:1-10
60 Eph1:4-5
61 Because Pelagius came to be denounced as a heretic little of his work remains. We are largely reliant on Augustine’s account of his teaching and manner of life, the latter of which even Augustine acknowledged to be saintly. As Wikipedia affirms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagius), more scholars are coming to the view that this British theologian had been more faithful to the teaching of the earliest fathers than had previously been asserted.
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not so much as do, think or desire any good at all apart from the grace of the gospel. The heretic Manes had propounded a dualistic view of the cosmos impacting upon human anthropology, leading Augustine to insist that Paul could not possibly have been saying that human nature comprised opposing moral influences from flesh and spirit. The millenarians (chiliasts) of his day were carnally minded so the whole system should be repudiated, and man’s future destiny be understood as fulfilled within the spiritual sphere. Though sainted by the Roman Church, Augustine’s insistence that God intended to damn the bulk of humanity was undermined fifty years ago by the Vatican Council’s pronouncements on God’s broader providence regarding His dealings with those outside the Church. Yet the foundational biblical theology underpinning the earlier narrower conceptions has largely remained intact. One has only to contrast Augustine’s grim eschatological montage as depicted in his “City of God” with the relative inclusivity of Vatican II’s “Lumen Gentium” to see how the Spirit has enlightened the Catholic Church through the centuries. But to attain coherence one cannot avoid revisiting many of the theological assumptions that led to Augustine’s treatise, culminating as it does in a cosmic horror story of breath-taking proportions62, albeit one which many Evangelical Christians have come to take for granted.
Augustine placed fidelity to Scripture as he interpreted it above regard for the more philanthropic and open-minded reflections of earlier Fathers who had perceived more than a vestige of God’s image being retained in fallen man’s nature and perceived a role for natural law within a multifaceted economy of grace. “Let us reflect how free from wrath God is toward all His creation… He does good to all but most abundantly to us who have fled for refuge to His compassions through Jesus Christ”. So wrote Clement63, fellow worker with Paul; whilst his namesake Clement of Alexandria (2nd century) enquired “W hat is loveable that is not loved by God; and man has been proved to be loveable, consequently man is loved by God”64. Justin Martyr (2nd century) spoke of God’s benevolence towards those who walk uprightly and in accordance with right reason65; a God who accepts those who imitate His own qualities of temperance, fairness and philanthropy and who exercise their free will in choosing what is pleasing to Him66. Irenaeus, also 2nd century, recognized that God in His providence is present with all “who attend to moral discipline”67 paying heed to the natural precepts of the law by which man can be justified68. These sentiments might also be expressed as responding positively to the light of Christ in the conscience so as to be justified by faith through the merits of Christ’s faithfulness69, for such is the esoteric undercurrent to the teaching of Paul as will shortly be demonstrated.
Apart from being supported by the testimony of those who had been trained by the apostles or their immediate successors, such a benign outworking of divine providence is in accordance with God’s Scripture-defined nature and intentions “I act with faithful love,
justice and uprightness on the earth, and these (qualities) are the things that please Me”70.
62 De Civitate Dei (The City of God) Book XXI http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120121.htm
63 Letter to Corinthians of Clement (c. AD30-AD100) chaps. 19 & 20
64 “The Instructor” Book 1 chap. 3
65 The first apology of Justin chaps. 43 & 46
67 Irenaeus against heresies Book III chap. 25 (para 1)
68 Ibid. Book IV chap. 13 para 1
69 Greek: ek pisteos christou
70 Jer9:24
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It affirms JHWE to be wonderfully kind; He is a philanthropist71 who loves fellow philanthropists as Justin Martyr observed. He delights in those who strive to lead a good life utilizing the light of Christ provided to everyman, especially through the faculty of conscience. The Bishop of Hippo on the other hand vehemently ruled out such a benevolent view of the Creator or the idea that He had any positive regard for human integrity, perceiving all humanity to be a “massa damnata” (condemned crowd). Man, in his natural state, he believed, was instinctively opposed to what is good and never disposed to do what he knew to be right except for selfish reasons. By implication, man was neither capable of genuine compassionate love toward his fellow man72 nor was he in possession of any good unless he had or would be saved by “apprehending the grace of Christ”. He understood that God’s love ( agape) in contrast to love as it is defined in Scripture73 would not extend to making allowance for ignorance or human weakness and by implication that such intolerance would be reflected in the Son of Man’s final judgements. He asserted that God’s vengeance and hatred for Adam’s offspring was such that He held each child personally accountable at birth for the disobedience of their first parents such that infants dying without baptism must endure an eternity of mild sensual pain74 to pay for Adam’s sin and their own innate depravity. Given humanity’s utter dependency on celestial grace, God’s reconciling purposes were confined to those destined to be saved through the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Yet such fortunate, undeserving folk would very much be in the minority: “Many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in order that it may thus be shown what was due to all”75.
This was neither the Ancient Church’s understanding nor that of his Church today:
“Divine providence (shall not) deny the assistance necessary for salvation to those who without any fault of theirs have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and who, not without grace, strive to lead a good life” (Vatican II – Lumen Gentium 16)
Augustine undoubtedly articulated plenty that was thoroughly orthodox and seemingly supremely spiritual, especially regarding the Christian’s inner life of devotion to God and the sanctity of the Eucharist. He had also tirelessly defended the Catholic Church from fatal heresy. Yet he concluded from his interpretation of Scripture that Satan’s Eden offensive had been such a triumph as to result in God punishing the beings that He had wished to unite to Himself by leaving them devoid of any effectual faculties to know Him, seek Him or please Him. Likewise, the eschatology that resulted from it was the antithesis of
“euaggelion” (Good News) apart from for the proportionately few favoured souls who were to be shown undeserved mercy and spared eternal misery. Ascribing such incomprehensible barbarity and unintelligible justice to the One whose kindness, philanthropy and 71 Titus3:4 Greek “philanthropia”
72 Augustine interpreted 1Jn4:7 to mean that only a baptized Christian has the capacity to love since love is from God and no one outside the Catholic Church could be “born of God”. Augustine’s teaching that man is innately incapable of love also affirmed in Anti-Pelagian writings; “On grace and free
73 1Cor13:5
74 Latin: paena sensus . (cf. New Advent: Catholic Encyclopaedia under headings “Unbaptised infants”, “Limbo” and the “Teaching of St Augustine”).
75 (De Civitates Dei XXI chap. 12)
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compassionate nature Christian people are called to imitate76 is a travesty, especially in light of what had been previously understood77 and is being presented here. A diabolical origin for such teaching is suggested by the pleasure and satisfaction the prince of that realm is bound to draw from it, in particular the draconian way the Creator is portrayed with respect to His human creation, only a small proportion of whom are deemed to benefit from His Son’s saving work - a package then presented to the world as “The Good News of God” and subsequently promoted by its most faithful adherents78 as “biblical theology”. This in turn has further exacerbated divisions within the Church as many Christians come instinctively to reject such derisory depictions of God’s providential care for humanity, trusting instead in their own or their particular tradition’s sense of God’s goodness and intelligible justice.
What is invariably lacking on the part of more liberal minded Christians is a substantive delineation of their convictions from Scripture. Such is surely needed to provide at the personal level the peace and assurance that comes from a hope that is solidly grounded, and corporately the ability to present a clear and coherent Good News message to the world.
The problem has been that the black and white, binary theological system that Augustine constructed from his understanding of Scripture and his rejection of any positive role for natural law does not lend itself to tempering; it must either be taken as read or busted wide open. It shall be the latter, for it is flawed at its theological and anthropological foundation (next chapter). Nor can that Father’s assertions concerning humanity’s hatefulness and God’s harshness towards the creatures created in His image be dismissed as the rhetoric of an earlier age, for as already indicated Augustine’s predecessors did not speak in such a way. They had by no means affirmed that man by nature could do
“absolutely no good thing, whether in thought or will, affection or in action”79 except they
“had fled to the grace of Christ”. Likewise in his treatise “On Grace and Free Will” his opening phrase provides a false hope of orthodoxy which is soon dashed: “We have now proved by our former testimonies from Holy Scripture that there is in man a free
determination of will for living rightly and acting rightly; so now, let us see what are the divine testimonies concerning the grace of God without which we are not able to do any
good thing.”80 In other words he affirms as he always does that innately man has no effectual free will whatsoever, merely that he is able to determine what he ought to do.
Thus, like Satan, man can only will, think and practice what is evil except he receive celestial grace, for there is no other grace that he acknowledged, either which is innate or imparted except through the sacraments of the Church.
In terms of God’s justice, Origen for one had perceived the Creator so very differently; “a just and good God in that He confers benefits justly and punishes with kindness; since neither goodness without justice nor justice without goodness can display the 76 Eph5:1
77 Writings of the 2nd and 3rd century Church Fathers alongside that of 4th/5th century Augustine’s can be examined at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/.
78 More especially Evangelical Calvinists. Today, watered down (moderated Calvinist and Arminian) versions of the “Good News” are more often presented, the problem being they move still further away from the biblical realities of predestination and the exclusive, privileged nature of those who shall become the corporate Bride of Christ.
79 “On Rebuke and Grace” – chap. 3
80 On Grace and Free Will” Chap. 7
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real dignity of the divine nature”81. Phrase by phrase this depiction of a genuinely adorable divinity opposes the later Father’s assertions concerning the Creator’s nature and its outworking, recognizing along with most of his peers that God is good even from a reasoned human perspective.
Through a hyper-allegorized reading of the Old Testament Augustine had misread the role of the Law of Moses. He understood in the light of Paul’s teaching that when JHWE
had frequently pleaded with His people of the Old Covenant to “learn to do good, seek justice, plead for widows”82 and the like, He was not directly exhorting them to obedience but primarily wished them to acknowledge their dependence on God’s grace to fulfil the command83. Such novelty subverts the teaching of the prophets: Isaiah made it particularly clear in one passage that JHWE was not impressed when His people demeaned their souls in His presence, hung their heads in shame and put on sackcloth to acknowledge their sins and moral impotence; He wished rather that they would do what was perfectly within their power to do: free the oppressed, share their food with the hungry, shelter the homeless:
“Then your light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed; righteousness will go before you and JHWE’s glory come behind you”84.
Personal righteousness and the establishment of social justice were what JHWE
wished His people to pursue so that as His royal priesthood they could be a light to the
Gentiles. Augustine was also palpably in error when he asserted that the righteous of the Old Testament were saved by “believing in the incarnation, Passion and resurrection of Christ as a future event”85. Whilst Jesus had confirmed that “many prophets and righteous men” had eagerly anticipated His coming86 and that will have included His own disciples, even they had not anticipated or understood the purpose of His death. In the same passage of his writing Augustine insisted that Moses and Abraham were Christians in all but name and had received equivalent gifts of grace; a concept refuted most clearly by Peter87 and the teaching of Hebrews. He condemned those Jews who had been obedient to God’s Law if their obedience were so that they might receive the earthly blessings that had been promised to them, rather than perceiving they related to the promise of their souls going to heaven when they died; moreover that people through the ages who had discerned the principles of God’s law through creed or conscience and endeavoured to put it into practice were exercising worldly pride; asserting their own righteousness rather than “submitting to the righteousness of God” and trusting in His mercy88. But JHWE had made it very clear to the people of the Old Testament how His chosen people were to be judged and it could hardly be further removed from such paradoxy89.
A thousand years later an Augustinian monk Martin Luther (née Luder) drew inspiration from his patriarch’s distorted concept of piety and many of his followers for the 81 Origen de Principiis Book II chap. 5 para3
82 E.g. Is1:17; Zech8:16-17
83 Augustine - Anti-Pelagian writings “On the spirit and letter” chaps. 22 & 27
84 Is58:5-12
85 Augustine: “Against two letters of the Pelagians” Book III chap. 11
86 Mt13:17
87 1Pet1:9-12
88 Augustine - Anti-Pelagian writings “On the spirit and letter” chaps. 22 & 27
89 Ezek18
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last five hundred years have come to regard such paradoxical notions as being at the heart of the gospel. In recent times many academics have come to discern aspects of the misreading of Paul within their various traditions but now it must be systematically exposed so that suitably adept believers may review and verify the matter for themselves both from Scripture and the witness of the Ancient Church.
Such popular scrutiny would have been impracticable before the advent of the internet. Just as the Reformation was facilitated by the printing press so may a reunion be attempted utilizing the technology of the current age. Regrettably, such a process cannot avoid being deeply perturbing as certain chickens come home to roost. For what has been said in the dark will be heard in the daylight; what has been whispered in hidden places will be proclaimed from the housetops. For whilst the outworking of Augustine’s narrow, fatalistic soteriology may have become abhorrent to post-Conciliar Catholic ears, the scriptural interpretations that lay behind it are still evident in the Bible translations utilized by Catholics and in various references within their Catechism, and the man himself is still highly revered. The interrelationship between natural law and Christ’s Passion has been obscured (if indeed it had ever been understood), the human spirit maligned and the Creator’s beneficence defamed, largely through this Catholic Doctor’s influence.
Yet ironically his spectre hangs most heavily these days over those Christian denominations whose forebears chose to depart from the Church he had laboured so hard to protect from schism. For without controversy, it was Augustine’s distinctive teaching on grace and law that formed the catalyst for “Reformed theology” , whilst the gist of his reasoning regarding man’s inability to think or do anything pleasing to God apart from gospel grace continues to hold sway for more traditional Evangelicals who continue to keep faith with the medieval Reformers’ reading of Paul.
It's all gone according to plan
It will have been in accordance with God’s inscrutable plan that Augustine’s intellect, matchless rhetoric90, boundless energy and commitment to the Catholic cause combined to make him such a dominant figure in unifying the formation and systemizing the theology of the Western Church during the most formative period of her history. Erudition such as he possessed can be persuasive indeed, but sound theology, being essentially a study of God, requires first and foremost a contemplative and experiential knowledge of the Subject whose very nature and name is Love, as those within Eastern Orthodoxy have better discerned. Truly, a Bible-based articulation of God’s munificent providence should taste as sweet as honey in the mouth of every child of God, whilst in the gut there will be a bitterness and an urge to be rid of what had historically been understood concerning the harshness of God's justice and the proportionally narrow limits of His salvific intentions91.
The true scope of God’s plan of loving goodness will redound even more to His glory, for it has been achieved in its entirety through the atoning death of the Son He adores, the length, breadth and height of whose love passes all knowledge.
90 Two years before his conversion Augustine had been appointed Professor of Rhetoric at the Imperial Court of Milan
91 Cf. Acts10:34-35; Rev10:10 - koilos often translated as stomach is more likely to refer to the abdominal region (cf. Strong’s Greek 2836)
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As the Church grew and heresies abounded it became essential for doctrine to be systematized, a task in which Augustine contributed heavily, partly in view of his effective prosecution of the key heresies of the period. That is where certain principles especially relating to natural law became obscured as errors were imbedded. None directly affected the Catholic Church’s ability to fulfil her evangelical mission, “merely” her understanding of the fate of those she was unable to embrace, concerning whom Christ’s saving work was deemed to have been ineffectual. Given the so-called Doctor of Grace’s extraordinary impact and esteem throughout Western Christendom it is no wonder that only in the last fifty years has God’s wider plan of reconciliation embracing those outside the Church been accepted by the Roman Church to the point of being formalized at the conciliar level.
Various Catholic thinkers, most notably John Henry Newman were considering and actively debating these issues a hundred or more years earlier and no doubt many before that whose views the Vatican would not have permitted to see the light of day. It is necessary that the enlightened post-Conciliar teaching of the Church be demonstrably underpinned from Scripture if those to whom fidelity to the Book is paramount are to give the matter the consideration it requires.