In his need to malign Augustine’s name (and that of all his spiritual heirs, including Lutherans on this page) with vicious accusations of all sorts of paganism, supposedly “leading Augustine scholar” Ken Wilson resorted in many ways to falsifying facts and records of history to pass off Augustine as originating 1) baptismal view of John 3:5, 2) born guilty of sin view of Psalm 51:5 and 58:3, and 3) faith is a gift of God view of passages such as Ephesians 2:8, Philippians 1:29, and 6:44-45, 65. The first have been dealt with in previous blog posts. The last one would be dealt with here.
Ken Wilson on page 257 of his Augustine’s Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to “Non-free Free Will”wrote :
“Victorinus, Ambrosiaster, Jerome, Cassian, Chrysostom, and others all acknowledged the commonplace of God gifting grace and faith, i.e., salvation did not come through human ‘will’ (cf. John 1.12-13) but by God’s grace. While some accepted the purely philosophical view of ‘the will’ as a part of the anima, none of these Christian leaders acknowledged Epictetus’ ‘evil will/willer.’ By declaring that his uses of Phil 2.13 and Eph 2.8-10 (mistranslation and reinterpretation) proved his initum fidei as God’s gift, Augustine divorced himself (and his followers) from the regula fidei of three centuries. Regarding Christians, he stood alone. Pagans, Gnostics, and Manichaeans agreed with him.”
As pointed out before, in regards to playing the novelty and Gnostic, pagan etc. cards on Augustine on these issues involved being massively disingenuous and also relied on a high level of duplicity to do so. That is specifically true when it comes to John 3:5. Zero fathers denied it referred to baptismal requirement for rebirth and salvation. Zero fathers (not even the early Augustine) saw it as meaning physical birth. So when Wilson claimed the later Augustine altered, reinterpreted and gave novel interpretation of John 3:5 to make it mean baptismal saving reference to replace physical birth, he was being extremely deceptive. And it’s worse when he claimed Augustine got the baptismal view of the text as a result of Gnosticism and Manichæanism. It’s dishonest slander highlighted by the fact the folks that actually were called out for holding to physical birth view of John 3:5 were actually Docetist Gnostics (Hippolytus called them out for that in his Refutation of all Heresies). The fact of the matter outside of Gnostics, Wilson have no one on his side in regards to seeing John 3:5 as physical birth until many centuries well after Augustine. Yet Wilson resorted to playing the novelty and Gnostic and other pagan cards on Augustine even on passages like John 3:5?
Yes, John 3:5 isn’t the topic of this blog post but the point is Wilson wasn’t interested in following historic Christianity but in writing a hit piece, without regards for facts (his twisting of three writings by Origen in a span of two sentences to falsely pass him off as rejecting as “pagan” the view of we are born guilty of sin is three cases all at once in point) to defame Augustine and all his spiritual heirs, no matter his profession to be so in the quote just provided from him. And this proves it.
And in regards to fathers on passages like Ephesians 2:8, where he claimed none of the fathers hold to initial faith is a gift of God, until later Augustine put that into the church in agreement with Gnostics, Manichaeans, and pagans, it’s more of the same.
Wilson on pages 208-209 claimed:
“Jerome (Comm. Eph.1.2.8-10), Victorinus (Ep. P. Eph.1.2.9), and John Chrysostom (Hom. Hen.12; cf. Hom. Thess.4.1-3)- all contemporaries and all believing traditional free choice- had written on Eph 2.8-10 with God ‘gifting faith,’ in a figurative sense, not Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individual’s Eternal Destinies. With these notable Christians expressing ‘faith as God’s gift’ (meaning opportunity for salvation through free choice and wiling good), Augustine was handed invaluable figurative language. It allowed him not only to honestly assert belief in initial faith as God’s hit in 396 CE, but to later (412) transform the figurative to a literal novel theology of Christianized DUPIED, while claiming he remained within the regula fidei.”
Latin father Jerome wrote his commentary on the epistle to the Ephesians in 387 AD (Augustine just converted to the faith the year before) several years before Augustine had his debate with the Manichaean.. This is what he wrote on Ephesians 2:8:
"For that reason, he says, he is going to make clear the overflowing riches of his own grace, according to his kindness in abundance in [these present] times, because it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and not by works. And this faith itself is not from yourselves, but from him that called you. This [he] also [says], lest perhaps the secret thought might creep up on us, that if we have not been saved by our own works (per opera nostra), at any rate we have actually been saved by faith, and in this way by a different method we are saved by ourselves. Accordingly, he [Paul], said in addition, and asserted, that even faith is not by our own will but is God’s gift. Not because he would remove free will from humanity, and according to that [statement] of the Apostle to the Romans, ‘it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs; but by the mercy of God’ (Romans 9); the very freedom of will itself has God as its originator, and all things should refer us back to his kindness, seeing that actually he himself has permitted us to will the good. However, all this was for the situation that someone might boast about himself, and that he was in no way saved by God himself."
Note the church father said, “faith itself is not from yourselves” and “even faith is not by our own will but is God’s gift.” Nowhere did he suggest he was being figurative or he really meant faith is a gift of God meant mere opportunity of salvation where one makes free choice on one’s own. He stated “freedom of the will itself has God as its originator” and “he himself has permitted us to will the good.” That’s not inconsistent with later Augustine’s view of freewill still remains in man but must be assisted by God’s saving grace to give faith as a gift.
Even aside from that, there’s later Jerome’s take on a related verse, John 6:44. Note he was siding with Augustine on that against the Pelagians, putting the lie to the claim that none of the fathers agreed with Augustine’s view of initial faith is a gift of God from such passages, and only pagans, Gnostics and Manichaeans sided with Augustine on that view. He cited John 6:44 (“no one can come unto Me”) in Against the Pelagians:
“Just as the vine branches and shoots immediately decay when they are severed from the parent stem, so all the strength of men fades and perishes, if it be bereft of the help of God. No one, He says, can come unto Me except the Father Who sent Me draw him. When He says, No one can come unto Me, He shatters the pride of free will; because, even if a man will to go to Christ, except that be realized which follows — unless My heavenly Father draw him— desire is to no purpose, and effort is in vain. At the same time it is to be noted that he who is drawn does not run freely, but is led along either because he holds back and is sluggish, or because he is reluctant to go.”
Here’s Greek father Chrysostom Homily 4 on Ephesians written around 400 AD:
"Ver. 8. For by grace, says he have you been saved.
"In order then that the greatness of the benefits bestowed may not raise you too high, observe how he brings you down: by grace you have been saved, says he,
"Through faith;
"Then, that, on the other hand, our free-will be not impaired, he adds also our part in the work, and yet again cancels it, and adds,
"And that not of ourselves.
"Neither is faith, he means, of ourselves. Because had He not come, had He not called us, how had we been able to believe? For how, says he, shall they believe, unless they hear? So that the work of faith itself is not our own.”
In other words, church fathers, with no connection to the Manichaeans, asserted faith is a gift of God even as those normally seen as synergists, such as the Golden-Mouthed Preacher. And, no, he wasn’t being figurative. He said our freewill is not impaired in the passage when Paul said “through faith” but “canceled” freewill when the apostle said “that not of ourselves.”
The most Wilson can claim from what Chrysostom wrote is when cited Romans 10 which asked how can they believe unless they hear. But even that won’t do to make it mean faith is a gift of God mean just opportunity to have faith without God actually giving faith as a gift to save us. The church father even in that context said God called us to faith and “that work of faith is not our own.” That is still consistent with what Chrysostom earlier said which was freewill was “canceled” by Paul in saying faith is not of ourselves but is a gift of God.
No wonder Wilson can only make assertions about fathers like Jerome and Chrysostom being only figurative and really meant opportunity at salvation (without God giving faith as a gift to us) when they said faith is a gift of God, without actually quoting them or interacting with what they wrote. Astounding.
So you have both Latin and Greek fathers in Augustine’s lifetime, but older than him, saying Ephesians 2:8 taught faith is a gift of God to save us. It makes it more ironic what Wilson wrote here on Augustine’s 426 Grace and Freewill ignoring both Greek and Latin on page 184: “He correctly cites thirty scriptures demonstrating free choice, but then he repeats Fortunatus’ Manichaean Divine Unilateral Predetermination of Individual’s Eternal Destinies interpretation of John 6:65 (Grat.10; cf. John 6.44). Ignoring both Greek and Latin, he again proof texts Eph 2.8 for faith as God’s gift (Grat.17).”
This is not to mention Marius Victorinus’ commentary on Philippians, chapter 1, verse 29:
“It was therefore within his purpose that he gave to us the gift of trusting in him. This was an incomparable gift. It is only by faith in him that we are blessed with so great a reward. We are to believe in such a way as to be ready to suffer for him.”
These were all writings well prior to the later Augustine of 412 AD and after. One of them (Victorinus quote) was before Augustine even converted to Christianity. Jerome’s commentary on Ephesians was a year after Augustine’s conversion to Christianity (his later statements on John 6:44, reinforced the point that it is blatantly false that zero church fathers, including Jerome, agreed with Augustine on such texts). None of them had past connections to Manichaeanism and Gnosticism (though Victorinus did dabbled in Platonism, not unusual for early fathers). And they served as proof Augustine didn’t originate (initial) faith is a gift view of Ephesians 2:8, John 6:44 (or 65), and Philippians 1:29 among fathers. Pointing out Augustine argued faith is a gift of God against the Manichaeans (when he was only three years in his Christian faith and thus not mature yet) does not negate these facts that Wilson both covered up and creatively spin away.
Issues exist in Wilson’s approach to even earlier fathers. A case even when he was right on a father holding to freewill, he was still wrong is in regards to what he wrote on page 76 on Origen’s First Principles:
“Origen scoffs at Gnostics and Manichaeans who maintain that God saves via DUPIED by coercing or directly influencing choice.”
Note here he tried to push the Manichaean card by having Origen combatting their views that he said Augustine later adopted. There is just one problem: Origen wrote First Principles in 231 AD, and Manichaeanism did not exist until 242 AD.
In order to push his guilt by Gnosticism point, Wilson wrote on page 270: “He interpreted faith as God’s gift in his Eph 2.8-10 proof text which had already been declared heretical by Clement refuting Basilides’ followers (Strom.2.3-4, 4.11, Quis div. 10).”
Here is what Clement of Alexandria actually wrote in Stromata Book 2, Chapter 3:
“Now the followers of Basilides regard faith as natural, as they also refer it to choice, [representing it] as finding ideas by intellectual comprehension without demonstration; while the followers of Valentinus assign faith to us, the simple, but will have it that knowledge springs up in their own selves (who are saved by nature) through the advantage of a germ of superior excellence, saying that it is as far removed from faith as the spiritual is from the animal. Further, the followers of Basilides say that faith as well as choice is proper according to every interval; and that in consequence of the supramundane selection mundane faith accompanies all nature, and that the free gift of faith is comformable to the hope of each. Faith, then, is no longer the direct result of free choice, if it is a natural advantage.”
His argument wasn’t even against seeing faith is a gift of God as view of Ephesians 2:8. Nor was he even saying to hold to God by divine grace giving faith as a gift of God was heretical. His problem with the heretics in question was that they held to faith as a gift in humans by nature, not by grace. And he was a synergist, no doubt, but Wilson was totally misusing his quote to play the pagan, Gnostic and heresy card on faith is a gift of God view of Ephesians 2:8 (funny, if we go by that approach, even saying faith is a gift of God in figurative sense of that passage as Wilson tried to claim Jerome, Chrysostom and others were saying would make them Gnostics, pagans and heretics as well).
This post is in no way saying fathers in general held to Augustinian monergism. The point is he didn’t, among church fathers, originate or was alone in affirming (initial) faith is a gift view of texts like Ephesians 2:8, John 6:44, and Philippians 1:29.
Here we stand.
No comments:
Post a Comment