Hi, if you all will "bear" with me, I'll continue to stay off the original
subject ("Bear sacrifice") and do what I love to do, zero in on a statement
in an earlier post and question it. This time it is Adrian's assertion
(below) that Augustine "stongly affirmed free will." I think that may have
been true in his treatise on free will against the Manichaeans, but by the
time he was wading in against Pelagius, I think he took a different tack.
In the latter writings he took the position that the individual will is
oriented either toward good or evil, and if the latter it is so oriented by
the grace of God. Robert Evans (_Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals_, p.
89) sums up Augustine's change in these words:
"What we observe here is an instance of Augustine's shifting away from
an image of man as an autonomous chooser among moral
possibilities to an image of man as inescapably turned either toward or
away from God and as turned toward God only through the power of the divine
grace. The first image was relevant to his anti-Manichaean polemic.
It is one of Augustine's weaknesses as a theologian that these images
are never satisfactorily related to one another."
In fact, in the treatise against the Manichaeans, Augustine took a position
on the human will that is quite congruent with Pelagius' position that
"freedom of the will" means that the will is free to choose either good or
evil. Against Pelagius Augustine took the position stated in my first
paragraph. Pelagius reminded Augustine of his earlier position, which was
not something the latter wanted to be reminded of.
Finally, I want to say that I think the notion of double predestination
is there in Augustine, and was picked up by Acquinas. Calvin took the
notion to its logical consequence.
Bob Schneider
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Teo" <ateo@whitworth.edu>
To: "'george murphy'" <gmurphy@raex.com>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 2:46 PM
Subject: RE: Bear sacrifice
> Hello George,
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: george murphy [mailto:gmurphy@raex.com]
> > Sent: Friday, April 26, 2002 10:22 AM
> > To: Adrian Teo
> > Cc: 'Robert Schneider'; asa@calvin.edu
> > Subject: Re: Bear sacrifice
> > Luther's best known statement about the fallibility
> > of councils comes
> > from the Leipzig debate
> > of 1519, & he was referring especially to the Council of
> > Constance a century
> > earlier where Jan Hus was condemned. Among the articles that
> > that council had
> > condemned & which Luther had in mind was "The universal Holy
> > Church is one, as
> > the number of the elect is one", which is from Augustine.
>
> The actual article that was condemned states:
> 1. There is only one holy universal church, which is the total number of
> those predestined to salvation. It therefore follows that the universal
holy
> church is only one, inasmuch as there is only one number of all those who
> are predestined to salvation.
>
> It was this "strong" notion of predestination that was condemned (because
it
> would mean taht God predestined certain people to damnation), which IMO,
is
> quite different from that of Augustine, who also strongly affirmed free
> will.
>
> > Luther's positive attitude toward I Nicea, I
> > Constantinople, Ephesus & Chalcedon is shown in his
> > considerably later essay
> > "On the Councils and the Church" (LW 41). He does not indeed
> > say that they
> > were infallible but simply that their doctrinal decisions
> > were correct because
> > they were in accord with scripture.
>
> With all due respect, knowing that you are Lutheran, does this statement
not
> seem to suggest that Luther is acting as the final arbiter of what is in
> accord with scripture and what isn't? I ask this question in the most
> respectful manner, and I pray that you will not misundertand me and feel
> offended.
>
> > It is also worth noting that III Constantinople
> > condemned Pope Honorius
> > as a heretic, so it is not easy to maintain the infallibility
> > of both popes and
> > councils.
>
> Pope St. Leo II was the one who condemned Pope Honorius I. But it was for
> *negligence of duty* in the face of the heresy of Sergius. Honorius had
not
> spoken ex cathedra, so infallibility had not been involved.
>
> Blessings,
>
> Adrian.
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