Augustine and Cassian: God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, pt. 3

Third, Augustine’s view of particular or electing grace stood in opposition to Cassian’s theology of the universal availability of salvation. Augustine said, talking about Romans 9, “Here is mercy and judgment, mercy towards the election which has obtained the righteousness of God, but judgment to the rest which have been blinded.” Augustine believed that everyone who comes to the Father for salvation has first heard from the Father and everyone who does not come has not heard from the Father. Leaning on passages like John 6:37 he says, “For if everyone who has heard from the Father, and has learned, comes, certainly everyone who does not come has not heard from the Father; for if he had heard and learned, he would come.” In other words, if one is to come to the Father they must come by the drawing power of the Spirit, which proceeds from the Father. We are commanded on one hand to come to the Father for salvation while on the other we are told that unless there is a change of nature we will not come on our own accord. This is why there is a clear juxtaposition in Augustine of the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Because we are commanded to come and yet we will never do so apart from a divine sovereign act of God.

Cassian saw God’s love being extended to all in the universal offering of salvation, and could not stand the idea that God’s love could be at all selective. Cassian says, “for if He willeth not that one of His little ones should perish, how can we imagine without grievous blasphemy that He does not generally will all men, but only some instead of all to be saved?” According to Cassian’s theology of God’s love, there was required in it a fair chance for all people. In other words, Cassian thought if God really loved people, He would not give the command of moral perfection and then disable the will, this would be completely unfair and would destroy a true responsibility on man’s part to come to Christ for salvation. If people could turn themselves to God by their own will, then God would only have to see, or forsee, who would create in themselves the spark of faith, and predestine them to eternal life on that basis. Cassian seems to muddle the functions of the faculties of the soul and not demonstrating a clear understanding of the will as a function of the heart within the perimeters of a sovereign God.

The more biblical understanding of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility is better framed by Augustine in his work, On the Predestination of the Saints than by John Cassian in his work, On the Protection of God. Augustine presents a more biblical understanding of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility than does John Cassian in several ways. First, Augustine says that even the beginning of faith is of God’s gift while Cassian believes man is capable, in himself, to choose good. Second, Augustine taught that original sin had left humanity in a state of death and there is a total inability to do anything apart from divine intervention. Cassian held that man must be capable of some motion toward God and he proposes that the will of man was not completely dead to sin. Third, Augustine’s view of particular or electing grace stood in opposition to Cassian’s theology of the universal availability of salvation. Augustine did not deny that fallen man still has a will and that the will is capable of making choices. He argued that fallen man still has a free will but has lost his moral liberty and is in bondage to sin, which is no freedom at all. It is only a work of divine grace that frees the will that is under bondage and makes man able, only, to choose that which is most lovely to him, which at that point, is God and God alone.

Filed under: Augustine, Books, Church History, Doctrine, Heresy, Justification, Man, Salvation, Sovereignty

Augustine and Cassian: God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, pt. 2

Second, Augustine taught that original sin had left humanity in a state of death, not just weakness, but total inability to do anything apart from divine intervention and the giving of life in salvation by God. The will is alive and free, but its only function is to manifest the desire of a corrupt heart in a choice. In other words, the will can not choose that which is outside of its nature to choose. The will is completely and utterly bound to sin, since men always and without exception love the darkness rather than the light. In salvation God, not motivated by anything He saw in sinners – regenerates the hearts of sinners, causing them to love God more than sin, by His Spirit. Augustine says, “This grace, therefore, which is hiddenly bestowed in human hearts by the Divine gift, is rejected by no hard heart, because it is given for the sake of first taking away the hardness of the heart.” Augustine explained that God did this for some and not for others by referring to Romans 9 and saying, “God teaches all men to come to Christ, not because all come, but because none comes in any other way.” These are the doctrines of predestination, divine sovereignty, grace and human responsibility that Cassian felt dismissed an important truth about God and humanity.

For Cassian to hold his theology that man must be capable of some motion toward God, he proposes that the will of man was not completely dead to sin. Instead, the will was only severely weakened as a result of the fall. Aided by God man was capable of generating a small spark of initiative toward the good by the power of his own will, which in turn would produce actual good. Cassian says, “for when God sees in us inclined to will what is good, he meets, guides, and strengthens us.” He goes on to say, “when He sees in us some beginnings of a good will, He at once enlightens it and strengthens it and urges it on towards salvation, increasing that which he Himself implanted or which He sees to have arisen from our own efforts.” For Cassian the grace of God always cooperates with our will for the result of salvation, while Augustine maintains a more biblical view of God’s grace alone for our totally dead and sinful hearts apart from our enslaved will. According to Cassian original sin could not have had the effect that Augustine claimed. Looking to passages in Matthew 13:13, Luke 12:57, 1 Corinthians 3:7 and others, He says, “For we should not hold that God made man such that he can never will or be capable of what is good: or else He has not granted him a free will, if he has suffered him only to will or be capable of evil, but neither to will or be capable of what is good of himself.”

Filed under: Augustine, Books, Church History, Doctrine, Heresy, Justification, Man, Salvation, Sovereignty

Augustine and Cassian: God’s Sovereignty and Human Responsibility, pt. 1

Augustine (November 13, 354 – August 28, 430), was the Bishop of Hippo and a philosopher and theologian. Augustine was one of the most prolific Latin authors, and the list of his works consists of more than a hundred separate titles. They include apologetic works against the heresies of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans and Pelagians. John Cassian (ca. 360 – 435) is a Christian theologian celebrated in both the Western and Eastern Churches for his mystical writings. He is known both as one of the “Scythian monks” and as one of the “Desert Fathers.” Cassian is considered to be the originator of the view that later became known as Semipelagianism. This emphasized the role of free will in that the first steps of salvation is in the power of the individual, without the need for divine grace. He was attempting to describe a “middle way” between Pelagianism, which taught that the will alone was sufficient to live a sinless life, and the view of Augustine, that emphasizes original sin and the absolute need for Grace.

The more biblical understanding of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility is better framed by Augustine in his work, On the Predestination of the Saints than by John Cassian in his work, On the Protection of God. While Augustine approaches this subject merely from a biblical standpoint, Cassian, on the other hand, while using biblical support for his argument, seems to allow his intense devotion of the monastic lifestyle and his view of chastity to create a platform upon which his theology is developed. This creates in Cassian the problem of positioning his theology of divine sovereignty and free will within his discussions of the moral purity or chastity that he desired to attain by living his life in a monastery. Augustine, however, wrote from a perspective outside monasticism and in his treatise, On the Predestination of the Saints, seeks to answer a group of monks who disagreed with him on the topics of predestination, grace and free will.

Augustine presents a more biblical understanding of the relationship between the sovereignty of God and human responsibility than does John Cassian in several ways. First, Augustine says that even the beginning of faith is of God’s gift while Cassian believes man is capable, in himself, to choose good. Second, Augustine taught that original sin had left humanity in a state of death and there is a total inability to do anything apart from divine intervention. Cassian held that man must be capable of some motion toward God and he proposes that the will of man was not completely dead to sin. Third, Augustine’s view of  particular or electing grace stood in opposition to Cassian’s theology of the universal availability of salvation.

First, Augustine begins his work by stating that even the beginning of faith is God’s gift. He said, “Therefore I ought first to show that the faith by which we are Christians is the gift of God.” Leaning on appropriate biblical passages Augustine gives the example of Paul, who vehemently opposed the faith and was “suddenly by a more powerful grace converted to it.” Augustine taught the faith to believe and do as God commanded us to do, in regards to salvation, was completely and totally the gift of God, apart from good merits or foreseen acts in humans. “We are certainly not capable of believing anything as of ourselves, since we cannot do this without thinking; but our sufficiency, by which we begin to believe, is of God” Augustine said. According to Augustine this is completely consistent with the doctrine of human responsibility because at this point of the giving of faith God has changed our nature and we freely come to Christ by the power of the Father.

Cassian, however, held the idea that man has the ability to do, inherent within himself, what God requires, “it is clear that the ability for these is not sufficient for us unless there be also granted to us by the Lord an opportunity of doing what we are capable of.” So faith is found within man and man is freely able to exercise it. While Augustine sees the will inclined to evil and even faith itself must come directly from God, Cassian sees the will as self-moved, self-initiated, and able to incline itself toward good.

Filed under: Augustine, Books, Church History, Doctrine, Heresy, Justification, Man, Salvation, Sovereignty