# Ante-Nicene Church Fathers and Calvinism?



## The Shepherd's Grace (Jan 27, 2022)

Can anyone educate me or point me to some good reads in regard to early church fathers and Calvinism? I come across a lot of people who claim the early church fathers, except Augustine, did not believe in Calvinism doctrine.

Is this true?


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## RamistThomist (Jan 27, 2022)

There isn't a lot of evidence either way on this question in the ante-Nicene fathers. I know Methodius of Olympus believed in free will. The danger is to read later concepts back into them earliest fathers. Thomas Oden wrote _The Justification Reader _that deals with this.


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## The Shepherd's Grace (Jan 27, 2022)

RamistThomist said:


> There isn't a lot of evidence either way on this question in the ante-Nicene fathers. I know Methodius of Olympus believed in free will. The danger is to read later concepts back into them earliest fathers. Thomas Oden wrote _The Justification Reader _that deals with this.


I had a typo. I corrected it. I meant to say which early church fathers did believe in Calvinism? Many people say none did.


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## Jake (Jan 27, 2022)

I would recommend reading Calvin in the Institutes as he develops many doctrines. He often quotes from the early church fathers and shows how they were instrumental in getting to his theology, or why he departed from them. 

For example, on the doctrine of ecclesiology (as roughly as I remember reading it, not referencing it now) he shows what you can get from the Scriptures and shows how the system devolved from presbyterianism to episcopalianism over time. 

For the doctrine of soteriology, despite your OP, Augustine is actually one of the people he quotes from the most, though he uses other early writers as well.

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## Charles Johnson (Jan 27, 2022)

When I read the Institutes I got the impression that the church fathers were basically Calvinists, and then when I read them I was scandalized to find out they weren't. I love Calvin, but he doesn't do a good job of explaining when the church fathers are actually closer to his opponents, which sometimes happens. The best thing is just to read the fathers. Not everything they wrote, which is too much, but a few works of interest.

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## RamistThomist (Jan 27, 2022)

Charles Johnson said:


> When I read the Institutes I got the impression that the church fathers were basically Calvinists, and then when I read them I was scandalized to find out they weren't. I love Calvin, but he doesn't do a good job of explaining when the church fathers are actually closer to his opponents, which sometimes happens. The best thing is just to read the fathers. Not everything they wrote, which is too much, but a few works of interest.



Exactly. Listen to Charles. He is even more well-read on the Father than I am. The key is not to force the Fathers into a Calvinist or Arminian scheme. Just let them set out their own questions and go from there.

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## Claudiu (Jan 27, 2022)

The Shepherd's Grace said:


> Can anyone educate me or point me to some good reads in regard to early church fathers and Calvinism? I come across a lot of people who claim the early church fathers, except Augustine, did not believe in Calvinism doctrine.
> 
> Is this true?


What do you mean by "Calvinism?" If you are referring to Reformation era teaching on soteriology, you'll be hard-pressed to find that same type of pointed one-for-one correlation from the Reformation formulations as in the confessions to the early church fathers. But that's the case even in the early church itself (you wont find in the first two centuries the later centuries succinct formulations of Nicea and Chalcedon). 

Before reading the early church fathers, I think it might be well to read the landscape which the church found itself in geographically, politically, culturally, etc. The early church was not a few dozen churches connected to the internet having discussions and being in perfect agreement. It's a little more complicated than that. With that in mind, one can read the fathers more fairly.

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## The Shepherd's Grace (Jan 27, 2022)

Claudiu said:


> What do you mean by "Calvinism?" If you are referring to Reformation era teaching on soteriology, you'll be hard-pressed to find that same type of pointed one-for-one correlation from the Reformation formulations as in the confessions to the early church fathers. But that's the case even in the early church itself (you wont find in the first two centuries the later centuries succinct formulations of Nicea and Chalcedon).
> 
> Before reading the early church fathers, I think it might be well to read the landscape which the church found itself in geographically, politically, culturally, etc. The early church was not a few dozen churches connected to the internet having discussions and being in perfect agreement. It's a little more complicated than that. With that in mind, one can read the fathers more fairly.


Thank you for the advice. Off the top of your head we’re there any that believed in unconditional election?


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## Charles Johnson (Jan 27, 2022)

The Shepherd's Grace said:


> Thank you for the advice. Off the top of your head we’re there any that believed in unconditional election?


Plenty believed in unconditional election. Calvinism is quite a bit more than that though. For example, if a man believes that the elect persevere and are elected unconditionally, but that many are regenerated and fall away who are not elect, is that man a Calvinist? He may actually be a Roman Catholic. Or he may be St Augustine. The devil is in the details, as they say.

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## RamistThomist (Jan 27, 2022)

Thomas Aquinas, although not a church father, believed in predestination. His system of grace, though, would be unacceptable to Reformed.

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## Claudiu (Jan 27, 2022)

The Shepherd's Grace said:


> Thank you for the advice. Off the top of your head we’re there any that believed in unconditional election?


The Ante-Nicene era is extremely difficult. It's like asking for polemical or systematic writings from a North Korean church. After Nicea, you see greater clarity in the writings of say Augustine and Fulgentius. Before Nicea, there are traces in Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius.

But finding a trace in the early fathers helps neither side. What they said is not a systematic theology or anything comprehensive enough to point to Calvinism. But neither does it point to Roman Catholic views of merit and grace or Eastern Orthodox theosis.

Again, the burden of looking at the early church writings with our modern categories imposed on them and without the early church context is tricky. They spoke a different language, not just literally, but philosophically/theologically. A modern reading of these ancient texts can simply miss a lot of the nuance and what the authors are saying because we're not picking up on the buzzwords of their time.

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## Tom Hart (Jan 27, 2022)

Might the thread title be edited? I am fairly certain it should read “Ante-Nicene.”

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