# Okay, so I'm in this discussion and get asked....



## BlackCalvinist (Sep 21, 2006)

.....how come no major church Father until Augustine taught anything during the 1st 300 years of church history that looked like Calvinism ? They all looked pretty 'Arminian' to me.

Haven't had time to dig.

What's the answer ?


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## ReformedWretch (Sep 21, 2006)

Just a quick search brought this up for me.

Calvinism before Augistine

[Edited on 9-21-2006 by houseparent]


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## Civbert (Sep 21, 2006)

Calvinism is what the New Testament taught. Where there was the books of the NT were present, there was Calvinism.


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## Civbert (Sep 21, 2006)

> _Originally posted by OS_X_
> .....how come no major church Father until Augustine taught anything during the 1st 300 years of church history that looked like Calvinism ? They all looked pretty 'Arminian' to me.
> 
> Haven't had time to dig.
> ...



Predestination and election and God's absolute sovereignty is so clear in the writing of the NT Scriptures that it took about 300 of developing errors until they became heretical and needed to be dealt with. 

I'm sure you can find some earlier false gospels taught in the church - Paul had to deal with them didn't he? But when a church had God's inspired Words as found in Paul's letters and Peter's and Jame's and the rest, and they understood their clear meaning - then they had basically what we call Calvinism. They had the basic doctrines of the reformed faith. 

I suppose one might find more evidence of heretical teaching because those of the true faith already had what they needed in writing in the Scriptures. But the heretics needed to get away from the Scriptures and put their false doctrines into writing as an attempt to counter the authority of the true Scriptures with their false texts. 

That's the problem with historical arguments - there are many reasonable ways to interpret the data that can lead to contradictory conclusions. And so the conclusions will be tentative at best, and speculative at worst.


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## Ravens (Sep 21, 2006)

Ultimately, of course, it doesn't matter. The correct view of predestination and election can be unquestionably proven from Scripture. Sometimes the "first 300 years" question is used as a smokescreen to divert them from having to deal with the issue.

However, often its a sincere question that arises in the minds of people as they start to have a deeper appreciation of history and the institutional, visible church.

I would just point out that very few of the orthodox doctrines that we "take for granted" were settled beyond dispute in the first three centuries of Christianity. I think that's key. I mean, Nicea wasn't until 325, and even then you had a pretty much Arian dominated Western church for (I'm guessing, certainly no expert) a few decades. And the Christological debate really wasn't settled until what, 451 (from memory, correct me if I'm wrong)? And even then the Eastern churches still dealt with those who disagreed with Chalcedon. And after that time, you still had questions of images in worship, the sacraments, etc.

If you're talking to a Roman Catholic, I would ask them why there wasn't a full-fledged "papal" theory in the first three centuries of the church. They'll always produce hints and snippets from Cyprian or something else, but it surely isn't a well-established "doctrine." And the same can be done for predestination. I mean, in their own tradition, the sacraments weren't even "officially" settled until 1225, I think, at the Fourth Lateran Council.

Also, point out that Marian dogma certainly developed like an out-of-control tumor over the centuries, and they certainly don't quibble with that.

And if something so fundamental as the Trinity isn't fully "codified" until three hundred and twenty five years after the church's existence, and the two natures of Christ are being debated for another hundred and fifty years... how is it not incredibly arbitrary to insist that predestination should have had a uniform witness back then?

On a side note, I've always felt that its helpful to establish the "chain" of predestinarian thinkers. Don't allow them to go from Augustine to Luther in their retelling. Make them go from Augustine, some of the bishops that followed after him (Jaroslav Pelikan names a few, I don't remember them off-hand), Gottschalk and the Council of Valence, Aquinas (shades, but still kinda determinist on that issue), Wycliffe, Hus, Tyndale, etc. 

Also, though Polycarp doesn't write anything "systematic", I've always found his references to predestination/election to be very Reformed in Spirit, without equivocations based on foreknowledge and what not. But maybe I'm having a mistaken memory... it's been awhile, and I'm certainly not an elder or professor.


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