Welcome to another episode of FAX.
I'm your host Stephen Boyce, joined by my Co host Pat May.
Good evening, Stephen. Good evening, Pat.
We're back on John Calvin. Well, I I said it's been down
here the entire week between. However, we have not stopped
studying his statements. Yep, it's probably probably a
good thing. We need to let the public know,
don't we? Let the world know how crazy, I
mean, how, how sincere John Calvin was.
No. Shout it from the rooftops.
One of the things that anybody who reads Calvin will note,
though, is that he is fully integrated in Agustin's riding.
Oh yes, that is very common thought amongst Protestant
scholars. Some have estimated there's
really no knowledge of an exact number as far as his institutes
go, that he cites Augustine more than three. 100 times.
Now we don't know the exact number, but it's probably pretty
accurate in how common he references either City of God or
some of his other works. Or makes allusions to to them.
But the reality is people have kind of taken an anachronistic
view and impose Calvinism, which came much, much later on.
Augustine saying, we'll see. They agree, therefore Augustine
was Reformed, or therefore Augustine was.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Well, we've heard people say that we've been entirely
Protestant. Yeah, yeah.
It's insane. And So what we want to do today
is we kind of want to evaluate what was Augustine and then
what? What does that make Calvin?
Because we got to start earlier. I don't like starting with a
later person. I'd like to start earlier.
So if he's quoting him constantly and a lot of
Protestants come along and say, you know, Augustine's a great
proof of reformational theology and that it existed long before
the 16th century, and they're actually recapturing something
that went back to Augustine, our immediate reaction is to go,
man, wow. Augustine held to Protestant
theology. And then you actually start
looking at the two and what we're going to do is some side
by side comparison. Gustin believed in the 30 minute
music show and then the pastor speaking for 45 minutes.
You know, we got criticized in the last episode for talking
about Pastor Jim's outfit. I'm not even kidding.
It's in the. It's in the Dispatch.
I was like, this guy's here. I thought he was being funny,
but he was dead soon. He was dead serious, Yeah.
And so I feel sad. I don't.
I don't even know. We try to have fun in the show.
Apparently when we're trying to have fun, we ruin it for others.
But really, I mean, when we examine the life of Augustine
and his purpose as somebody who was a leader in the Church of
North Africa. And then Augustine, you know,
how he relates to the papacy or how he relates to the teachings
of the church or what he says about the church.
And then you go to Calvin in Geneva and we're supposed to
believe that he's this really good Augustinian.
And then that's what we're going to evaluate.
Is he a real Augustinian? Yeah, and of course, the irony
is that Martin Luther, who came before Calvin, was an
Augustinian monk. True.
And they didn't agree with each other on some things, which is
kind of interesting. Yeah.
And typically where there seems to be some commonality with
reform thinking and Augustine comes down to the doctrines of
grace. Yep, terms like predestination.
Or election. Election is a big one.
Justification is a big discussion.
Where there's going to see some harsh friction, I guess, would
be on subjects of like purgatory or prayers for the dead or
church authority, authority in the church Bishop.
Yeah, much of much of this revolves around the question.
You know, I was listening to a podcast and it was a, it was a
couple of Protestants and a Catholic and an Orthodox
speaking about general topics where there were agreements and
disagreements and the Protestants and I was, I was
this way too. I'll say that I was this way.
What we're saying that the, the most important question that has
to be answered is where will I spend eternity?
And I, you know, Steven, I sat there.
I sat there thinking about that. And Martin Luther was very
similar to that. He he said the most important
question was how can a man be justified, right.
That was the most important question.
I sit there thinking about that. I was like, you know, that was
not the most important question to church fathers.
The most important question. Yeah.
The most important question to church fathers was who's Jesus
and who is Jesus to us? And that's very ironic because
that's the very question that Jesus will ask his disciples.
Who do people say that I am? And that's the question that we
as humans have to actually wrestle with the most.
Who is Jesus to us? Who is he?
And it, it was just interesting thing, you know, and, and again,
that goes back to the reference, the reformers, the magisterial
reformers, Calvin and Luther, they were answering a question,
I think that wasn't being asked. Yeah, I think that's a good
point because I think when you look at the Reformation, they're
enamored with this concept. And then you read that third and
4th and 5th century period, they're they're not debating
these things. Even the major ecumenical
councils are not debating subjects like justification,
sanctification, glorification. They're not, they're, they're
debating the idea of homo ousius, homo Ousius, or was
Jesus, you know, fully God, fully man, partially half the
atochos. These are the subject.
Matter in relation to who Christ is?
Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah.
And, and even in the, in the subjects in North Africa where
you see, you know, Pelagius, for example, who took kind of over
that region, a lot of people became part of Pelagianism.
The subject at hand was the condition of man pre fall, post
fall, like what happened pre what happened post, And so these
are the fights that they were having.
Justification came up in the discussion between Pelagius and,
say, Augustine, but not to the obsessive end that we see in the
Protestant Reformation or to this day.
In the modern Protestant. Absolutely it is.
It is the IT is the end of every sermon.
It is the reason for altar calls, the whole thing.
So when most people come to the Protestant Reformation and they
look at Augustine, they see a lot of similarities, and they
go, oh, there's a connection here.
Yeah. But the question that we're
gonna ask is, did Calvin recover Augustine, Right.
Like, did he recover something that went missing for a long
time or disappeared? And I know people didn't like me
using that word in the last episode.
I'm not saying that's exactly what he said.
I'm saying that you have to come to a conclusion that it is
implied. He never made that claim per SE,
but it must be implied. Something disappeared and then
recovered itself within this reformation where they're
looking at documents. Maybe we don't have whatever you
got to conclude. So here's a couple of common
factors. Let's talk about where the
reformed teaching and Augustine have the same vocabulary.
Now they may have different dictionaries, but they have that
least the same vocabulary. Yeah, yeah.
And I think it's important to note that, by the way, because a
lot of times we talk over each other's heads where we actually
have a different vocabulary with the same dictionary.
And what I mean by that is there's conversations that I
used to have when I debated Jimmy Aiken and Trent Horn with
Samuel Neeson on the subject of justification.
We were saying the same thing by the end of the debate, but boy,
we were using different words. Our definitions came to the same
doctrine, but our terms were different.
There's a reverse of that too, Pat.
A lot of times in Christianity we see the same term.
Right. Yeah.
But there's actually a different definition.
Correct. Yeah, there.
You mean something different with the word you're using.
So we got to be careful. It's like The Princess Bride.
I don't think that word means what you think.
I don't. Think that word means what you
think it means. Inconceivable.
That's the thing, right?
We, we look at these these men in history and we see a word.
Yeah. And we go, oh, we're talking
about the same thing maybe. Or we see a different word and
say we're talking about different things.
Actually, you might be talking about the same thing, but you
use a different term for it. So we need to always look at the
full body of work of a comment or statement or quote and say,
is it representing both terminology and definition?
Yeah. Is the etymology the same here?
Right. These are important questions.
I think they get missed in study.
Yeah, absolutely. We talk over each other and we
we're lost in translation. So let's talk about where they
seem to at least have the same vocab, Right?
Right. Yeah.
Original sin. Yeah, and honestly, the teaching
of the Catholic Church on this is the same pretty much than
Protestant in the sense of Protestant teaching.
Definitely. There's common agreement here,
yeah. There are people that take that
to a new level in the Protestant group where they talk about
total depravity and total inability.
Because of it, they flatten it out.
That goes beyond really what the way the early Church and the
Catholic Church uses it. But but the idea of original sin
is there. Mm hmm.
The debate may come from, like, what do we say about original
sin and original guilt, right? There might be some fight there.
There's some common ground there, but also some fight
there, too. And Augustine certainly taught
the doctrine of original sin. This is the biggest fight
against Pelagius. Correct.
Yeah, that was the that was the really central argument against
Pelagianism. Augustine also taught that grace
must come before faith. Like no one can just conjure up
the ability to go correct. I want to believe.
God, yeah. Grace initiates faith.
Yeah, yeah. Which is the order of the New
Testament, for by grace you are saved through faith.
Through faith and initiating grace is something that God
gives to all of us as human beings in order for us to have
that divine life with Him, to have to participate in that
divine life. But here's where maybe the
definitions are different, though the terminology is the
same. The reformers had some level of
sacramentology, some level, especially the magisterial.
Reform, Yeah. Especially the early reformers,
yeah. But Augustine would not.
All of them, No, no, no, no. But Augustine would take it very
deep in the sense of grace is being given through the
sacraments. Yeah, grace is given through
means, ordinary means and extraordinary means.
Well said. And Augustine knew that concept.
In fact, he uses it often. So, for example, baptism was a
means of grace. Yes, it was efficacious.
So a child being baptized doesn't work in that child,
which will lead them to the ability, by that grace, to
believe. Correct.
Later life and and that's actually, there's no better
expression of grace being initiative towards us from God
than infant baptism, because an infant's not doing anything.
It's it's completely passive, but you see God's grace at work
operably within that child's life, changing that child from
one who is dead to sin and one who is alive to God.
Yes. And with that being said, you
have to think of from this perspective, right?
The Reformers wouldn't dispute that either.
Because Calvin believed you ought to baptize children and
infants, so did Luther. They may not have believed it to
the effects of maybe some of the earlier Apostolic fathers or
some of these patristics, but he certainly believed withholding
baptism for a child is is dangerous.
Dangerous. Yeah, very.
And to re baptize is. Foolish.
It's foolish, Yeah. Because it.
Yeah. They they did not like the
Anabaptist for this. They mocked them.
They were complete. Disrespect.
Yeah, so there were common, there were dissing them, there
were common factors here at least on that Gus and taught
that man cannot be saved in and of himself.
And the Catholic Church believes that.
Yeah, yeah. So there's that.
And and of course, Calvin landed there.
Yeah. He also taught perseverance of
grace. So grace is the means.
And then there's a perseverance that continues in that means.
And that it doesn't come by conjuring up in your own body
and your own want, your own will, because we'd all fail, but
rather there is a gift of perseverance now.
But again, Calvin would teach that that happens for All
Saints, everybody. Augustine would teach that
certain Saints are given that gift, but there are some that
are not, but they can still persevere and be restored.
So he did believe that some were given that gift.
So there is a commonality, but how you define that break that
down. There actually is a difference
between Augustine and Calvin. Yeah, I would say that there's
also the Sacramento consequence for Augustine in that
conversation, Right. So, you know, the fact is
perseverance is not something that we do on our own merit,
right? Why?
Well, because we need the sacraments to help us persevere.
So you need the sacrament of confession, Yes, which is an
additional washing of your sins when you go to seek forgiveness.
And the priest is there in the person of Christ, anima
Christie, to offer you absolution, to hear your sin, to
offer you absolution in the person of Christ, as God is
doing the forgiving part of it. But the priest is speaking on
behalf of God, which is what a priest should do.
Now, Calvin wouldn't be on board with that, correct?
Luther was people. People kind of debate whether
Luther held a three or two or 2 1/2 and the the half or the
third would be the sacrament of confession because he still
believed that was an important act.
Calvin was not as much on board with that as as Luther.
I'm not saying he was a fully against it, but Luther was more
on board with the concept of confession and absolution than
Calvin was. So that would leave the
distinction there with Augustine.
But Augustine also believed a lot of things that Protestants
will not believe and just choose not to.
For example, he defended the authority, the Church.
He appealed to Apostolic succession all the time.
He prayed for the dead and asked prayers from the dead.
He believes some souls undergo purification, post mortem or
purgation. He viewed justification as
transformation Transformation, not just some sort of.
Declaring. I declare legal stance.
The legal? Yeah, the legal juridical and.
We'll get into that, you know, and he held a deeply Sacramento
world view. Can we sit there and count all 7
sacraments from Agustin? I mean, you could, you could
play into it and say that he defined what would become seven.
But he certainly had a larger sacramentology of of the
Christian life then say Calvin or some.
Yeah, well, he speaks his marriage the means of grace.
Yeah. And that's Sacramento,
obviously. Baptism.
Yeah. And, and clearly holy order is
just the mere fact of how he speaks about succession and he
speaks about the the callings of God.
So I mean, you can again, you could formalize it and say, I
mean, he never said these are the seven sacraments of the
Church, but he clearly held to a very Sacramento.
Worldview. Very much so, yeah.
So tonight's question is simple. Did Calvin quote Agustin
accurately while still misusing him?
Because that's the answer. And the question or the answer
to that question is yes, often he does.
The real question is not whether Augustine of Hippo was a
Calvinist. See, that's that's starting in
the wrong part of history. That's the anachronistic problem
here is everybody wants to look at the Reformation and then go
backward instead of starting at Augustine and working.
And work forward. And so the question isn't
whether or not Augustine of Hippo was Calvinist.
That's a 5th century Bishop to fit into a 16th century
category. And that's not it's not fair to
do. The real question is whether
John Calvin was a good Augustinian.
And held to the same faith that that Agustin did.
And So what we'll do is we're going to look at a couple
things. We're going to break this down.
Let's talk about the one thing that they seem to have some
commonality to human ability, human inability, grace, No
grace. Let's start with that.
Let's take a couple of quotes, Augustine of Hippo on Grace and
Free will Chapter 2. He says quote for free will can
do nothing except sin if the way of truth lies hidden.
Now in the Institute's, John Calvin says man is so enslaved
by the yoke of sin that he cannot of his own nature aim at
the good. So both men reject the idea that
fallen man can just simply come to God without aid.
They both seem to agree there. Augustine says the will left to
itself is powerless when the truth is hidden.
Calvin says men are enslaved to this sin and they cannot aim at
the good by their own nature. So they seem to agree here on
what some would call total depravity, but I think there
needs to be a caveat here. What would what would you say we
need to put a caveat here for? Well, I would I would argue that
Augustine is coming from a framework of what the early
fathers before him also taught about the human being which has
created an image of God and is not utterly depraved or totally
depraved. He is stained with the effects
of sin and concupiscence. And So what that means is and,
and this is all in Augustine's second part of that, that
clause, if the way of truth lies hidden for Augustine, what he,
what he understood about that is the way of truth isn't hidden
because the church is proclaiming the truth to the
world. And therefore you can come, you
can come and God can draw you through his grace.
The grace is doing the work of initiating that in in the life
of of the soul of a human being, but you are not hidden from it.
Yeah, there's got to be a part of this where and and I did as a
time, as a time, I don't know how many years ago that was as a
Calvinist. It's been a few years, but as
that Calvinistic worldview, I saw these commonalities and I
go, oh, I agree with that. And then I would use Agustin.
The difference is, is that total depravity and total inability
need to be clarified because if you're asking me is a person
spiritually dead and incapable of obtaining righteousness on
his own, I would say yes. Yeah, and so would the Catholic
Church. Yeah.
But if you're saying can a totally depraved person do good,
well, of course there's totally depraved unsaved people who do
acts of good toward community and children and wife or husband
or whatever the situation is all the time.
In fact, sometimes they outdo people who are Christians.
And so when we talk about the human body, mind will emotion,
yes. We are dead in trespasses and
sin. Yes, we are depraved, but as you
stated, when you look at it, we are made in the image of God.
Therefore we do reflect God. Like thinking and actions and
morality. We are gauged by that morality.
We have the law written in our hearts and we're going to be
held accountable to that. So clearly we can choose to
violate our conscience or obey it, and obeying it is actually
living within the grace God gave us in the conscience.
Because that's the grace of God at work.
And Paul even speaks about that in his letter to the Corinthians
where he talks about this, this idea of being being drawn by
your conscience or your conscience can be seared.
And when your conscience is seared, that means you are in a
place of danger. You're in a place of danger
because your soul's at danger. You can no longer be wooed.
You can no longer be drawn because you're so you're so
enraptured by living in the in the, in the life of sin.
You can't even hear the voice of God.
But for Agustin, that doesn't mean that you're totally
depraved. It just means that you are.
The truth is hidden from you. And the only way you're going to
come out of that is if God does a really incredible work in your
life that wakes you up, which he can.
Yeah, sure. Which he can.
And, and, and again, this is what the church is always
taught. Like they don't teach anything
different than that. There there's this idea that
that people believe the Catholic Church teaches that we can do
our own, we can do good by our own merit.
No, it's all by the grace of God.
It's all by God's power working in and through us, everything we
do. And you spoke about the person
who is not a believer sometimes acts better or treats family
members better than than Christians do.
And that's absolutely right. What the church would say is
that good doesn't do them any good for.
Their It doesn't get to heaven like you're a good husband.
Come on. In right that that's not what's
happening. But it doesn't mean that they're
incapable of doing good. And and we see, we even see
people that were kind of God fears before their conversion.
Look at Cornelius. In the book he was a God Fear.
He was a God fear, but yet not yet regenerate.
Right, he didn't have the Holy Spirit.
So it it took, but what did God do?
He was obeying what grace and light he was given and he sends
the final message he needed to bring that conversion.
God doesn't we want people to to think of salvation as God just
zaps somebody and converts them rather than sometimes God woos
and draws a person through means of grace through the heavens,
declaring the glory of God and somebody studying and and and
pondering or they're, they're thinking about the idea of
morality or they're living into the idea of morals and they go,
wait, if I have moral standard, there must be a superior
authority. And then that leads people.
You are following the light that God has given you, and any light
God has given you to obey is the very.
Grace, The very grace. That God uses because he reigns
on the just and the unjust. Correct.
And then that's where it the way of truth wise hidden.
But it's not hidden if God reveals it.
Correct. So there is a distinction here
though. There is an agreement that man
is stained by original sin. Correct.
Yeah. And incapable of getting to God
independently and on His. Own Yeah, Let me say this again
for everyone who's listening Catholic.
The Catholic Church does not teach that you can save
yourself. No, It just does not.
No. You cannot merit your way in.
You can't do it, so let's talk about there also seems to be
agreement of grace must precede faith, Agustin says on
Predestination of the Saints, chapter 5.
Therefore, both to begin to have faith and to continue in faith
that's perseverance, are gifts of God both to begin and to
continue to. Continue, Calvin.
Right, Calvin says in Institute's 3 1.4 Faith is the
principal work of the Holy. Spirit, in other words, faith,
is a gift. Neither man here believes faith
originated on somebody's own will or merits.
Like oh I, I just conjured this up in my brain today.
No, both play saving faith under the priority of divine grace
intervening on behalf of that person.
Both believe grace precedes. Faith and then faith is also a
gift of God and and you know this, this is for those of our
in our audience who might be of a different denominational
stripe that don't understand this because they haven't
learned reform theology, much less Gothic theology.
But there are those out there who are thinking, I thought
faith is something that I that I'm doing.
And and that's where modern fundamentalism has crept into
teaching that has corrupted this idea that you somehow are
operating in your own way and in your own power in believing.
It's actually God giving you the grace to believe.
And that's what makes faith a gift.
And and Augustine would say predestination is also a gift.
Yes, that's. Also a gift.
And so this is what I'm saying. This is where it gets dangerous
because like, see, see, Augustine's a Calvinist and it's
like as if, you know, he read Calvin's Institutes or
something. We know it's the other way
around. We've got to stop doing this,
Pat. We've got to stop reading
Augustine and saying that's Calvinism.
Yeah, yeah. But that's because that's the
that's the theological framework we often think through.
It's anachronistic, it's wrong, bad, it's not the way you.
Read Calvin and you haven't read the Church Fathers.
You need to do more study. It's not the way to handle this.
So let's talk about that leads into perseverance because he
mentioned it in that quote as well.
He says this gift of God, namely perseverance.
Almost a distinct gift. Very both are grace, he says.
Perseverance unto the end is given only to those who will
live forever with Christ. That's on the gifts of
perseverance. Yeah.
And he's he's actually just, if you read on the gift of
perseverance, he's actually expounding Jesus's in the in the
Gospel where Jesus says he who perseveres to the end will be
saved. Like it's just a complete
exposition of that. Yeah.
And so he's not, it's not an independent statement of like
this is what I think. It's like an exposition of the
text. Yeah, yeah.
But Calvin obviously says something he does Perseverance
is the gift of God. Now again, both men look at the
same doctrine and go. There's a doctrine of
perseverance, grace, perseverance, and man who's
found in bondage in his fallen state.
But Calvin is drawing from an Augustan teaching here.
The fact is, though, Augustan didn't take the absolute
approach that Calvin did on the perseverance.
So Augustan believed that somebody could fail to
persevere, be restored and come back to the faith.
That's right. And that the faith that preceded
that falling away was real. Yeah, it was.
Real faith. You ask a Calvinist today, and I
believe this too. It's like, well, what happens if
they go into this state of sin, which they refuse to call mortal
sin, right. They go in the state of sin.
They live in the state of sin. What is that person pre?
Oh, they were never saved again, right.
They weren't truly, truly elect. That's not Yeah, Augustine would
not say, Oh no, they were never elect to begin with.
That is the danger here, because this idea of perseverance of the
Saints has been interpreted in modern thinking today in
Protestant circles as eternal security.
Yeah, yeah, there's other terms and people and I give it one
save to always. Say, and there are Catholics who
do that. And I want to say to our
Catholic brothers and sisters, stop saying that because there's
a difference between perseverance and once saved,
always saved. That's completely different when
when perseverance has seen the correct.
Way. Yeah, No, I agree with you.
And and and every side falls into pits.
No, I'm furious. Like they do.
Like the Catholics have worded things a certain way where
you're sitting there going. What are you talking about?
Like the catechism doesn't teach.
That that's like, what are you saying?
Right now and and don't. Don't conflate Protestantisms
together When there's all, there's sometimes there's
disagreement about that. When when you and I were Baptist
and we were Southern Baptist, it was once saved, always saved.
And then we read Calvin. We were like, oh, this makes so
much more sense. You know, the the gift of
perseverance means something. And yeah, you know, those who
persevere will be saved. But getting back to the
conversation, Augustine is not in total agreement with Calvin
here. Or should I say, Calvin is not
an agreement with Augustine because again, and this all
revolves around the sacraments, folks, Augustine believed
baptism was absolutely real and efficacious.
An indelible mark left on a person.
And he also believed that the ability to be restored from
mortal sin comes through confession, absolution.
And so here's something to think about too.
And, and by the way, we get lost in the weeds in this, I think
it's unnecessary. I talked about this to a person
the other day. Actually, I was having this
conversation about the state of the person who falls away,
right. If we look at a person, you take
a Calvinist and a Catholic, you put them in a room, they look at
a person's life, They go to an altar.
Once Upon a time, you know, the typical, they made a prayer of
confession, Lord Jesus save me from my sin to the Romans road
or something like that. They get baptized years later,
they go into a state of complete sin.
That is their life. They they get hooked on
something and then they destroy their life.
They ruin it. You look at both people, the
Calvinists, a Catholic, you say, what does that person need?
And both would say grace and faith and salvation.
They would both say that that person needs to be saved, they
need God's grace, they need to exercise faith here.
They need to come back and repentance.
They need forgiveness. Both would say that and then you
would say that the person, that person in that state, what are
they? And there there might not be
dogmatic language on either side here that say they're probably
lost, or they're probably not saved, or they're in a state of
possible damnation. I think the Catholic, let's say
that there's danger. There's danger.
There's possible damnation of the.
And a good Calvinist will say we don't know, but it looks like.
So both would years. Both would put a major doubt in
that person's condition and both would have the same solution.
Yep, where they fight is what was the state of the man.
Before, yeah. Before that, yeah.
And so at the end of the day, does it really matter?
No, because we're. Because you're debating
something that's a matter that's not the necessity.
Anymore, yeah, but it does matter in terms of sacraments,
right? The sacraments are real, Baptism
is real, the Eucharist is real, it's efficacious, it gives, it's
doing something salvific in our lives.
Jesus said unless you eat the flesh and son of man and drink
his blood, you will have no life like you.
That word unless is exactly what it says in the Greek.
You don't have life if you don't have this.
Know this, know that. Right.
And Jesus said about baptism, unless one is born of the Spirit
and water, he will not enter the Kingdom of God.
Again, the same word unless and thank you Apostle John, my
patriot St. who pointed that out in his Gospel because he was
doing a theological exposition of the sacraments in this gospel
word. The fact is, sacraments and
Augustine's mind did real salvific work, and that's
Hebrews by. The way it's Hebrews all the way
through, especially the controversial, you know, if they
were to sin in this way. Yeah, like that whole debate,
everybody, the Armenian, the Calvinist, everybody comes that
passage. At the end of the day, the
solutions would be the same, but we would believe as Catholics
that that that faith that was being exercised at one point
wasn't like or they're putting on a show people, no genuine
sincerity. I know atheists.
I know atheists who are fully persuaded in their atheism, who
made professions of faith, who were baptized, and they were
sincere. And I don't think, and I've
heard people say this to them, to their faces.
You're lying. And it's like.
I I don't. Think they can't?
Do that I've seen. I've seen them preach.
I've watched those people that are atheists preach sermons.
I've studied scripture with them.
I've heard them pray. If that was fake, they weren't
trying to be fake. But here's the I I think they
were sincere. I don't think they were just
putting on a show, like, oh, everybody, look, they're coming.
Lord Jesus, thank you for like, I don't think they were doing
that. I think that they wanted to
serve Jesus. I think they wanted to love God.
Then they got lost in their way. And here's the problem.
The problem is the focus is on the man and not on God.
And it and it usually. Is yeah, because it's, we're
talking about God's grace. When you receive grace, what
happens to us? What happens to you, Stephen?
When you receive grace, you are given divine life, divine
supernatural life. It's a work that happens.
It's Zoe, right? It's it's that word Zoe, divine,
natural, super supernatural life.
That is God's grace. That's what you need.
When you get that you have, you have salvation.
You can also forfeit it. You can also walk away from it.
You can you. There are a lot of things that
you can do to not choose Jesus and choose sin because you like
the sin more. Well, when you do that, you're
putting your soul in danger. Well, that's why the warning
passages and Hebrews are warnings, right?
And for me, it's like, as a Calvinist, I did struggle with
this because it's like, what was he bluffing?
Like what? Like like y'all.
Don't want to know what I used to.
Say, yeah, but I'm just saying like you look at these warning
passages like, well, if they're elect, this isn't even true
anyway, kind of question is that.
So then you have to say, well, it's a hypothetical that
actually could never happen. Exactly.
He's making a point, and that's what I used to say.
I used to teach that it was just a hypothetical.
I I think he was sincere. I don't think he was joking when
he gave these warnings. I don't think he was.
Either so but but again like so, you come to the passages.
You see a lot of overlap in terminology.
Justification is another which again, justification is to be
made righteous or counted as righteous.
There is something to be said here because this is one of the
clearest and most important divides between Calvin and
Augustine, because you would think they're actually in full
agreement. They're actually not because
both speak of grace, both speak of a preceding faith, both speak
in senses some Sacramento language, Both speak about
needing to be justified, but they do not mean the same thing.
This is what I was saying earlier at the program, folks.
Sometimes we have the same definitions with different
words, sometimes with the same words and different definitions.
This is where they're using the same word but a different
definition. For example, Calvin on
justification says he is said to be justified in the sight of
God, who is both reckoned righteous in God's judgement and
has been accepted on account of his righteousness.
Now he buys into the Romans passage pretty deep, which is
not bad, but he limits justification to simply that of
some sort of legal declaration. Yeah.
Augustine was more transformative when he looked at
justification, like we did this all the time and you probably
did the same thing. You got justification,
sanctification, glorification. Yeah, Romans 820. 8 the fathers
that really make a distinction between sanctification and.
Justification. They did not.
They looked at it as one holistic aspect of something.
And this is what I began to realize when I was debating
Trent Horn and and Jimmy Aiken, That time is when we start
actually breaking down that system.
It's like, I don't even know if we're disagreeing here.
We're just calling it something. You were using different
semantics, yeah. But here's the thing. the IT is
there a declaration according to Romans about somebody who's
believed? Are they are they declared and
and given righteousness? Sure.
Yeah, yeah.
But it doesn't end there. Yeah, like again, here's and
here's another. Here's another point for
Protestantism where the word only does not apply.
Y'all can. Y'all can tweet that on.
Sola fide, Is that where you're going with this?
Right, right. Because the fact is, it's not
the only language that's used for justification in the New
Testament. You are 100% right and Romans
doesn't just do. I mean there is an element where
faith alone is being exercised in faith where it's faith not
works. And not the 2nd Judaism temple
works that we're talking about. Paul was arguing against Judaism
and Judaistic works of the Temple.
Because they were lesser forms of the greater fulfillment.
Of the new Covenant. So it's blending.
And by the way, I never understood that, but if you
actually read Galatians and then you go back and you read Romans
and you look at it from the perspective, and Mt Wright was a
big help with this. Yeah, he said.
Read Ephesians before you read Romans, because Ephesians gives
you the right framework. I love Tom Wright for this.
Gives you the right framework on how to read Romans because it
speaks to everything. Ephesians is like a condensed
letter of Romans. Yeah, it is.
It actually very much is, especially even on the subject
of election, the subject of grace of.
Faith of Israel and the Church of Jews and Gentiles, like
everything is in that letter of Ephesians.
It's in Romans. But this was a part of the
warning also in Hebrews is that to go back to the lesser system,
there is no more. Forgiveness of sins.
There no longer remains A sacrifice.
There's nothing there. For you, going backward, you
can't find anything because it was a shadow that has been
fulfilled. To go back to a shadow is to
abandon the. Fulfillment and it was destroyed
when Jesus died on the cross. What happened to the veil of the
temple? It was rent.
They no longer could actually offer sacrifice because the
temple was no longer constructed the way God wanted it to be.
And when the veil was ripped in two, you're talking about not a
piece of curtain. Yeah, you got a little skinny
piece that you sit there and just peel back.
You're talking about something that would take years, roughly
about 35 years to repair, which is interesting on the timing of
the letter of the Hebrews, by the way.
Yeah, I think it's predicting right before the.
Destruction exactly right. Then you have 70 AD with the
destruction of the temple man, we could get in.
We we're going raptures. The point is, is the idea of
faith and works. The Catholic Church does teach
that faith works. Through love.
Yeah, clarity. And so that Paul said it, if I
have faith it can remove mountains and I lack charity.
And what does it profit him? Nothing.
What did Jesus teach?
What did Jesus teach us? In the Gospel?
A man comes to him and says, Lord, what must I do to inherit
eternal life? And Jesus doesn't say, oh,
believe in your good. No, he doesn't even talk about
himself. Didn't even talk about faith.
No, he says love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
mind and strength. That is faith, working and love,
and to love your neighbor as yourself.
And then he has the audacity to say, well, who's my neighbor
exactly? And so Jesus tells him the great
story that we see of the the great, the Good Samaritan and,
and demonstrating what true faith looks like.
It is loving the person. In need, loving the one who made
you, and the loving the others he's made.
We're not saying that faith isn't involved here.
We're just they're saying that faith is worked.
Out through. Love and even a Calvinist will
say that faith without works is dead, but they have no barometer
for gauging that in the practical Christian Sacramento
life. That is the issue that we lacked
in the Calvinistic days that we belong to is, Oh yeah, faith has
to have. Works.
What does it look? Like right, and that's the
problem here. But but really it's about a
legal standing. It's a declaration, all of these
things. Augustine not so much, He says
on his commentary of John, to justify the ungodly is greater
than to create heaven and earth. I want to pause there.
To justify the ungodly is greater than God saying let
there be. Right.
And there it is. Let there be light.
Yeah, yeah. That should make us the depth of
that. That should cause us some
hesitation, some some gravity to think about how much God
intended on saving his fallen people and how he views us.
I mean, for example, this, this is, this is parallel to the
place of the Gospel, you know, did not God clothe the lilies?
Did he not feed the birds? But.
Then. But what did Jesus say then?
About us, About us. Yeah, are you not?
More, more. It's not that God hates the
birds and the lilies, it's that He was willing to go to greater
depths for the Imago day than even the creation that didn't
fall the way the Imago day did. That he created and said was
good. And that creation did not
condemn itself. Man brought condemnation.
Against himself, yeah. He's still not that he's
interested in restoring the creation.
He course he is, we believe. That God Romans 8.
Romans 8. It groans for its redemption,
yeah, but man, he's going to another level to save the Imago
day and. I think the Blessed Mother saw
that too. I think she saw that Steven.
I think she looked at her son and she said what greater thing
can be than this? Greater than the creation of
heaven and earth. Why else would she say when she
learned the news, my soul magnifies the Lord like
magnifies him? So Augustine, later on the
spirit and the letter says, what is it to justify the ungodly
except from the ungodly to make righteous?
So again, this is transformative.
This isn't just a declaration. This is a depth that God was
willing to do something to justify the ungodly is he didn't
he didn't simply just say let there be and then that was it.
He actually moved within creation.
He inspected, he looked at things, he said let these items
happen within it. It just wasn't the heaven and
the earth. He was detailed, He was
articulate. He went through specifics.
I mean you look at the. It was it was love at work.
Oh my goodness, man. Like it's love at.
Work. It wasn't like, let there just
be a tree. Of course we probably imagine
creation happening this way, but if you look at the creation of
the tree, look at the science behind the growth of a tree and
different types of tree. He didn't just create a tree, He
created trees that bore different fruits.
The detail that God. Went through.
So he didn't just give a declaration, he gave a
declaration with important details of definitive importance
that created something that was functionally beautiful, that had
organic movement, that had long lasting lifespan to it.
God is detailed in his justification.
It's not just a yeah, 'cause they, you know, like, and then
that's it. It is something that has been
declared over us, where God is now going to continue to create
in us something beautiful. We have the.
Spirit is at work in us. This is the Spirit was at work
in creation. You are a new creator.
Old things are passed. Exactly.
All things are becoming. You and I are in the preaching
right now like. We're becoming new.
We're just, we just keep going, telling.
People Augustine justification and his idea justification was
God actually actually changing the person.
Yes, that Calvin would agree that to a level, but he believes
in the healing of the soul, the renewing of the will, the
pouring of God's love into our hearts so that we can pour that
love back. The treatment of Romans 5.
It's where he grounds his transformative view of
justification. Making the unjust just This is
not merely a change of a status, it is a change of a condition.
Yeah, it's a change in the person, yes.
So why does that matter? Well, later Protestants debate
constantly. This subject of justification
must mean one thing legally declared righteous.
Don't argue the facts. Augustine does not operate in
that narrow of a framework. When Augustine reads Romans, he
sees grace both forgiving and transforming.
So let's take the important nuance here.
Can Protestants still appeal to Augustine on grace and faith?
Yeah, yeah. Sure.
Can Catholics find stronger continuity with Agustin's view
of infused righteousness and interior renewal?
A very emphatic yes. I would say Hallelujah, yeah,
you know, add a few extra. Adjectives in there, right?
Yeah. But what cannot honestly be
claimed is that Agustin taught fully developed 16th century
forensic justification in the way that that Calvin did.
There's no way you can convince me of that.
Yeah, very different. Views again, notice what
Augustine is saying is happening in justification.
Just want to again for the audience so they understand
where we're coming from. The love of God is being poured
into the heart of a man right of of man.
That is not a courtroom declaration.
That's not, that's not forensics.
That is a transformation of the human soul, of the soul of a
man, of the human being at the person at the level of their
loves. And This is why Agustin teaches
so much about disordered loves, and then how we can have love
ordered in the right way because we are restless until we find
our rest in Him. I love that quote.
I love that quote because it's true.
Yeah. That that is the human nature.
We are discontent. We are unstable.
We don't find any rest. Even when we think we find it,
it's temporary, it wears off, and then we're back to
desperation and. That man, that that's
transformative, man, that is not what Calvin argued.
Big difference here. I think this is, I think that's
a major break between Augustinianism and Calvinism.
Huge break right there. A lot of things can overlap that
one to me. They they, they part like the
Red Sea. They kind of do.
I really do. So this is another issue.
Let's jump into the specifics of the church.
The church that Calvin could not fully follow.
In fact, he didn't follow at all.
We probably need to end with this when they continue the next
week on the rest. Against the Epistle of
Manichaeus, called Fundamentals, we have this quote.
For my part, this is Augusta. And we have a We have a longer
quote later on. Yeah.
For my part, I should not believe the Gospel except as
moved by the authority of the Catholic Church.
By the way, we did an entire episode covering this segment.
If you want to go back, I think it's about 3-4 months ago.
You go back in the archives. We, we actually went through the
letter and talked about this because we, we, you know, no
offense, but Gavin Ortlin made the comment that basically
Gustin would have been considered more Protestant.
And, and this is part of the play.
And now this one isn't responding to Gavin
specifically, but this was one of the letters we went through
to show. That's ridiculous.
There is no there is no cohesive observation or expression of
Agustin that would validate Gavin Orland State.
Not even close, especially in its context.
He notices the authority of the Catholic Church, not merely an
invisible concept. This is the authority that is
not within a single human institution.
This is a God ordained institution.
Now think about what Calvin said.
He said this in his letter to Edward the 6th and we read this
in the last episode. For as regards general
reformation, it is not yet so well established as it would be
wise to look as it has been achieved.
That is the Reformation, and in fact it can be very difficult to
purge in a day. It's such an abyss of the
superstition. Objection, Your Honor.
Courtroom, as there is in the papacy, its root is too deep and
has expanded itself too widely to get soon to the bottom of it.
Again, go back to the last episode, folks.
We're not going to rehash this, so we're going to keep going.
But we demonstrated that it's actually a compliment to the
Catholic Church, not a criticism.
But notice his disdain. This thing is corrupt.
It is deep. It is deeply rooted in
corruption. Abyss of superstition.
That's what his beliefs are, and we talked about how actually he
proved the the longevity and the sustainability of the church.
He proved the validity of the Church.
A. 100% but at the end of the of the day, he didn't mean to do
that. But here's the thing, different
view. Agustin saying that church, I
wouldn't even believe the gospel if they weren't the ones that
gave me the opportunity, privilege and told me to believe
Calvin's like I ain't believing their gospel.
But superstitious papists, not going to happen.
Deeply corrupted, not going to believe that church.
I'm going to believe an external voice outside of that church.
They would not see the church the same way.
No, not at. All Augustine on why he remained
a Catholic, why did he stay within the Roman provisions and
the Roman really cooperation with the Sea of Rome?
Well, he makes a lot of reasons in his anti Manichaean view and
his anti donatus view. He talks about all of it.
He appeals to the Apostolic succession, the validity of the
bishops. There's actually continuity that
goes back to the apostles themselves.
Reformation loses that universality of the church
cooperating together with the sea of Peter and Paul.
Reformation abandoned that antiquity of the church.
Calvin's saying the antiquity of the church is evil and
superstitious and corrupt. He's saying the tradition is
living on. Now, I understand there's a lot
of years between the two. You could say stuff happening
between them. We actually demonstrated that
Calvin can't pinpoint when the actual church was pure because
the people that he quotes as champions rebuke his assertions
as to why those doctrines were superstitious.
We demonstrate that again, if you missed that, please go back
to the last episode. Listen to it.
Common, spread throughout the world.
Same ancestry, same apostles, the continuity of bishops
through that succession in holy orders, and unity against
schismatic groups, which the Reformation was.
So no, Agustin would have kicked out and rebuked and refuted John
Calvin. He would have called him a
schismatic heretic, which I got some Flack for on the last
episode for calling him a schismatic heretic.
That's what Augusta would have called him.
Well, give me that Flack, show me that smoke, because I'm going
to tell you right now he was a schismatic heritage.
Well, he was if if he would have been as harsh on the Donatus and
as harsh as he was on Pelagius. Yeah, what do you think he would
have done with something someone like John Calvin Way?
Worse, because the Donatus at least believed in bishopric, the
Donatus still believed. In Apostolic succession.
A lot of things they saw. The necessity of the Church.
They saw a lot of those things assessing.
They just didn't believe that they could fix it.
They wanted to do their own thing to fix it.
Again, schismatic. Both schismatic, but their
approach was not the same as a reformer.
They did not look at the whole church and go evil, get rid of
them. They're all bad papists.
Get them out of here. That wasn't the donorsus view.
Pelagius did not want to be kicked out of the church.
He was not. Having the decision, he tried
vehemently to try to stay in the.
He wrote to the Pope asking to be restored.
He pleaded to be restored and then the Pope died before there
could be a response, and he pleaded with the second.
Pope, the Pope that came after him.
And the Pope course buckled down and continued his his
declaration. These guys were not content
being outside the church. Calvin, he's fine with being.
Arrogant. In fact, he thinks it's right.
It's terrible. So looks like some strong
supporting quotes here. I'll let you read this one here
against the epistle Manichaeus. We've also already kind of show
this, but read the whole context.
I think this is good. Yeah, so the agreement of
peoples and nations holds me, says John, says Augustine.
The authority begun with miracles, nourished with hope,
increased with love, and strengthened with age, holds me
in the Catholic Church. The succession of priests from
the very sea, That's the Latin AB EPSA sayde of the Apostle
Peter. To him, after his resurrection,
the Lord entrusted the feeding of his sheep right up to the
present. Episcopacy holds me in the
Catholic Church. Finally, the name Catholic holds
me in the Catholic Church. It was not without reason that
this Church alone among so many heresies obtained this name, so
that though all heretics want to be called Catholic, no heretic
would dare point out his own basilica or house to some
stranger who asked where the Catholic Church was to be found.
Woof. First of all I want to note that
he said that he called it the Church alone.
So Soul Ecclesia here. The word alone is.
Used without reason that this Church alone among so many
heretics obtained its name. So he believed in that.
He also talks about these heretics want to be that you
telling me that that's what Calvin wanted to be.
Not at all. Not at all.
Not. A chance they didn't want that
name, they wanted to rid themselves of that name.
That's why they're willing to adopt other names and practices.
So that quote is devastating for simplistic Protestant claims
that come into Oh yeah, you know, Augusta was Protestant.
Augusta was a proto Protestant. He was a Calvinist.
Nope, Nope, Nope. Because he would have, based on
that assertion, removed all Reformed people.
Calvin, Luke, don't matter. Don't matter what category
they're in. What country.
Schism. Schism.
All of them. Which is a word that Paul uses,
by the way. Schism.
So Calvin's definition of the church in the Institute's 41.9.
He says whoever we see the word of God purely preached and
heard. Boy, I feel like I've heard this
in a sermon on a Sunday and the sacraments administered.
According to Christ's institution, there it is, not to
be doubted, a Church of God. Exists.
And when you read it on the surface, you're like, man, that
makes so much more sense. So much sense.
Every heretic in history can say they did that.
Exactly until you read. Historians, Pelagians,
Donatists, Paulicians, all of them could say they did that.
Yep. And yet, what is?
What does Augustine say in the sermon to the Caesareans?
He says outside the Catholic Church, 1 can have everything
except salvation. One can have honor.
One can have sacraments. One can sing Hallelujah.
One can respond Amen. One can hold the gospel. 1 can
have and preach faith in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Spirit, but nowhere except in the Catholic
Church can one find salvation. My goodness.
That goes against everything that Calvin just said in the
Institutes. Yeah, everything.
And then he goes on. Read the other one.
Read the other quote here on the sermon of the Catechumens on the
Creed. Yeah, so the sermon to the
Catechumens on the Creed, Augustine writes this same as
the Holy Church, the one Church, the true Church, the Catholic
Church, fighting against all heresies.
Fight it can be fought down, it cannot.
As for heresies, they went all out of it, like as unprofitable
branches pruned from the vine. But itself.
The Church abides in its root, in its vine, in its charity.
The gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Wow. I love Gustin.
It's a, by the way, I consider myself an Augustinian.
I, I really do. I, I, you know, for years to
call myself a Calvinist, but I was always wanting and needing
was Augustinianism. And I think there is a major
distinction because this is the kind of thinking he talks about
this. As for heresies, they all want
out of it like they want out like an unprofitable branch
prune from the vine, but itself, it abides in a root.
It's vine and then it's charity. He recognizes that even heretics
want they want to be. They want to be included.
And by the way, Luther didn't want to be outside of the
church. Calvin at.
Least not in the beginning. Calvin did like Luther was not
like, yeah, kick me on. I'm fine with that.
He was not fine with that. He eventually got over it.
But I mean, at the same time, he wasn't looking to leave.
He wanted to fix problems. And again, some things needed
fixing as we talked about. But here's here's here's the
point. Even heretics in the past were
able to produce some sort of similarity or terminology or
practice these very similar things, but they operated
outside of the unity and the community with the church.
Church. And not only it's not like
Calvin was fighting like the patriarch of Constantinople.
He was fighting the very head of the churches.
He was fighting the very sea of Peter itself.
Which was the center of unity for the church.
It's. Insane.
It's insane that the thing that these two men were on the same
wavelength or something is incredible that they would
differ on other things too, like the prayers for the dead you
mentioned this last week and last week's episode about
Agustin on his mother Monica. After the death of his mother,
Agustin asked Christian to pray for her said remember thy
handmade Monica at thy altar and that's his confessions.
So he's asking people at the altar of offering the Mass to
pray for his mother. He asked remembrance in
Eucharistic prayer for God does not allow his name to be trifled
with. Now remember this is this is
Calvin. Remember what he said.
Augustine's like pray for my mom at the Mass.
She's dead. Pray for my mom.
Right here's Calvin Edward for God does not allow his name to
be trifled with, mixing up silly frivolities with his holy and
sacred ordinances. Then there are manifest abuses
which cannot be endured, such as prayer for the souls of the
departed, of putting forward to God the intercession of Saints
and prayers, and also joining them in God an invocation.
He's saying the. Opposite.
The very opposite. Of God I guess it's like pray
for my mom at every. Mass and he he doesn't just say
pray for her or or ask for her to be remembered at the altar.
And by the way, we still do that in the Catholic Church today,
that the Mass is given often intentionally for the prayers
of, of of a family member who has, who has departed.
But Augustine also prays explicitly for her sins to be
forgiven after her death. You realize that when he asks
for that, he addresses God directly on Monica's behalf,
asking for mercy. That is not ambiguity.
That's not ambiguous. It's called purgatory.
It's very clear, like what he's asking for.
And, and and this is what this is the practice that Calvin
would call a manifest abuse. This is something he would call
a frivolity. Yeah.
Silliness. Yeah.
And yet Agustin is superstitious.
Yeah, superstitious. Yeah, but but here's the thing,
Augusta, let's let's be careful here.
Augusta does not present like some of the medieval details.
No, he, he's not, He's not. He.
Is, but he does believe.
In purgation he does. He believes in purgation.
He's asking for her sins to be forgiven, for God to remember
her and her death. Yeah, obviously it didn't get
into like Dante or something like that.
I mean, so, so we got to be careful there.
But but Calvin, like most reformers, were willing to throw
the baby out with the bathwater literally.
I mean, you know, they were really willing to say all of
it's superstitious, even if there were teachings of it that
were maybe innovative or thoughts that were just subject
to one author. The church has has obviously
made more clarification on the subject of purgatory.
That's right. And honestly, they haven't even
defined what purgatory looks like.
Then there's purgation, correct. And it's only for the friends of
God and those who die in his friendship.
And so like, at the end of the day, Calvin wouldn't even accept
that Calvin wouldn't accept Benedict the 16th's view of
purgatory or, or or CS Lewis's. He was like, he wouldn't even
accept those. He he would accept none of it.
So let's so let's be careful here.
But Agustin speaks to this in a longer quote, and I'll read it
for us, he says. And it is not impossible that
something of the same kind may take place even after this life.
It is a matter that may be inquired into and either
ascertained or left doubtful whether some believers shall
pass through a kind of purgatorial.
Fire. And in proportion as they have
loved with more or less devotion, the goods that perish
be less or more quickly delivered from it.
This cannot, however, be the case of any of those of whom it
is said that they shall not inherit the Kingdom of God,
unless, after suitable repentance, their sins be
forgiven them. When I say suitable, I mean that
they are not to be unfruitful and almsgiving.
For Holy Scripture lays so much stress on this virtue which it
does, that our Lord tells us beforehand that He will ascribe
no merit to those on His right hand, but they have a bound in
it. No defect to those on His left
hand, but they're wanton when He shall say to the former, Come,
ye blessed of my father inherit the Kingdom, and the latter
depart from me, ye cursed and everlasting fire.
So that is Agustin. That's not the council trend.
That's not the Middle Ages. That's Agustin.
He did believe that there was a potentiality that people who are
in God's favor must still enter some form of purgation.
Yeah. And that those that are damned
to eternal fire, eternal fire do not go through.
Purgation, which again that those who are in friendship of
God enter into that state of purgation.
Those who are not in Christ do not.
They enter into damnation. That's all.
That's what Agustin's saying. But notice, too, if you go back
to that quote, he's making the point that he says whether some
believers shall pass through a kind of purgatorial fire and in
proportion as they have loved with more or less devotion the
goods that perish, be less or more quickly delivered from it.
That is the catechism of the. Church, that's a good thing, not
a bad thing. That's right, it's.
Based on what you did in your life, how you loved, how you had
disordered loves, how you had correctly ordered loves, that's
how you will be cleansed in the purgatorial fire.
And again, he doesn't give details like Oh well that looks
like you'll be in there for X amount.
Of yeah, he's not. He's not giving those kinds.
Of and nor does the church by the way, dude is the church.
That's not medieval, that's not the Council of Trent, that's
Agustin. And by the way, they all quote
from Augustine. When they get into some.
Now let's take our friend Calvin.
Does he agree with Augustine here?
Well, in his Institutes of Christian Religion he says by
purgatory they have constructed a deadly device of Satan which
nullifies the cross of Christ, brings utter contempt upon God's
mercy, and overturns our faith. Later he says, for when
satisfaction has been once for all completed by the death of
Christ, there remains no longer any place for purgatory.
Boy, he doesn't sound like a gust in here.
He also continues, We must hold firmly to this that purgatory is
a pernicious fiction of Satan. Anything he disagrees with the
superstitious, fictitious, fictitious or.
Whatever Satan's work. It's all the devil.
It's, it's like, it's like a waterboy.
Waterboy. Yeah, that foosball's not.
Devil, My Mama, my Mama always said it's of the devil.
Football's of the devil. That's John Calvin.
It's like the waterboy of the 16th century.
It's. Of the devil.
It's of the devil, partners of the devil.
But here's the thing, like everything's about the devil for
this guy. I mean like.
Boy, we're on the road tonight. Forgive us, for we know not what
we are doing. But listen folks, stay with us
here. That's not Agustin's theology to
to imply that that Augustine was some sort of Calvinist because
they say a few things that sound alike or even at times do
overlap, but they are so different on the essentials.
The essentials are different. Justification is different.
The ecclesiology is different. The understanding of purgatory
and purgation. The sacraments.
All of this is different, like even with the Eucharist,
Augustine. Augustine says this in Sermon
227. What you see on the altar having
being sanctified by the Word of God is the body of Christ.
That chalice, or rather what the chalice contains, having being
sanctified by the Word of God, is the blood of Christ.
He also says no one later in expositions of the Psalms, no
one eats that flesh unless he has been first adored.
That's Calvin believed kind of in a more of a pneumatic
approach. He says the sacred mysteries of
the supper consists of two things.
A corporal signs which sets before us Christ visibly, the
spiritual truth which is inwardly exhibited in US.
He also says we confess, therefore in the mystery of the
supper, but the symbols of bread and wine, Christ is truly
exhibited to us. It's more of a spiritual
presence. It's a it's a pneumatic
approach. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's
the best way to say it. And and and that it's almost
like it's because of the Holy Spirit and, and and look, the
church doesn't disagree with. That I mean, yeah, but they
don't limit it. There they don't limit it to
that. Like it just stays in that
state. He affirms real participation in
Christ through the Holy Spirit. When you look at Augustine,
that's what do you believe He affirms participation, so does
Calvin. They don't disagree here on that
point, as you said. But Calvin would not accept like
transubstantiation, right? Of course, he just absolutely
would not accept that, but he has no problem accepting the
idea of Christ is present. And that's why that's why I
don't like the term. Would you believe in real
presence? Well, you can get an Anglican, a
Lutheran, a a Calvinist. And they'll say, yeah, they all
believe. I've heard Gavin Ortland say
that he believes in real presence pneumatic, but it's a
pneumatic. Pneumatic expression and that's
he is more in line with Calvin, but we're not saying the same
thing. We're not.
We're saying that we are taking with body, soul and divinity.
Yeah, yeah, Body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ is
present in the. It's not it's not the same.
So Calvin rejects merely symbolic meals.
So he didn't accept like Zwingli truly didn't agree that, but he
does firm this participation and something spiritual is
happening. But he but he also rejects, like
you said, the elements as being the literal body and blood, the
transformative into the body and blood.
Which is the same it's it's it's Justin Martyr said the same
thing, that this bread and wine is transformed into the body and
blood of Jesus Christ Our. It's right there in the early
pages of our history. So how did Calvin use Agustin?
Well, he usually didn't like make things up out of thin air.
He actually quoted him. He often quoted him accurately
at times or partially accurate, but he also was selective.
He loves Augustine on the subject of grace.
He minimizes Augustine on church authority.
Almost never speaks. He reads Augustine's
justification language through his categories, not really
Augustine's. He does not foreground Augustine
on prayer for the dead. He rejects Augustine's post
mortem purification framework completely.
Doesn't even delve into. It and by the way, folks, if you
have a copy of the City of God, Augustine also talks about the
purgatory. Absolutely.
Calvin also narrows Augustine Sacramento universe badly.
This is the real debate. So no, John Calvin did not
recover Augustine fully. He didn't.
He recognized Augustine, useful for his Reformation, but he
selectively did it. Like you're going to a salad bar
or something. Yeah, but the full Augustine
approach is far more Catholic. Sacramento.
He's historical. He's the doctor of the church.
He's a St. And once you read Augustine for
yourself, you start there, not at Calvin, but there the slogans
start collapsing. The language that you think
overlaps is actually very different.
And the framework starts collapsing.
Again, there there's a problem here for us when we read this in
an anachronistic lens, it it really screws up what you
conclude. So I go back to something I
asked at the beginning of this and I, and I stand on this
question here because when we're talking about this, the question
isn't whether Agustin was a Calvinist.
The question is, was John Calvin a good Augustinian?
And the answer is. No, he.
Was not, he was not a good August, didn't you?
So folks, when we talk about this, we've answered and settled
the matter, we believe just on basics.
And we could have spent, Oh my goodness, Pat, we could have
spent hours breaking down more of this.
But these are fundamental differences on the surface.
It can be approached much less if you dig deeper into the
theology. They are not the same.
Augustine was Catholic. He'd be Catholic today.
Calvin was not Catholic. He would not be Catholic today.
They would not end up in the same church.
And it and that's sad. That's really sad because you
and I, we, we long for people to come to the fullness of the
church, right? Because that's that's where life
is found. And that's what Agustin
believed. Yeah.
Calvin didn't believe that. He believed there was death in
that church. Yeah. 2 completely different.
Folks, we're so glad you joined us if this is your first time
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