|
|
Post by rich klein on Jun 11, 2015 16:24:53 GMT -6
Aurelii Augustini Hipponensis was born in North Africa to a heathen father and Christian mother named Monica on 13th of November, A.D. 354. As a child he was instructed in the Christian faith. He proved to be an avid, but not brilliant, student in all of his studies whatever they were for his entire life.
Augustine took up sexually with the same woman for thirteen years. They had a son, but the son died in his youth. For nine years Augustin was a convert to Manichaeism (a form of Gnosticism). By profession, during this time he was a teacher of rhetoric. Later he moved to Rome where he studied Academic Skepticism. Then he moved to Milan, Italy and came under the spell of Bishop Ambrose and Ambrose’ preaching. This prompted Augustine to begin to study the Scriptures, especially the Epistlatory Literature of the Apostle Paul. Additionally, he engaged in an ardent study of Platonic philosophy. But, all of this was interrupted by his sudden conversion to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at the age of thirty-three. His profession is that he saw the awfulness of sin, sin in his own life, and his need for a Savior. Arising from the ground in a garden he was strolling through with a friend, and in true repentance Augustine was “born again.” The conversion took place in September of the year A.D. 386, in the thirty-third year of his life as a specific result of his application of Romans 13:14. He received baptism from Ambrose in Milan on Easter Sunday, A.D. 387.
Following his conversion Augustine sold his possessions that he had inherited from his father and gave the proceeds to the poor. He lived simply and modestly in every way the rest of his life, including being a near vegetarian. Eleven hundred years later Martin Luther would come out of the Augustinian Order of Monks that gave themselves to study and prayer in monasteries. Augustine died at seventy-six years of age on the 28th of August, A.D. 430.
Augustine served as the Bishop of Hippo, Algeria preaching as many as five times a week, and twice on some days. He founded a seminary, and established orders for women. The man had enormous influence on the final settlement of the Canon. And, he enthusiastically attacked Donatism, Montanism, and Novatianism. Arianism and Pelaginism were anathema to Augustine.
The writings Augustine left us are voluminous. They include exegetical works covering several books of the Bible, apologetic writings, chief of which is his most learned and influential work, The City of God. Adding to this he wrote dogmatics, polemics, ascetic and practical writings, and finally his autobiographical Confessions, written in the forty-sixth year of his life, A.D. 400.
It is an understatement to say that Augustine is certainly one of the greatest theologians of the Christian Church. He is among the chief creators of the Catholic theology, defender of Catholic authority, and the apostle of ecclesiastical imperialism. The other pillar of Catholicism, Thomas Aquinas, borrowed from Augustine and appealed very often to him. Dutch or Hyper Calvinism is an expansion of the Augustinian doctrine of Soteriology.
|
|
|
|
Post by CowboysDad on Jun 12, 2015 23:00:49 GMT -6
This past week I've been reading through B. K. Kuiper's book, The Church in History, and Augustine is fresh on my mind. I know it's not the main point of his summary, but evidently Augustine's dad, Patricius, did become a Christian later in life. The summary notes that Augustine wasn't brilliant, but perhaps it was more that he didn't apply himself, being distracted by worldliness. Personally, I'm comfortable arguing that Augustine was brilliant. His last paragraph is a bit loose for me, particularly, "He is among the chief creators of the Catholic theology." Presumably he means Roman Catholic theology, but it is also fair to say that he was instrumental in formulating orthodox, Catholic Church (meaning the universal church) doctrine in his day that has likewise shaped Protestant beliefs.
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Jun 13, 2015 18:48:24 GMT -6
My guess is that neither of you read what I wrote in the other post in this Church History section! :-) So, I will copy and paste some of it here. It should make for some good interaction, is my guess!
>>Here is Augustine's definition of the phrase - "forgiveness of sins" from the Nicene creed -
Vol 3, St. Augustine, Doctrinal Treatises, On the Creed -
15. “Forgiveness of sins.” Ye have [this article of] the Creed perfectly in you when ye receive Baptism. .... When ye have been baptized, hold fast a good life in the commandments of God, that ye may guard your Baptism even unto the end.... For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided;.... Once for all we have washing in Baptism, every day we have washing in prayer. Only, do not commit those things for which ye must needs be separated from Christ’s body: which be far from you! For those whom ye have seen doing penance, have committed heinous things, either adulteries or some enormous crimes: for these they do penance. Because if theirs had been light sins, to blot out these daily prayer would suffice.
16. In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church; by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance; yet God doth not remit sins but to the baptized. The very sins which He remits first, He remits not but to the baptized. When? when they are baptized....
Add to this that from Nicea on, through the rest of the Roman Catholic denominational ecumenical councils [built on Augustinian theology and allegorical interpretation], they added "anathemas" to various doctrines, which is like saying, "If you do not also believe this doctrine you are unsaved." I do not see how this is also not perverting the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Now I know that there are individuals in that denomination that believe in the true gospel in spite of their denomination's perversion of it. But I firmly believe that Roman Catholicism was/is publicly professing a false gospel in all its ecumenical councils, no matter what other matters they may have been more Scriptural. [To be orthodox is some things but with a false gospel demands our rejection of that denomination from its founding in AD325, and all of its theologians, no matter how "brilliant" they might have been.
Forgive me if I am sounding too aggressive! I am sick of heart how many evangelicals today have compromised the gospel by their actions in relationship to Roman Catholicism. Promoting Roman Catholic History as the church that Christ was building for 1000 years (AD 325 to AD 1325) is a major part of the problem. We would never invite a paedo-baptist "Augustine" today to preach in our pulpits. And most of our brethren in the real Augustine's day probably existed among the groups he preached persecution against, in my view!
|
|
|
|
Post by CowboysDad on Jun 13, 2015 21:25:02 GMT -6
Brian, heart-felt passion and well-crafted posts are always welcome here. Clearly we wouldn't affiliate ourselves heartily with his body of work, but his articulation of some matters has proved helpful to the church.
|
|
|
|
Post by rich klein on Jun 14, 2015 20:38:54 GMT -6
Failure to recognize his influence and some positive contributions is rather ignorant
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Jun 15, 2015 7:05:12 GMT -6
I am open to considering an example of such an important contribution Augustine had made to Christianity. Would you be willing to consider how harmful were his contributions of allegorical interpretation, infant baptism, sacramentalism, ecclesiastical persecution, and of course, I would add divine predeterminism of all things? :-)
What happens however in my view is when we hold up a Roman Catholic theologian as an authority on one thing, people tend to think are identifying him as a trustworthy authority of Christianity.
|
|
|
|
Post by CowboysDad on Jun 15, 2015 11:48:14 GMT -6
I think we are saying largely the same thing. The summary presented above suggested that Augustine was one of the chief creators of the Catholic theology. I am arguing that it would be more helpful to write that he was one of the chief creators of Roman Catholic theology with a tip of the hat to his contributions to orthodox, "Catholic" theology. The two terms are easily confused. Yes, the danger is prevalent that if you praise any point in one man's theology or even praise his brilliance, then you can be thought to embrace him as a whole. Obviously I do not embrace his theology as a whole.
|
|
|
|
Post by Rich Klein on Jun 17, 2015 15:50:25 GMT -6
This one is about babies and bath water:)
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Jun 18, 2015 6:58:03 GMT -6
Augustine might have been a baby Christian, but the water he bathed in was a false gospel and full of unsound doctrine and needed (needs) to be thrown out, though we might still claim Augustine as a brother, but one who has done much harm to the building of the testimony of Christianity.
I am still waiting for the examples of his "good" contributions that even come close to balancing out the harm his influence has done in the things I listed!
|
|
|
|
Post by rich klein on Jun 20, 2015 19:01:29 GMT -6
As we know, the NPN First Series has Volumes One through Nine devoted to materials of Augustine.
His work on The Trinity and The Sermon on the Mount have actually been useful here and there
to this Non-Conformist.
Augustine's commitment to predestination and perseverance make the Dutch Calvinists very happy.
I think Luther and Calvin found his helpful for making their case(s).
Opposition to more heresies then I have time to mention, his high view of inspiration and inerrancy,
his puritanical behavior can all be appreciated to some extent.
My favorite quote of Augustine is when he referred to Pelagius
and his running buddies as: "wind-bags:)"
Recently read Augustine of Hippo by Peter Brown. "Best in the West."
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Jun 23, 2015 13:10:21 GMT -6
Ok... I still think - very harmful were his contributions of allegorical interpretation, infant baptism, sacramentalism, ecclesiastical persecution, and of course, I would add divine predeterminism of all things.
But for the sake of some fun - which interpretation of Rom 8:29 do you like better? -
1. "Therefore God did not elect anyone's works (which God himself will grant) by foreknowledge, but rather by foreknowledge he chose faith, so that he chooses precisely him whom he foreknew would believe in him; and to him he gives the Holy Spirit, so that by doing good works he will as well attain eternal life." or --
2. "The purpose according to which he planned to save by faith alone those whom he had foreknown would believe, and those whom he freely called to salvation he will all the more glorify as they work towards salvation."
These seem the same to me, but one of them is Augustine's and one of them is Pelagius'! Both based election on foreseen faith, it would appear, and both held to works salvation, it would appear!
Augustine On Romans, Society of Biblical Literature, 1982, p. 33. Pelagius's Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Oxford Press, 1993, p. 112.
|
|
|
|
Post by CowboysDad on Sept 5, 2015 22:08:35 GMT -6
Augustine describing his academic brilliance:
"And what did it profit me that, when scarce twenty years old, a book of Aristotle's, entitled The Ten Predicaments, fell into my hands--on whose very name I hung as on something great and divine, when my rhetoric master of Carthage, and others who were esteemed learned, referred to it with cheeks swelling with pride--I read it alone and understood it? And on my conferring with others, who said that with assistance of very able masters--who not only explained it orally, but drew many things in the dust--they scarcely understood it, and could tell me no more about it than I had acquired in reading it by myself alone?....
And what did it profit me that I, the base slave of vile affections, read unaided, and understood all the books that I could get of the so-called liberal arts?....
Whatever was written either on rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or arithmetic, did I, without any great difficulty, and without the teaching of any man, understand, as Thou knowest, O Lord my God, because both quickness of comprehension and acuteness of perception are Thy gifts."
The Confessions of Augutstine, chapter 4
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Sept 11, 2015 13:19:51 GMT -6
Such a self commendation about one's own brilliance makes me wonder if they are really thinking soberly or spiritually about themselves (Rom 12:3). And I wonder what Augustine would say about 1Cor 8:2 - "And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know."
|
|
|
|
Post by CowboysDad on Sept 11, 2015 15:07:28 GMT -6
Perhaps my previous post has left a misleading impression. In context Augustine is speaking of his accomplishments in much the same vein as when Paul writes, "a Hebrew of Hebrews, concerning the law, a Pharisee," etc. Augustine admits that they did not move him closer to the Lord, and his summary is not written with a self-serving commendation as much as a humble acknowledgement (in the spirit of 1 Cor. 8:2) that God had gifted him remarkably, yet Augustine had not always given God credit, thus becoming prideful. Still, a remarkable autobiographical description of his mental acumen. That's my only point. He was a well-trained, gifted student and teacher with a remarkable mind who admittedly got many things wrong but who didn't always apply himself as he should have while young. Chapter 4 of his "Confessions" was so interesting that I read it twice in its entirety.
|
|
|
|
Post by brianwagner on Sept 12, 2015 16:22:22 GMT -6
You said - "He was a well-trained, gifted student and teacher with a remarkable mind who admittedly got many things wrong." He got the gospel wrong! That is evident even in this Book IV where he ascribes salvation to the baptism of an unconscious friend (4.8).
The name of Jesus and the title Christ (not counting "Christian") are not used once in the whole of Book IV. So surprised was I that I searched to see the totals from all 13 Books. He used the name of Jesus only 15 times, with none in six of the thirteen Books. The title Christ (excluding "Christian") was found 44 times, missing only from three books. Book VII had the most occurrences of both.
The point of Paul's rehearsal in a few verses of his past lineage, education and religious piety was so that he could label it all dung (Phil 3:1-14) and to know Christ better. In this context of only 14 verses, Paul mentions the title Christ 7x and the name Jesus 4x. Some difference in testimony between a man with a false gospel and one with the true one, I'm thinking!
|
|
