Augustine [and Calvin] on the Use of Force [against dissidents]. The fourth century Donatists believed that the church should be a pure communion of true believers who demonstrated the truth of the gospel in their lives. They abhorred the apostasy that had come into the church when Constantine wedded Christianity to paganism in order to unify the empire. Compromising clergy were “evil priests working hand in glove with the kings of the earth, who show that they have no king but Caesar.” To the Donatists, the church was a “small body of saved surrounded by the unregenerate mass.” 12 This is, of course, the biblical view. [Amen!] Augustine, on the other hand, saw the church of his day as a mixture of believers and unbelievers, in which purity and evil should be allowed to exist side by side for the sake of unity. He used the power of the state to compel [Roman] church attendance (as ex-Romanist, protestant reformer] Calvin also would 1,200 years later): “Whoever was not found within the Church was not asked the reason, but was to be corrected and converted....” 13 Calvin followed his mentor Augustine in enforcing church attendance and participation in the sacraments [NT ordnances] by threats (and worse) against the citizens of Geneva. Augustine “identified the Donatists as heretics...who could be subjected to imperial legislation (and force) in exactly the same way as other criminals and misbelievers, including poisoners and pagans.” 14 Frend says of Augustine, “The questing, sensitive youth had become the FATHER OF THE INQUISITION". [MY EMPHASIS] 15 Though he preferred persuasion if possible, Augustine supported military force against those who were rebaptized as believers after conversion to Christ and for other alleged heretics. In his controversy with the Donatists, using a distorted, [WRONGLY EXEGETED], and un-Christian interpretation of Luke:14:23, 16 Augustine declared: Why therefore should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return?... The Lord Himself said, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in....” Wherefore is the power which the Church has received...through the religious character and faith of kings...the instrument by which those who are found in the highways and hedges—that is, in heresies and schisms—are compelled to come in, and let them not find fault with being compelled. 17 Sadly, Calvin put into effect in Geneva the very principles of punishment, coercion, and death that Augustine advocated and that the Roman Church followed consistently for centuries. Henry H. Milman writes: “Augustinianism was worked up into a still more rigid and uncompromising system by the severe intellect of Calvin.” 18 And he justified himself by Augustine’s erroneous interpretation of Luke:14:23. How could any who today hail Calvin as a great exegete accept such abuse of this passage? [A VERY VALID QUESTION, INDEED]. Compel? Isn’t that God’s job through Unconditional Election and Irresistible Grace? Compel those for whom Christ didn’t die and whom God has predestined to eternal torment? This verse refutes Calvinism no matter how it is intepreted! [INSOFAR AS CALVINISM & AUGUSTINIANSIM ON CERTAIN POINTS REFLECT ACTUAL CHRISTIAN ORTHODOXY, SOUND DOCTRINE, AND SCRIPTURAL THEOLOGY, I CONCUR, BUT WHEN THEY OFTEN DO NOT MEET THIS SCRIPTURAL STANDARD, I RENOUNCE THEM BOTH!]
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:34:53 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015