Augustine (354-430)

Major works

•          City of God

•          On Christian Doctrine

•          On the Trinity (self-proclaimed most important work)

•          Confessions

Importance

•          Antiquity’s greatest theologian and most important church theologian until the Reformation

•          Father of orthodox theology

•          Developed theology as an academic discipline

•          Council of Carthage decided for Augustine’s views on grace and sin and condemned Pelagianism

•          Saved when he heard a child say, “Tolle lege” (“take up and read”)

•          He adopted an amillennial view when Ambrose taught him it was okay to allegorize the OT

Theological/Doctrinal Views

Trinity

•          Held to the eternal subordination of the Son

•          Distinctions within the Trinity are primarily relational

•          Viewed the Holy Spirit as the bond of love

Soteriology

            •          Augustine is first father to seriously address soteriology; discussed areas such as predestination, original sin, and free will

            •          Man’s election is based upon God’s eternal decree of predestination

            •          Faith itself is a gift of God

            •          Avoids extremes of Manicheans and Pelagains—both grace and free will are to be affirmed

            •          Changed views on free will–from free will to free will held captive

            •          Free will is not lost but incapacitated and can be healed by grace

            •          The free will of the individual before salvation is only capable of evil—only after regeneration (operative grace) is free will capable of responding positively to God with the aid of continuing grace (co-operative grace)

            •          God’s prevenient grace prepares man’s will for justification

            •          Grace is intimately connected with the sacrament of baptism (thus no salvation w/o baptism)

            •          His view of justification underwent significant development

            •          He says “to justify” means to “make righteous” not “declare righteous” (this became the view of the Roman Catholic Church); thus righteousness is “inherent” and not “imputed”

            •          Justification is an event and a process

            •          Righteousness is located within man

            •          His view of justification is close to the Greek concept of justification

            •          Merit is important but even this comes from God

            •          By justification, Augustine comes close to understanding the restoration of the entire universe to its original order

            •          The motif of the “love of God” dominates his theology of justification

            •          Faith is adherence to the Word of God

Ecclesiology

•          Said failed brethren should be accepted back into fellowship

•          Said sacraments are not invalid because of a bad administrator (contra Donatists)

Eschatology

•          Known as the father of amillennialism