Category: Book Update

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The Augustinian Dilemma: Predestination or Sacraments?

St. Augustine appears to pursue two distinct (and at times, seemingly contradictory) lines of reasoning regarding the sacraments and predestination.  On the one hand, Augustine asserts that the Church and its sacraments were absolute guarantees of the presence of God’s grace.  On the other hand, the Bishop of Hippo asserted against Pelagius that the grace of God is absolutely efficacious and irresistible.  Taken together this raises the problem: If God’s grace is irresistible and guaranteed by the means of grace, then why is everyone who encounters the means of grace not saved?  In part, Augustine’s answer was to emphasize that the grace of perseverance (gained particularly by prayer) is necessary to stay in a genuine fellowship with the Church and its perpetual offer of grace.  As a result, the role of the Church and its ministry seems then to be relativized by God’s hidden plan of election.  Hence, the question is raised as to whether in the end the external means of grace really provide a definitive guarantee of God’s favor and forgiveness.

The tension between what might be called the sacramentalist and predestinarian tendencies in Augustine’s thought establishes what we will call the “Augustinian Dilemma.”  As Jaroslav Pelikan observes:

“To interpret Augustine as a partisan of either scholastic or Protestant doctrine about grace and the means of grace would resolve the inconsistencies of his thought and language, but it would also resolve the paradox of grace.  The sovereignty of grace, with its inevitable corollary in the doctrine of predestination, could make the means of grace incidental to the achievement of the divine purpose. . . The mediation of grace, with its emphasis on the obligation to attend upon the services and sacraments of the church, could substitute a righteousness based on works of piety for a righteousness based on works of morality.  Each of these possibilities was present in the theology of Augustine, and each has manifested itself in the subsequent history of Augustianism.”[1]

Following a similar line of reasoning to Pelikan’s, it is easy to discern two distinctive trajectories in Augustine’s thought.  In one trajectory, one might argue that if grace is irresistible and the result of God’s predestinating act, the external means of grace become understood as only indirectly connected with the operation of God’s grace.  As a result, the means of grace possess little function other than to point beyond themselves to God’s eternal act of predestination and grace’s attending invisible enactment among the elect.  The means of grace in effect become symbols of what God has already done in eternity.  Many who encounter them are not converted because they are not real mediums of grace.  As we will see below and in future chapters, as a result of this line of reasoning many Western theologians have rejected sacramental realism in favor of sacramental symbolism and spiritualism. 

Following a second possible trajectory, if the sacraments do contain real grace (or, at minimum guarantee the presence of divine grace), then the fact that not all who encounter them are saved is explained by the argument that although sin has damaged free will, it remains operative to a certain extent.  Because human free will remains partially operative, people can decide whether or not to participate in the sacramental life of the Church.  To use an analogy: Although a patient who is ill cannot make themselves well by simply willing it, they can certainly agree to cooperate with the doctor and take medicine that will make them well.  In this perspective, grace is seen not so much as something that unilaterally makes salvation an actuality, but as a possibility to be accepted or rejected by free will.  Free will’s grasping onto the possibilities offered by the means of grace results in the actualization of salvation. 

The problem posed by the Augustinian Dilemma was felt in the Western Church immediately following the Bishop of Hippo’s death.  It must be recognized that although the consensus of the catholic Church was against Pelagius (who was condemned both in local African synods and in the canons of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus),[2] Augustine’s solution to the problem of sin and grace elicited considerable resistance.  Indeed, many attempted to modify Augustine’s position in the centuries following the Pelagian controversy. 

[1] Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 1:306.

[2] B. R. Rees, ed., Pelagius: Life and Letters (Woodbridge, MA: Boydell Press, 1998), 4.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Augustine of Hippo on Sex

St. Augustine’s desire for all earthly things, especially sex, became a problem.  Although it is often said that Augustine’s negative preoccupation with sex was the result of his youthful indiscretions, but this misses the larger reality of his Christian-Platonic worldview.  Indeed, when examined closely, Augustine’s youthful sexual dalliances and his later relationship with his unnamed mistress appear trite by modern standards.  Augustine admits that he lived with his mistress for nearly a decade as a common-law wife to whom he was faithful while raising a son.[1] Moreover, although celibacy was certainly a prized ideal in the early Church, Christian clergy and bishops regularly married in late Antiquity.[2]  That all Christians did not share Augustine’s negative attitude to sex is clearly demonstrated by his late debate with Julian of Eclanum.[3] 

Hence, from a strictly Christian moral standpoint (1 Cor. 7:38) there was no particular reason why marriage and lawful sexual activity was not an option open to Augustine.  Nevertheless, Augustine choose celibacy and insisted on the problematic nature of all sexual desire.  In light of this, it would be more accurate to see Augustine’s negative attitude toward sex as being a result of his desire to be a Christian-Platonic philosopher who sought the eternal over the distraction of the temporal.[4]  In discussing the matter in his Soliloquies (written just before his baptism) Augustine comments that he is committed to giving up sex completely in order to purely pursue the life of the mind.[5]

Hence, within Augustine’s Christian-Platonic framework, much as in the cosmic hierarchy the baser and more material is to be hierarchically ordered to the greater and more spiritual, so to the human heart should be ordered to the eternal and spiritual, and not to enjoyment the temporal.[6]  Indeed, in the pre-lapsarian state, the baser desires did not interfere with the exercise of reason.  Adam and Eve would not have enjoyed or even desired sex, but instead would have engaged in the sex-act purely for the rational purposes of reproduction.[7]  The orderly nature of the cosmos- where the material was subordinate the spiritual- would have been reproduced in the human heart as a microcosm of the macrocosm.  Adam and his bride would have never burned with desire for one another but would have simply called their genitals to attention by an act of will, engaged in reproductive act without pleasure, and deactivated their genitals just as easily.[8] 

Augustine saw his own struggle to quiet his sexual desires and live a life unadulterated life of reason to be symptom of the Fall.  Sinful desire which interferes with reason (concupiscence) is a punishment for sin.[9]  Just creation is in revolt against the creator, so too the desires of the fallen person are at war with the rational and spiritual centers of the self: “In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was the punishment of disobedience in that sin? For what else is man’s misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot?”[10] 

Even without sin, created being is inherently unstable.[11]  Creation comes from nothingness and has a tendency of drifting back into nothingness.[12]  For this reason, humans and angels are in need of grace to prop them up even in their state of integrity.[13]  Only by receiving a special grace can humans and angels not drift back into nothingness through falling into sin.[14]  In Augustine’s thought- much as in later Roman Catholicism- although “grace” (gratia) certainly comes by God’s undeserved favor (i.e., the Pauline charis), it is primarily defined as God’s supernatural assistance and self-communication to his rational creatures in order that they might achieve higher and greater degrees of moral regeneration.[15] 

[1] Augustine, Confessions, 4.2; NPNFa, 1:68-9.

[2] William Philipps, Clerical Celibacy: The Heritage (London: Continuum, 2004), 81-96.

[3] Gerald Bonner, “Pelagianism and Augustine” in Doctrinal Diversity: Varieties of Early Christianity: A Collection of Scholarly Essays, ed. Everett Ferguson (New York: Garland Publishing, 1999), 203-4.

[4] Gary Willis, Augustine’s Confessions: A Biography (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 59-62.

[5] Augustine, Soliloquies, 1.17; NPNFa, 7:543.

[6] Steven Schafer, Marriage, Sex, and Procreation: Contemporary Revisions to Augustine’s Theology of Marriage (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2019), 28-9.

[7] Augustine, City of God, 14.24; NPNFa, 2:280-1.

[8] Augustine, City of God, 14.24; NPNFa, 2:280-1.

[9] Timo Nisula, Augustine and the Functions of Concupiscence (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 258-9.

[10] Augustine, City of God, 14.15; NPNFa, 2:275.

[11] Augustine, City of God, 12.15; NPNFa, 2:235-6.

[12] Paul Blowers, Drama of the Divine Economy: Creator and Creation in Early Christian Theology and Piety (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 298.

[13] Augustine, Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love, 106; NPNFa, 3:271.

[14] Augustine, City of God, 14.2; NPNFa, 2:282.

[15] Augustine, On the Grace of Christ, 1.15-16; NPNFa, 5:223-4.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Creation by Word

Central to the biblical narrative is the creative and redemptive power of the Word of God.  God calls both the old and new creation into existence by means of his efficacious word (creatio per verbum).  This is why Oswald Bayer, in his exposition of Luther’s doctrine of creation has argued that creation itself is a form of justification.[1]  In calling creation into existence, God judicially affirms its status and identity as his good creation.  Moreover, just as Christians are justified and sanctified by the work of the Word and the Spirt (Jn. 3:5, Eph. 5:26), so too creation comes about by way of God speaking his Word in the power of the Spirit: “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps. 33:6).  As Luther observes in his Genesis commentary, this makes creatures created words in analogy to God’s eternal created Word: “By speaking, God created all things and worked through his Word.  All his works are words of God, created by the uncreated Word.”[2] 

Much like human words, God’s Word possesses a number of different dimensions.  Scriptures speak of God’s will and reality as being revealed by his Word.  Indeed, the idea of the Word of God as the “testimony” of God’s previous creative and redemptive acts is of central importance in the Bible (Ps. 71:15-18, 119:46, 2 Tim. 1:8, 1 Jn. 1:1-4, Rev. 12:11).[3]  In John’s Gospel, Jesus is consistently described as the true and eternal Word of God because he reveals and represents the Father (Jn. 14:9).  Luther in his own writings referred to this dimension of the divine Word as “Call-Words” (Heissel-Wort).[4]  Call-words are signifiers that signify states of affairs are already an actuality. 

The second dimension of God’s Word is its efficacious nature.  The word functions in such a way so as not merely to testify to states of affairs that already are actualized (testimony), but to call into existence new realities.  Luther called this phenomenon “Deed-Words” (Thettel-Wort).[5]  God calls creation into existence (Gen. 1), Jesus heals by his word, and the word of the disciples forgives and binds sins because of Jesus’ divine promise and command (Jn. 20).  Human language functions analogously when effective statements are made such as: “I pronounce you man and wife” or “I bestow this office upon you.”  This efficacious quality of language is what is encompassed in what modern speech-act theory has parsed into the categories of “Illocutionary” and “Perlocutionary” speech.[6]

[1] Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology, 95-101.

[2] LW 1:47. See discussion in Bayer’s description of Luther’s position in “Creation as Speech Act.”  Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology, 101-5. 

[3] Gerhard von Rad described this as the theme of “Recitation.”  See Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology: Single Volume Edition, 2 vols. trans. D. M. G. Stalker (Peabody, Mass: Prince Press, 2005). 

[4] David Steinmetz, “Luther and the Two Kingdoms,” in Luther in Context (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1986), 115.

[5] See LW 37:180-88 for Luther on the different dimensions of the word.  On Luther’s position, David Steinmetz writes:“Luther draws a distinction between two kinds of words in order to make clear what the Bible means when it speaks of the Word of God.  There is, of course the Heissel-Wort, the Call-Word, the word which people use when they apply names to things which already exist.  The biblical story of Adam in the garden is a fine example of this.  He names all the biblical creatures.  He does not create them; he only sorts them out and gives them labels.  But there is a second kind of word, the Thettel-Wort or Deed-Word, which not only names but effects what it signifies.  Adam looks around him and says, “There is a cow and an owl and a horse and a mosquito.”  But God looks around him and says, “Let there be light,” and there is light.”  Steinmetz, “Luther and the Two Kingdoms,” 115.

[6] See J. L. Austin, How to do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). 

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).

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Justification by the Word

In spite of this historic division between Roman Catholics and Protestants on the question of justification, there has been an unanimity of focus in both groups on the subjective reception of the righteousness of God.  That is to say, both Roman Catholics and Protestants have historically tended to center their theologies of justification on what steps individuals must take to appropriate the merit of Christ.  Catholics have debated amongst themselves the necessity or lack of necessity of a certain disposition to divine grace as much as Protestants have debated free will and the signs of authentic conversion.1  Within the Protestant tradition, these debates are rather ironic in light of the Magisterial Reformation’s emphasis on the externality and unconditionality of grace. 

Particularly with regard to the historic Protestant tradition, this point has been made forcefully by Philip Cary in his essay: “Why Luther is not quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise.”2  When dealing with justification in the theology of Luther and comparing to the subsequent Protestantism, Cary observes that most Protestants have focus on the reality of faith.  In this, faith and its authenticity are considered the decisive factor.  This gives rise to the soteriological syllogism that Cary outlines thus: “Major Premise:  Whoever believes in Christ is saved.  Minor Premise:  I believe in Christ. Conclusion: I am saved.”3  Of course, the raises the problem of how one knows that they have authentic faith.  Many Protestants have therefore been fixated on discovering secondary signs that confirm the authenticity of faith: a particular kind of conversion experience, good works, wealth, personal holiness or spiritual gifts, and perhaps even snake handling!

When turning to Luther’s theology, Cary observes that the focus shifts from the authenticity of faith to the authenticity of God’s promise made concrete and tangible in the means of grace.  Thus, Cary renders Luther’s soteriological syllogism thus: “Major premise:  Christ told me, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Minor premise:  Christ never lies but only tells the truth.  Conclusion: I am baptized (i.e., I have new life in Christ).”4

As Cary correctly observes, although both Luther and the larger Protestant tradition do certainly agree that one receives justification through faith, there is a subtle, yet highly significant difference between the two understandings of the righteousness of faith.  Whereas most Protestants hold that faith should be reflective regarding its own authenticity, Luther believes in what Cary characterizes as an “unreflective faith,” that is, a faith that does not focus on the question of its own authenticity.5

According to Cary, this unreflective faith is possible for Luther because of his belief in the sacramentality of the word.6  Here Cary echoes the work of the German Luther scholar Oswald Bayer, who claims that it was in fact the sacramentality of the word, and not justification by faith, that was central to the so-called Reformation breakthrough.7  The word of justification is objectified in both in preaching and the sacraments in such a way as to shift the focus from authentic appropriation of God’s grace to the question of the surety of God’s promise.  Since the risen Jesus is genuinely present in the means of grace, he is capable of mediating a direct assurance of his justifying grace for sinners who look for him there.  The tendency of believers to reflect upon and worry about their authenticity of their faith is seen by Luther as a sinful resistance to Jesus’ promise that they have already been accepted.  Therefore, instead of “justification through faith” it might be appropriate to characterize Luther’s position as “justification by the word.”

[1] Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 227-340.

[2] Philip Cary, “Why Luther is Not Quite Protestant: The Logic of Faith in a Sacramental Promise,” Pro Ecclesia 14, no. 4 (2005): 447-486.

[3] Ibid., 450.

[4] Ibid., 451.

[5] Ibid., 450-55.

[6] Ibid., 455-61.

[7]  Oswald Bayer, Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, trans. Thomas Trapp (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2008), 52-3.  idem, Promissio: Geschichte der reformatorischen Wende in Luthers Theologie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 240-1.

From the draft manuscript for Jack D. Kilcrease, Justification by Word (Lexham Press, forthcoming).