hedrick@geneva.rutgers.edu (09/04/89)
I don't find any facts that are dead wrong in CEB's posting, but he does evaluate things differently than I do, and I think differently than many Church historians. It's certainly true that Augustine was a Manichee for a time before he became Christian. It's always hard to know how much this influenced his later beliefs. But my impression from reading Augustine, and also commentaries on him, is that his predestination didn't come from any remnant of Manicheeism. The tone of Augustine's works depends a lot on who he is arguing against (a phenomenon familiar to the net). Among his opponents were, in chronological order, Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians. In his early works, Augustine does his best to disprove the Manicheean position. This involves a number of issues in addition to predestination. However Augustine argues strongly against their tendency to see people as controlled by what he considers to be fate. His position in his early Christian works argues for free will. In "Retractions", he tries to show that he still emphasized grace, but he does admit that his understanding changed somewhat over time. I have seen someone claim that his position in the early works was actually semi-Pelagian. He attributes the change to his study of Romans. Those who read his works are inclined to think that arguing with the Pelagians had a major effect as well. Augustine tends to prefer the term "foreknowledge" to "predestination", particularly in his early works. In his earlier works you can find things which might be taken as consistent with his later full-blown predestinarian view, but the classic "Augustinian" position doesn't really come until his anti-Pelagian works. The point of all of this is that I don't think predestination in Augustine comes from remnants of Manicheeism. His predestination is always intended to buttress his doctrine of grace. It is justified from Paul. It was developed in dialog with the Pelagians. It is of course not surprising that no one had Augustine's ideas before. The orthodox dogmas quite commonly were worked out only in response to challenges from people who the church thought had gotten things wrong. This is true of both the Incarnation and the Trinity. The Augustinian position was developed in response to Pelagianism. Most of the sources I looked at agree that the Albigenses were Manicheean, in the full sense. You say that the Waldensians were borderline. I know that there is evidence that in one area they associated with Albigenses. But I don't know of any evidence that they were generally Manicheean. As far as I know, they were reasonably orthodox Protestants. By the way, in practice the term Arminian tends to be used for a somewhat wider class of positions than just that of Arminius. It is normally used as a non-pejorative replacement for the term "semi-Pelagian". Of course the line between semi-Augustinian and semi-Pelagian is very narrow. These days the term is sometimes used for positions near that line on both sides. The Council of Orange is properly classified as semi-Augustinian, so technically speaking the term Arminian would not apply to it. I would use the term Arminian to describe the sort of generic evangelical Protestantism that is typical of Christians in the U.S., with its emphasis on our response to God's call. I believe the emphasis on free response is sufficient to justify considering this position as being on the semi-Pelagian side of the line.