CLEMENT OF ROME: (Knew Peter and Paul personally. He was the third or fourth bishop of Rome. Tradition has identified him with the Clement who is mentioned in Philippians 4:3) " For no other reason does God punish the sinner either in the present or future world, except because He knows that the sinner was able to conquer but neglected to gain the victory." Recognitions of Clement of Rome. 111. 23, V. 8, IX. 30.
MATHETES: “And do not wonder that a man may become an imitator of God. He can, if he is willing.” – Epistle of Mathetes to Diogenes chap 10. (The author is unknown. It is generally accepted among scholars that he was a disciple of the Apostles – “I do not speak of things strange to me, nor do I aim at anything inconsistent with right reason; but having been a disciple of the Apostles, I am become a teacher of the Gentiles” - Epistle of Mathetes to Diogenes chap 11)
IGNATIUS: (30-107 AD - Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John.) “…and there is set before us life upon our observance [of God's precepts], but death as the result of disobedience, and every one, according to the choice he makes, shall go to his own place, let us flee from death, and make choice of life.” The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians chap 5 (Long Version)
“If any one is truly religious, he is a man of God; but if he is irreligious, he is a man of the devil, made such, not by nature, but by his own choice.” The Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians chap 5 (Long Version)
JUSTIN MARTYR: (110-165 AD) “God’s foreknowledge is intuitive, not active, and is caused by man’s choices.”
And also, “We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered according to the merit of each man's actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be predestined that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions-whatever they may be.... For neither would a man be worthy of reward or praise if he did not of himself choose the good, but was merely created for that end. Likewise, if a man were evil, he would not deserve punishment, since he was not evil of himself, being unable to do anything else than what he was made for.” (Justin First Apology chap. 43)
Justin Martyr in his Second Apology for the Christians addressed to the Roman Senate, in chapter CXLI said, “…God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God…”
ATHENAGORAS: (177 AD) “Just as with men, who have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice, so it is among the angels…Some free agents, you will observe, such as they were created by God, continued in those things for which God had made and over which he had ordained them; but some outraged both the constitution of their nature and the government entrusted to them.” – A Plea for the Christians 24.
TERTULLIAN: (110-165 AD) “…it is not the part of good and solid faith to refer all things to the will of God…as to make us fail to understand that there is something within our power.” Exhortation on Chastity 2.
TATIAN: (110-172 AD) “The Logos…before the creation of men, was the Framer of angels. And each of these two orders of creatures was made free to act as it pleased, not having the nature of good, which again is with God alone, but is brought to perfection in men through their freedom of choice, in order that the bad man may be justly punished…but the just man be deservedly praised…Such is the constitution of things in reference to angels and men.”
Also, “…our free-will has destroyed us…Nothing evil has been created by God; we ourselves have manifested wickedness.” - Address to the Greeks.
IRENAEUS: (120-202 AD) “And in man, as well as in angels, [God] has placed the power of choice…so that those who had yielded obedience might justly posses what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves. On the other hand, they who have not obeyed shall, with justice, be not found in possession of the good, and shall receive condign punishment: for God did kindly bestow on them what was good…but [they] poured contempt on His super-eminent goodness.” Against Heresies 5:37.
Irenaeus also states that God sent His Son “as one who saves by persuasion, not compulsion, for compulsion is no attribute of God.” Epistle to Diognetus 7:4.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: (153-217 AD) “So in no respect is God the author of evil. But since free choice and inclination originate sins…punishments are rightly inflicted.” – Stromata 1:17.
Also, “This was the law from the first, that virtue should be the object of voluntary choice.” – Stromata 7:2.
"A man by himself working and toiling at freedom from sinful desires achieves nothing. But if he plainly shows himself to be very eager and earnest about this, he attains it by the addition of the power of God. God works together with willing souls. But if the person abandons his eagerness, the spirit from God is also restrained. To save the unwilling is the act of one using compulsion; but to save the willing, that of one showing grace." Salvation of the Rich Man chap. 21
"Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and avoidance, if evil is involuntary." Miscellanies bk. 1, chap. 17
ORIGEN: (185-255 AD) In response to a claim (much like the Calvinist doctrine of God’s exhaustive sovereignty) that “whatever happens in the universe, whether it be the work of God, of angels [or] of other demons…is regulated by the law of the Most High God,” Origen says, “This is…incorrect; for we cannot say that transgressors follow the law of God when they transgress; and Scripture declares that it is not only wicked men who are transgressors, but also wicked demons and wicked angels…When we say that ‘the providence of God regulates all things,’ we utter a great truth if we attribute to that providence nothing but what is just and right. But if we ascribe to the providence of God all things whatsoever, however unjust they may be, then it is no longer true that the providence of God regulates all things.” Against Celsus 7:68.
"He makes Himself known to those who, after doing all that their powers will allow, confess that they need help from Him." Against Celsus bk. 7, chap. 42
ARCHELAUS: (250-300 AD) "All the creatures that God made, He made very good. And He gave to every individual the sense of free will, by which standard He also instituted the law of judgment.... And certainly whoever will, may keep the commandments. Whoever despises them and turns aside to what is contrary to them, shall yet without doubt have to face this law of judgment.... There can be no doubt that every individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he pleases." Disputation With Manes 32, 33
METHODIUS: (260-315 AD) "Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils. " The Banquet of the Ten Virgins discourse 8, chap. 16
These are but a few of many, many passages from the ante-Nicene fathers that argue against the predeterministic interpretation of Romans 9. One could reasonably say that there was a general consensus that man’s free will was a central component to orthodox theology. But suffice to say that there is no evidence that anyone interpreted Romans 9 to support any kind of double predestination or exhaustive sovereignty view before Augustine in the fourth century.
Greg Boyd says, "This in part explains why Calvin cannot cite ante-Nicene fathers against his libertarian opponents (e.g. Pighuis). Hence, when Calvin debates Pighuis on the freedom of the will, he cites Augustine abundantly, but no early church fathers are cited."
Certain Gnostics and the Manicheans held to what we would now call a Calvinistic view, but Calvin couldn’t appeal to them, could he? And remember that Augustine was a Manichean before he was a Christian. The Gnostics and Manicheans owe more to Plato and Aristotle than they do to Moses or Paul. Not coincidently, Augustine is the theologian most responsible for the integration of Plato with Christianity. Notice the quote from Archelaus given above. Notice that he was in dispute with Manes, the founder of the Manicheans. Manes believed in Fate, i.e. there is no such thing as free will. The early church Fathers vehemently opposed this teaching. They failed. It came into the church - at least the western church - thanks to Augustine who was a Neo-Platonist and a Manichean before his conversion to Christianity. In my opinion, Augustine never REALLY "converted" from his Platonic/Manichean paradigm. He retained many aspects of that way of thinking, and Christianity has been tainted with it ever since. Augustinian teachings on predestination and the foreknowledge of God are Manichean in nature, and are not what was taught by Jesus or the apostles. Martin Luther was an Augustinian monk. Even its adherents have characterized the Reformation as a revival of Augustinianism. Nowhere in the early church fathers can we document the Manichean-like view on predestination prior to Augustine. Subsequent to Augustine it becomes easily documented and comes to it's logical development and conclusion in Luther and Calvin.
Indeed, in Book 2, chapter 2, section 4 of Calvin’s Institutes, Calvin explicitly says that ALL but Augustine among the early Church Fathers were WRONG in their pronouncements on the subject of the freedom of the will. (Quote) “Moreover although the Greek Fathers, above others, and especially Chrysostom, have exceeded due bounds in extolling the powers of the human will, yet all ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating, and contradictory on this subject, that no certainty can be obtained from their writings.” (Close quote, emphasis mine) Calvin is just plain wrong here. The ante-Nicene fathers are VERY clear (see quotes above). So Calvin is saying, in effect, that what Paul was teaching was missed by ALL the ante-Nicene fathers, including fathers who knew various original Apostles personally, (Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Mathetes) and fathers who knew men who had been disciples of the original 12. The ONLY ancient church father who “got it” was Augustine, who lived 400 years after the fact, and who didn’t personally know any of the apostles or even any disciples of the apostles.
Was the Apostle Paul such a poor teacher that his followers didn't understand his teachings? Certainly not. All of the writings of Church leaders that came after Paul and before Augustine taught that mankind had a free will to either choose the gospel or reject it. The fact that we have no textual evidence among the post-apostolic fathers prior to Augustine for the Reformed notion of the bondage of the will, i.e. total depravity, and therefore the necessity of exhaustive predestination, suggests that the pre-deterministic reading of this passage (Rom 9-11) is at least partially the result of people bringing to the text an assumed Augustinian/Calvinistic paradigm (exhaustive sovereignty of God, double predestination, total depravity etc) that Paul, the original apostles, and the early post-apostolic fathers did not share.
Obviously Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Tatian, Mathetes, Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria, Irenaeus, Origen, Tertullian, and Athenagoras, among others, did not read the apostle Paul like John Calvin did, or Martin Luther, or any other of the esteemed theologians Calvinists are so wont to cite in support of their position. Clement of Rome knew the apostle Paul personally! Mathetes was a disciple of the Apostles. Ignatius was a disciple of the Apostle John. Justin Martyr knew men who were disciples of the original apostles. It seems to me that the understanding of these men should be taken as seriously if not more seriously than men who lived in a different culture 1500 years after the fact, don’t you? Just a thought.
On John 3:16
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