St. Augustine of Hippo

[Iakobos]

I recently read Fr. Seraphim Rose's book The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church, some excerpts:

Over-Logicalness and Handling of Distorted/Exaggerated Teachings

One cannot deny that Blessed Augustine applied his over-logicalness to this doctrine (original sin) and taught a distorted view of the Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin - a view not so much un-Orthodox as narrow and incomplete. Augustine virtually denied that man has any goodness or freedom in himself, and he thought that each man is responsible for the guilt of Adam's sin in addition to sharing its consequences; Orthodox theology see these views as one-sided exaggerations of the true Christian teaching.

The "Western" approach to theology, the over-logicalness from which, yes, Blessed Augustine did suffer, is so much a part of every man living today that it is simply foolishness to pretend that it is a problem of someone else and not of ourselves first and foremost.

Where Orthodox dogmas are directly attacked, the Orthodox Church and her Fathers have always responded quickly and decisively ... but where the matter is one of differing approaches, even of distortions or exaggerations or well-meaning errors, the Church has always had a moderate and conciliating attitude.

Pelagianism and Free Will

As an accuser of Pelagius, Augustine is without doubt a great teacher of the Church; but in defending the truth, he himself was not completely and not always faithful to the truth.
...
The fundamental error of Augustine was his overstatement of the place of grace in Christian life and his understatement of the place of free will.
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Never did Augustine deny free will ... in his commentary on Psalm 102, for example, Augustine writes: "He will heal you, but you must wish to be healed. He heals entirely whoever is infirm, but not him who refuses healing.

[After admitting his youthful Pelagian mistakes], Augustine himself then fell into the opposite exaggeration of ascribing everything in the awakening of faith to Divine grace.

The Orthodox doctrine of grace and free will, later to be known by the name of synergism, is the cooperation of Divine grace and human freedom, neither one acting independently or autonomously.
...
To Christian experience, and in particular to the monastic experience from which St. Cassian speaks, there is no "contradiction" at all in the cooperation of freedom and grace; it is only human logic that finds the "contradiction" when it tries to understand this question much too abstractly and divorced from life.
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St. Cassian on synergy: "If any more subtle inference of man's argumentation and reasoning seems opposed to this interpretation, it should be avoided rather than brought forward to the destruction of the faith; for how God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free will cannot be fully grasped by the mind and reason of man" (Conferences, XIII, 18).

Grace and Predestination

In Romans 8, St. Paul speaks of those foreknown and fore-ordained (predestined) by God for eternal glory, it being understood, in the whole context of Christian teaching, that this predestination involves also the free choice of the one being saved; here again we see the mystery of synergy, the co-operation of God and man.
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St. John Chrysostom: "All were called, but not all obeyed."
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St. Theophan the Recluse: Free actions God foresee as free; He sees the whole course of a free person and the general sum of all his actions. And seeing this, He decrees as if it had already been accomplished... it is not that the actions of free persons are the consequence of predestination, but that predestination itself is the consequence of free deeds."
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The "complexity" of this doctrine resides only in those who have tried to "resolve" it intellectually; the Orthodox teaching of the cooperation of God and man, of the necessity of ascetic struggle, and of the certain will of God that all may be saved (1 Tim 2:4), is sufficient to dissolve the unnecessary complications which human logic introduces into this question.
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There is one point of Augustine's teaching on predestination where he fell into a serious error. In Augustine's view of grace and freedom, the Apostle's statement that God wills all men to be saved cannot be literally true; if God "predestines" only some to be saved, then He must will only some to be saved. ... Augustine does actually deny that God wills all men to be saved (On Rebuke and Grace, Ch. 44).
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We must be careful not to read into Augustine's words the later interpretations of them which Calvin made. Augustine in this doctrine does not at all maintain that God determines or wills any man to do evil.
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Luther, Zwingli, and especially Calvin taught the most extreme form of predestination: that God has created some men as "vessels of wrath" for sin and eternal damnation, and that salvation and damnation are granted by God solely at His pleasure without regard to men's actions. Although Augustine himself never taught anything like these gloomy and most un-Christian doctrines, still the ultimate source of them is clear. ... The exaggerations of Blessed Augustine in his teaching on grace were, therefore, quite serious and had lamentable consequences.

Orthodox Position on Errors from the Holy Fathers

The Orthodox Church continues to see in Augustine a venerable Father of the Church, not without his errors, who ranks rather behind the greatest Fathers of East and West.
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St. Photius: Have there not been complicated conditions which have forced many Fathers in part to express themselves imprecisely, in part to speak with adaptation to circumstances under the attacks of enemies, and at times out of human ignorance to which they were also subject? ... We, though, who know that some of our Holy Fathers and teachers strayed from the faith of true dogmas, do not take as doctrine those areas in which they strayed, but we embrace the men.
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St. Mark of Ephesus: "It is possible for one to be a Teacher and all the same not say everything absolutely correctly, for what need then would the Fathers have had for Ecumenical Councils?"
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St. Mark of Ephesus: "That only the canonical Scriptures have infallibility is testified by Blessed Augustine in the words which he writes to Jerome:

'It is fitting to bestow such honor and veneration only to the books of Scripture which are called "canonical," for I absolutely believe that none of the authors who wrote them erred in anything... As for other writings, no matte how great was the excellence of their authors in sanctity and learning, in reading them I do not accept their teaching as true solely on the basis that they thus wrote and thought. ... We should not hold the judgment of a man, even though this man might have been orthodox and had a high reputation, as the same kind of authority as the canonical Scriptures, to the extent of considering it inadmissible for us, out of the reverence we owe such men, to disapprove and reject something in their writing if we should happen to discover that they taught other than the truth which, by God's help, has been attained by others or by ourselves. This is how I am with regard to the writings of other men; and I desire that the reader will act thus with regard to my writings also.'"
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Augustine was of such princely heart and mind, and so zealous in the defense of Orthodoxy, that before death he did not fear to review all of his written works, making corrections of errors that had been brought to his attention, and submitting everything to the future judgment of the Church, humbly imploring his readers: "Let all those who will read this work imitate me not in my errors."

Throughout the book Fr. Seraphim praises the piety of Blessed Augustine and urges the reader to not condemn the man for his errors but to instead focus on his laudable humility and repentance.

 

[Iakobos]

@BrotherAugustine said some good things in the past about original sin. He's not into the delineation of ancestral sin vs. original sin and thinks original sin is fine descriptor. The nuance remains though. I found these:

https://christisking.cc/threads/discussing-hell-and-eternal-damnation.530/post-15058



I've been focused on original sin lately because I heard a critique of it's interpretation that I had not heard before. Essentially that the concept has developed into all this "reparations" stuff that is bandied about now.

But, I like what BrotherAugustine says about mystery when it comes to original sin. And I agree it has to be understood that it doesn't mean we are personally guilty.

Here's more:

https://christisking.cc/threads/discussing-hell-and-eternal-damnation.530/post-15038

To be frank. I wouldn't look to Witcoff as a teacher. Not saying his take is right or wrong but he is a layperson neophyte and he is out on X doing things like attacking clergy who teach differently from him (while promoting his book) and acting as a ringleader of weirdo zealots. I can't pretend to know his mind but he clearly has some kind of chip on his shoulder as his behavior here also indicated. If you want to do anything with him on this topic just find the Works Cited/Bibliography of his book and read the Fathers bringing questions to your priest.

 

[Northumber]

To be frank. I wouldn't look to Witcoff as a teacher. Not saying his take is right or wrong but he is a layperson neophyte and he is out on X doing things like attacking clergy who teach differently from him (while promoting his book) and acting as a ringleader of weirdo zealots. I can't pretend to know his mind but he clearly has some kind of chip on his shoulder as his behavior here also indicated. If you want to do anything with him on this topic just find the Works Cited/Bibliography of his book and read the Fathers bringing questions to your priest.

I see. I'm not on X.

I resonate with what Father Seraphim says about over-logicalness. We want things tidy and to fit in a box, but, we can see in real life that it's just not natural. Yet, we continue to try to fit things in a box. Related to the original sin question, I believe this is actually the deeper issue with Adam's sin. Trying to take control. Being able to "know" and take control of that.

 

[GrecoRoman]

Just as an aside I find the massive over-intellectualizing of the faith and constant online debates over ‘errors’ and petty arguments between Christians incredibly stupid. It should be left to the ecumenical councils and scholars.

The presence of God isn’t felt in the intellect anyway, so these people on X are wasting their time. There’s a big difference between an intellectual understanding and application or knowing something in your heart or body.