A minor part of Augustine’s goal is to correct those who are Pelagian in thinking. In understanding human responsibility, the character of man before and after the foundation of the world, Augustine asserts man’s depravity in relation to God’s sovereignty. Man’s merit did not have anything to do with God’s election of some men unto salvation and even if it did man would have no hope because of his wickedness. “For if men should be judged according to the merits of their life, which merits the have been prevented by death from actually having, but would have had if they had lived, it would be of no advantage to him who is taken away lest wickedness should alter his understanding.”
One of the most important parts in Augustine’s On The Predestination of the Saints that Cassian does not focus on is that our savior, Jesus Christ, was predestined. He claims that God foreknew Jesus to be the Son of God, sinless, and human all according to pleasure of his will. By doing this Augustine brings in the gospel in his writing with clarity. As Jesus was predestined “let human merits which have perished through Adam keep silence, and let that grace of god reign which reigns through Jesus Christ our Lord.” And to reveal the connection between man and God through Jesus Christ Augustine states that because Jesus being our Head was predestined we as his body are predestined as well.
As Augustine unravels the depravity of man while connecting it to God’s will he decides to clarify God’s sovereignty by explaining where power lies between God and man’s will. He states that it is God that has all the power. Man has none. It is God “who divides the darkness and regulates it.” Augustine makes very clear his notion of God’s sovereignty over everything “who knew how to make a good use even of evil things.” He immediately follows up with God having purpose in everything that has happened and will happen to the elect. “Therefore God elected believers; but he chose them that they might be so, not because they were already so.” Augustine presents a process that God is doing. God is gathering his elect. To do it God will restore all things to Christ and it will all be done according to his good pleasure.
Sometimes Augustine uses reasoning and logic to explain God’s divinity rather than analogies that Cassian chooses to use. For Augustine if God’s word says x then it must mean that it is not y. In Augustinian thinking if all men who the Father calls come to know Christ, then it must mean that he can not called all, only few, because not all men come to Christ. The same is with the regeneration with the heart that God gives. Man’s heart will not reject the heart of flesh that God gives him, for it was given to him in the first place because it was first stone.
There were a few discrepancies when reading Cassian. He understands that the will of God overrides the will of man, but it was not completely clear on how he understood the free will of man. The way he communicated man’s free will was that it can choose whatever it wants, good or evil, but still needs a savior because it is weak. “Because even of his own motion a man ca be led to the quest of virtue, but always stands in need of the help of the Lord.” There is somewhat confusion to how Cassian believes the free will can seek out good, but can quite make it because it is weak. I do not understand how he reconciles the will of man with God’s grace. His answer is almost saying that somehow it just “happens.” “The grace of God and free will seem opposed to each other, but real are in harmony.” It appears that Cassian explains it as the unexplainable. When giving the example of Joseph and his brothers betraying him his solution to understanding it was simply God’s providence, which it was, but still leaving the explanation open ended. He does continue to say that we are not robots and God did not create us without the capability to do good works even with him. “For we should not hold that God made man such that he can never will or be capable of what is good: or else he has not granted him a free will.” He says to say if we do not have a will we are just like any other animal on the earth.
What I found to be border-line unbiblical with Cassian’s work was the denial of the radical depravity in man. “It cannot then be doubted that there are by nature some seeds of goodness in every soul implanted by the kindness of the Creator: but unless these are quickened by the assistance of God, they will not be able to attain to an increase of perfection.” Having said this Cassian believes that men are naturally, at least some part, good, which is incorrect.
The analogy that Cassian provides to show how free will is exercised by Divine assistance is by comparing a nurse who carries an infant that slowly guides it as it matures. He presents God as merely divine assistance that conforms to whatever man chooses instead of directly intervening with providence. Then again, I might be reading too much into the analogy.
Cassian also leads to believe that the way we perceive and see God depends on the capacity of faith we have in him. This way of thinking makes it appear that the way God reveals himself to us is in our hands. The amount of faith we have limits God to how we are able to see him. “And so the bounty of God is actually shaped according to the capacity of man’s faith, so that to one it is said: ‘According to thy faith be it unto thee.’”
Like Augustine, Cassian admits to not knowing everything. “Whoever then imagines that he can by human reason fathom the depths of that inconceivable abyss…for how God works all things in us and yet everything can be ascribed to free will cannot by fully grasped by the mind and reason of man.
In conclusion, I did not find enough biblical clarity in John Cassian’s On the Protection of God to choose him over Augustine’s On the Predestination of the Saints. Both secured their positions behind scripture and did it with humility I believe. I had the opportunity to learn from both authors and benefit from them. Augustine, however, did the better job of going in depth with explaining the relationship between human responsibility and the sovereignty of God.
UNDERSTANDING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD AND
HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
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A Paper
Present to
Dr. Shawn Wright
The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
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Introduction to Church History I
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by
John T. Lowe
October 12, 2009
Augustine, On The Predestination of the Saints, Ch.9.
Cassian, On the Protection of God, ch. 9.
