The Perseverance Of The Saints? Identifying Augustine’s Influence On Evangelical Views Of Apostasy -- By: Everett Berry

Journal: Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society
Volume: JOTGES 29:57 (Autumn 2016)
Article: The Perseverance Of The Saints? Identifying Augustine’s Influence On Evangelical Views Of Apostasy
Author: Everett Berry


The Perseverance Of The Saints? Identifying Augustine’s Influence On Evangelical Views Of Apostasy1

Everett Berry

Criswell College,
Dallas, TX

I. Introduction

Understanding the historical development of a Biblical doctrine always necessitates a familiarity with arguments that are formulated by substantial Christian thinkers which leave an indelible mark on how the church later deals with that doctrine. The purpose of this essay is to illustrate this truth by showing how Augustine of Hippo’s view of perseverance and apostasy continues to influence the ways in which various Evangelical traditions address these topics today.2 This will be accomplished by first arguing that some mainstay theological categories pertaining to the issue of the perseverance of the saints can be traced back to convictions that Augustine initially expressed during the famous Pelagian and Semi-Pelagian controversies.3 From there, it will be shown that subsequent views of perseverance often reach frequent impasses because they are based on selective parts of Augustine’s soteriology. Finally,

we will conclude with a few remarks about some of the shortcomings in Augustine’s view of perseverance.

II. Augustine’s Understanding Of Sin, Salvation, And Election: Preliminaries To The Doctrine Of Perseverance

Throughout the latter years of Augustine’s life he combated the perspectives of Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism which dealt with many questions related to sin, regeneration, justification, predestination, and ultimately perseverance. Like any good theologian, he carefully interpreted relevant Biblical passages, synthesized them, and then articulated his understanding of each subject in order to show how they all fit together theologically. His view of sin led to his view of grace, which in turn converged to help guide the way he viewed election, justification, and so forth.

Consequently, if we want to examine what Augustine thought about how believers could persevere in their faith, we must first survey what he thought about how one becomes a believer. The best way to accomplish this is to summarize what he believed about sin, election, justification, and perseverance.

A. Augustine’s View Of Original Sin

Augustine claims that when God first made Adam and Eve, He placed them in a kind of probationary period to test whether they would obey his rule concerning the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here, in their unfallen state, they...

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