Robert Wallace: The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election

Were a number of shipwrecked mariners cast upon an island, one of their first inquiries would be, Is it inhabited? Having observed footmarks upon the sand, and other tokens of man’s presence, another question would be, What is the character of the people? Are they anthropophagi, or are they of a friendly disposition? The importance of such questions would be realised by all. Their lives might depend upon the answer to the latter.

We look around upon the universe, and everywhere observe marks of design, or the adapation of means to ends. The conviction gathers upon us with deepening power, that there must have been a supreme intelligence arranging the forces of nature. If I throw the dice box twenty times, and the same numbers always turn up, I cannot resist the conclusion that the dice must have been loaded. The application is simple. But, as in the case of the mariners, a second question arises, viz.:—What is the character of the Being revealed in nature? Is He beneficent, or like the fabled Chronus, who devoured his children? It is substantially with this second question that the following work has to do. It is a treatise concerning the character of God.

The subjects discussed have been for many years the occasion of much controversy and difficulty. Whilst to certain minds it were more agreeable to read exposition of Christian truth, yet the followers of Christ may often have to contend for the faith once delivered to the saints. Our Lord’s public ministry showed how earnestly He contended for the truth. At every corner He was met by the men of “light and leading” amongst the Jews, and who did their best to oppose Him. Paul, too, when he lived at Ephesus, disputed “daily in the school of one Tyrannus, and this continued by the space of two years.” The period of the Reformation was also one of earnest discussion between the adherents of the old faith and the followers of Luther. The questions discussed in those days, both in apostolic and post-apostolic times, were eminently practical; but they were not a whit more so than the questions of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election. These touch every man to the very centre of his being when he awakes from the sleep of indifference, and wishes to know the truth about the salvation of his soul. It has been our object, in the present volume, to dispel the darkness which has been thrown around those subjects, and to let every man see that the way back to the bosom of the heavenly Father is as free to him as the light of heaven.

The following treatise consists of an Introduction bearing on the history of the questions discussed; Part I. treats of Predestination; Part II. is on Reprobation, and Part III. on Election.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only beloved Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.— Jesus.

I reject the Calvinistic doctrine of Predestination, not because it is incomprehensible, but because I think it irreconcilable with the justice and goodness of God.— Bishop Tomlin.

God our Saviour will have all men to be saved.— Paul.

Regarding the predestinarian controversy, it has been said, “Hardly one among the many Christian controversies has called forth a greater amount of subtlety and power, and not one so long and so persistently maintained its vitality. Within the twenty-five years which followed its first appearance upwards of thirty councils (one of them the General Council of Ephesus) were held for the purpose of this discussion. It lay at the bottom of all the intellectual activity of the conflicts in the Mediæval philosophic schools; and there is hardly a single subject which has come into discussion under so many different forms in modern controversy” ( Ch. Encyc .)

Although the controversy between Pelagius and Augustine began in the fifth century, it is an interesting inquiry—What was the mind of the earlier Christian writers on the subject? Of course their opinion cannot settle the truth of the question in debate, but it has a very important bearing upon the subject. The late Dr. Eadie claimed the voice of antiquity for the system of the Confession of Faith. He says, “The doctrine of predestination was held in its leading element by the ancient Church, by the Roman Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, Justin Martyr, and Irenæus, before Augustine worked it into a system, and Jerome armed himself on its behalf” ( Ec. Cyc. ) This statement may be fairly questioned, and, we think, successfully challenged. Dr. Cunningham, in his Historical Theology , remarks, “The doctrine of Arminius can be traced back as far as the time of Alexandrinus, and seems to have been held by many of the Fathers of the third and fourth centuries.” He attributes this to the corrupting influence of Pagan philosophy ( Hist. Theo. , Vol. II., p. 374). This is not a direct contradiction to Eadie, but it shows that truth compelled this sturdy Calvinist to admit that non-Calvinistic views were held in the earlier and best period of the Church. The question, however, is one that must be decided by historical evidence, and not by authority. And what is that evidence? Mosheim, in writing of the founders of the English Church, says, “They wished to render their church as similar as possible to that which flourished in the early centuries, and that Church, as no one can deny, was an entire stranger to the Dordracene doctrines” Reid’s Mos. , p. 821). The Synod of Dort met in a.d. 1618, and condemned the Arminian doctrine, and decided in favour of Calvinism; but, according to Mosheim, this system of Calvin was unknown to the early Church. Faber maintains the same. He says, “The scheme of interpretation now familiarly, though perhaps (if a scheme ought to be designated by the name of its original contriver) not quite correctly, styled Calvinism, may be readily traced back in the Latin and Western Church to the time of Augustine. But here we find ourselves completely at fault. Augustine, at the beginning of the fifth century, is the first ecclesiastical writer who annexes to the Scriptural terms ‘elect’ and ‘predestinate’ the peculiar sense which is now usually styled Calvinistic. With him, in a form scarcely less round and perfect than that long and subsequently proposed by the celebrated Genevan reformer himself, commenced an entirely new system of interpretation previously unknown to the Church Catholic. What I state is a mere dry historical fact” ( Faber’s Apos. Trin. , Cooke’s Theo. , p. 305).

Prosper of Acquitania was a devoted friend and admirer of Augustine, and not wishing to be charged with propagating new views, wrote to the Bishop of Hippo (Augustine) desiring to know how he could refute the charge of novelty. “For,” saith he, “having had recourse to the opinion of almost all that went before me concerning this matter, I find all of them holding one and the same opinion, in which they have received the purpose and the predestination of God according to His prescience; that for this cause God made some vessels of honour and other vessels of dishonour, because He foresaw the end of every man, and knew before how he would will and act” ( Whitby’s Pos. , p. 449). This was a frank acknowledgment on the part of Prosper, who was a man of ability, and Secretary to Leo, and it carried much farther than was intended. The fact, however, was patent that the Christian Church for some four hundred years was a stranger to what is known as the doctrine of Calvin. The view thus stated is confirmed by Neander. When Prosper and Hilary appealed to the Bishop of Rome, they doubtless expected that he would favour the system of Augustine, and condemn the Semi-pelagians (modern E.U.’s). If so, they were mistaken. The bishop was chary, and whilst speaking contemptuously of those presbyters who raised “curious questions,” he left it undecided what the curious questions were. He had said in his letter to the Gallic bishops, “Let the spirit of innovation, if there is such a spirit, cease to attack the ancient doctrines;” but he did not say what was ancient and what was novel. Neander upon this remarks: “The Semi-pelagians, in fact, also asserted, and they could do it with even more justice than their opponents, that by them the ancient doctrine of the Church was defended against the false doctrine recently introduced concerning absolute predestination, and against the denial of free-will tenets, wholly unknown to the ancient Church” (Vol. IV., p. 306). The concluding words are almost identical with those of Mosheim, just quoted.