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Let’s now look to the man who profoundly shaped both Protestant and Catholic theology.
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The Shocking Beliefs of Augustine
A spiritually minded man will never come to you with the demand—“Believe this and that”; but with the demand that you square your life with the standards of Jesus. We are not asked to believe the Bible, but to believe the One Whom the Bible reveals (cf. John 5:39–40).
~ Oswald Chambers
Evangelical Christianity owes an enormous debt to Augustine. In fact, there’s wide consensus among historians that next to Jesus and Paul, Augustine is the most influential figure in the history of Christianity.
Even Time magazine said Augustine is “a major intellectual, spiritual, and cultural force” that continues until this day.1
So even though Augustine is considered a Roman Catholic father of the church, many Protestants claim him, including countless evangelicals.
For example, Augustine’s influence on both Calvin and Luther (and modern-day evangelicalism as a whole) was remarkable. Even today, many Reformed theologians claim Augustine in their camp. It has been said that the Reformation was essentially a triumph and revival of Augustine’s theology.2
Augustine was the bishop of Hippo in North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries. In his undisputed classic, The City of God, Augustine answered the prevailing criticism of his day that the Christians were responsible for the fall of Rome.
Augustine wrote more than 1,000 works (all in a day when laptops, desktops, typewriters, and Dragon dictation software didn’t exist!).
He’s known to have written the very first autobiography in history. His Confessions is still considered to be a classic.
Famed historian Will Durant said of Augustine, “He is the most authentic, eloquent, and powerful voice of the Age of Faith in Christendom.”3
Despite Augustine’s titanic intellect, he wrote humbly. He shamelessly admitted that many truths are beyond our understanding. So much so that even additional study of the Scriptures may not resolve them. On this score, he said,
In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture.4
Much of Augustine’s writings are incredibly insightful, forming the basis of the best of modern evangelical theology. However, there are some views of Augustine that many evangelical Christians will find surprising, shocking, or just plain wrong.
Before we launch into our list, here are some of Augustine’s more enduring quotes:
Someone says to me, “Let me understand, in order to believe.” I answer, “Believe in order to understand.”5
Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.6
Once and for all, I give you this one short command: love, and do what you will.7
The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.8
What outward appearance, what form, what stature, hands or feet, has love? None can say; and yet love has feet, which take us to the Church, love has hands which give to the poor, love has eyes which give intelligence of him who is in need—as the Psalm says: “Blessed is he who bethinks himself of the needy and poor.”9
A portent, therefore, happens not contrary to nature, but contrary to what we know as nature.10
Further, all men are to be loved equally. But since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you.11
For it was my sin, that not in Him, but in His creatures—myself and others—I sought for pleasures, sublimities, truths, and so fell headlong into sorrows, confusions, errors.12
To the both of you who believe Roman Catholics should never be quoted favorably, holster your weapons. Just because I like these quotes doesn’t mean I’m headed toward Rome. I don’t ascribe to Roman Catholic theology, but I have many friends who are Roman Catholic, and some of them are among the most godly people on the planet.
That said, here are some of Augustine’s beliefs that won’t sit well with many evangelicals.
1. Augustine believed that the purpose of marriage is procreation, and that lust during sex—even among married Christians—was wrong.
In his Confessions, Augustine talked openly about his losing battle with sexual lust during his youth. At age thirty-two, he became celibate. For Augustine personally, being a Christian meant abandoning marriage. Significantly, asceticism was popular during the time in which Augustine lived.13
He believed that all sexual intercourse, even within the bounds of Christian marriage, involved concupiscence (sinful desire or lust).14
But for Augustine, celibacy was better.
Undergirding his views on this subject was Augustine’s belief that sex had but one purpose—procreation. Yet he did believe that married people who enjoyed sex without the intention of having children could be forgiven.
2. Augustine believed that the use of contraception to prevent children was perverting the purpose of marriage, “committing adultery within marriage” and “turning the bed-chamber into a brothel.”
Here’s what Augustine said about preventing the birth of children within marriage (that is, the use of contraceptives):
The doctrine that the production of children is an evil, directly opposes the next precept, “Thou shall not commit adultery;” for those who believe this doctrine, in order that their wives may not conceive, are led to commit adultery even in marriage. They take wives, as the law declares, for the procreation of children; but from this erroneous fear of polluting the substance of the deity, their intercourse with their wives is not of a lawful character; and the production of children, which is the proper end of marriage, they seek to avoid. As the apostle long ago predicted of thee, thou dost indeed forbid to marry, for thou seekest to destroy the purpose of marriage. Thy doctrine turns marriage into an adulterous connection, and the bed-chamber into a brothel.15
3. Augustine believed that if you are going to teach Scripture, you must have a knowledge of the natural world, mathematics, music, science, history, the liberal arts, and a mastery of dialectics (the science of disputation).16
This standard would rule out most Bible preachers and teachers today. Interestingly, despite his strong emphasis on the need for mastering academic subjects, Augustine could read very little Greek (the original language of the New Testament) and zero Hebrew.
Augustine speaks of an imaginary conversation with Moses, saying, “And should he speak Hebrew, in vain will it strike on my senses, nor would aught of it touch my mind; but if Latin, I should know what he said.”17
4. Augustine believed that sacramental baptism produces regeneration and is necessary for the forgiveness of sins.
On this point, Augustine’s view is echoed by Roman Catholic teaching today. Here are some examples:
But the sacrament of baptism is undoubtedly the sacrament of regeneration: Wherefore, as the man who has never lived cannot die, and he who has never died cannot rise again, so, he who has never been born cannot be born again.18
Baptism, therefore washes away indeed all sins—absolutely all sins, whether of deed, or words, or thoughts, whether original or added, whether such as are committed in ignorance or allowed in knowledge.19
When ye have been baptized, hold fast to a good life in the commandments of God, that ye may guard your baptism even unto the end. I do not tell you that ye will live here without sin; but they are
venial, without which this life is not. For the sake of all sins was Baptism provided; for the sake of light sins, without which we cannot be, was prayer provided. What hath the Prayer? “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” Once for all we have washing in Baptism, every day we have washing in prayer. Only do not commit those things for which ye must needs be separated from Christ’s body: which be far from you! For those whom ye have seen doing penance, have committed heinous things, either adulteries or some enormous crimes: for these they do penance. Because if theirs had been light sins, to blot out these daily prayer would suffice.
In three ways then are sins remitted in the Church; by Baptism, by prayer, by the greater humility of penance; yet God doth not remit sins but to the baptized. The very sins which He remits first, He remits not but to the baptized. When? when they are baptized. The sins which are after remitted upon prayer, upon penance, to whom He remits, it is to the baptized that He remitteth. For how can they say, “Our Father,” who are not yet born sons? The Catechumens, so long as they be such, have upon them all their sins. If Catechumens, how much more Pagans? how much more heretics? But to heretics we do not change their baptism. Why? because they have baptism in the same way as a deserter has the soldier’s mark: just so these also have Baptism; they have it, but to be condemned thereby, not crowned. And yet if the deserter himself, being amended, begin to do duty as a soldier, does any man dare to change his mark?20
5. Augustine believed it was permissible to use force against heretics.
The primary example of Augustine advocating force was against a sect known as the Donatists. The Donatists claimed that certain bishops were ordained by spiritual traitors (those who denied the faith during a period of persecution). Therefore, the Donatists believed traitors didn’t deserve to remain church leaders and their ordinations were invalid. The popular leader of this group was Donatus Magnus, after whom they were named.
Augustine bitterly criticized the Donatists and developed his doctrine of the church out of that debate. To Augustine’s mind, “the essence of the church is in the union of the whole church with Christ, not in the personal character of certain select Christians.”21
Augustine advocated the use of force against the Donatists, asking,
Why, therefore, should not the Church use force in compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction? . . . Is it not a part of the care of the shepherd, when any sheep have left the flock, even though not violently forced away, but led astray by tender words and coaxing blandishments, to bring them back to the fold of his master when he has found them, by the fear or even the pain of the whip, if they show symptoms of resistance; especially since, if they multiply with growing abundance among the fugitive slaves and robbers, he has the more right in that the mark of the master is recognized on them, which is not outraged in those whom we receive but do not rebaptize? For the wandering of the sheep is to be corrected in such wise that the mark of the Redeemer should not be destroyed on it.22
Part of: the reason for this is because the Donatists engaged in violence against other Christians. As a result, Augustine urged the government to exercise its power against them vigorously, retracting his earlier view “that no one should be coerced into the unity of Christ, that we must act only by arguments and prevail by force of reason, lest we should have those whom we knew as avowed heretics feigning themselves to be Catholics.”23
To Augustine’s mind, it was better that a few Donatists suffer than for all to be damned due to a lack of coercion. At the same time, he pleaded consistently that the state officials not enforce the death penalty against heretics.
He wrote,
We do not wish to have the sufferings of the servants of God avenged by the infliction of precisely similar injuries in the way of retaliation. Not, of course, that we object to the removal from these wicked men of the liberty to perpetrate further crimes; but our desire is rather that justice be satisfied without the taking of their lives or the maiming of their bodies in any part, and that, by such coercive measures as may be in accordance with the laws, they be turned from their insane frenzy to the quietness of men in their sound judgment, or compelled to give up mischievous violence and betake themselves to some useful labor. This is indeed called a penal sentence; but who does not see that when a restraint is put upon the boldness of savage violence, and the remedies fitted to produce repentance are not withdrawn, this discipline should be called a benefit rather than vindictive punishment?24
6. Augustine believed that the Lord’s Supper (the Eucharist) was necessary for salvation.
On this score, he wrote:
The Christians of Carthage have an excellent name for the sacraments, when they say that baptism is nothing else than “salvation,” and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing else than “life.” Whence, however, was this derived, but from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by which the churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent principle, that without baptism and partaking of the supper of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain either to the kingdom of God or to salvation and everlasting life?25
7. Augustine held to a dualistic view of the world, which was heavily influenced by non-Christian philosophy.
The third-century theologian Tertullian believed that faith and human philosophy had no points of contact. This idea was summed up in his famous question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”26
Augustine was heavily into the classical philosophical tradition of Platonism and Neoplatonism.
In short, his writings synthesized the Bible and Christian theology with classical learning and culture. They shaped both the medieval mind and the teaching curriculum in European universities.
In this connection, some historians have alleged that Augustine blurred the lines between Christianity and paganism, marrying faith and philosophy and creating a world in which paganism seemed to disappear. (Some have argued that paganism really didn’t disappear; it was merely baptized in Christian garb.)
Even so, Augustine’s platonic views reemerged with Thomas Aquinas, who added Aristotle’s philosophy to the Christian mix.27
Being heavily influenced by the dualistic sect of the Manichaeans (with whom he spent nine years), Augustine continued to embrace a dualistic viewpoint within his theology.
According to Manichaenism, the physical is bad, the spiritual good. The physical, material realm is sinful, the spiritual realm is good. So the two are pitted against one another instead of seen through a Hebraic mindset, which views humanity and the world—the physical and the spiritual—as part of God’s good creation.
Augustine’s dualism provoked him to leave society and pursue the invisible realities of the spiritual world. (Dualistic thinking is where we get the idea of the secular versus the spiritual.)
Augustine’s dualism also influenced some of his theological views, particularly his views on sex—namely, that sexual desire is sinful and sexual lust in procreation transmits that sin.
8. Augustine believed that a person can fall from grace and lose their salvation.
While some evangelicals agree with this idea, others bitterly oppose it. Augustine wrote,
If, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say, “I have not received,” because of his own free choice to evil he has lost the grace of God, that he had received. And if, stung with compunction by rebuke, he wholesomely bewails, and returns to similar good works, or even better, certainly here most manifestly appears the advantage of rebuke. But yet for rebuke by the agency of man to avail, whether it be of love or not, depends only upon God.28
Man, therefore, was thus made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine help, he could of his own mere will depart from it.29
9. Augustine believed that Mary (mother of Jesus) was a perpetual virgin.
On this subject he wrote,
A vi
rgin conceives, yet remains a virgin; a virgin is heavy with child; a virgin brings forth her child, yet she is always a virgin.30
Did not holy Virgin Mary both give birth as a virgin and remain a virgin?31
Thus Christ by being born of a virgin, who, before she knew Who was to be born of her, had determined to continue a virgin, chose rather to approve, than to command, holy virginity.32
10. Augustine believed in praying for the dead.
Consider his words:
It is not to be doubted that the dead are aided by prayers of the holy church, and by the salutary sacrifice, and by the alms, which are offered for their spirits; that the Lord may deal with them more mercifully than their sins have deserved. For this, which has been handed down by the Fathers, the universal Church observes.33
There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. For it is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended.34
It is then, I say, the same reason which prevents the Church at any time from praying for the wicked angels, which prevents her from praying hereafter for those men who are to be punished in eternal fire; and this also is the reason why, though she prays even for the wicked so long as they live, she yet does not even in this world pray for the unbelieving and godless who are dead. For some of the dead, indeed, the prayer of the Church or of pious individuals is heard; but it is for those who, having been regenerated in Christ, did not spend their life so wickedly that they can be judged unworthy of such compassion, nor so well that they can be considered to have no need of it.35