Augustine in Summary

by Michael J. Vlach, Ph.D.

Augustine (354-430) was the most significant theologian of the Patristic era and one of the most important theologians in church history. Both Roman Catholics and Protestants claim him as a father in several areas of doctrine.

This document presents a bullet-point summary of what Augustine wrote and what he believed concerning the doctrines of God, salvation, the church, and the end times.

MAJOR WORKS
• City of God
• On Christian Doctrine
• On the Trinity (self-proclaimed most important work)
• Confessions

IMPORTANCE
• Antiquity's greatest theologian and most important church theologian until the Reformation
• Father of orthodox theology
• Developed theology as an academic discipline
• Council of Carthage decided for Augustine's views on grace and sin and condemned Pelagianism
• Saved when he heard a child say, "Tolle lege" ("take up and read")
• He adopted an amillennial view when Ambrose taught him it was okay to allegorize the Old Testament
• Believed in two sense of Scripture-literal and allegorical

THEOLOGICAL/DOCTRINAL VIEWS
Trinity
• Held to the eternal subordination of the Son
• Believed distinctions within the Trinity are primarily relational
• Viewed the Holy Spirit as the bond of love

Soteriology (salvation)
• Augustine is first father to seriously address soteriology; discussed areas such as predestination, original sin, and free will
• Believed man's election is based upon God's eternal decree of predestination
• Viewed faith itself is a gift of God
• Avoided extremes of Manicheans and Pelagians; both grace and free will are to be affirmed
• Changed views on free will-from free will to free will held captive
• Believed free will is not lost but incapacitated and can be healed by grace
• Said that the free will of the individual before salvation is only capable of evil; only after regeneration (operative grace) is free will capable of responding positively to God with the aid of continuing grace (co-operative grace)
• Argued that God's prevenient grace prepares man's will for justification
• Believed grace is intimately connected with the sacrament of baptism (thus no salvation w/o baptism)
• His view of justification underwent significant development
• He believed "to justify" means to "make righteous" not "declare righteous" (this became the view of the Roman Catholic Church); thus righteousness is "inherent" and not "imputed"
• Justification is an event and a process
• Said righteousness is located within man
• Held that human merit is important but even this comes from God
• The motif of the "love of God" dominates his theology of justification
• Said faith is adherence to the Word of God

Ecclesiology (church)
• Addressed the Donatist controversy; he argued against the Donatists saying: (1) that lapsed brethren should be accepted into the church; and (2) the sacraments are not invalid because of an unholy administrator
• Agreed with Cyprian (d. 258) that schism was wrong
• Promoted the idea that the church is a corpus permixtum--a mixed body of saints and sinners
• Agreed with Cyprian that there was apostolic succession
• Believed baptism plays a role in salvation
• Held that the sacraments are effective ex opere operato--on account of Christ and not because of the human agent; thus, sacraments performed by an unholy minister are still valid

Eschatology (end times)
• Known as the father of amillennialism
• Popularized the view of Tyconius that the millennium was not a literal thousand year reign the followed Christ's second coming
• Like Tyconius, he argued that the first resurrection of Revelation 20:4-6 is a spiritual resurrection, not a bodily resurrection
• His views on the millennium were adopted by the Roman Catholic Church and are held by many Protestants and Catholics today

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