John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
Regardless of various languages The Institutes were eventually translated into --there were four separate editions in 1536,1539,1543,1550 and 1559. The first one had just six chapters and the 1559 edition had 80!
Herman J. Selderhuis differs with you in his article The Institutes. Selderhuis says that it was "meant for adults with little knowledge of the doctrine of salvation."
I have not read the entire thread, but has anyone denominated the difference between "Particular Redemption," "The Five Points of Calvinism," and "Calvinism" in general. If those distinctions are made this will probably be a much shorter discussion and generated more light than heat. Please be kind in your responses 'cause I am coming to the party late.
oops wrong forum but you might get the drift of the correct forum concerning Acts 17:30 and join us over there.
Acts 17:30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
There seems to be three general and somewhat credible opposing views.
1) All men every where means a general universal command to each individual everywhere to repent.
2) A general
command to all Jews and Gentiles (not necessarily to the level of each individual) everywhere to repent.
3) Each of the elect at the individual level everywhere to repent (metanoia).
My choice is number 1 - as the elect have no need of repentance and all "pas" stands alone without the definite article in the text although it does precede anthropos and can be "each man everywhere".
Yes, yes, I agree with all that. But why does a person who is elect but not yet regenerated not have to repent? Isn't the call to repent a universal call?
It is mistaken to try to draw a straight line from Augustine to the magisterial reformers. Augustine and Calvin had decidedly different views on total depravity, for example, and even different formulations of election and perseverance.
Truth is, Calvin's views differ from Dort not only on perseverance but also on total depravity. Dort is somewhere between Augustine and Calvin on total inability.
It is not surprising that Calvin and Augustine had different views of total inability to be in proper relationship with God without the unmerited urging of divine grace. August was 1) influenced by Neoplatonism and 2) was more interested (in the quote offered in this thread) in battling Manicheism than coming to a definitive understanding of the exact formulation of total inability. My own speculation is that Augustine also was intent on disputing continuing Gnosticism that maintained that the flesh was inherently evil; no, he said, humans are created by God and thus are an expression of God's good creation, no matter how corrupted they have become.
There is also a little bit of translational philosophy: Calvin believed that "image of God" (imago Dei) and likeness of God were indistinguishable. Augustine, justified or not, believed they were two separate things. Thus, while Augustine could hold that human nature was not "evil," man had still been corrupted by the fall and could not, without unmerited and unprompted grace, come to a full relationship with God.