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Happy Augustine’s Birthday!
November 13 is the birthday of Augustine, and now you know. Something else you know is that the near future looks like a terrible mess. Let’s know the past while we work on fixing that. Augustine ain’t as important as or insightful as the Torah, the Psalms, and the Gospels, but he sure does top your average Greek philosopher. The purpose of life is not money, power, fame, or physical pleasures; it’s the love of G-d and neighbor.
That’s all I got for the moment. I have a new book on Augustine coming out, and I’ll try to do a few posts on that later. For now, I’ll just give you this link to my first (and cheap) Augustine book, and this nifty tip on the subject of its third chapter:
Augustine’s second surviving book features a conversation held on his birthday in Cassiciacum, near Milan. They use his birthday meal as an opportunity to talk about the meaning of life. There’s some Stoicism stuff, some Plato stuff, and most importantly some Bible stuff that’s not exactly 100% compatible with the Stoicism and Plato stuff. It’s a short and delightful little philosophy/theology book. The book is called De Beata Vita, On the Happy Life.
Published in Religion & Philosophy
I believe in free will and eternal security. Pretty typical–not universal–position for a Baptist.
Now why are you imagining that I’m implying eternal security is “not true for Evangelical Protestants”? This comment that I’m typing right now is the first I’ve even said anything about it.
What I’ve actually been telling you is that it’s pointless to try to understand this doctrine in Reformation theology until you understand the Reformation theology of justification–which you don’t. You’re trying to have this conversation with me on some topic in Reformation theology, but it’s a more advanced topic, and you’ve stopped talking about the prerequisite topic.
I’ve always thought eternal security is like Gnosticism. With Gnosticism , there’s no struggle, there’s just acceptance of the realization that you are part of God. And once you realize that…once you have “gnosis”…you’re eternally saved. Your salvation isn’t based on anything you choose, it’s not based on what you love, it’s just based on the realization of what you are: part of God.
@manny, what’s your point exactly?
Is it “Protestants are wrong on eternal security,” or is it “Protestants are wrong on salvation not involving works,” or is it something else?
Oh, I’ve been away St. A. I’ve mostly lost the train of thought. I wonder why I didn’t get an email notice by you mentioning me. Do members still email notices when mentioned?
And yes, in all charity, you’re wrong on both! ;)
That’s interesting. We are part of the Body of Christ with baptism, but that doesn’t mean you can’t rebel against it. It doesn’t mean you can’t willfully disobey.
Well, no, but you’re supposed to get an alert under that bell shape at the top of the screen. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to work.
Good grief. Start with knowing what you’re talking about!
Learn this now: Protestant theology says that salvation involves works.
And if you’re thinking “That doesn’t sound at all like what the Protestants told me!”, then learn this instead:
You have much to learn about Protestant theology; you don’t understand it.
OK! In time you’ll have to fill me in. (Again, I think I said somewhere above, not all Protestants disregard works. I want to be clear on that.)
I did fill you in: Salvation is by faith, not by earning G-d’s favor with good works.
And what is faith? Faith is the life-change that is the necessary response to what Jesus did.
Are you saying then that Catholics and Protestants (of the reformed strand) don’t disagree over this?
Precisely. Like I said earlier.
Our actual dispute is something different.