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Wednesday, January 9, 2013

From the Church Fathers and Monergism.com

Chrysostom Vs. Augustine on Man's WIll

John Chrysostom (347-407), held to this opinion,
“All is in God’s power, but so that our free-will is not lost, . . It depends therefore on us and on Him. We must first choose the good, and then He adds what belongs to Him. He does not precede our willing, that our free-will may not suffer. But when we have chosen, then He affords us much help . . . It is ours to choose beforehand and to will, but God’s to perfect and bring to the end.” … Salvation is of God and of man!"
Now contrast this view with Augustine (354 – 430):
"God's mercy ... goes before the unwilling to make him willing; it follows the willing to make his will effectual."
- Augustine, Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love.
"The nature of the Divine goodness is not only to open to those who knock. but also to cause them to knock and ask."
- Augustine
"In some places God requires newness of heart [Ezek 18:31]. But elsewhere he testifies that it is given by him [Ezek. 11:19; 36:26]. But what God promises we ourselves do not do through choice or nature; but he himself does through grace."
- Augustine
'Can we possibly, without utter absurdity, maintain that there first existed in anyone the good virtue of a good will, to entitle him to the removal of his heart of stone? How can we say this, when all the time this heart of stone itself signifies precisely a will of the hardest kind, a will that is absolutely inflexible against God? For if a good will comes first, there is obviously no longer a heart of stone.'
- Augustine

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