Reviving an Old Truth &
Confronting an Ancient Error
It is my aim to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (
Jud. 1:3). It is my hope that this book will help return the Church, or at least a remnant in it, to the doctrines of Early Christianity on this point. The objective of this article is to confront and correct the Gnostic errors which have crept into the Church and to revive a very old Scriptural doctrine which was held universally by early Christianity in the days of its prime, but which has been largely forgotten overall by the Church ever since.
If all of the Early Christians believed in free will, we have to ask: what went wrong? When did this change and who changed it? The Apostle Paul said, “Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them” (
Rom. 16:17). If the Church was so perfectly united for hundreds of years on this doctrine, when did the division occur and who brought it? Who lead the Church in its departure from Early Christianity? These are very important questions that few consider; yet, the answer is obvious enough in history.
It was not until the fourth century that Gnostic and Manichaean influence started to infiltrate the Christian Church, polluting it with their doctrines. Augustine, after saturating himself in Gnostic philosophy for many years, joined the Church and became a Bishop. He then began to contradict what the Church had always taught on human nature and the freedom of man’s will and taught in accordance with the Gnostic views of human nature and free will. The Church, through the influence of Augustine, began to embrace and teach the doctrine of natural inability.
It is an undisputed and known fact of history, admitted by Augustine’s admirers and supporters in their historical accounts of his life, that Augustine was influenced by, and a member of, the Manichaean Gnostic sect. John K. Ryan, in his introduction to “The Confessions of Saint Augustine” said, “The two great intellectual influences upon Augustine prior to his conversion were Manicheism and Greek Philosophy.”[42] In their introduction to “The Confessions of Augustine,” John Gibb and William Montgomery said, “In the same year in which he read the Scriptures and was disappointed in them, Augustine joined the Manichaean sect…”[43] They also said, “For nearly nine years Augustine was a Manichaean Auditor. At first he was a zealous partisan who contended publicly for his new faith, and did not hesitate to ridicule the doctrines of the Church and especially the Old Testament Scriptures…”[44]
Remember that Manes, also known as Mani, was the founder of Manichaeism. That was the same man who Archelaus of the Early Church debated against on the topic of free will and inability. Augustine had been in Manichaeism for many years and studied the writings of Manes. Surprisingly, when Augustine first joined the Christian Church, he began teaching the freedom of the will when debating against the Manichaeans. He said, “We [Christians]…assert the liberty of the will, whereby our actions are rendered either moral or immoral, and keep it free from every bond of necessity, on account of the righteous judgment of God.”[45] He also said, “The religious mind… confesses… and maintains… that we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done by us only because we will it.”[46] And he said, “we sin voluntarily and not by necessity.”[47] But after refuting the Manichaeans and defending free will, when he was debating the Pelagians, Augustine unfortunately went back to the doctrine of total inability, as the Manichaeans had taught. Beausobre also noticed this change and noted that Augustine defended free will “so long as he had to do with the Manichaeans. But when he came to dispute with the Pelagians, he changed his system. Then he denied that kind of freedom which before he had defended; and, so far as I am able to judge, his sentiments no longer differed from theirs [the Manichaeans] concerning the servitude of the will. He ascribed the servitude to the corruption which original sin brought into our nature; whereas the Manichaeans ascribed it to an evil quality, eternally inherit in matter.”[48] When Augustine forsook his position on free will, saying “I have tried hard to maintain the free choice of the human will, but the grace of God prevailed,”[49] he began to influence the rest of the Church with the idea of natural inability, which view the Church did not previously believe at all. The doctrine of free will was soon replaced with the idea of a ruined, corrupt, sinful nature.
Regarding the doctrine of a sinful nature, Charles Finney said, “This doctrine is a stumbling-block both to the church and the world, infinitely dishonorable to God, and an abomination alike to God and the human intellect, and should be banished from every pulpit, and from every formula of doctrine, and from the world. It is a relic of heathen philosophy, and was foisted in among the doctrines of Christianity by Augustine, as everyone may know who will take the trouble to examine for himself.”[50]
Harry Conn said, “Augustine, after studying the philosophy of Manes, the Persian philosopher, brought into the church from Manichaeism the doctrine of original sin.”[51]
The corruption of our nature, or the loss of our free will, Augustine credited to the original sin of Adam. Augustine said that the “free choice of the will was present in that man who was the first to be formed… But after he sinned by that free will, we who have descended from his progeny have been plunged into necessity.”[52] “By Adam’s transgression, the freedom of’ the human will has been completely lost.”[53] “By the greatness of the first sin, we have lost the freewill to love God.” And finally he said, “by subverting the rectitude in which he was created, he is followed with the punishment of not being able to do right” and “the freedom to abstain from sin has been lost as a punishment of sin.”[54]
Julian of Eclanum properly stated Augustine’s position when he said, “…by the sin of the first man, that is, of Adam, free will perished: and that no one has now the power of living well, but that all are constrained into sin by the necessity of their flesh…”[55] In this teaching, that free will was lost and that men sin by necessity as opposed to abusing their liberty, Rev. Daniel R. Jennings said that Julian “sensed a carryover of Manichaean thought from Augustine into the Christian Church…”[56] This is why Julian referred to the Augustinians as “Those Manichaeans…”[57] George Pretyman said about Augustine, “He was in the early part of his life a Manichaean” but “some remains of it seem to have been still left upon his mind…”[58]
By teaching that free will was lost and sin is the result of a defect in our nature, or the necessity of our corrupted constitution, Augustine was infiltrating the Church with Gnostic concepts and doctrines. Sin was no longer viewed as an ethical problem or a problem with how men use the faculty of their will. Rather, the problem of sin was now viewed as a metaphysical problem or as a fault in the faculty of the will itself.
Those who stood against the error of Augustinian Gnosticism, who accused Augustine of teaching Manichaeism and held unto the old ways and truths of early Christianity, were soon persecuted and condemned as heretics once Augustinianism was given civil and Church authority. The many bishops in the Church who denied that the original sin of Adam so corrupted human nature that free will was lost continued to teach that men were sinners by choice and not by constitution. As a result, they were ripped out of their pulpits, had their possessions confiscated, and were excommunicated by both state and church. The doctrine of free will that the Early Church taught was soon replaced with the Gnostic teaching of a necessitated will because of a corrupted, ruined, sinful nature. Augustinian theology was a massive departure from Early Christianity. Like Calvinism after it, Augustinianism used political and governmental force to silence any voice of opposition so that its doctrines could spread like a plague without challenge. Gnostic views, on this point, successfully crept into the Church.
There are major similarities and yet subtle differences between Augustinianism and Gnosticism. While the Gnostics said that man’s nature was sinful and corrupt and that man didn’t have a free will because man was created by an inferior god, Augustine agreed with the Gnostics that man’s nature was sinful and corrupt and that man did not have a free will, but he said that God made it that way on account of Adam’s sin. While the Gnostics said that flesh was sinful and therefore Christ did not have a flesh, Augustine said that concupiscence in the flesh was sinful and that this sin was hereditary or transmitted from parent to child through the physical passions of intercourse, but that Jesus avoided this hereditary sin by being conceived without physical passion and being born of a virgin. Therefore, Augustine agreed with the Gnostics in principle, but he differed from them inexplanation. In this way, Augustinian theology was a modified Manichaeism or a semi-Gnosticism.
Consider the following facts:
All of the Early Christians, before Augustine, believed in man’s free will and denied man’s natural inability.
The Gnostics in the days of the Early Church believed in man’s natural inability and denied man’s free will.
Augustine was a Gnostic for many years, in the Manichaeism sect, and converted to the Church out of Gnosticism.
After joining the Church and being appointed a Bishop, Augustine began to deny the free will of man and to affirm the natural inability of man
The Church, under Augustine’s influence, began to believe in the natural inability of man, which it never before held to, but which it formerly would refute.
What can we conclude by these facts except that when Augustine converted to Christianity out of Gnosticism, he brought with him some Gnostic doctrine? His views on human nature and free will were never held by the Early Church, but were held by the Gnostics. How can we possibly account for the fact that all of Christianity held to the freedom of the human will while only the Gnostic’s taught a corrupted and sinful nature, until Augustine joined the Christian Church out of Gnosticism? It seems abundantly clear that Augustine departed from the theology of the Early Church and remained in agreement with the Gnostics on the issue of human nature and free will. Church doctrine and theology has been infiltrated and polluted with Gnostic heresies. The Church went wrong at the time of Augustine. Christian theology violently crashed like a train, falling off the tracks, and has continued to charge and move forward on the wrong path and in the wrong direction ever since.
The greatest contributors to modern Christian theology have been Augustine, Luther, and Calvin. Augustine was influenced by Manichaean thought and Luther and Calvin were influenced by Augustinian thought. Therefore, it is no surprise that Augustine denied free will as the Manichaeans did, and Luther and Calvin denied free will as Augustine did. The Manichaeans influenced Augustine and Augustine in turn influenced Luther and Calvin.
There is no dispute over the fact that Luther and Calvin were influenced by Augustine. Luther was even an Augustinian monk. William Carlos Martyn said about Luther, “The study of the Bible and of Augustine theology… lead him to the Redeemer.”[59] In his historical account of Luther, Johann Heinrich Kurtz said, “Luther zealously studied the Bible, along with the writings of Augustine…”[60] Principal Tullock said that Luther “nourished himself upon Scripture and St. Augustine…”[61] Robert Dale Owen said, “Calvin’s ‘Institutes’ are based on Augustine’s ‘City of God’”[62] Thomas H. Dyer said in his biography of John Calvin, “The doctrine of predestination, which is generally regarded as that of which principally characterizes Calvin, is in fact that of St. Augustin…”[63] Oliver Joseph Thatcher explains why, “In theology he [Calvin] was a close follower of St. Augustine. His influence was to revivify the ideas of St. Augustine and, joining them to the main ideas of the Reformation, embody them in the Church he organized.”[64] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics said, “Luther… Zwingli and Calvin, with minor divergences, agree in reverting to St. Augustine on the main issuesand in the supposed interests of evangelical piety…”[65] Luther referred to Augustine thirteen times in his book “The Bondage of the Will”[66], and twenty four times in the “Works of Martin Luther.”[67] John Calvin referred to Augustine two hundred and sixty five times in his “Institutes on Christian Religion.”[68]
Since Luther and Calvin were both students of Augustine and learned much of their theology from him, it is not surprising to find the remains of the Gnostic view of human nature in their theological writings. Martin Luther said, “…man has lost his freedom, and is forced to serve sin, and cannot will good… he sins and wills evil necessarily…”[69] He said, “Sin in his nature and of himself he can do nothing but sin.”[70] John Calvin said that man does not have a “free will” in the sense that “he has a free choice of good and evil,”[71] but denied this all together. Calvin paraphrases Augustine saying, “…nature began to want liberty the moment the will was vanquished by the revolt into which it fell… by making a bad use of free will, lost both himself and his will… free will having been made a captive, can do nothing in the way of righteousness… man at his creation received a great degree of free will, but lost it by sinning.”[72] The Christian Spectator said, “Augustine, and Calvin, and all of the reformers, taught the bondage, or moral impotence of the will.”[73] While the Early Church wrote about “the freedom of the will,” Martin Luther wrote an entire book called “The Bondage of the Will.” This shows a clear departure from the views of early Christianity.
Luther defended his position against free will by saying, “Augustine… is wholly on my side…”[74] Calvin, like Luther, appealed to Augustine to support and defend his position. Calvin said, “Let us now hear Augustine in his own words, lest” Calvin be charged with “being opposed to all antiquity…”[75] Calvin tried to dismiss the charge of being opposed to the Early Church by saying, “Augustine hesitated not to call the will a slave…”[76] Charles Partee said “In his teaching on total depravity and bondage of the will Calvin is essentially following Augustine and Luther and not creating a so-called Calvinistic doctrine.”[77]
While Calvin tried to say that he was not “opposed to all antiquity” when it came to free will, what he meant was that he was not opposed to Augustine. Augustine was the only exception. He was opposed to all of the Early Church fathers before Augustine on this topic. John Calvin said, “…all ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating, and contradictory on this subject, that no certainty can be obtained from their writings…”[78] Calvin believed that men like Clement of Rome and Ignatius, who personally knew the Apostles, did not understand the Epistles of the Apostles; while Augustine, who did not know the Apostles, apparently did understand them. Calvin admitted, “It may, perhaps, seem that I have greatly prejudiced my own view by confessing that all of the ecclesiastical writers, with the exception of Augustine, have spoken too ambiguously or inconsistently on this subject, that no certainty is attainable from their writings.”[79]
The reason that John Calvin rejected all ancient theologians and dismissed all of their writings on this matter, except for Augustine, is because all ancient theologians affirmed the freedom of the will in their writings, except for Augustine. Gregory Boyd said, “This in part explains why Calvin cannot cite ante-Nicene fathers against his libertarian opponents…. Hence, when Calvin debates Pighuis on the freedom of the will, he cites Augustine abundantly, but no early church fathers are cited.”[80] That is why George Pretyman said, “…the peculiar tenets of Calvinism are in direct opposition to the Doctrines maintained in the primitive Church of Christ…” This we have clearly seen, but he also said, “…there is a great similarity between the Calvinistic system and the earliest [Gnostic] heresies…”[81]
The Reformers sought to return the Church to early Christianity, but actually brought it back to early heresies, because it stopped short at Augustine. The Reformers did not go far back enough. Rather than returning the Church to early Christianity, the Reformation resurrected Augustinian and Gnostic doctrines. The Methodist Quarterly Review said, “At the Reformation Augustinianism received an emphatic re-enforcement among the Protestant Churches.”[82] The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics said, “…it is Augustine who gave us the Reformation. For the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine… the Reformation came, seeing that it was, on its theological side, a revival of Augustinianism…”[83] The Reformation was to a great extent a resurrection or revival of Augustinian theology and a further departure and falling away from Early Christianity.
Gnosticism, Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism have much in common. Augustinianism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism teach Gnostic views of human nature and free will but under a different name. It’s the same old Gnosticism in a new wrapper. Other doctrines also seem to have originated in Gnosticism, from Basilianism, Valentianism, Marcionism, and Manichaeism, such as the doctrines of easy believism, individual predestination, constitutional regeneration, a sinful nature or a sinful flesh, eternal security or once saved always saved, and others. But no Gnostic doctrine has spread so widely throughout the Church, with such great acceptance as the doctrine of man’s natural inability to obey God.
This view has been held in both Catholic and Protestant Churches, taught by both Arminian and Calvinist theologians. Augustine taught many false doctrines such as the sinless life of Mary, praying to the dead, persecuting heretics, infant damnation, infant baptism, baptismal regeneration, etc. Yet it is his false teaching in regards to human nature and free will that has spread beyond the Catholic Church into the Protestant realm.
Consider these facts that have been shown:
Augustine’s mind was highly influenced by the teachings of Manichaeism on the topic of human nature and free will; and in his views on the subject, he clearly departed from the views of the Early Church.
The minds of Martin Luther and John Calvin were highly influenced by the teachings of Augustine on the topic of human nature and free will and admitted to departing from the views of the Early Church.
The greatest contributors to modern theology have been Augustine, Luther, and Calvin.
Isn’t it abundantly clear that Gnostic doctrine has infected the Church? The Gnostic doctrine of the bondage of the will, or the doctrine of man’s natural inability to obey God, has crept into the Church through a “Trojan horse” and has been masquerading as Christianity ever since. It has survived the centuries through Augustinian, Lutheran, and Calvinistic theology. These groups have preserved and promoted the doctrine of natural inability. This belief has spread like a dangerous plague, finding acceptance in many denominations and churches, but what it is not what orthodox Christianity believed.’
Source: Jesse Morrell, “Was Augustine A Gnostic Heretic? Did He Corrupt The Church With Gnostic Doctrine? Did The Early Church Agree With Pelagius?” (biblicaltruthresources). This article is an excerpt from his book, The Natural Ability of Man: A Study on Free Will & Human Nature.
We are sinful, become a sinner when we sin. 
