Thus, although Augustin's theology had a very strong churchly element within it, it was, on the side that is presented in the controversy against Pelagianism, distinctly anti-ecclesiastical. Its central thought was the absolute dependence of the individual on the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It made everything that concerned salvation to be of God, and traced the source of all good to Him. "Without me ye can do nothing," is the inscription on one side of it; on the other stands written, "All things are yours." Augustin held that he who builds on a human foundation builds on sand, and founded all his hope on the Rock itself. And there also he founded his teaching; as he distrusted man in the matter of salvation, so he distrusted him in the form of theology. No other of the fathers so conscientiously wrought out his theology from the revealed Word; no other of them so sternly excluded human additions. The subjects of which theology treats, he declares, are such as "we could by no means find out unless we believed them on the testimony of Holy Scripture." [193] "Where Scripture gives no certain testimony," he says, "human presumption must beware how it decides in favor of either side." [194] "We must first bend our necks to the authority of Scripture," he insists, "in order that we may arrive at knowledge and understanding through faith." [195] And this was not merely his theory, but his practice. [196] No theology was ever, it may be more broadly asserted, more conscientiously wrought out from the Scriptures. Is it without error? No; but its errors are on the surface, not of the essence. It leads to God, and it came from God; and in the midst of the controversies of so many ages it has shown itself an edifice whose solid core is built out of material "which cannot be shaken." [197]
[142] This is a necessary limitation, for there is another side--a churchly side--of Augustin's theology, which was only laid alongside of, and artificially combined with, his theology of grace. This was the traditional element in his teaching, but was far from the determining or formative element. As Thomasius truly points out (Dogmengeschichte, i. 495), both his experience and the Scriptures stood with him above tradition.
[143] It is only one of the strange assertions in Professor Allen's Continuity of Christian Thought, that he makes "the Augustinian theology rest upon the transcendence of Deity as its controlling principle" (p. 3), which is identified with "a tacit assumption of deism" (p. 171), and explained to include a "localization of God as a physical essence in the infinite remoteness," "separated from the world by infinite reaches of space." As a matter of mere fact, Augustin's conception of God was that of an immanent Spirit, and his tendency was consequently distinctly towards a pantheistic rather than a deistic view of His relation to His creatures. Nor is this true only "at a certain stage of his career" (p. 6), which is but Professor Allen's attempt to reconcile fact with his theory, but of his whole life and all his teaching. He, no doubt, did not so teach the Divine immanence as to make God the author of the form as well as the matter of all acts of His creatures, or to render it impossible for His creatures to turn from Him; this would be to pass the limits that separate the conception of Christian immanence from pure pantheism, and to make God the author of sin, and all His creatures but manifestations of Himself.
[144] On Rebuke and Grace, 27, 28.
[145] On Rebuke and Grace, 29, 31 sq.
[146] On Rebuke and Grace, 28.
[147] On Rebuke and Grace, 28.
[148] On the City of God, xiii. 2, 12, 14; On the Trinity, iv. 13.
[149] On the Merits and Remission of Sins, i. 15, and often.
[150] Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, iv. 7; On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, iii. 14, 15.
[151] On Marriage and Concupiscence, ii. 57; On the City of God, xiv. 1.
[152] Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, iv. 7.
[153] On Original Sin, 42.
[154] Retractations, ii. 24.
[155] Against Julian, iv. 3, 25, 26. Compare Thomasius' Dogmengeschichte, i. 501 and 507.
[156] On the Spirit and the Letter, 58.
[157] On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, ii. 30.
[158] On Rebuke and Grace, 11.
[159] On the Spirit and the Letter, 58.
[160] On the Grace of Christ, 4 sq.
[161] On the Predestination of the Saints, 10.
[162] Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, i. 5. Epistle 215, 4 and often.
[163] Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, i. 7. Compare i. 5, 6.
[164] Sermon 26.
[165] On Nature and Grace, 62. On the Grace of Christ, 13. On Rebuke and Grace, 2 sq.
[166] On the Spirit and Letter, 52; On Grace and Free Will, 1 sq.
[167] On the Spirit and Letter, 60, and often.
[168] On Nature and Grace, 4, and often.
[169] On the Grace of Christ, 27, and often.
[170] On the Grace of Christ, 34, and often.
[171] On Grace and Free Will, 21.
[172] On Grace and Free Will, 30, and often.
[173] On the Gift of Perseverance, 16; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ii. 15.
[174] Epistle to Optatus, 190.
[175] On the Predestination of the Saints, 17, 18.
[176] On Grace and Free Will, 17; On the Proceedings of Pelagius, 34, and often.
[177] Compare Thomasius' Dogmengeschichte, i. 510.
[178] On Rebuke and Grace, 40, 45; On the Predestination of the Saints, 13.
[179] On Rebuke and Grace, 40.
[180] On the Gift of Perseverance, 56.
[181] On the Predestination of the Saints, 36 sq.
[182] On the Gift of Perseverance, 41 sq., 47.
[183] On Rebuke and Grace, 39. Compare 14.
[184] On the Gift of Perseverance, 29; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, ii. 9 sq.
[185] On Rebuke and Grace, 1.
[186] On the Predestination of the Saints, 17, 18; if the gospel is not preached at any given place, it is proof that God has no elect there.
[187] On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, etc., ii. 37.
[188] On Rebuke and Grace, 23.
[189] Do., 20.
[190] On the Soul and its Origin, i. 11; ii. 17.
[191] On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, etc., ii. 46.
[192] On Augustin's teaching as to baptism, see Rev. James Field Spalding's The Teaching and Influence of Augustin, pp. 39 sq.
[193] On the Soul and its Origin, iv. 14.
[194] On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, etc., ii. 59.
[195] On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, i. 29.
[196] Compare On the Spirit and the Letter, 63.
[197] On the subject of this whole section, compare Reuter's Augustinische Studien, which has come to hand only after the whole was already in type, but which in all essential matters--such as the formative principle, the sources, and the main outlines of Augustin's theology--is in substantial agreement with what is here said.
Dedication of Volume I. Of the Edinburgh Edition.
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