Free Will and Early Church Fathers

Some parts adapted from God's Strategy in Human History. 1973. Roger T. Forster and V. Paul Marston. Foreword by F.F. Bruce. 

This book reveals plainly from Scripture what the truth of the Bible is in relation to God's sovereignty and man's free will, and what the Church taught and believed up until Gnostic ideas crept into Christian thinking:

"The early Church had the task of interpreting and elucidating the New Testament writings. What was implied often had to be made explicit. Sometimes new words (like "trinity" were coined. One of the earliest of these words was "free will." The early church noted the Scriptures (such as Matt. 23:37) which indicated that man sometimes defied and disobeyed God's will. They may also have noted verses (e.g. John 7:17) which indicate that man's will is not automatically forced to be what God wants it to be. They therefore coined the term "free-will" for it is not used in the Bible, and was later misused by the Pelagians. But like "trinity," it was part of the early Christians' attempt to define apostolic teaching more clearly.

"The doctrine of "free-will" seems to have been universally accepted in the early church. Not a single church figure in the first 300 years rejected it and most of them stated it clearly in works still extant. We find it taught by great leaders in places as different as Alexandria, Antioch, Athens, Carthage, Jerusalem, Lycia, Nyssa, Rome, and Sicca. We find it taught by the leaders of all the main theological schools. The only ones to reject it were heretics like the Gnostics, Marcion, Valentinus, Manes (and the Manichees), etc. In fact, the early Fathers often state their beliefs on "free-will" in works attacking heretics. Three recurrent ideas seem to be in their teaching:

1. The rejection of free-will is the view of heretics.

2. Free-will is a gift given to man by God--for nothing can ultimately be independent of God.

3. Man posses free-will because he is made in God's image, and God has free-will.

Below- several passages from writings of leading early church figures are quoted. Each is accompanied by a very brief explanation of who the writer was, but for further explanation the reader should see any standard work. One word of prior explanation may be useful: "The writers who tried to put the Christian case are often called the "Apologists," from the Greek apologia, a speech for the defense. In English this is a misleading term, because it implies that they were apologizing for something. They were not. Some of their work was more of a frontal attack on contemporary paganism. Much of it was an explanation of what Christians were and why they were innocent of the charges laid against them."

I will list two passages. One from Justin Martyr. c. 100-165 A.D. and one from Irenaeus of Gaul (c. 130-200).

Many more are listed in the book from the first 300 years or so of Church history on free will by "Irenaeus, Athenagoras of Athens, Theophilus of Antioch, Tatian of Syria, Bardaisan of Syria, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian of Carthage, Novatian or Rome, Origen, Methodius of Olympus, Archelaus, Arnobius of Sicca, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, John Chrysostom, The New Theology-- Augustine."

It is important here to note a well known quote: "What is NEW is not TRUE. What is TRUE is not NEW." Jude vs. 3- The Christian faith was "Once for all delivered to the saints." We don't have to wait 400 years later, to hear what a former Gnostic (Augustine who flip flopped on the traditional view, and then ex Catholic -John Calvin develops a rigid dogmatic view of Scripture 1100 years later before we know what the gospel is: "The faith ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS. Jude Vs. 3. 

So a Calvinists must contend - that all the early Church writers WERE ALL WRONG, including early Augustine, and including the disciples of the disciples, like Polycarp who was a disciple of the apostle John, and that John Calvin was right in his interpretations and what many say is clear eisegesis (reading into Scripture what is not there). NO EARLY CHURCH Father believed in what amounts to Calvinist soteriology. This is not a slam dunk to discredit Calvinism in and of itself, since the final arbiter are the Scriptures themselves, but many have revealed a very possible shift and diverting to ideas of Gnosticism in late Augustine on the two fundamental premises from which all of Calvinists theology is built. Augustine was one of the leading Christian thinkers in history. No one doubts this. But he was not infallible:

It's from these two fundamental premises that every passage of Scripture is read through the eyes and presuppositions of Calvinist believers today, and historically. Are they right? Most of the Christian Church has said "NO"- throughout history, and today many are challenging this rigid dogmatic philosophical theology that breeds arrogance; and for some-a cult like condemnation for any Christian who dares to discuss the Bible or the gospel- without framing everything they say with the Calvinist systematic framework - that is entrenched in many prestigious seminaries and churches today. The fundamental Calvinist premises are these: 

1. An overly fatalistic view of the sovereignty of God- which leaders in the early Church warned about. (Contrary to what all of what early Church writers, and disciples of the disciples believed.) Although Calvinists have invented clever ways to soften this overstatement of the sovereignty of God, they can't escape that at the end of the day, it is essentially fatalism and theological determinism. 

2. A false view of dead in sins meaning dead like a corpse, and the view of "inability" by Calvinist theology, than interprets the teaching of Scripture on the nature of man as being "unable to respond or even "understand" the gospel when it's preached to them. This is clearly contrary to the way the gospel and it's proclamation is explained in the New Testament.

Here is one quote from an early Church writer from 100-165 A.D. Many more could be cited which say essentially the same thing and warn against fatalistic ideas, such as are found in Calvinist thinking today.

Here are two quotes from Church history- in the book I mentioned, of which there are many more quotes from early Church writers:

Justin Martyr (c. 100-165 AD)
Dialogue CXLi: "God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall certainly be punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeable (wicked), but not because God created them so. So if they repent all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God."

Irenaeus of Gaul (c. 130-200)

Irenaeus was the first of the great Fathers of the period 180-250. He was a disciple of Polycarp of Smyrna who was a disciple of Saint John. The importance of his work Against Heresies in saving the Church from the doctrines of the Gnostics cannot be exaggerated.

Against Heresies XXXVII: This expression, “How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not,” set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free (agent) from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God. For there is not coercion with God, but a good will (toward us) is present with Him continually. And therefore does He give good counsel to all. And in man as with as in angels, He has placed the power or choice (for angels are rational beings), so that those who had yielded obedience might justly possess what is good, given indeed by God, but preserved by themselves...

4). If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things and to abstain from others? But because man is possessed of free-will in whose likeness man was created, advice is always given to him to keep fast the good, which thing is done by means of obedience to God..”