In an effort to demonstrate the existence of a Calvinistic understanding of predestination among the pre-Nicene Christians many Calvinists resort to eisegesis for lack of a better option. Here’s a popular example:
“Ignatius, who is also called Theophorus, to the Church which is at Ephesus, in Asia, deservedly most happy, being blessed in the greatness and fulness of God the Father, and predestinated before the beginning of time, that it should be always for an enduring and unchangeable glory, being united and elected through the true passion by the will of the Father, and Jesus Christ, our God”1
Notice that while Ignatius uses the words, “predestinated,” and, “elected,” he does not define these terms, nor does he apply them in a distinctively Calvinistic connotation. Consequently, there is nothing here that’s incompatible with the Arminian understanding of predestination which dictates that God predestines according to His foreknowledge of how each individual will use their libertarian free-will. This view is based on the following Scriptural statements:
“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29)
“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ:” (1 Peter 1:1-2)
Let us now review the early Christian understanding of predestination and God’s foreknowledge from those who actually defined and applied these concepts in their writings, beginning with Tatian in the mid 2nd century:
“Now the Word before he made man created angels, and each of the two forms of creation has free will, but not the very nature of the good which is God’s alone (though man can achieve it through his own free choice). This was in order that the bad man might be justly punished, since he had become depraved through his own fault, and the good man deservedly praised for his good works, since in the exercise of his free will he had not contravened God’s purpose. This is how things stand in regard to men and angels. The power of the Word having in itself foreknowledge of the future, not according to fate but through the free decision of the choosers, used to foretell the outcome of future events, prevent wickedness by prohibitions, and commend those who remained steadfast in well-doing.”2
A clear statement on God’s foreknowledge of how mankind will use their free-will. Next we see Tatian’s teacher, Justin Martyr, expound more on this principle:
“The holy prophetic Spirit taught us these things, saying through Moses that God spoke thus to the first-formed man: ‘Behold before your face are good and evil, choose the good.’ [Deuteronomy 30:15,19] . . . So that what we say about things yet to happen being predicted, we do not say as if they took place by inevitable destiny; but God foreknows all that will be done by all people, since it is one of our tenets that each person will receive from Him according to his deeds. He foretells by the prophetic Spirit that God’s rewards will occur according to the merit of the deeds, always urging the human race to thought and recollection, showing that He cares for it and provides for men and women.”3
Again, God predicts who will choose good and who will choose evil according to their own free-will based on His foreknowledge of all things to come. While Justin and Tatian wrote from Rome, Italy, let us now turn our attention to Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in Gaul (which in part overlaps with modern France):
“God, foreknowing all things, prepared fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that light which they desire on those who seek after the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but for the despisers and mockers who avoid and turn themselves away from this light, and who do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared darkness suitable to persons who oppose the light”4
This echoes the Roman writers we just reviewed; God foreknows who will seek good and who will turn to evil according to their own free-will. Now let us look to Clement in Alexandria, Egypt, to see if the same understanding wasn’t held there:
“by the will of the one God, through one Lord—those already ordained, whom God predestinated, knowing before the foundation of the world that they would be righteous.”5
Once again, God predestines according to His foreknowledge of who will choose righteousness. This Clement elsewhere applies to Christian martyrs:
“even before his birth he was manifested to the Lord, who knew the martyr’s choice.”6
Now let us look to Clement’s student, Origen, who expounds on this in no uncertain terms:
“If, then, our free will is preserved, its future, with its numerous inclinations to virtue or to vice or toward what is fitting or toward what is improper, must, like other things, be known to God from the creation and foundation of the world. And in all that God prearranges in accordance with what he has seen with regard to each act of our free will it has been prearranged that what is fitting to each action under free will be met from his providence and in accordance with the succession of things to come. Yet the foreknowledge of God is not the cause of all things that are to come about, and of all the actions that are to be performed out of our desire and in our free will.”7
The quotation speaks for itself. Finally, let us turn to Carthage, North Africa, to see a response to the teachings of a Gnostic sect:
“Saul is chosen, but he is not yet the despiser of the prophet Samuel. Solomon is rejected; but he is now become a prey to foreign women, and a slave to the idols of Moab and Sidon. What must the Creator do, in order to escape the censure of the Marcionites? Must He prematurely condemn men, who are thus far correct in their conduct, because of future delinquencies? But it is not the mark of a good God to condemn beforehand persons who have not yet deserved condemnation.”8
And thus it is historically indefensible to argue that any of the early Christians necessarily believed in the Calvinistic understanding of predestination as we see, rather, that the pre-Nicene Church ecumenically held that God predestines according to His foreknowledge of how each individual will use their libertarian free-will.
Footnotes
1 Ignatius, ca. 110, To the Ephesians 0, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:49
2 Tatian, ca. 160, Address to the Greeks 7:1-2, in Oxford Early Christian Texts 1:13
3 Justin Martyr, ca. 153, First Apology 44, Ancient Christian Writers 56:53-54
4 Irenaeus, ca. 180, Against Heresies 4:39:4, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:523
5 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Miscellanies 7:2:17, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:555
6 Clement of Alexandria, ca. 195, Miscellanies 4:4, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:411
7 Origen, ca. 233, On Prayer 6:3, in Popular Patristics 29:126
8 Tertullian, ca. 207, Against Marcion 2:23, in Ante-Nicene Fathers 3:315
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