- Joined
- Apr 22, 2009
- Messages
- 152
Fair enough. I've read his (St A) writings on the denial of free will, but haven't delved deep enough into any discourse of the contrarian view.
I don’t know what you mean by this. Who’s contrarian view-Augustine’s or his adversaries? Contrarian to what—denial of free will? Which are Augustine’s writings on the denial of free will? Are you talking a complete work on the denial of free will or an excerpt? A letter he wrote or the full series of letters about a topic?
I’m glad it seems we came to some sort of agreement about Calvin. I have only read about Calvin, though, I haven’t read any of his stuff so I may be giving him a bum rap. It seems to me that you’re refuting a branch of Calvinism pertaining to predestination (which may not even be true to his actual writings or beliefs, we may both be wrong about that) and are using that to argue against Christianity in particular and the existence of God as a whole. If your premise is that you can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt, logically and specifically (your words) that free will and God cannot coexist then do that. That’s a worthy and interesting debate (and beats “what are my chances” threads hands down) You shouldn’t need to misrepresent Augustine to do it. The weird thing is that by quoting excerpts or verses from Christian writers and the Bible without looking at the whole, you mirror the style of most fundamentalist “Calvinists” I know.
But don’t leave! You still haven’t told me who the other three founders of Western Christianity are.