Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Predestination: Part II of VI “Saint Augustine’s View”


To understand Augustine's (354-430 AD) view of predestination we must first look at his view on Grace. For Augustine, Grace is God's generous and quite unmerited attention to humanity. Because of original sin Augustine believed humanity as a whole to be frail, weak, and lost; a mass perdition of fallen individuals who cannot help themselves. Because of this we are totally dependent on God for faith from beginning to end (Augustine Ch. 51). According to Augustine it is only because of God's gracious intervention that we have any chance of being healed from original sin.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Predestination: Part I in a VI Part Series


One of the High School students from my youth group recently posted a note on Facebook concerning predestination and it has generated abundant conversation amongst the students on her friend list. This has inspired me to begin a blog series on the subject.
The reason predestination keeps on coming up in our youth group discussions is this: if you believe, preach, and, teach grace you're going to eventually have to deal with predestination no matter what the outcome.