I am currently reading Alister McGrath’s Historical Theology, a survey of theological debate in the church throughout the ages, to find out where it first went wrong. I just finished the Patristic Period and already I can conclude that at fault are the likes of Justin Martyr (100 – 165), Clement of Alexandria (150 – 215), Origen (185 – 254), and most of all Augustine of Hippo (354 – 430). These bishops and scholars sought to introduce new ideas and they imagined alternative approaches, rather than follow the instructions of Paul and the other early apostles to preserve and pass on what was taught to them.
Justin Martyr argued that the truth of Christ was seeded into the world through Greek Philosophy. Origen picked up on this and looked to Plato when he advanced an allegorical interpretation of the Bible. Clement of Alexandria was another that read Genesis as allegorical rather than literal, and he too sought to combine Greek Philosophy with the Bible.
Even in his day, Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit warned that this sort of thing was already happening, but back then it was both Jewish rabbis and scholars of Greek Philosophy that were at it.
Holding fast the faithful word as he hath been taught, that he may be able by sound doctrine both to exhort and to convince the gainsayers. For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake.
Titus 1:9-11
Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Colossians 2:7-8
By describing this period of church history, which was between the closing of the New Testament in 100 AD and the Council of Calcedon in 451 AD, as the Patristic Period, Satan has cemented in the minds of many that these aforementioned individuals were basically the founding fathers of the church. Yet that honorific must surely belong to the Son of man Jesus Christ and his apostles, because of course Christianity began with the preaching of the Son of man, and then the very first congregations or churches came about during the Acts of the Apostles, specifically after the Pentecost when the apostles were given the Holy Spirit, enabling them to perform miracles such as healing the ill and the disabled in the name of Jesus Christ. Christianity grew the way it did into a worldwide religion because of the many miracles during the Apostolic Age. When someone sees evidence of God, he cannot help but believe.
To be sure, during the Patristic Period, there were others around that remained faithful to the tradition and doctrines of the apostles. Athanasius (296 – 373) was significant to the establishment of the canon of Bible. Irenaeus of Lyons (130 – 200) was correct to refute the heresy of Gnosticism. And Tertullian (160 – 225) rebuked those that looked to Greek Philosophy for further meaning when he famously remarked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? And what has Plato’s Academy to do with the church?”
… and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? …
2 Corinthians 6:14-16
Despite these attempts to keep the faith, along came Augustine of Hippo, and he more than anyone else somehow managed to mess it all up so much so that today all of the major denominations of Christianity have embraced his erroneous thinking, particularly in regard to eschatology: Amillennialism.
Augustine strikes me as a literal Devil’s advocate – the equivalent of a high profile and highly paid barrister who is always able to convince a court to set free his otherwise criminally guilty clients. In every debate on theology that Augustine participated in that I have come across so far, he was not only wrong but he somehow managed to convince everyone else that he was right.
For starters, take the Donatist controversy. Sometime during the 4th century, the Roman governor of North Africa persecuted Christians that were there by requiring them to give up their scriptures. When the persecutions stopped, some of these Christians returned to the church and one, Felix of Aptungi, resumed the task of consecrating bishops. The Donatists labelled the Christians that handed over their scriptures as “traditores”, which literally means “the ones who had handed over”. By the way, it is from this word traditores that the English word “traitor” is derived. The Donatists maintained that these Christians should not be in positions of leadership in the church, which was fair enough, since the persecution in North Africa was a type of tribulation, ie. a test of loyalty, and these individuals had in effect failed the test. Their critics, however, notably Augustine of Hippo put forward the argument that the church was to include both saints and sinners. Never mind for the moment that Augustine did not understand what a “saint” is. His logic that a sinner should lead a church is nonsense and contrary to the Bible.
And he spake a parable unto them, Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?
Luke 6:39
Remember, to sin is to transgress a commandment of God. What if the transgression involves the first commandment? That would mean, according to Augustine, a Satanist should be allowed to lead a church.
Next, the debate over Pelagius. The heresy of Manichaeism stressed that material substance is corrupt and evil, but spirit is pure and good. Pelagius reacted to this and argued that everything created by God is good. This meant that the doctrine of original sin is wrong, and so the sacrament of infant baptism is unnecessary. Pelagius also stressed that God gave humans free will, and so humans have the ability to not sin, or at least the ability to repent when necessary and thus not remain living in sin. Augustine, however, pushed the argument that humans were created as fallen beings and were intrinsically sinful, and that except for the grace of God humans would always continue in sin. Augustine’s position is a misunderstanding of the point made in the Bible by the Son of man that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Yes, all have sinned at one time or another, but Jesus also said to the woman who was about to be stoned for adultery to go in peace and sin no more.
When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
John 8:10-11
So, here Pelagius is correct and Augustine is not. Yet the church agreed with Augustine and marked Pelagius as a heretic.
This position of Augustine on sin and grace, taken to its logical conclusion, will result in Calvinism: the idea that only the individuals that God has chosen to be saved can ever be saved. Yes, demons are insidious, and for someone who is being afflicted and misled by a demon, if there is no push back from God, that person will surely be lost. However, Calvinism is still wrong, because John Calvin (1509 – 1564) misunderstood verses in the Bible about predestination and election, which are matters that speak to the saints. John Calvin misappropriated these ideas to develop his own theory of salvation. So, Calvinism is heresy.
As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.
2 Peter 3:16
Concerning salvation, the truth is, anyone and indeed everyone in the world can be saved. To be saved, one must believe in Jesus Christ. This is always simply a matter of choice.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
John 3:16-17
As you can see, always, Augustine is misreading the verses of the Bible and twisting things to advance his own doctrines, which are all wrong.
Augustine’s model of the Trinity, wherein he likens the Holy Spirit to the emotion of love, is also wishy-washy nonsense. Again this comes down to a misreading, in this case 1 John 4:7-8, which is about agape or Christian love among members of the body of Christ, a kind of love that is sometimes translated as charity.
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
1 John 4:7-8
1 John 4:7-8 is a re-statement of the teaching of the Son of man Jesus Christ that we should love one another.
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
John 13:34-35
If everyone were to be like this, society would be harmonious and peaceful, and there would be no wrongdoing.
This has nothing to do with the idea that God is three and one.
Yet for all his mistakes, for some reason, Christendom agreed with Augustine and then exalted him as a kind of founding father, an important scholar of the Patristic Period. And so Augustine’s ideas have pervaded all the major denominations.
The most significant error that Augustine made that has become conventional wisdom across much of Christendom is the eschatology of Amillennialism. This is the idea that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ has already happened and so his Millennial Reign, which is not literally 1000 years but something symbolic, is already underway, and so even now Jesus Christ is somehow reigning over the nations of the world as the King of kings, and furthermore Satan the adversary of God is currently imprisoned in hell.
My question is, if Satan is now imprisoned in hell, why is the world filled with the phenomena of evil?
Another problem with Amillennialism is that it naturally leads to Replacement Theology: the heresy that the Jews have been replaced by the church, and that the “new covenant” prophesied in the Bible is for Christians rather than for Judah and Israel.
Today, Amillennialism is the official position of the Catholic Church, and of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and even of the Anglican Church.
Today, among all the denominations of Christianity, only Bible-believing Protestants are Premillennial.
So, if anyone is wondering when it all started to go wrong, the answer must be in the Patristic Period, which would have been one or two generations after the Son of man Jesus Christ and his apostles.