Thursday, January 9, 2020

Ken Wilson on Free Will in the Apostolic Fathers


Commenting on (genuine) human free will in the Apostolic Fathers, Ken Wilson wrote:

I. Justin Martyr and Tatian

The first author to write more specifically on divine sovereignty and human free will is Justin Martyr (ca. 155 CE), Erwin Goodenough explained:

Justin everywhere is positive in his assertion that the results of the struggle are fairly to be imputed to the blame of each individual. The Stoic determinism he indignantly rejects. Unless man is himself responsible for his ethical conduct, the entire ethical scheme of the universe collapses, and with it the very existence of God himself. (The Theology of Justin Martyr [Jena: Verlag Frommannsche Buchhandlung, 1923], 219)

Commenting on Dial. 140.4 and 141.2, Barnard concurred, saying God “foreknows everything—not because events are necessary, not because he has decreed that men shall act as they do or be what they are; but foreseeing all events he ordains reward or punishment accordingly” (Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967], 78). After considering 1 Apol. 28 and 43, Chadwick also agreed. “Justin’s insistence on freedom and responsibility as God’s gift to man and his criticism of Stoic fatalism and of all moral relativism and so frequently repeated that it is safe to assume that here he saw a distinctively Christian emphasis requiring special stress” (“Justin Martyr’s Defence of Christianity,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 47.2 [1965]: 284; cf., 291-292). Similarly, Barnard wrote: “Justin, in spite of his failure to grasp the corporate nature of sin, was no Pelagian blindly believing in man’s innate power to elevate himself. All was due, he says, to the Incarnation of the Son of God” (Barnard [1967], 156).

Tatian (ca. 165) taught that free choice for good was available to every person. “Since all men have free will, all men therefore have the potential to turn to God to achieve salvation” (Emily Hunt, Christianity in the Second Century: The Case of Tatian [New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2003], 49). This remains true even though Ada’s fall enslaved humans to sin (Or. 11.2) The fall is reversed through a persona choice to receive God’s gift in Christ (Or. 15.4). Free choice was the basis of God’s rewards and punishments for both angels and humans (Or. 7.1-2).

II. Theophilus, Athengoras, and Melito

For Theophilus (ca. 180), all creation sinned in Adam and received the punishment of physical decay, not eternal death or total inability (Autol. 2.17). Theophilus’ insistence upon a free choice response to God (Autol. 2.27) occurs following his longer discussion of the primeval state in the Garden and subsequent fall of Adam. Christianity’s gracious God provides even fallen Adam with opportunity for repentance and confession (Autol. 2.26). Theophilus exhorts Christians to overcome sin through their residual free choice (Autol. 1.2, 1.7).

Athengoras (ca. 170 CE) believed infants were innocent and therefore could be judged and used them as a proof for a bodily resurrection prior to judgment (De. resurr. 14). For God’s punishment to be just, free choice stands paramount. Why?—because God created both angels and persons with free choice for the purpose of assuming responsibility for their own actions (De. resurr. 24.4-5) (Barnard Pouderon, Athénagore d’Athènes, philosophie chrétien [Paris: Beauchesne, 1989], 177-178). Humans and angels can live virtuously or viciously: “This, says Ahenagoras, is a matter of free choice, a free will given the creature by the creator” (David Rankin, Athenagoras: Philosopher and Theological [Surrey: Ashgate, 2009], 180). Without free choice, the punishment or rewarding of both humans and angels would be unjust.

In Peri Pacha 326-388, Melito (ca. 175 CE) possibly surpassed any extant Chrisitan author in an extended description depicting the devastation of Ada’s Fall (Stuart Hall, Melito of Sardis: On Pascha and Fragments in henry Chadwick, ed. Oxford Early Christian Texts [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978], xvi, where The Petition to Antonius “is now universally regarded as inauthentic.”) The scholar Lynn Cohick explained: “The homilist leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that humans have degenerated from a pristine state in the garden of Eden, where they were morally innocent, to a level of complete and utter perversion” (Lynn Cohick, The Peri Pascha Attributed to Melito of Sardis: Setting, Purpose, and Sources [Providence, RI: Brown Judaic Studies, 2009], 115). Despite this profound depravity, all persons remain capable of believing in Christ through their own God-given free choice. No special grace is needed. A cause and effect relationship exists between human free choice and God’s response (P.P. 739-744). “There is no suggestion that sinfulness is itself communicated to Adam’s progeny as a later Augustinian teaching” (Hall [1978], xlii). (Ken Wilson, The Foundation of Augustinian-Calvinism [Regula Fidei Press, 2019], 21-24)

Further Reading