Friday, September 24, 2021

Kenneth M. Wilson on Augustine's Interpretations of 1 Timothy 2:4

  

1 Tim 2.4

 

Augustine cites 1 Tim 2.4 only once prior to 412 (Exp. quaest. Rom. 74). The Pelagians erroneously assumed in 1 Tim 2.4 taught that God gave the gift of faith to all persons, which Augustine easily refuted by changing wills/desires to 'provides opportunity' (Spir. et litt. 37-38). The Stoic omnipotent God must get everything he desires. Not until 414 CE (ep. 149) does 'all kinds/classes' definitively replace 'all,' and S.304.2 (417 CE) repeats this concept. Only in 421 CE (C. Kul. 4.8.42) did Augustine alter the text to mean 'all who are saved' are saved by God's will, which he repeats the next year (Enchir. 97, 103). Many people cannot be saved: "many are not saved because God does not will this" (ep. 217.19). Yet God makes Christians desire the salvation of those whom he has damned (Corrept. 15, 47), which Rist adeptly identifies as "the most pathetic passage" (Rist [1972], 239). By 429 CE, Augustine quotes 1 Cor 1.18 (but he adds the word such to 1 Tim 2.4), then defines all to all those elected, thereby implying an irresistible call of God.

 

Hos omnes docet venire ad Christum Deut; hos enim "omnes vult salvos fieri, et in agnitionem veritatis venire" [1 Tim. 2.4]. Nam si et illos quibus stultitia est verbum crucis, ut ad Christum venirent, docere voluisset, procul dubio venirent et ipsi. (Praed 14)

 

Thus, Hwang's analysis of Augustine's evolving interpretation of 1 Tim 2.4 correctly concludes,

 

Then the radical shift occured, brought about by the open and heated conflict with the Pelagians. 'Desires' took on absolute and efficacious qualities, and the meaning of 'all' was reduced to the predestined. 1 Tim. 2.4 should be understood, then, as meaning that God saves only the predestined. All others, apparently, do not even have a prayer. (Hwang [2003], 137-142)

 

Indeed, only after 411 CE did Augustine arrive at his interpretation from philosophical conclusions in rhetorically refuting the Pelagians (not from a careful exposition of scripture) as evidenced by his desultory explanatory attempts over a twenty year period. In Augustine's later system, he rejects his own former wishing for his neighbor to share in God's good (Ver. rel. 87, Mor. eccl. 1.26.49). Because God does not desire our neighbor's good, our desiring it would be like performing CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) on decaying corpses. Augustine's novel 'Divine Love' falls short even of the mere human love-command "love thy neighbor" by desiring her good (e.g., the Samaritan, Luke 10.28-37). His new God actively creates, then uncaringly abandons—no, actively 'predestines'—his created persons to eternal damnation. (Kenneth M. Wilson, Augustine's Conversion from Traditional Free Choice to "None-free Free Will": A Comprehensive Methodology [Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 111; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018], 260-61)