For the sake of argument,
even if Augustine were right in his assumption that this passage refers to all
without distinction, this would not therefore rule out all without exception
also being entailed. Is there anybody in this world for whom we should not
pray? Should we pray for some kings but not all kings? Are there
some people for whom we should not pray at all? After scrupulously analyzing
Augustine’s five interpretations he offered over the course of twenty years
regarding this passage, Hwang astutely notes:
Then the radical shift
occurred, 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.
“All” has been transmuted to
mean some of “all kinds of people.” Yet, “all” in verse 4 is an adjective
modifying “men,” making it impossible to change “all” into “some men of all
kinds,” whereby “all” would modify “kinds,” and not “men” as the text properly
dictates. Some Calvinists may argue that “all” has a more limited sense in
other contexts (where it can mean some of all sorts or some of all kinds), but
even if this were true, does this therefore justify the Calvinist in declaring
that “all” cannot mean all without exception in any atonement context? In this
specific passage, Paul calls for believers to pray for actual people,
not classes of people. His point is simple: “Don’t exclude anyone from
their prayers, no matter their social status.” Moreover, as I. Howard Marshall
notes, Paul maintains his focus on all people whilst specifically calling for
prayers to be offered for rulers, since rulers are the ones who facilitate an
environment in which their subjects are able to live godly and peaceful lives. Thus,
the prayer for rulers is not strictly a prayer for their salvation;
rather, it is enjoined in support of Paul’s injunction in verse 1 for his
readers to pray for all men.
Furthermore, the verses
following 1 Timothy 2:4 obliterate Augustine’s eisegesis. “For there is one
God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who
gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper
time” (1 Tim 2:5–6). Christ is the mediator between God and whom?
Between God and all kinds of men, or between God and every individual
man? Did He give Himself as a ransom for all kinds of men or every individual
man? If Paul had wanted to say that Christ gave Himself as a ransom for every
individual, how else might He have communicated this truth if not in the same
manner which He did? Nevertheless, Augustine defends his interpretation by
saying, “We could interpret it [1 Tim 2:4] in any other fashion, as long as we
are not compelled to believe that the Omnipotent hath willed something to be
done which was not done.” Here it becomes clear that Augustine refuses to take
the text at face value but instead hoists external implications onto the text
that lead him to reinterpret it all together. Moreover, had Augustine surveyed
Paul’s usage of “all” elsewhere in his epistle to Timothy, he would have
stumbled across a passage quite similar to 2:4, 4:9–10, which reads, “The
saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance. For to this end we toil
and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior
of all people, especially of those who believe.” Notice Paul’s differentiation between
“all men” and “those who believe.” Believers are merely a subset of “all men.”
Thus, a consistent exegete must acknowledge that unless there is a sufficient
reason to think otherwise, Paul’s use of the same word in 2:4 must be
understood in the same manner.
Much more could be said at
length about this single passage, but the point of this exercise was to
demonstrate how in order for the determinist system to be read from the text,
it has to first be read into the text. Vernon Grounds once said of the
great number of texts that flatly contradict the doctrine of limited atonement,
“It takes an exegetical ingenuity which is something other than a learned
virtuosity to evacuate these texts of their obvious meaning: it takes an
exegetical ingenuity verging on sophistry to deny their explicit universality.” (Andrew Hronich, Once Loved
Always Loved: The Logic of Apokatastasis [Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock,
2023], 106-7)
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