Feast of St. Augustine- The Misunderstood Catholic Theologian

Happy Feast Day of St. Augustine- the great Catholic theologian! Let’s dive into his quotations affirming Catholicism, not Calvinism!

Aug 28, 2022

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Augustine. These occasions in Catholicism mark moments along the calendar to honor saints throughout Church history, and to ask for their intercession, and to turn towards their wisdom and guidance. The same goes for St. Augustine, who was a bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa, where modern day Algeria is. He was a very noble writer who published works including The City of God, On Christian Doctrine, and Confessions, all of which I encourage the faithful to read and check out. So today, I wanted to dive into a little bit of Augustine’s theology and quotations, so that we can learn from this church father who lived from 354 AD to 430 AD. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, and most fittingly: theologians. He wisely said: “To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted through temperance. No misfortune can disturb it and this is fortitude. It obeys only God and this is justice and is careful in discerning things so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery and this is prudence.”

At the end of this video/essay I’ll leave a prayer for you all to listen to and read dedicated to Saint Augustine, but for now: let’s dive into his theology.

St Augustine said the following about purgatory, a place the Church teaches as necessary for some prior to entering Heaven if they are still attached to some sin, but entirely different than the place (hell) for those that are damned. He writes: “If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death" (ibid., 172:2). He continues: “Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment" (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 4191).

On saint intercession, Augustine writes: “A Christian people celebrates together in religious solemnity the memorials of the martyrs, both to encourage their being imitated and so that it can share in their merits and be aided by their prayers” (Against Faustus the Manichean [A.D. 400]). “At the Lord’s table we do not commemorate martyrs in the same way that we do others who rest in peace so as to pray for them, but rather that they may pray for us that we may follow in their footsteps” (Homilies on John 84 [A.D. 416]). “Neither are the souls of the pious dead separated from the Church which even now is the kingdom of Christ. Otherwise there would be no remembrance of them at the altar of God in the communication of the Body of Christ” (The City of God 20:9:2 [A.D. 419]).

St Augustine on the Eucharist noted: “What you see on the altar, you saw last night. But what it was, what it meant, what a great thing the sacrament contained you had not heard. What you see is bread and a chalice. That’s what your eyes tell you. But your faith demands instruction. The bread is Christ’s body; the chalice, Christ’s blood. It’s said briefly, and maybe that enough for faith. But faith desires understanding.”

Speaking on Conversion and faith initiation, St. Augustine says, “When you were catechumens, you were temporarily kept under the observation in the granary. Then you were named on the list. Then began the process the grinding, through fasts and exorcisms. Afterward, you came to the water: You were sprinkled, and you all were made into one dough. You were baked by the heat of the Holy Spirit, and you became the Lord’s bread.”

St Augustine also said: “By this grace baptized infants too are ingrafted into Christ's body… grace which He secretly infuses even into infants.. The sacrament of baptism is most assuredly the sacrament of regeneration.” This is perfectly in line with the words of Jesus in John 3:5 when He says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” This is also in line with the teachings of the Bible in 1 Peter 3:21, which reads: “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you- not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience- through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” Here it clearly says “baptism saves”- that baptism is the means by which God infuses us with grace. Titus 3:5 reads: “He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Baptism is not something we do for God, rather: something God does for us.

Augustine says: “These are great and mighty sacraments! Do you want to know how they are commended to us? The apostle says, ‘Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord’ (1 Cor 11:27). What is receiving unworthily? To receive a joke, to receive in contempt. Don’t belittle the sacrament just because you can look upon it. What you see passes away; but the invisible, the thing that is signified, does not pass away, but remains.”

Augustine believed firmly in Scripture, but not sola scriptura. He wrote: “The excellence of the canonical authority of the Old and New Testaments is distinct from the books of later writers. This authority was confirmed in the times of the Apostles through the succession of bishops and the propagation of churches, as if it was settled in a heavenly manner in a kind of seat to which every believing and pious mind lives in obedience” (Against Faustus, 11.5). His words might at first glance seeming to be in line with Protestantism, but given we know the Church today holds to apostolic succession through bishops following the apostles- and any branch of Protestantism does not- we have correct authority. Protestants don’t believe any authoritative hierarchical Church existed, despite the early church being Catholic, and the papacy being wildly clear throughout early church history, through the entire millennium, and up to 2,000 years later today.

Amongst Protestants, there is the allegation that St Augustine taught the John Calvin Reformation-Era view on something called “predestination” which claims that God chooses those who will enter Heaven based on His grace and omnipotence. Calvin taught: “God preordained, for his own glory and the display of His attributes of mercy and justice, a part of the human race, without any merit of their own, to eternal salvation, and another part, in just punishment of their sin, to eternal damnation.” Catholics agree, and the Church teaches, that ultimately there is an elect that will be saved, and those who aren’t, but this is not based on God’s double predestination, in which He sets forth some to be saved and some not to, with choosing so beforehand, and judging so after their temporal life. This is not what the Gospel of Jesus Christ teaches. The Gospel teaches that God will judge those after their death in this world, and He will do so righteously, since He offered salvation to all as a free gift, and gives us grace throughout our life that we are free to accept or reject, because He is a loving God who offers this for all, and desires all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Peter 3:9; Ezekiel 18:23; Matthew 23:37). God doesn’t choose those in advance to be saved or not to be saved, since He seeks all to be saved, and gives them to free will to cooperate with His grace or not too. He knows this in advance because His nature is one of omniscience (meaning all-knowing) but He does not choose those He wants to save and those He doesn’t, He only gives them grace they can accept or reject to be saved, but He does seek all of them to be saved, respects the free will of the human beings He created in His own image to embrace the grace or not, and will ultimately judge them based on their actions and response to His offering of grace and salvation. God would not be loving if He chose those in advance to be saved or damned regardless of their actions. This is contradictory to the Gospel writings which all Christians hold to be divinely inspired and the Church affirms and has made into Canon with guidance of the Holy Spirit, these words are not in line with the words of Jesus or the nature of Him, and goes against Church teaching specifically.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church in Paragraph 1828 reads the following: “The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who ‘first loved us.’”

The website Catholic Answers writes this in response to the flawed and twisted ideology of Calvinism, otherwise known as his view called double-predestination: “The Catholic Church acknowledges that faith is undoubtedly a divine gift and that no human being can earn his salvation. And yet, gifts need to be received and maintained, and thus the importance of our free-will responses to God. St. Paul and St. Peter make clear that Jesus came to save everyone (1 Tim. 2:4; 2 Pet. 3:9). In addition, Jesus makes clear that our being saved requires our free-will cooperation, as he affirms to the rich young man (Matt. 19:16-30) and in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46), and that our heavenly Father won’t forgive us our trespasses—a prerequisite for gaining heaven—unless we freely forgive those who have trespassed against us (Matt. 6:14-15; see Rev. 21:27). Further, Paul affirms the importance of good works in our freely accepting and maintaining the gift of salvific discipleship (Rom. 2:6-8), including believing in receiving faith (Rom. 3:22), and that certain unrepented transgressions will prevent us from attaining heaven (1 Cor. 6:9-10; Gal. 5:19-21). Indeed, in arguing for God’s sovereignty in the way he does, Calvin unwittingly blasphemes God by presenting him as a capricious tyrant who is responsible for the greatest of evils: consigning men and women to hell without giving them any real opportunity to accept or reject him. Calvin defends his position by saying we have no right to question God on this matter, but what his critics are questioning is actually Calvin’s concept of God’s goodness. Double predestination makes God, not the godless sinner, responsible for human sin. In contrast, the Church teaches that God desires all men and women be saved. And his omniscience—knowing who will be saved and who will not—certainly doesn’t preclude his giving each person the free-will choice to accept or reject his gift of eternal life in the drama of salvation history. More than that, God in his love seeks out those most in need of his mercy, as the Good Shepherd who seeks out wayward sheep (Matt. 18:12-13; Luke 15:1-7).”

Now on the Catholic Church and necessity of being in communion with it, as it is an institution founded by Christ, Augustine says this: “Often, too, divine providence permits even good men to be driven from the congregation of Christ by the turbulent seditions of carnal men. When for the sake of the peace of the Church they patiently endure that insult or injury, and attempt no novelties in the way of heresy or schism, they will teach men how God is to be served with a true disposition and with great and sincere charity. The intention of such men is to return when the tumult has subsided. But if that is not permitted because the storm continues or because a fiercer one might be stirred up by their return, they hold fast to their purpose to look to the good even of those responsible for the tumults and commotions that drove them out. They form no separate conventicles of their own, but defend to the death and assist by their testimony the faith which they know is preached in the Catholic Church. These the Father who seeth in secret crowns secretly. It appears that this is a rare kind of Christian, but examples are not lacking. Indeed, there are more than can be believed. So divine providence uses all kinds of men as examples for the oversight of souls and for the building up of his spiritual people.” (De vera religione, in Augustine: Earlier Writings, translated by John H. S. Burleigh [Philadelphia: TheWestminster Press, 1953], 231.)

St. Augustine goes further though. He says something that many say is heartless to say, and unempathetic: “No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church. Outside the Catholic Church one can have everything except salvation. One can have honor, one can have the sacraments, one can sing alleluia, one can answer amen, one can have faith in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and preach it too, but never can one find salvation except in the Catholic Church,” (Sermo ad Caesariensis Ecclesia plebem).

As St. Augustine essentially said, “Rome has spoken; the case is closed" (from his Sermons 131:10). And more significantly: he said: "I should not believe the gospel except as moved by the authority of the Catholic Church." St. Augustine is truly one of the brilliant thinkers and theologians and fathers of the faith in the early church, and while many know his name, I think it’s time we pay homage to his brilliance and greatness, as he continues to pray for us in our journey towards salvation, too.

A prayer to St. Augustine (who by this we mean we direct it towards and ask for intercession in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), is this: “We humbly supplicate and beseech thee, O thrice-blessed Augustine, that thou wouldst be mindful of us poor sinners this day, daily, and at the hour of our death, that by thy merits and prayers we may be delivered from all evils, of soul as well as body, and daily increase in virtue and good works; obtain for us that we may know our God and know ourselves, that in His mercy He may cause us to love Him above all things in life and death; impart to us, we beseech thee, some share of that love with which thou so ardently glow, that our hearts being all inflamed with this divine love, happily departing out of this mortal pilgrimage, we may deserve to praise with thee the loving heart of Jesus for a never-ending eternity. Amen.”