Herman Bavinck
Cited from Desiring God website
This Calvinist historian admits the early church did not teach absolute predestination and irresistible grace but taught free will to accept the grace proffered by God
In the early church, at a time when it had to contend with pagan fatalism and gnostic naturalism, its representatives focused exclusively on the moral nature, freedom, and responsibility of humans and could not do justice, therefore, to the teaching of Scripture concerning the counsel of God. Though humans had been more or less corrupted by sin, they remained free and were able to accept the proffered grace of God. The church’s teaching did not include a doctrine of absolute predestination and irresistible grace.10
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, vol. 2, God and Creation (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 348. He references Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian among the ante-Nicene fathers, and John of Damascus among the later Eastern teachers. ↩
Cited from Desiring God website
This Calvinist historian admits the early church did not teach absolute predestination and irresistible grace but taught free will to accept the grace proffered by God
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