Dr Paul Allen

Reformers like John Calvin quoted Augustine more than any other author outside Scripture. They celebrated, among other qualities, how he championed the truth that God saves sinners not on the basis of their works but by his grace.   When it came to the doctrine of justification by faith, however, the Reformers did not find the clarity they wanted in the great church father.  Augustine never offers a systematic treatment of the meaning of justification, and a careful reading of his works reveals ambiguities in his treatment of the doctrine.   Nevertheless, he speaks of justification mainly in terms of God making sinners righteous rather than declaring sinners righteou s. To the Reformers, then, his way of expressing the doctrine obscured, even if it did not deny, Christ’s righteousness as the sole ground of a sinner’s justification before God. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) championed the truth that God saves sinners not on the basis of their works, but by his grace alone. E...

In a time of tumult and crisis, a bishop writes to encourage his friends and colleagues in ministry. There is much to discourage them: their perceived lack of ability; biblical and theological illiteracy in their congregations; interruptions to their busy schedules; and scandals rocking the church. As he writes, he looks for a golden thread that will tie together his advice and will call them back to faithfulness in their task. That bishop was Augustine of Hippo. Though he wrote a millennium and a half ago, his words ring true today. In a remarkable section of Instructing Beginners in Faith, “How to Avoid Discouragement,” Augustine addresses a number of challenges pastors face. He binds his encouragements together under one theme: the call to follow Christ in the simple and humble work of love. His advice is timeless, and we would do well to listen to it. Communication It worries us what was imbibed by the mind in one swift draught takes long and convoluted by-ways as it comes to expre...

So, we are faced with a certain amount of fear and anxiety that is media-induced to one degree or another. There is also, however, fear and anxiety caused by actual frightening events. Strong cyclones or bushfires are frightening to experience. Other natural disasters such as floods and are frightening. Diseases are frightening, especially when they spread across the world—as the coronavirus has done so far. Wars and terrorist activity are also frightening. Complicating matters is the lack of trust that many have in the news media. We know that fear sells because it keeps people glued to their screens and that is profitable. We know bias exists in news reporters as it does in everyone.  Due to factors such as these, however, many people have lost all trust in the news media to accurately report events. Social media has intensified this problem because friends and family share stories without always checking the sources. This can cause problems when a truly dangerous event is unfold...

Of all the famous theologians of church history, the titans of knowledge upon whose shoulders we stand, none has been more maligned or vilified than John Calvin. The public caricature of Calvin portrays him as nothing less than a monster, a mean-spirited ogre who ruled Geneva with an iron hand, sent poor Michael Servetus to his death, and introduced a diabolical view of predestination to the church.  If Christ’s beatific promise applies,  “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven,” then John Calvin needs a tractor-trailer to cart around his heavenly reward. When I consider the great theologians of the church, I think immediately of my list of the top five: St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards. These are the giants with which God has gifted His church. They comprise the all-time all-star team in ...

It has been called the Achilles' heel of the Christian faith. Of course, I'm referring to the classical problem of the existence of evil. Philosophers such as John Stuart Mill have argued that the existence of evil demonstrates that God is either not omnipotent or not good and loving -- the reasoning being that if evil exists apart from the sovereign power of God, then by resistless logic, God cannot be deemed omnipotent. On the other hand, if God does have the power to prevent evil but fails to do it, then this would reflect upon His character, indicating that He is neither good nor loving. Because of the persistence of this problem, the church has seen countless attempts at what is called theodicy. The term theodicy involves the combining of two Greek words: the word for God, theos, and the word for justification, dikaios. Hence, a theodicy is an attempt to justify God for the existence of evil (as seen, for instance, in John Milton's Paradise Lost). Such theodic...

Psalm 139 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works” (vv. 13–14). Without a doubt, Augustine of Hippo is the most significant of all the church fathers of the West. His thought has impacted not only the entire course of Western theology but also Western philosophy , psychology, and other disciplines. In redeeming Augustine, God gave us a great thinker and pastor. Augustine, who was born in AD 354 , left many works in which he explores the depths of sin, free will, the doctrine of the Trinity , and the sacraments, to name but a few. His musings on the nature of wickedness are especially illuminating, as in the case when he recounts his theft of some pears during his youth. Augustine noted that he could understand why a starving person would steal food—hunger drives him to take from others to feed himself.  Of course, Augustine was not excusing the behavior; h...

Saint Augustine of Hippo, The authority of Scripture he held in even higher esteem than that of the Church. Because the Scriptures are inspired by God , they are completely free from error and are therefore to be believed absolutely.2 Such a view of authority would seem to imply that reason has no role to play in the justification of belief, and sometimes Augustine gives that impression. He asserts that one must first believe before he can know.3 He was fond of quoting Isaiah 7: 9 in the Septuagint version : “Unless you believe you shall not understand.” The fundamental principle of the Augustinian tradition throughout the Middle Ages was fides quaerens intellectum: faith seeking understanding. But certain statements of Augustine make it clear that he was not an unqualified authoritarian. He maintained that authority and reason cooperate in bringing a person to faith. Authority demands belief and prepares man for reason, and reason in turn leads to understanding and knowledge....

English: augustine at the school of tagaste (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Augustine (a.d. 354–430) was born in northern Africa (roughly modern Algeria ). Monica, his devout Christian mother, raised him in biblical truth, prayed for him faithfully throughout her life, and remained an important influence on Augustine until her death. His brilliant but restless mind, however, wandered away from his Christian roots. This journey away from God (detailed in his classic Confessions) included giving himself to sensual pleasures. Augustine, seeking intellectual and spiritual fulfillment, wandered in succession through pagan philosophies such as Manichaeanism and Neoplatonism . Manichaeanism combined elements from several religions, teaching that reality is ultimately grounded in two gods, one evil and one good. Neoplatonism, however, taught that all reality emanated from “the One” (an impersonal, unknowable god) Augustine eventually realized the intellectual and spiritual failure of his...