Theological Term of the Week: Augustinianism

Augustinianism

The doctrinal view that after the fall, all humankind is corrupted by original sin, and this corrupted nature controls the human will and inclines it toward evil so that no person has ever or will ever take the first step toward a right relationship with God.

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 6: 

  Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof. 

   1. Our first parents, being seduced by the subtlety and temptation of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. 

   2. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. 

   3. They being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity descending from them by ordinary generation. 

   4. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions.

• From Total Depravity by Loraine Boettner: The Extent and Effects of Original Sin: 

  It is in this sense that man since the fall “is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” He possesses a fixed bias of the will against God, and instinctively and willingly turns to evil. He is an alien by birth, and a sinner by choice. The inability under which he labors is not an inability to exercise volitions, but an inability to be willing to exercise holy volitions… .  In matters pertaining to his salvation, the unregenerate man is not at liberty to choose between good and evil, but only to choose between greater and lesser evil, which is not properly free will. The fact that fallen man still has ability to do certain acts morally good in themselves does not prove that he can do acts meriting salvation, for his motives may be wholly wrong.Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof. 

Learn more:

1. Theopedia: Augustinianism
2. Got Questions: What is Augustinianism?
3. C. Michael Patton: What happened at the Fall? Pelagianism and Augustinianism
4. A. A. Hodge: A Comparison of Systems: Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism and Augustinianism

Related terms:

• Pelagianism
• Semi-Pelagianism

Filed under Salvation

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Theological Term of the Week: Assurance

assurance
The believer’s conviction that, by God’s grace, he belongs to Christ, has received full pardon for all sins, and will inherit eternal life.1

• From scripture: 

  ….since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:21-22 ESV)
  

  Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!  (2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV)
  

  For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ…. (Romans 8:15-17 ESV)

• From The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 18:

Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation

I. Although hypocrites and other unregenerate men may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions of being in the favor of God, and estate of salvation (which hope of theirs shall perish): yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may, in this life, be certainly assured that they are in the state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, which hope shall never make them ashamed.

II. This certainty is not a bare conjectural and probable persuasion grounded upon a fallible hope; but an infallible assurance of faith founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation, the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made, the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God, which Spirit is the earnest of our inheritance, whereby we are sealed to the day of redemption.

III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith, but that a true believer may wait long, and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure, that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance; so far is it from inclining men to looseness.

IV. True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted; as, by negligence in preserving of it, by falling into some special sin which woundeth the conscience and grieveth the Spirit; by some sudden or vehement temptation, by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light: yet are they never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived; and by the which, in the meantime, they are supported from utter despair.

• From Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke:

  Assurance reveals itself in close fellowship with God, childlike obedience, and an intense longing to glorify Christ in all things. Assured believers view heaven as their home and long for Christ’s returen and their translation to glory. (2 Tim. 4:6-8)

  …Assurance helps the believer persevere, first, by encouraging him to rest on God’s grace in Christ and His promises in the gospel; and second by presenting these as a powerful motive for Christian living. As the Puritan Thomas Goodwin says, assurance “makes a man work for God ten times more than before….[It] causes the heart to be more thankful, and more fruitfully and cheerfully obedient; it perfects love, opens and gives vent to a new stream of godly sorrow, adds new motives, enlarges and encourages the heart in prayer, winds up all graces to a new and higher key and strain, causing a spring tide of all.”

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: How can I have assurance of my salvation?
2. Simply Put: Assurance of Salvation
3. Kevin DeYoung: Assurance in the Reformed Confessions, Part 1 and Part 2
4. Tom Schreiner: Perseverance and Assurance: A Survey and a Proposal (pdf)
5. D. A. Carson: Reflections on Assurance (pdf)
6. Roger Nicole: The Privilege of Assurance

Related terms:

• justification
• perseverance of the saints
• sanctification
• saving faith

Filed under Salvation

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Theological Term of the Week: Apostasy

apostasy
The renunciation of a profession of the Christian faith.

• From scripture: 

  Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons… (1 Timothy 4:1 ESV).

  They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us (1 John 2:19 ESV).

• From Why Some Leave Christ by Charles Spurgeon:

In all our churches, among the many who enlist, there are some who desert. They continue awhile, and then they go back to the world. The radical reason why they retract is an obvious incongruity. “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us” (1 Jo 2:19). The unconverted adherents to our fellowship are no loss to the Church when they depart. They are not a real loss, any more than the scattering of the chaff from the threshing-floor is a detriment5 to the wheat. Christ keeps the winnowing fan always going. His own preaching constantly sifted His hearers. Some were blown away because they were chaff. They did not really believe. By the ministry of the Gospel, by the order of Providence, by all the arrangements of divine government, the precious are separated from the vile, the dross is purged away from the silver [so] that the good seed and the pure metal may remain and be preserved. The process is always painful. It causes great searching of heart amongst those who abide faithful and occasions deep anxiety to gentle spirits of tender, sympathetic mold…I put it to myself. I put it to those who are the officers of the church. I put it to every member without exception: Will ye also go away?  

Learn more:

1. Got Questions: What is apostasy and how can I recognize it?
2. Eric Raymond: The Path to Apostasy
3. Michael Kruger: Women’s Bible Study (Hebrews), Episode 25 and Episode 26
4. Sinclair Ferguson: Apostasy and How It Happens

Related terms:

• assurance of salvation
• perseverance of the saints
• saving faith

Filed under Salvation

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Do you have a a theological term you’d like to see featured as a Theological Term of the Week? Email your suggestion using the contact button in the navigation bar above. 

Clicking on the Theological Terms button above the header will take you to an alphabetical list of all the theological terms.