The late Reformed scholar B.B. Warfield said that the Reformation was “the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the church” (322). More specifically, Evangelical apologist Daniel Corner, who rejects the doctrine of eternal security, writes, “Church history declares Augustine was the originator and developer of OSAS” (once saved, always saved) (23). Even Catholic historian James Papandrea writes, “Augustine is the originator of the idea of perseverance as ‘once saved, always saved” (71).
But what is the full story about Augustine and one of Protestantism’s favorite doctrines?
St. Augustine formulated many soteriological ideas that would become touchstones of so-called Reformed thought. These include effective/irresistible grace (32-33), total depravity (29), and unconditional election (36). These form the T, U, and I of the famous Calvinist acronym TULIP.
It should be noted that the three doctrines listed above are not uniquely Protestant. They also find similar expression in the Catholic Thomist tradition. The biggest differences between some versions of Thomism and Calvinism are limited atonement (all Catholic traditions teach that Christ’s death was universal in scope), and perseverance of the saints (all Catholic traditions believe that not all truly regenerate people will necessarily persevere in salvation). We will examine Saint Augustine’s views concerning this latter difference.
In short, Saint Augustine endorses the Catholic view. However, it is understandable why some would presume that he endorsed eternal security. Concerning the predestined, he writes, “Of these no one perishes, because all are elected” (14). Indeed, “the faith of these, which worketh by love, either actually does not fail at all, or, if there are any whose faith fails, it is restored before their life is ended” (16). Upon first glance, these passages seem to fit quite nicely within an “eternal security” framework.
However, he also states, “Whoever are elected are without doubt also called; but not whosoever are called are as a consequence elected” (14). This is an important distinction: God elects some to salvation and perseverance unto final glory, whereas some he elects to salvation without perseverance. The passages cited above affirm the certain perseverance of the elect, but not of all the regenerate.
Augustine also writes, “It is, indeed, to be wondered at, and greatly to be wondered at, that to some of his own children—whom he has regenerated in Christ whom he has given faith, hope, and love, God does not give perseverance. . . . Who would not wonder at this?” (18). Elsewhere, he equates the final fate of these with others who were never saved and with those who lost their salvation: “Those who have not heard the gospel, and those who, having heard it and been changed by it for the better, have not received perseverance, and those who, having heard the gospel, have refused to come to Christ, that is, to believe in him . . . are not made to differ from that lump which it is plain to condemn” (12).
So, even though Augustine held to doctrines that later Calvinists would recognize as irresistible grace, total depravity, and unconditional election, he denied what would later be called the perseverance of the saints or eternal security. For he did not believe that Scripture teaches the necessary perseverance of all the regenerate. Rather, only those elected to final glory will necessarily persevere and achieve it, and not all the regenerate are so elected.
In On Rebuke and Grace, Augustine explicitly states that those who lose the grace of salvation cannot maintain that they never really received it: “If, however, being already regenerate and justified, he relapses of his own will into an evil life, assuredly he cannot say, ‘I have not received,’ because of his own free choice to evil he has lost the grace of God, that he had received” (9).
John Jefferson Davis, in a history of the perseverance of the saints, writes the following concerning Augustine’s views on the subjective sense of assurance:
Unlike Calvin and those in the later reformed tradition, however, Augustine does not believe that the Christian can in this life know with infallible certitude that he is among the he is among the elect and that he will finally persevere” (213-214).
Concerning Augustine’s views on the objective reality of whether all the regenerate will receive final glory, Davis writes, “it is possible to experience the renewal of baptismal regeneration, and the justifying grace of God, and yet not persevere to the end.”