Ancient Christian Witness

T4G 2010 -- Session 7 -- Ligon Duncan from Together for the Gospel (T4G) on Vimeo.

Dr. Ligon Duncan is a Presbyterian, but he was talking about the church fathers in this Reformed and Calvinistic conference.

1.) He tries to read his theology into the fathers, he can do this with the first 4 points of Calvinism with Saint Augustine, but he can't do this with the 5th point. He ignores Augustine's views of Justification, and Regeneration in favor of Saint Hilary of Poitier's form of "faith alone". He doesn't make it known that the form of "faith alone" found before Martin Luther can by pass many of the anathema's of the Roman Catholic council of Trent. Shoot! Even the protestant Arminian form of "faith alone" can by pass some of the "faith alone" anathema's of the Roman Catholic council of Trent. The Reformed protestant interpretation of "faith alone" is static, while the protestant Arminian version is dynamic. The same is true for the half dozen to dozen "faith alone" statements you will find among some church fathers, heretics, schismatics, and witnesses/nonchurchfathers. This is something Dr. Ligon Duncan ignores or just doesn't let the people know......he is making it seem as if they believed or understood "faith alone" in the same way the Reformed do today. If they didn't believe in "imputation".......then it is an obvious difference.

2.) He poisons the well by exaggerating their differences. I saw this with Rhology as well. For those that don't read the fathers, it is easy to tell others that they were "all over the map", "contradicted each-other", "didn't agree".......etc. Yes, it is true that the fathers, nonfathers, schismatics, and heretics disagreed. But one needs to know the context of all of that. If the issue at hand is the doctrine of "free will", and if you include Augustine and his followers on the issue.........then yes, the fathers contradicted each-other! Then yes, they disagreed! But if you don't include Augustine and his followers......then no, the fathers mostly agreed on the issue of free will, no they were not all over the map on this issue! And so context matters! Also in the area of eschatology, their differences back then weren't as drastic chaotic, and all over the map like it is today in protestant circles. Back then you pretty much had 2 choices......chillism, and pessimistic amill.....well 3 if you want to include some statements by origin that would make it seem more optimistic......but it was pretty much 2 different views. 2 different issues is not being all over the map.......that difference is not as drastic and chaotic like it is today with different views of Reformed protestant partial preterism.....they alone are all over the map in regards to what was or wasn't fulfilled in 70 A.D., but then you have the full-preterist / Hyper-preterist. You have postmillers, pessimistic and optimistic amill, and in modern chillism you have historist, pre-trib, mid-trib, and post trib. You have classical dispensationalism, progressive dispensationalism......etc.

And so, the contradictions, disagreements ....etc. of the past is not to the same degree to the disagreements going on now within protestantism.




3.) He tries to make an excuse for the early church fathers stress on free will.....by saying it was an over-reaction to the fatalism and determinism of their day. He denies that their belief of free will was similar to that of both modern Arminians and middle age Roman Catholics.
He is trying to make it seem as if they were compatibilists. Now, one can make that case for Saint Augustine in his mid to later years, but you can't make that case for the early Augustine nor for the Eastern Fathers and pre-Augustine western Fathers.
He never makes it known that Saint Augustine was at odds with everyone else.


4.) Outside of Saint Jerome, and some Eastern Fathers, and heretics either looking at the Hebrew or referencing the Hebrew from time to time, the earlychurches' Bible was not the Hebrew Bible. It was the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. Their Bible was the LXX/Septuagint

5.) He reads penal substitution into the Classical/Ransom/Christus Victor statements of the Fathers. Also the translator he was reading used the word "propitiation" instead of "expiation". The greek word "hilasteriaon" can be translated either way.


I'm tired, and so I might of missed some other things. I'll have to listen to it again to see what I missed. But uhm, if his gospel is different from theirs then they are the ones with a different gospel.








Christ is Risen!