I have stated in my post here before that I find the attitude that many Calvinist bring to the discussion of these ideas to be concerning. It’s one thing to disagree and to have open discussion. I’m for that. But when you call people who disagree with you heretics, sinners and just plain stupid, the conversation really gone the wrong direction.
In the forward for a reprint of John Owen’s “The Death of Death in the Death of Christ” Packer makes the following claim against Arminianism: (view the forward in its entirety here)
“Calvinism is the natural theology written on the heart of the new man in Christ, whereas Arminianism is an intellectual sin of infirmity, natural only in the sense in which all such sins are natural, even to the regenerate. Calvinistic thinking is the Christian being himself on the intellectual level; Arminian thinking is the Christian failing to be himself through the weakness of the flesh. Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions from attending to what Scripture actually says…”
So Packer thinks that Arminians are sinners and intellectually limited. He would seem to agree with R.C. Sproul who when he was asked if Arminians are Christians said, “Yes, barely.” [R. C. Sproul, Willing to Believe: The Controversy over Free Will (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997), 25]
Packer’s vilification of Arminians is bad enough. Then he goes a step farther and makes a statement that it patently false. Packer’s statement that , “Calvinism is what the Christian church has always held and taught when its mind has not been distracted by controversy and false traditions… “ lacks an accurate understanding of the facts at best.
Packer and other Calvinist who maintain that Calvinism is the historical position of the church would do well to look over Steve Greggs Historical Survey of what the early church fathers had to say regarding human free will.
1519-1605 :Theodore Beza (Calvin’s successor in Geneva, commenting on Romans 11:2—“God hath not cast away his people whom he foreknew.”)
“Nor are we on any account to listen to the Fathers, who refer this to faith foreseen.”
100-165 AD : Justin Martyr
“God, wishing men and angels to follow his will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall certainly be punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably (wicked), but not because God created them so. So if they repent all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God.” (Dialogue CXLi )
100-165 AD : Justin Martyr
“We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be predestinated that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions—whatever they may be.” (First Apology ch.43)
[About the year 180, Florinus had affirmed that God is the author of sin, which notion was immediately attacked by Ireneaus, who published a discourse entitled: “God, not the Author of Sin.” Florinus’ doctrine reappeared in another form later in Manichaeism, and was always considered to be a dangerous heresy by the early fathers of the church.]
130-200 AD : Irenaeus
“This expression, ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not,’ set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free (agent) from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God…And in man as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice…If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things and to abstain from others?” (Against Heresies XXXVII )
150-190 AD : Athenagoras
“men…have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice (for you would not either honor the good or punish the bad; unless vice and virtue were in their own power, and some are diligent in the matters entrusted to them, and others faithless)…”(Embassy for Christians XXIV )
150-200 AD : Clement of Alexandria
“Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and avoidance, if evil is involuntary.” (Miscellanies, book 1, ch.17)
154-222 AD : Bardaisan of Syria
“How is it that God did not so make us that we should not sin and incur condemnation? —if man had been made so, he would not have belonged to himself but would have been the instrument of him that moved him…And how in that case, would man differ from a harp, on which another plays; or from a ship, which another guides: where the praise and the blame reside in the hand of the performer or the steersman…they being only instruments made for the use of him in whom is the skill? But God, in His benignity, chose not so to make man; but by freedom He exalted him above many of His creatures.” (Fragments )
155-225 AD : Tertullian
“I find, then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God’s image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by this constitution of his nature.” (Against Marcion, Book II ch.5 )
185-254 AD : Origin
“This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the church that every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition.” (De Principiis, Preface )
185-254 AD : Origin
“There are, indeed, innumerable passages in the Scriptures which establish with exceeding clearness the existence of freedom of will.” (De Principiis, Book 3, ch.1 )
250-300 AD : Archelaus
“There can be no doubt that every individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he chooses.” (Disputation with Manes, secs.32,33 )
260-315 AD : Methodius
“Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils.” (The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, discourse 8, chapter 16 )
312-386 AD : Cyril of Jerusalem
“The soul is self-governed: and though the Devil can suggest, he has not the power to compel against the will. He pictures to thee the thought of fornication: if thou wilt, thou rejectest. For if thou wert a fornicator by necessity then for what cause did God prepare hell? If thou wert a doer of righteousness by nature and not by will, wherefore did God prepare crowns of ineffable glory? The sheep is gentle, but never was it crowned for its gentleness; since its gentle quality belongs to it not from choice but by nature.” (Lecture IV 18 )
347-407 AD : John Chrysostom
“All is in God’s power, but so that our free-will is not lost…it depends therefore on us and on Him. We must first choose the good, and then He adds what belongs to Him. He does not precede our willing, that our free-will may not suffer. But when we have chosen, then He affords us much help…It is ours to choose beforehand and to will, but God’s to perfect and bring to the end.” (On Hebrews, Homily 12 )
Does the fact that all of these early church fathers hold beliefs that appear to be clearly Arminian prove anything regarding whether Calvinism or Arminianism is right? No it does not. It does however do two things. (1) It demonstrates that Packer’s claim that Calvinism is what the church has always taught is absolutely false. (2) It sheds a light on the thoughts of the early church regarding predestination and free will. This was truly a short time span with a number of these men writing they had encountered the last disciple John while he was still alive.
I think this forward was published in 1954. I don’t know if J.I. Packer has recanted or changes his position on Arminianism since then. What I do know is that this is yet another example of the inflammatory kind of rhetoric that makes discussion of the facts impossible.