the idea that humans are born with a free will and with the ability to understand and “cooperate” with God in overcoming evil and attaining salvation and righteousness. Among others, Augustine argued against Pelagius, holding tenaciously to the doctrines of original sin, human depravity, the sovereignty of God, and the gospel of grace.
In this respect as in many others, we are greatly indebted to the brilliant Augustine. “Augustine’s work has shaped the best of the Christian intellectual tradition like few others during the two thousand year history of the church.”18 Most famous perhaps for writings such as Against the Skeptics and The City of God, multitudes of students will remember him best for works that relate to their special interests and needs. In my case that work would be his On Christian Doctrine—a work on hermeneutics sometimes thought to be the church’s first volume on homiletics. In On Christian Doctrine Augustine rethinks his rhetorical learning in Alexandria and characterizes it as “gold from Egypt,” but he makes it clear that its particulars must be examined to ascertain whether or not they are real gold. And he makes it clear that the amount of Egyptian gold available to preachers and teachers of the gospel is meager as compared to the gold to be found in the Bible.
Closing Reflections
Christians have been living in the light afforded by the apostles, early believers, and church fathers for two thousand years and more. For the most part Christians have taken what they have been given but with relatively little thinking and even less thanks; nevertheless, that heritage is inestimable. Enabled by the ministries of Christ and the Holy Spirit, those early believers accomplished a missionary task of inestimable proportions. Acknowledging a debt to Dockery and George, here are just a few aspects of the “deposit of faith” those early believers bequeathed to us:
•“Apostolic guidance”—studying and interpreting the Bible19
•Building on certain common commitments to Jewish tradition20
•The Bible as primary source for shaping the Christian tradition21
•In time the “church had to demonstrate on biblical grounds that the same God was revealed in both Testaments”22
•A “pattern of Christian truth”—the integration of faith and reason23
All of this and more lay behind the faith consensus that the church of the classical period bequeathed to the church of subsequent ages. Viewed from a missionary perspective, it is more than the church of any age could have dreamed, much less anticipated. A paragraph from the writings of the eminent missions historian, Bishop Stephen Neill, sums it up well.
Inwardly, the church had gone far to consolidate its life and to perfect its organization. It had defined the limits of the Scriptures, and had given to the New Testament equal canonical status with the Old. Through the work of the great Councils it had settled many questions of doctrine, and had laid down the limits within which Christian thought has moved ever since. . . . In the great Councils it had developed a marvelous instrument for the expression and maintenance of Christian unity; in spite of troublesome disputes as to the relative status and authority of the patriarchs—Antioch against Alexandria, and at times Rome against all the rest—Christians in every part of the world felt themselves to be at one with all other Christians.24
Somewhere25 I recall a missions historian adding that missions history is usually told in terms of individuals and groups who left home and journeyed to distant places and peoples to share the gospel and build the church. It is seldom told in terms of theologians and ecclesiastics who defended the faith, instructed the church, and formed creeds and confessions that tethered the gospel to scriptural revelation. Nevertheless, those contributions are monumental and deserving of undying gratitude and careful study.
5. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 23.
6. Or, perhaps better, the New Covenant because that links the New Testament with the covenantal character of God’s relationship with Israel and with covenant theology as well.
7. Cf. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 26–29.
8. Origen, Princ. 4.1.11 (776).
9. Williams, Early Church Fathers, 106.
10. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 35.
11. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 35.
12. Cairns, Christianity through the Centuries, 97.
13. Walker et al., History of the Christian Church, 53. See also Ott et al., Encountering Theology of Mission, xxiv.
14. Baus, History of the Church, 151.
15. Hanegraaff, Christianity in Crisis, 375.
16. Leith, Creeds of the Churches, 28.
17. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 377.
18. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 38.
19. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 23.
20. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 24.
21. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 24–25.
22. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 25.
23. Dockery and George, Great Tradition, 52.
24. Neill, History of Christian Missions, 52.
25. I believe it was also from Stephen Neill although I can no longer find the passage.
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