THE FALL OF MAN 147 



of St. Augustine's inadequate and one-sided premises 

 with thorough-going consistency. Thus Calvinism 

 was born, and to the popular identification of catholic 

 doctrine concerning sin with Calvinism is largely due 

 the modern conviction that that doctrine is immoral 

 and inconsistent with modern scientific knowledge. 



Before dismissing the subject of St. Augustine's 

 influence in provincializing Western theology as to sin, 

 I ought to call your attention to the seeming connection 

 between his theory of irresistible grace and the later 

 protestant denial that man's primitive state was super- 

 natural. If divine grace is really irresistible, the fact 

 that Adam fell establishes his non-possession of it. 



The ancient fathers, previously to the time of St. 

 Augustine, were too much absorbed in vindicating the 

 truths connected with the doctrines of the Trinity and 

 of Christ's Person to undertake the labour of for- 

 mulating anthropological doctrine. The consequence 

 was twofold. In the first place they wrote with un- 

 trammelled freedom — a freedom which is justifiable 

 before the rise of determinate heresies causes technical 

 precision of language to be necessary. In the exercise 

 of this freedom they asserted baldly and without 

 qualification whichever of the opposite aspects of the 

 double mystery of inherited incapacity and personal 

 freedom and responsibility that happened to be under 

 consideration.^ Moreover, historical study shows that, 

 in the East at least, occasions for an assertion of indi- 



1 See J. B. Mozley, op. cit., ch. iv, init. He gives illustrations in 

 note XV. Cf. p. 143, above. 



