Pre-Augustinian
Patristic writers prior to Augustine (d. 430 AD) overwhelmingly affirmed human free will and actively refuted philosophical or theological determinism as being incompatible with Christian teaching. Pre-Augustine, determinism associated with Gnosticism, Stoicism, or Manichaeism. It did not arise from biblical exegesis. It is exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to find quotations in historical Christian writings before the fifth century, that support a doctrine of determinism, the belief that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will.
Gnostics typically posited a remote, perfect, supreme God and a flawed, inferior deity responsible for creating the intrinsically evil material world, including the body. The human spirit or soul, a fragment of the divine, is trapped in the corrupt physical body. This dualism led to a form of determinism or fatalism among Gnostic groups, especially in contrast to the actual Christian, human free will. Gnostics, like the Manichaeans, saw the total corruption of the physical body predetermining a person inescapably to sin, since all matter was evil.
Proto-Gnosticism Combatted in New Testament
Apostle John
The New Testament evidences the existence of proto-Gnostic heresies, such a Docetism, saying that Christ could not have taken on human flesh, so He only seemed human. To combat this false doctrine, John writes in 1 John 4:2-3:
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: 3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.
John directly rejects the proto-Gnostic dualistic idea that a divine spirit would be corrupted by real human flesh.
Another key element of proto-Gnosticism was the belief that the Christ-spirit was a separate entity from the man Jesus. These false teachers believed the spirit descended upon Jesus at his baptism and departed before his crucifixion, thus avoiding the defilement of death on the cross. The Apostle John again combats this distinction by asserting that Jesus Christ’s identity is fully evidenced by both his physical birth and his physical death in 1 John 5:6:
This is he that came by water (physical birth, amniotic fluid) and blood (physical death, blood the life of the flesh), even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.
Jesus was genuinely born in a human body and actually died a bloody death, bleeding physical blood out of his human body.
Apostle Paul
In 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul agrees that someone’s body is sown in corruption, but not in the resurrection body of a saved person, one raised in incorruption. With resurrection, God replaces a perishable mortal body with an incorruptible, immortal one. Paul opposes the idea that spread in the Greek culture through pagan philosophy that a physical body remains forever bound to corruption. He undermined proto-Gnostic dualism by presenting Christ’s bodily resurrection as the paradigm and the future transformation of believers’ bodies as their destiny.
Irenaeus in his Against Heresies, exposes Gnostic heretics, who said that some by nature possess the divine spark, which destines them for salvation regardless of their conduct. Their inherent spiritual nature guarantees their fate. Others by nature are entirely material, incapable of receiving this spark of immortality, which dooms them necessarily to perish.
Augustine and Manichaeanism
Before he embraced Roman Catholicism, Augustine was Manichaean for about nine years. Manichaeism was a highly influential, dualistic religion often categorized as a form of Gnosticism. It taught a radical dualism of an eternal struggle between the world of light/spirit and the world of darkness/matter. Augustine’s views on grace and predestination exhibit a noticeable shift in historical theology. It seems reasonable to trace the origins of Augustinian determinism. If Christian determinism didn’t exist before Augustine, then where did Augustine get it?
Augustine quoted the Persian Gnostic prophet Mani directly and emphatically in his writings, primarily from two specific works: the Epistula fundamenti (Fundamental Epistle) and the Thesaurus (Treasure [of Life]). He also claimed he was capable of quoting “innumerable passages from the books of Mani.” Manichaeism, founded by Mani, was deterministic. It taught a strong form of soteriological determinism, meaning that one’s spiritual fate was largely predetermined by the mixture of light and darkness within them.
Due to this inherent nature, libertarian free will had no logical place in the Manichaean system regarding one’s ultimate salvation. Some people were considered to be “saved by nature” and others “damned by nature.” In essence, salvation in Manichaeism was not a matter of free choice but rather the result of a process driven by an inherent nature, with knowledge (gnosis) of this spiritual truth being the key to liberating the particles of light from the material world.
The Influence of Augustine on Calvin
Augustine’s theological work, especially on predestination, was a major source for later Protestant Reformers, most notably John Calvin. While Calvinism is distinct from Gnosticism, his theological determinism has a historical lineage that incorporates ideas originally found in Gnostic concepts, carried forward through Augustine. I’m not saying Calvin was Gnostic. His determinism does not proceed from historical theology except through the influence, it seems, of Mani on Augustine, the latter whom most greatly contributed to Calvin’s thinking.
Much more could be said on this subject and not everything conforms neatly or even at all, which is always the case when departing from the oneness of God’s Word in fitting with God’s nature. The water of infant sprinkling seems incongruent with the natural evil of physical things in a Gnostic construct. This is why in Augustine’s teaching, the water is sanctified by the prayer of the priest in the church. Since then, this sanctified water is the “holy water” of Roman Catholicism. It becomes a spiritual entity to clean away original sin from an infant.
Pope Leo IV (reigned 847–855 AD) formally ordered that every priest bless water every Sunday to sprinkle the people and places of the faithful. In Roman Catholicism, holy water has a real, spiritual power that is effective for cleansing from venial sin, repelling evil, and drawing down God’s blessing. Roman Catholic teachings say though that the priest and the church attach the spiritual effects to the water.
Yet In Contrast
Calvin vehemently argued against the Baptists who claimed infants could not have faith. He countered that God’s power is not bound by human understanding or physical age. Calvin speculated that God might indeed “shine with a tiny spark at the present time” on elect infants, especially those who died in infancy, granting them an “age appropriate portion” of grace, even if they could not yet exhibit conscious faith or repentance. The spiritual effect of the sign was not absent, but it was latent (hidden) until the child matured.
It is difficult to understand Calvin’s view of infant sprinkling in light of his Augustinian inherited determinism. For Calvin, the sprinkling did not save the infant by the physical act of the water, but it declared, sealed, and confirmed the saving grace that God’s sovereign Spirit would surely apply to an elect child, either immediately or as they matured and came to faith. So which is it? No one knows.