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This post is yet another that demonstrates the extreme prejudice employed by Wilson in his reading and assessment of Augustine. As a committed Protestant Baptist in the 21st Century, when I began reading Augustine in 2017 I approached it with no agenda. I knew that there would be many things that Augustine wrote with which I would agree and many with which I would disagree. But I have not approached my reading looking for a way to either assimilate Augustine into my tradition or accuse him of heresy from the start. My reading has been fruitful and a blessing. Dr. Wilson’s approach to Augustine appears to have been started with a bias and an effort to make Augustine someone that he was not.

After reading through some of Augustine yourself, it should be clear that it is anything but Wilsonian “Traditionalism”. As I have shown, Augustine not only says that children are born guilty (with a lack of innocence) but that they are further born with punishment upon them which makes them need the washing of regeneration in baptism. Guilty persons (infants) in need of regeneration, according to Augustine’s understanding of the catholic faith, would face the punishment of damnation.

When Augustine’s own words are read he appears to have spoken in a “non-traditional” way. I simply ask, yet again, if the things that Augustine wrote in this work are statements that the provisionists could agree with. Can they say that man cannot even begin or complete the renovation of spirit without God helping him to do that? Can they say that our use of free will “does not disturb any portion of the divine order and law”? These are serious questions that undermine much of Dr. Wilson’s thesis.

Even excluding Ad Simplicianum we can see that Augustine spoke with similar language in the 10 years surrounding that letter. We see that what Dr. Wilson has conceded as non-traditional language in Ad Simplicianum is echoed by further non-traditional language in other works around that time (and the quotes that I have posted above are not exhaustive). If Augustine believed in 396 what he wrote in Ad Simplicianum, then Wilson’s entire thesis is a house of cards. But Dr. Wilson has stacked this house of cards on a single card at the bottom in order to serve as the firm foundation for this flimsy house. That single card is the fact that the word “reatus” is never found to be used prior to 412. This means that nobody believed that there was damnable guilt associated with original sin. But I have clearly just shown that Augustine, at least in 401, did believe in the inherited guilt of original sin such that he would recommend that children must be baptized to cleanse and regenerate them.

As this post demonstrates, the statements that Dr. Wilson made regarding the Council of Carthage do not hold water when we look at the actual document. They did believe that the church universal was baptizing infants and that it was to remit the sin that was in them as a result of generation from Adam.

After reading this post, does it sound to you like Augustine was still under the influence of Stoic Providence guided by the stars in 388 and 398 (as well as from 393 and 397 in quotes below) when he explicitly denied the influence of stars over the birth of any man? As Augustine stated in Confessions, he had abandoned any type of atrological determinism by 386 – even before he was converted! When you have direct and explicit denials by Augustine of the assertions that Wilson is making, you have to ask yourself why Dr. Wilson is treating Augustine the way that he is. Augustine, in writings from 388-401 categorically denied any assertion that he continued to worship the heavenly bodies.

This foundational part of “faith” (a “Redeemer” known as Zoroaster,who Wilson equated with Christ, commanding one to awake from their slumber and that Redeemer gave the grace for someone to even be able to awaken) that Augustine supposedly snuck into Christianity was approved by Augustine, per Wilson. Yet it does not take into account that Augustine was quite explicit that the “faith” he had as a Manichaean was disapproved of by him. Certainly this “faith” would include such non-catholic beliefs in astrology and the false god along with Zoroaster the Redeemer in Manichaeism.