Augustinianism and Predestination

A TRANSLATION OF “AUGUSTINIANISM AND
PREDESTINATION” BY SERGIUS BULGAKOV
ROBERTO J. DE LA NOVAL
INTRODUCTION1
Father Sergius Bulgakov belonged to that generation of Russian thinkers eager to

reassess the importance of Augustine’s thought and its compatibility, or lack thereof,
with Orthodox theology. Since Ivan Kireevsky’s Slavophile critique of Augustine as
the father of Western rationalism, a marked ambivalence can be noted in nineteenth-
century Russian Orthodox evaluations of the great bishop: some considered him
perfectly compatible with Orthodox thought (with Augustine evincing simply some
differences in emphasis or some occasional exaggerations with respect to, say, the
freedom of the will), while others saw in him a serious falling away from orthodoxy
in the early Church.2 Bulgakov maintains this duality of opinion towards Augustine:
he is simultaneously the greatest of church fathers of the patristic era and the source
of a pernicious theological voluntarism that completely erodes the coherence and
even the possibility of a true divine incarnation. In other words, Augustine’s thought
is eminently antisophiological for Bulgakov insofar as God and the human person
remain two “impermeable quantities.” Yet this definitive negative judgment should
not obscure Bulgakov’s major indebtedness to Augustine and his appreciation for
the Latin father.
1. I would like to express my deep appreciation and thanks to Yury P. Avvakumov for invalu-
able suggestions on this translation. In addition, this article is dedicated to David Bentley Hart, in
gratitude.
2. Myroslaw I. Tataryn, Augustine and Russian Orthodoxy (New York: International Scholars Pub-
lications, 2000) remains the definitive text on Augustine’s reception in Russian Orthodox thought, espe-
cially of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I depend here on Tataryn’s valuable study throughout,
for it is the most detailed analysis available of Bulgakov’s engagement with Augustine.
Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies 2.1: 65–99 © 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press
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66 JOURNAL OF ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN STUDIES
Myroslaw I. Tataryn has called Bulgakov’s theology “the most detailed Ortho-
dox reflections on the work of Augustine produced in [the twentieth] century.”3
This engagement with Augustine appears early in Bulgakov’s theological career: the
title of his 1911 collection of essays on religion and culture, Two Cities (Dva grada),
obviously hearkens to Augustine’s own monument of political theology. In terms of
dogmatic theology, it is easy to find Augustine’s Trinitarian legacy in Bulgakov’s own
Trinitarian theology, and especially in his borrowing of Augustine’s idea of the Holy
Spirit as the love shared between Father and Son.4 Perhaps more surprising is Bul-
gakov’s complete acceptance of an Augustinian understanding of sexual shame and
concupiscence; for all his intentions to rescue anthropology from what he consid-
ered its Augustinian darkening, Bulgakov shared Augustine’s conviction of the dis-
ordered relation of spirit and body that made concupiscence an inevitable aspect of
any sexual encounter.5 The two did indeed share “an identical theological agend[a],”6
as Bulgakov spent many years hammering out his theology of the Fall and its cosmic
consequences, an area obviously related to Augustine’s profound speculations on the
same issue and a subject crucial for Bulgakov’s entire sophiological system. In one
other area the two show great similarities: the complete convertibility of protology
and eschatology in their theological visions. For Augustine as for Bulgakov, God’s
election of the Church in Christ before the foundation of the world is definitive for
understanding the fate of the world and for interpreting biblical texts relating to pre-
destination. That Bulgakov was a dogmatic universalist and Augustine the foremost
defender of a double-outcome eschatology in the patristic era should not obscure a
more fundamental agreement in how the two think through the end in Christ from
the world’s beginning in him.
Differences between the two thinkers are indicated throughout Bulgakov’s cor-
pus, but most specifically in the final volume of his trilogy on Divine–Humanity, The
Bride of the Lamb, where the excursus translated below originally appeared. The rea-
son for this focus on Augustine in Bride relates to the book’s overall vision: an expla-
nation of how Divine–Humanity is manifested in the Church and therefore in the
world. The groundwork for this analysis was The Lamb of God, the first volume in the
trilogy and a detailed study of the divinizing union of God and humanity in Christ.
A key feature of the later engagement with Augustine in Bride of the Lamb appears
3. Ibid., 97.
4. A brief overview of Bulgakov’s engagement with Augustine on this question can be found in
George E. Demacopoulos and Aristotle Papanikolaou, “Augustine and the Orthodox: ‘The West’ in the
East” in Orthodox Readings of Augustine, ed. Demacoupoulos and Papinikolau (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2008), 21–24.
5. Tataryn’s discussion (77) on this issue is brief but somewhat misleading, insofar as Bulgakov’s
(and Augustine’s) affirmations of the goodness of sexuality and marriage must be qualified as referring
solely to a pre-fallen human condition. See Bulgakov’s comments on the ineradicable place of lust in
married sex in Muzhskoe i zhenskoe (Masculine and Feminine) in S. N. Bulgakov: Religiozno-filosofskii
put’: mezhdunarodnaia nauchnaia konferentsiia posviashchennaia 130-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia, ed. A. P.
Kozyrev and M. A. Vasil’eva (Moscow: Put’, 2003), 365–90, esp. 385.
6. Tataryn, Augustine and Russian Orthodoxy, 76.

ROBERTO J. DE LA NOVAL / “AUGUSTINIANISM AND PREDESTINATION” BY SERGIUS BULGAKOV 67
first in Lamb of God, in Bulgakov’s treatment of the Christology of Apollinarius of

Laodicea. According to Bulgakov, “Christology was born” with Apollinarius because
of the bishop’s anthropological interrogation of the constitution of Christ. Ultimately
Bulgakov will argue that the “co-imaging” (soobraznost’)7 of divinity and humanity
(Gen 1:26–27) grounds both anthropology and Christology (though this logically
prior condition for the Incarnation is known definitively only after its revelation and
fulfillment in Christ). Chalcedonian Christology’s insistence on the integrity of the
humanity of Christ served for Bulgakov (and for many others of his generation, such
as Nikolai Berdyaev and Semyon Frank) as the theological grounding of a humanistic
commitment to freedom—in scholarly inquiry, in opposition to autocratic regimes,
in the development of culture in the Church’s sojourn in history, and so on. The
dogmatic significance of this “high anthropology” becomes clear in Bulgakov’s cri-
tique of Augustine in this essay, Augustinianism and Predestination, where he faults
Augustine’s “lack of an anthropological orientation” for producing incoherences in a
theology of human freedom and, later on, as generative of a Eutychian and monothe-
lite Christology. Such a Christology necessitates a vision of the relationship between
Church and world as two further “impermeable quantities” destined for conflict until
the eschaton.8 The Bride of the Lamb, therefore, should be read as Bulgakov’s attempt
to overcome The City of God, and this final excursus is a “zeroing in” on the fun-
damental dogmatic disagreements between Bulgakov and Augustine that underlie
their differing attitudes towards possibilities for the world’s divinization.
Scholarship on every aspect of Augustine’s thought has obviously proliferated
since Bulgakov penned his excursus on the great bishop. Nonetheless, the treatment
of Augustine in this text is of interest not simply for understanding Bulgakov’s own
theology but also for illuminating nooks and crannies of Augustine’s thought; even
where Bulgakov is unfair to his subject or where his judgments can now be safely
put aside as false.9 Bulgakov’s knowledge of Augustine’s corpus was remarkable, as
was his familiarity with the history of interpretation of Augustine: to read Bulgakov
7. The word means congruity or conformity, but I translate it as co-imaging in order to highlight
the root образ (“image,” “form”) and its link to humanity’s creation in God’s image in Genesis, one of
Bulgakov’s fundamental theological axioms.
8. It is here, in the realm of anthropology, that Bulgakov can build his strongest case against Augus-
tine’s political vision, and not in the realm of Augustine’s political theology per se, which Bulgakov
persistently misreads. On this see David J. Dunn, “Radical Sophiology: Fr. Sergej Bulgakov and John
Milbank on Augustine” in Studies in Eastern European Thought (2012) 64:227–49. My thanks to Regula
Zwahlen for pointing me to this article.
9. As, for example, in his assessment of Augustine’s Christology as monothelite. Brian Daley has
shown (“Making a Human Will Divine: Augustine and Maximus on Christ and Human Salvation” in
Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou, Orthodox Readings of Augustine) that there is significant overlap
between Maximus the Confessor’s understanding of Christ’s two wills and Augustine’s, with the latter
perhaps even influencing Maximus. That said, if one finds the absence of a gnomic will in Christ trou-
bling—as Bulgakov did—then the question of functional monothelitism in Augustine merits further
exploration. For Bulgakov’s discussion in Lamb of God, see the translation by Boris Jakim (Grand Rap-
ids: Eerdmans, 2008), 242–47, and esp. 245 n. 19, where Bulgakov expressly affirms the presence of a
gnomic will in Christ.

on Augustine is, even today, to learn something of the great bishop. In conclusion, I
point to one direction in which Bulgakov’s analysis of Augustine remains important
for systematic theology, namely his comments on the highly tendentious charac-
ter of Augustine’s exegetical method with respect to the question of predestination.
This observation, fairly pedestrian in itself, becomes more interesting when juxta-
posed with Bulgakov’s exegesis of texts bearing on eternal salvation and perdition.
If Augustine’s exegesis limits and excludes the scope of God’s saving action, without
any textual indication for such a contraction, then Bulgakov’s own exegesis tends
towards an erosion of any barriers between nature and grace, between the Church
and the world. When, for example, St. Paul speaks of all things working for good for
those who love God and who are called according to His purpose, Bulgakov sees here
not an express indication of the Church only (which might seem most likely in a
straightforward reading of St. Paul’s epistle), but instead of all humanity, called before
the foundation of the world in the Divine–Humanity of God eternally turned toward
His creatures. In Bulgakov’s expansive exegesis we find a photo-negative of Augus-
tine’s limiting exegesis. Despite the tendentiousness of certain aspects of Bulgakov’s
own exegetical practice—which itself deserves further study—we can be confident
that the bishop of Hippo exerted his influence on this master of Orthodox thought in
this realm, too, by provoking an exegesis as wide as Bulgakov considered the saving
love of God.
A few preliminary comments on the translation: Due to the efforts of Afanasii
Bulgakov (the father of the novelist Mikhail Bulgakov) in the late 1800s, Russian
translations of Augustine’s works were available to readers in the series Works of the
Kyivan Spiritual Academy (Trudy Kievskoj Dukhovnoj Akademij).10 Major discrep-
ancies between Sergius Bulgakov’s Russian translations of Augustine in the text pre-
sented here and the Kyivan Academy’s edition demonstrate that whatever Russian
translations of Augustine we find in the text are Fr. Bulgakov’s own. Furthermore, the
latter’s references in this excursus make clear he used Migne’s edition in compiling
the present text.
In reading this excursus in its original YMCA Russian printing,11 why it was left
out of Boris Jakim’s 2001 translation becomes exceedingly clear.12 The text is a mess,
or more generously, a puzzle, that confronts the reader with Bulgakov’s somewhat
haphazard handling of the Patrologia Latina. Where Bulgakov’s citations or quota-
tions of Augustine are wrong, perhaps by misreading one Latin letter for another or
mistaking two numbers similar in appearance, I have corrected the mistakes with
no indication to the reader; where the errors are more pronounced, I have indicated
with brackets what Bulgakov leaves out, what he miscites, or where his quotation
10. Tataryn, Augustine and Russian Orthodoxy, 14–15. The texts were naturally present in St. Serge’s
library (42).
11. This translation is based on the 1945 Russian text published by YMCA Press. I use the 1971
reprint from Gregg International Publishers Unlimited (pp. 587–621); the page numbers corresponding
to the original are included throughout the translation.
12. The Bride of the Lamb (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001).

from the PL differs significantly from Migne’s text. And where Bulgakov’s quotations
of the Russian Synodal version of the Bible are slightly mistaken—he seems to have
regularly produced from memory the biblical verses he employed in his writings—I
point to the divergences in the footnotes. His frequent use of bold for emphasis has
been rendered in italics in my translation. When Bulgakov highlights something in
his Latin quotations, the word is presented in both italics and bold.
Lastly, I have broken up Bulgakov’s rather lengthy paragraphs where I perceived
logical transition points, but his penchant for run-on sentences has been preserved
to the greatest degree that (my sense of) English style could permit, for this mark of
his written voice is one of the charms of reading Bulgakov, watching idea after idea
and argument after argument swell up in his thought, with urgency and force.
Roberto J. de la Noval
The Teaching of Blessed Augustine on Freedom

and Predestination
Blessed Augustine did not directly occupy himself with problems of eschatology, and
in his numerous works there cannot be found a single treatise devoted exclusively to
one of these problems. Nonetheless, it belonged precisely to this father of the Church
as to no other to pose, in the series of numerous works from his industrious life, a
number of essential questions concerning the interrelationship between Creator and
creature, freedom and grace, self-determination and predestination13—questions
decisive for eschatology also. А general introduction to eschatology therefore natu-
rally begins with this problematic of Augustinianism.
This holy father, generally speaking, did his thinking in polemics, repelling or
opposing this or that current of thought hostile to him at the given moment (and in
this, we might add, he resembles many other fathers). His thought was not calm and
self-sufficient, but rather determined by its opposite, and not infrequently thereby
falling into one-sidedness. Through the different stages of his life, waves of thought
alternate for this father, who remains for all that the greatest thinker of the patristic
era and the defining theologian of the Western world. In particular, the general prob-
lem of the relationship between God and the world, as well as its derivative problem
13. Bulgakov switches between the Latin borrowing predestinatsiia and the native Russian predo-
predelenie, which translates more literally to “predetermination” than to “predestination,” although they
share almost identical semantic fields in this theological context. I translate predopredelenie as “predes-
tination” almost exclusively throughout.—Trans.

of theodicy, appear before us in turns, first in its anti-Manichean and then with its
anti-Pelagian formulations. In the first case he had to intone more loudly human
determination in freedom, but in the second, the action of God on the human being
through predestination. For this dialectical duality and opposition Bl. Augustine
never could provide a synthesis, although he tried to assure himself (in the Retractio-
nes) that all was well and that there was no contradiction. And so both problematics
led him to the question of the relation between creaturely freedom and divine pre-
destination that consists of the creative act of God and the Providence reigning in
the world.
[588] In the struggle with Manicheism (which Blessed Augustine had himself
lived through) the issue was the nature of evil, which in Manichean doctrine is
ascribed to the action of an anti-god, a second principle that acts in the world along-
side the good Creator. Against such an explanation of the origin of evil from a super-
natural, divine world, Bl. Augustine tries to affirm its created origin, more specifically
from created freedom. From this is born, naturally, the first theme of his theologiz-
ing—the freedom of the human will. To this theme is dedicated one of his compar-
atively early treatises (before his ordination as bishop; begun in 388, completed in
395): de libero arbitio libri tres (Migne, Patrologia, Series Latina, tomus 32). On the
foundational question of evil, unde malum, the answer is given that it arises from free
will (ex liberae voluntatis arbitrio). Evil is not created by God but instead represents a
deviation from a decreed norm (male facere nihil est, nisi a disciplina deviare; Liber I,
capita 1, numerus 2, columna 1223). Created freedom is given by God in the interest
of justice, which is equally manifested in reward and punishment (L. 2, c. I, n. 3, c.
1241). Here the question arises of how God’s foreknowledge is compatible with the
freedom of the human will and whether it does not turn into necessity. Bl. Augustine
explains the nature of the will as the potestas to act of itself, which is not abolished by
God’s foreknowledge. “Our will would not be will if it were not in our power.”14 God’s
foreknowledge is thus compatible with our freedom: it is the very condition for the
existence of the will.15 But is not foreknowledge thereby also predestination to sin? In
response to this perplexity a distinction is made between God’s foreknowledge and
necessity, because God does not compel anyone to sin but instead only foreknows
that sin,16 not being its auctor. This is why God can justly punish sins arising from
freedom. In this way there is developed here a strong distinction between divine
foreknowledge and the necessity of what is foreknown.17 Ita Deus omnia quorum ipse
auctor est praescit, nec tamen omnium quae praescit ipse auctor est (n. 11, с. 1276).
14. Voluntas igitur nostra nec voluntas esset [PL adds here: nisi esset] in nostra potestate. Porro
quia est in potestate libera est nobis. Ita fit ut et Deum non negemus esse praescium omnium futurorum
et nos tamen vellemus [PL reads: velimus] quod volumus (C. III, n. 8, c. 1275).
15. Voluntas ergo erit, quia voluntatis est praesciens. Nec voluntas esse poterit, si in potestate non
erit. Ergo et potestatis est praescius (C. III, n. 8, c. 1275).
16. Deus neminem ad peccandum cogens praevidet tamen eos qui propria voluntate peccabunt (C.
IV, n. 10, c. 1276). Deus praescientia sua non cogit facienda quae futura sunt (ib., n. 11).
17. In 394, when he was already a priest, Bl. Augustine in Expositio quarundam propositionum ex
epistola ad Rom. (t. 35, c. IX, n. 60–1, c. 3078–9), while subordinating to the help of God the merits of

[589] To the question of whether God should have created free but sinful
nature, the answer is given that just as a horse, though it stray, is better than a rock
that does not err, so is a creature that sins of its own free will better than one that
does not sin because it has no free will (c. V, n. 15, c. 1278). Therefore God is worthy
of praise for having created souls capable of both persevering in the Law and of
sinning (с. VI, n. 16, с. 1279). We ought not to wish for non-being, for cum miser
nolis esse, esse vis tamen (n. 18, c. 1280), and even suicides wish not for non-being
but for rest (c. VII, n. 23, c. 1982). The existence of sinful souls does not contradict
the perfection of the world: semper naturis omnibus universitas plena atque perfecta
еst (с. IX, n. 26, c. 1284).
It is this rather benignly optimistic acceptance of the freedom of the will in all
of its self-determinations that characterizes this treatise, since it has as its goal a
defense against metaphysical dualism with its pessimism; the entire emphasis here
is put on freedom and not on God’s will determining human fate. The latter is only
briefly mentioned, as the ars ipsa per quam facta sunt omnia, hoc est summa et incom-
mutabilis Sapientia (c. XV, n. 42, c. 1292),—the sophianicity of the world is its law-
ful regularity, and evil is non secundum naturam (c. XVII, n. 48–49, c. 1294–5), and
instead “will is the first cause of sin.” Completely lacking here is the problematic of
necessity, of fate, and of predestination, which Augustine himself admits in his final
Retractiones.18
The questions are posed in a completely different manner in the final period of
Bl. Augustine’s life and work, in his struggle with Pelagianism, during which his pes-
simistic–deterministic doctrine was fully minted, the doctrine often called “Augus-
tinianism.” Connected with this period is a series of his predominantly polemical
treatises: De gratia et libero arbitrio (424); De corruptione et gratia (427); De praedes-
tinatione sanctorum (428); De bono seu dono perseverantiae (428); Contra Julianum
opus imperfectum (430), namely libri 1, 3, 4; Retractionum lib. 1, cap. IX, and some
minor compositions.19 Bl. Augustine deals here with those same problems—free-
dom and salvation, the human being in nature and in grace—but the orientation
has already fundamentally changed: the center of gravity has shifted from human
freedom to the effect of God [590] on the human being, and correspondingly the
doctrine has changed too, although Bl. Augustine himself attempts to establish the
unity of the foundational idea in both phases.20
In the first place, he attempts as before to affirm human freedom even in the face
of grace. The treatise De gratia et libero arbitrio is specially dedicated to this, where
works, nonetheless leaves to the human being the initiative of faith (semi-Pelagianism), a position he
subsequently rejected in Retract. I, ХХIII and in De praed. Sanct. (t. 44, c. III–IV, n. 7–8, c. 964–6).
18. De gratia vero Dei, qua suos electos sic praedestinavit, ut eorumque jam in eis utuntur libero
arbitrio, ipse etiam praeparet voluntates, nihil in his libris disputandum est in view of the definitively
posed question concerning the teaching of the Manichees who affirmed immutabilem quamdam et
Deo coaeternam [PL adds here: introducere] mali naturam (Retractionum lib. I, t. 32, c. IX, n. 2, c. 545).
19. Epistle to Sextus, to Vitaly, and others. Сf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, “Predestination,” 1934 (D[ic-
tionnaire] de th[eologie] Cat[holique]. Fasc. CX–CXI).
20. Retractationes t. 32, c. 9, n. 4, c. 596–7.

the existence of freedom is demonstrated primarily from Scripture.21 One should

always note Augustine’s completely exceptional knowledge of the Bible and his
ability to find the texts he needs. However, although he—generally speaking—does
appeal to the biblical inevitability of his ideas when it comes to the most important
questions (as, for example, predestination), still in his exegesis he appears tenden-
tious and one-sided, not at all free from his own dogmatic prejudices. Nonetheless,
his understanding of freedom has already changed, or, rather, has become more
complex in comparison with the earlier period. Namely, the foundational thought
of Bl. Augustine concerning human freedom consists now in this, that the natural
freedom of the fallen human being is bondage to sin, arbitrium liberum, sed non
liberatum (De gr. et. lib. arb. t. 44, c. XIII, n. 41, c. 942) and can be exercised only
in sin; it becomes true freedom for the good only when it is overshadowed by grace
and freed from its bondage. Thus, there exists only graced freedom. (From this
flows the falsity of the Pelagian doctrine of the possibility of salvation by the pow-
ers of the natural human being in his freedom.) This foundational thought runs as a
common thread through all of Bl. Augustine’s discourses: it is their general presup-
position. Freedom of choice belongs to the human being only before the Fall, after
which it is lost.22 Thus, natural freedom, lacking grace, leads only to perdition and
leaves the human being in the massa perditionis, from which only the gift of grace
can extract him. The salvation of the fallen human being is thereby accomplished
not through freedom but in spite of it, although Bl. Augustine also insists on the
existence of free will in the human being: sicut enim hoc divino et occulto modo egit
in hominis corde; sic operatur in nobis et velle, et operari pro bona volontate (Phil.
2:13).23 Relying on texts that speak of the determining effect of God’s grace on the
human will (and forgetting the texts concerning the will’s self-determination and
responsibility that he himself has cited), [591] Augustine opposes graced freedom,
as the only path of salvation, to natural freedom, impotent before the power of sin
and leading to perdition.
Grace is given by God irrespective of a human’s merits, which indeed cannot
exist—it is given gratis, free, undeservedly: gratia vera non secundum merita homi-
num datur, alioquin gratia non est gratis [PL: gratia] (Rom. 11:6), quia ideo gratia
vocatur, quia gratis datur.24 This thought, which is repeated a countless number of
21. Tom. 44, cap. I–VII.

22. Nemo nisi per gratiam Christi ad bonum quod vult agendum, et ad malum quod odit non
agendum, potest habere liberum voluntatis arbitrium non ut voluntas eius ad bonum sicut ad malum
captiva rapiatur, sed ut a captivitate liberata ad liberatorem suum [PL adds here: liberali] suavitate amo-
ris, non servili amaritudine timoris attrahatur (Contra Julianum, t. 45, L. 3, c. CXII, c. 1296).
23. Contra Julianum, t. 45, c. XIV, c. 1296–7. Dico [PL adds here: esse] possibile voluntati hominis
defectera [PL: deflectere] a malo et facere bonum; sed ei voluntati quam Deus adiuvat gratia (c. CXV,
c. 1297).
24. De grat et. lib. arb., t. 44, cap. XX, n. 403, c. 909. The lexicology of gratis—gratia (of course,
not uncontroversial even for the Latin language and not applicable to the Greek χάρις), confirms for
him the axiomatic truth of the gifted nature of the gift of grace and, of course, hardly accords with the
exhortation to “acquire grace.”

times in Bl. Augustine, expresses his fundamental axiom: the activity of the giving
God and the passive reception of the human being in the matter of salvation. Another
axiom on grace is that its activity is accomplished in an “undeflected and insuperable
manner,” indeclinabiliter et insuperabiliter.25 Only once do we find this expression
directly stated in Bl. Augustine, but all of his teaching on grace contains precisely this
thought of the impossibility of natural freedom opposing grace, in which freedom’s
own self-will is extinguished and in which it becomes nothing more than grace’s obe-
dient instrument. This insuperability is not a matter of coercion but of persuasion, as
it were, which is accomplished through an interior delight: agunt . . . cum dilectione
et delectatione iustitiae, suavitatem quam dedit Deus.26 By the power of this effect of
grace, gratia Dei ex nolente volentem facit, and without it nulla [PL: nullius] est bona
voluntas et cum qua nullius est nisi bona voluntas.27 For this reason it is possible for
the will to turn away from evil and to do good, sed ei voluntati quam Deus adiuvat
gratia.28 Augustine speaks often about the insuperability of God’s activity, not only in
connection with the will of the good but also of the wicked.29
25. De correp. et grat., t. 44, c. XII, n. 38, c. 940: subventum est igitur infirmitati voluntatis humanae,
ut divina gratia indeclinabiliter et inse(u)perabiliter ageretur, et ideo, quamvis infirma, non tamen defi-
ceret, neque adversitate aliqua vinceretur.
26. De correp. et grat., t. 44, c. II, n. 4, n. 918. De spiritu et gratia, t., 44, c. III, n. 5, c. 203: . . . homo . . .
accipiat Spiritum Sanctum, quo fiat in animo eius delectatio dilectioque summi illius atque incommu-
tabilis boni quod Deus est. . . . Nam neque liberum arbitrium quidquam nisi ad peccandum volet [PL:
valet], si lateat veritatis via: et cum id quod agendum et quo nitendum est coeperit non latere, nisi etiam
delectet et ametur, non agitur, non suscipitur, non bene vivitur. Ut autem diligatur charitas Dei diffun-
ditur in cordibus nostris, non per arbitrium liberum quod surgit ex nobis, sed per Spiritum Sanctum,
qui datus est nobis (ib. c. V, n. 5).
27. Contra Julianum, t., 45, L. III, c. CXXII, n. 1299.
28. Contra Julianum, t., 45, L. III, c. CXXII, n. 1297.
29. Agit Deus in cordibus nostris etiam malorum hominum quidquid vult reddens tamen eis [PL:
reddens eis tamen] secundum merita eorum (De grat. et lib. arb., t. 44, c. XX, n. 42, c. 907) “ . . . operari
Deum in cordibus hominum ad inclinandas eorum voluntates quocunque voluerit, sive ad bona pro sua
misericordia, sive ad mala pro meritis eorum (ib. n. 43, c. 909). Voluntati Dei . . . humanas voluntates
non posse resistere, a fact which is confirmed by a series of examples from the history of Israel: intus
egit, corda tenuit, corda movit, eosque voluntatibus eorum, quas ipse in illis operantibus [PL: operatus]
est traxit . . . magis habere [PL: habet] in potestate voluntates hominum quam ipsi suas (De corr. et grat.,
t. 44, c. XIV, n. 45, c. 943–944). The ineluctable nature of the action of grace is proven also by the fact of
the Church’s prayer for the conversion of unbelievers. Quandoquidem non oraret Ecclesia ut daretur
infidelibus fides, nisi Deum crederet et aversas et adversas hominum ad se convertere voluntates, and
the Church would not pray for deliverance from the temptations of this world nisi crederet Dominum
sic in potestate habere cor nostrum, ut bonum quod non tenemus nisi propria voluntate, non tamen
tenemus [PL: teneamus] nisi ipse in nobis [PL adds here: operetur] et velle (De dono pers., t. 45, c.
XXIII, n. 63, c. 1031). All responsibility is thereby laid on God, and there is rejected the Pelagian idea of
a unique mutual interaction between God and the human being. Cur non utrumque in Deo [PL: Dei]
et quod iubet, et quod offert? Rogatur enim ut det quid iubet rogant credentes, ut sibi augeatur fides,
rogant pro non credentibus, ut eis donetur fides, et in suis igitur incrementis, et in suis initiis Dei donum
est fides (De praed. sanctorum, t. 44, c. XI, n. 22, c. 976). Hesitant to turn the human being into a com-
plete automaton, Bl. Augustine also wishes to admit a certain activity pertaining to the human being: et
nos [PL adds here: ea] facimus (faith), et Deus facit ut illa faciamus . . . eos facit habere deinceps opera
bona, cum ipsis [PL: ipse] facit, ut faciant divina mandata (c. 976–77).

[592] One of the details of his general teaching on salvation is the “gift of perse-
verance,” donum perseverantiae, which is also either given or not given to the human
being by God, depending on his determination and fate in eternity.30 It was depen-
dent on this gift that the fate of Judas could have been changed, had he died before
his fall, or the fate of Peter, had he died after his fall but before his restoration. Thus
does the fabric of history unfold: God uses not only the good works but also the sin-
ful malice of people, even of the devil, in order to accomplish his goals: List der Ver-
nunft.31 But what determines individual persons receiving, or indeed not receiving,
the gift of grace? Do individual characteristics or merits have significance here, in
foresight of which God distributes his gifts, as the Pelagians thought? Certainly not.
This distribution is God’s own act, taking into account neither any personal merits
nor characteristics, in accord with the character of grace as a gift. This is an act of
divine election, electio; the dogma of election stands at the center of the doctrine of
Augustinianism. Electio has no foundation for itself beyond God’s will: quia electi
sunt, elegerunt: non quia [593] elegerunt, electi sunt. Eligentium hominum meritum
nullum esset, nisi eos elegentis Dei gratia praeveniret32: an idea repeated endlessly in
different places. Accordingly, the donum perseverantiae is given (or not given) not
corresponding to merits but rather secundum ipsius secretissimam, eamdemque jus-
tissimam, sapientissimam, beneficentissimam, voluntatem.33
Election is founded on divine predestination, which itself constitutes the founda-
tional dogma of Augustinianism. In this Bl. Augustine relies on his distinctive inter-
pretation of Rom. 8–11, and also on some other texts (2 Tim. 1:9; Eph. 1:3–12, and
some others). Of the elect the Apostle says: “We know that for those who love God,
those called—κλητοῖς—according to (His) will—πρόθεσις—all things work together
for good; for those He foreknew He also predestined—προέγνω-προώρισεν—(to be)
conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the firstborn among many
brothers; and those He predestined these also He called—ἐκάλεσε—and those He
called, He also justified—ἐδικαίωσεν—and those He justified, He also glorified (Rom.
8:28–30). Not one from this group has perished because all are elected. And they are
30. Vitae huic, quando voluerit, ipse det finem (De dono persever., t. 45, c. VII, n. 41, c. 1018). If God
sends death [konets] to a person before the Fall which threatens him, then it is granted to that person to
persevere until the end [konets].
31. De grat. et lib. arb., t. 44, c. XX, n. 41, c. 907. Et hos [PL: hoc] ostendit ex Dei dispositione venisse
qui bene uti novit etiam malis: non ut ei prosint vasae irae, sed ut ipso illis bene utente, prosint vasis
miserecordiae (De praed. sanct., t. 44, c. XVI, n. 33, c. 984). Est ergo in malorum potestate peccare; ut
autem peccando hoc vel hoc illa malitia faciant, non est in eorum potestate, sed Dei dividentis tenebras
et ordinantis eas: ut hinc etiam quae faciant [PL: faciunt] contra voluntatem Dei, non impleatur nisi
voluntas Dei (Ibid.).
32. De grat. et lib. arb., t. 44, c. XVIII, n. 38, c. 904. De corrept. et gratia, t. 44, c. VII, n. 13, c. 924; ibid.,
c. IX; De praedest. Sanct., t. 44, c. XVII, n. 34, c. 985: intelligimus [PL: intelligamus] vocationem qua fiunt
electi: non qui eliguntur quia crediderunt, sed qui eliguntur ut credant. Christ elected iam electos in se
ipso ante mundi constitutionem. Haec est immobilis veritas . . . ibid., c. XVIII, n. 37, c. 988: God elected
secundum placitum voluntatis suae. . . .
33. De dono persever., t. 45, c. XIII, n. 33, c. 1012.

elected because they are called according to purpose (propositum), a purpose not
of themselves (non suum), but of God, concerning which it is said in another place:
“So that God’s purpose in election might come to pass not from works but from
the One who called, it was said to her, ‘The elder will serve the younger’” (9:11–13),
and again: “Not according to our works, but according to His purpose and grace”
(2 Tim. 1:9). Relying on these texts understood literally, Bl. Augustine develops his
beloved doctrine of predestination. Most significantly, he eliminates any distinction
between divine foreknowledge and predestination,34 a distinction which his Pelagian
opponents affirmed, referring foreknowledge to human freedom for self-determi-
nation and, only in connection with this admitting predestination. “There can be no
predestination without foreknowledge, although there can be foreknowledge with-
out predestination. By predestination God foreknows what He Himself intends to
accomplish. Grace therefore is a consequence of predestination.”35
[594] In order to portray the idea of predestination, Bl. Augustine finds the
strongest expressions possible, not afraid to be paradoxical and unyielding. The elect
are elect “by that predestination by which God has foreknown His future works.
Those whom God predestined He also called, therefore, with a call corresponding to
His prior purpose (propositum); none other but those whom He predestined has He
called; none other than those He thus called has He justified; none other than those
He predestined has He called, justified, and also glorified” (Rom. 8:30) (De praed.
sanct. t. 44, c. XVII, n. 34, c. 985).
Predestination is as infallible as it is ineluctable. “If any of the elect perishes, God
is deceived; but none of the elect perish, because God is not deceived. If any of the
elect does perish, God is conquered by human vice; but not a single one of the elect
perishes, for God is conquered by nothing. They are elected to reign with Christ, but
Judas was not elected and he went to his own deed.” In accord with John 6:70–71,
“These (the apostles) we ought to consider elect according to mercy, per misericor-
diam, but Judas for judgment, per iudicium; them for the attainment of His kingdom,
him for the shedding of his (?)36 blood.” (De corr. et grat., t. 44, c. VII, n. 14, c. 924–25).
“Not pertaining to the number of the elect, they are most justly judged according to
34. On the distinction in Bl. Augustine connected with praedestinatio and praescientia—auxilium
quo (incidental to our purposes here) see J[ules]. Saint-Martin, 1. c. col. 2878–2882. My thanks to Brian
Daley for helping me identify this author.
35. De praedest. sanct., t. 44, c. X, n. 19, c. 975. [PL reads: praedestinatio est, quae sine praescientia
non potest esse: potest autem esse sine praedestinatione praescientia. Praedestinatione quippe Deus ea
praescivit, quae fuerat ipse facturus . . . gratia vero est ipsius praedestinationis effectus.] Elegit Deus in
Christo ante constitutionem mundi membra eius et quomodo eligerit eos qui nondum erant, nisi prae-
destinando? Elegit ergo praedestinans nos (ib., c. XVIII, n. 35, c. 986–87). Ista igitur sua dono quibusque
[PL: quibuscumque] Deus donat, procul dubio se donaturum [PL adds here: esse] praescivit et [PL adds
here: in] sua praescientia praeparavit (De dono persev., t. 45, c. XVII, n. 41, c. 1018) Eadem praedesti-
natio significatur etiam nomine praescientiae, according to Rom. 10:21; 12:7: God has not rejected his
people whom He knew beforehand—praescivit (De dono persev., c. XVIII, n. 47, c. 1022).
36. The question mark here seems to suggest Bulgakov’s perplexity that Augustine considers any-
one other than Jesus Christ predestined for the shedding of his blood.—Trans.

their merits. They are left to the freedom of their will (dimissi [PL: enim] sunt libero
arbitrio) without possessing the gift of perserverance (d. perseverantiae), according
to the judgment of God, secret and just.” (ibid., c. XIII, n. 42, c. 942). God Himself
“makes to persevere in the good those whom he makes good. The one who falls,
therefore, was not in the number of the predestined” (ib., c. VIII, n. 36, c. 938), for God
vitae huic, quando voluerit, ipse det finem (De dono pers., t. 45, c. VII, n. 41, c. 1018).
Donum Dei esse perseverantiam qua usque ad finem perseverantur [PL: perseveratur]
in Christo (ib., c. I, n. 1, c. 993). “The predestination of the saints is nothing other than
the foreknowledge and preparation of the divine benefits through which he is most
certainly freed, whoever finds freedom. . . . No one comes to Christ unless it is given
to him as it is given to those who are elected for this before the creation of the world”
(ibid., c. XIV, n. 34–35). Nos ergo volumus, sed Deus in nobis operatur et velle: nos ergo
operamur, sed Deus in nobis operatur et operari, pro bona voluntate (ibid., c. XIII, n.
32–33, c. 1012–13). “Why is divine grace given without regard to merits? I respond:
because God is merciful. [595] But why not to all? I respond: because God is judge.
But for that very reason the gift of grace is given freely, and by His just judgment
there is revealed in the others that which grace brings those to whom it is given. And
let us not be ungrateful because in accord with His will, to the praise of His glory, the
merciful God has freed so many from such a due perdition, such that, even if not a
single one had been freed, God would not be unjust. For by the sin of one all were
condemned with a condemnation that is not unjust, but rather just. And so, whoever
is freed, let him love grace, and whoever is not freed, let him recognize what is his
due. If goodness reveals itself in the forgiveness of a debt, then in exacting what is
owed justice is manifest, and never is there found in God injustice—iniquitas. (ibid.
c. VIII, n. 16, c. 1002). “God will by all means return evil for evil, for He is good; and
good for good, for He is good and just; only He will not return evil for good, for He
is not unjust.” (De grat. et lib. arb., t. 44, c. XXIII, n. 45, c. 911).
And this same idea is applied to the donum perseverantiae, the gift of perse-
verance to the end. “God judged it best to mix in to the determined number of the
saints some who will not persevere. It is by his own will that the one who falls, falls;
it is by God’s will that the one who stands, stands . . . therefore, not of himself, but
by God’s power” (De dono pers., t. 45, c. VIII, n. 19, c. 1003). From this follows the
self-evident conclusion concerning the predestined number of the saved that can
be neither increased nor diminished (Calvin later developed this same idea with a
consistency that was not ventured even by Bl. Augustine—namely, by affirming that
Christ came into the world for the salvation of only the elect). Quod ergo pauci in
comparatione pereuntium, in suo vero numero multi liberantur, gratia fit, gratis fit,
gratiae sunt agendae, quia fit, ne quis velut de suis meritis extollatur (De corr. et gr.,
t. 44, c. X, n. 28, c. 933). The establishment of the number of the saved is made with
reference to Matthew 3:8–9 and (even more feebly) to Revelation 3:11: “The num-
ber (of the saved) is determined, such that not one of them can be added or taken
away (ibid., c. XIII, n. 39, c. 940). The text of 1 Timothy 2:4 (about God desiring all
people to be saved) Augustine interprets in a restrictive way, applying it to “all the

predestined” (ibid., c. XIV, n. 44, c. 943). Bl. Augustine interprets Romans 11:32 in
the following manner: Quid est omnium? Et eorum scilicet quos ex Gentibus, et eorum
quos ex Judaeis praedestinavit, vocavit, iustificavit, glorificavit non omnium hominum,
sed istorum omnium neminem damnaturus (De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. 21, c. XXIV, n. 6, c.
740)—an arbitrary interpretation. Everything is predestined, and “nothing comes to
pass except for that which God Himself does or what He allows to happen. For He
has the power to incline even the evil will [596] towards the good and to turn it
towards a fall” (in lapsam [PL: lapsum] pronas convertere) (De dono pers., t. 45, c. VI,
n. 12, c. 1000), for “after a person’s fall, the human being cannot persevere in the good
by his own strength but is doomed to belong to the massa perditionis” (ibid., c. VII,
n. 13, c. 1001).37 “Why does God not teach all, so that they may come to Christ, and
those He does not teach, does it accord with justice (iudicio) that He does not teach
them? God does teach all to come to Christ, not because all come, but because no
one comes otherwise. But as to why He does not teach all, the Apostle has revealed
it: Romans 8:18–23 (on the diverse vessels of wrath and mercy, of shameful and
honorable use (De. Praed. Sanct. t. 44, c. VIII, n. 14, c. 971). The election of some and
the non-election of others remains a secretum, so that the former might not become
proud and grow slack in spirit apart from the donum perseverantiae (De corr. et grat.,
t. 44, c. XIII, n. 40, c. 940–41).
In relation to predestination the question becomes especially burning concern-
ing the salvation of infants who die at an early age, both those elect for salvation
through Holy Baptism and those who are rejected for lack of it. This question was
persistently raised by Augustine’s opponents, and Bl. Augustine himself returned to
it incessantly, for he hesitated to admit right away38 that the fate of unbaptized chil-
dren was not bliss, albeit diminished; instead it was not even the diminished (mitissi-
mae) but the real torments of hell and the second death, for these children were not
called and not elected. Their fate proved a quasi experimentum crucis for his entire
theory, from which Augustine does not shrink (and, following him, neither has the
entire Western Church, compared to which the East has the advantage only of not
having defined the issue). Concerning children (those who do not have the gift of
37. Deo quidem praesciente quid esset facturus iniuste; praesciente tamen, non ad hoc cogente, sed
simul sciente quod [quid] de illo [PL adds here: ipse] faceret iuste (De corr. et grat., t. 44, c. XII, n. 37, c.
939). Enchyr. (t. 40, c. C, n. 26, c. 279: miro et ineffabili modo non fit [PL: fiat] praeter eius voluntatem,
quod etiam contra eius fit voluntatem: quia non fieret, si non sineret: nec utique nolens sinit, sed volens:
nec sineret bonus fieri male, nisi omnipotens et de malo facere posset bene (Cf. De civ. Dei., t. 41, L. IX, c.
13 ff; L. XIV, c. 11). In this light rebuke (correptio) becomes useful: for the elect it functions for salvation,
but for the non-elect—sit ei correptio penale tormentum (!) (De corr. et gr., t. 44, c. XIV, n. 43, c. 942).
On the use of correptio, we encounter yet another argument of this kind: “since we do not know who
is elect and who is not, we ought to consider that all desire to be saved.” (!!) [PL reads: Nescientes enim
quis pertineat ad praedestinatorum numerum, quis non perineat; sic affici debemus charitatis affectu,
ut omnes velimus salvos fieri.] (Ibid. c. XV, n. 46, c. 944; cf. ibid., n. 49, c. 946).
38. De dono persev. t. 45, c. XII, n. 30, c. 1010–11. He admits here that he himself, being a presbyter,
was uncertain (incertum) with respect to this question concerning the salvation of baptized children
and of those who are predestined ad mortem secundam as unbaptized.

perseverance) he says: “They were not of the number (of the saved) because they
were not called secundum propositum. They were not elected in Christ before the
creation of the world, they did not receive their destiny in Him, they were not predes-
tined according to His purpose. For, if they had been such, they would have been of
the number (of those saved), and, without a doubt, [597] they would have remained
with them.”39 The fate of saved (baptized) children and those children who have per-
ished (unbaptized) is only a particular instance of a general formula: satis indicavit
misericordiam et iudicium, misericordiam quidem gratuitam, iudicium debitum.40
А completely unique place in the doctrine of predestination in Bl. Augustine’s
thought is taken up by the Christological argument: even the Incarnation itself is
understood by him in light of predestination, as a particular instance, and Bl. Augus-
tine especially glories in the indefeasibility of this argument.41 “Jesus was predes-
tined, so that the one who was according to the flesh the son of David would be in
power the Son of God according to the Spirit of sanctification, for He was born of
the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary.”42 In Him “human nature received everything
best, nullis praecedentibus meritis. That very grace by which a human being is saved
was at work in Christ as well, and it was by means of the Holy Spirit that it came
about that He had no sin. God foresaw that he would accomplish this.” “There was
predestined for human nature such an elevation, none higher than which exists, just
as the debasement of human nature had no limit (ibid.). “And just as this One was
predestined to become our Head, so also many of us were predestined to be His
members” (De praed. sanct. t. 44, c. XV, n. 31, n. 983). Vocat enim Deus praedestinatos
multos filios suos, eos faciat membra praedestinati unici Filii sui (ibid., c. XVI, n. 32, c.
983). The predestination of Christ is interpreted as the image of the predestination of
the “many,” with only this difference: in the first case we have a predestination of the
will of One for the good, ехcluding all sin, and in the second “He Himself from the
number of the unrighteous creates the righteous without any former merit of their
will,” “He makes from an evil will a good one.”43
39. De dono persev., t. 45, c. IX, n. 21, c. 1004–5. Ibid., c. VIII, n. 16, c. 1002–3. Сf. on children: Contra
Jul., t. 42, L. 4, c. VIII, n. 42–47, c. 759–61; De praed. sanct., t. 44, c. XII, n. 24, c. 977–8; c. VII, n. 44, c. 1168
[?] (where he points to the early death of baptized children as an advantage analogous to donum persev.)
40. De praed. sanct. t. 44, C. XII, n. 24, c. 977–78.
41. Est etiam praeclarissimum lumen praedestinationis et gratiae ipse Salvator, ipse Mediator Dei
et hominum [PL adds here: homo] Christus Jesus. . . . Ipsa еst igitur praedestinatio sanctorum, quae in
Sancto sanctorum maxime claruit. . . . Nam et ipsum Dominum gloriae, in quantum homo factus est
Dei Filius praedestinatum esse dicimus [PL: dedicimus (with footnote on alternate reading, dicimus)].
(De praed. sanct., t. 44, c. XV, n. 30–31, c. 981–82). Cf. yr., t. 40, c. XXXV–XL, c. 249–52.
42. De praed. sanct., t. 44, c. XV, n. 31, c. 982. [PL reads: Praedestinatus est ergo Jesus, ut qui futurus
erat secundum carnem filius David, esset tamen in virtute Filius Dei secundum Spiritum sanctificatio-
nis; quia natus est de Spiritu sancto et virgine Maria.]
43. This same idea appears in De dono persev. t. 45, c. XXIV, n. 67, c. 1034: Qui ergo hunc fecit ex
semine David hominem iustum, qui nunquam esset iniustus, sine ullo merito praecedentis voluntatis
eius; ipse ex iniustis facit iustos sine ullo merito praecedentis voluntatis ipsorum, ut ille caput, hic [PL: hi]
membra sunt eius. Qui ergo fecit ullum [PL: illum] hominem, sine ullius [PL: ullis] eius praecedentibus
meritis, nullum, quod ei demitteratur [PL: dimitteretur], vel origine trahere, vel voluntate perpetrare

[598] We should note one other characteristic of Bl. Augustine’s teaching on grace
and freedom: was it a teaching about the supralapsarian state or the infralapsarian
state (to use later terminology)? In other words, does predestination for the salvation
or rejection of the human being refer the state before original sin or after (and in con-
sequence of) it? The question does not arise for Bl. Augustine in this direct form. He
thought that the human being could persevere in innocence by the power of his own
original freedom, aided by grace (or not aided by grace—this remains unclear in the
final analysis), but he does make an exceedingly insightful comparison between both
states while coming to the conclusion that the saving grace in Christ after the Fall is
greater than that which was given before it, for the later grace makes it so that those
redeemed from among the wicked are made good in aeternum. “If the first human
being had had such a grace, he would never have fallen. But he was left to his own
freedom of will, which suffices for evil but not for good if the almighty God does not
help. If the first human had not abandoned this help by his own free will, he would
have been always good; but he abandoned it and was in turn abandoned. And so he
had here freedom of choice, both for abandonment and for confirmation. Such was
the first grace given to the first Adam. The second is much stronger, for by it not only
is the lost freedom restored, but without it the human being can neither comprehend
good nor be confirmed in it: non solum posse quod volumus, verum etiam velle quod
possumus. The first freedom of the will was posse non peccare, but the new is much
more—non posse peccare; prima erat perseverantiae potestas, donum [PL: bonum]
posse non deserere; novissima erit felicitas perseverantiae, bonum non posse deserere.44
If election takes place apart from any personal qualities and occurs wholly by
God’s choice [proizvoleniiu], and if it refers only to the limited number of the elect
predestined before the creation of the world, then does not the fate of the non-elect
turn out to be predestination for perdition or rejection, reprobatio? Is this not as it
were the irremovable shadow of positive election, such that praedestinatio includes
in itself reprobatio too, as was also declared, in his own logical intrepidity, by Calvin?
The latter did not stop before excluding the non-elect completely from the number
of those redeemed by the blood of Christ. It is remarkable that in Bl. Augustine we
do not see this final step in the treatises specially dedicated to the doctrine of predes-
tinationism [599] but instead only in passing—in a form of a slip of the tongue, as
it were, but of course expressing the authentic thought of Bl. Augustine: specifically
in Epistola sive liber (415) de perfectione iustitiae hominis. Here it is stated just like
this: in eo genere hominum quod praedestinatum est ad interitum.45 And the second
such place we meet this idea is in the treatise De anime et eius origine (419), t. 44, L.
peccatum: [ . . . ] qui fecit ullum talem, ut nunquam habuerit habiturusque sit voluntatem malam; ipse
[PL adds here: facit] in membris eius ex mala voluntate bonam. Et illum ergo et nos praedestinavit; quae
[PL: quia] et in illo ut esset caput nostrum et in nobis ut eius caput [PL: corpus] essemus, non praeces-
sura merita nostra, sed opera sua futura praescivit.
44. De correp. et grat., t. 44, c. XI–XII, n. 31–3, c. 935–6. This relates specifically to the distinction
between adiutorium sine quo and adiutorium quo.
45. T. 44, c. XIII, n. 31, c. 308. Fulgentius [of Ruspe] makes a remark in defense of this.

IV, c. XI, n. 16, c. 533: “All people, born from the one Adam (Rom. 5:18) will go into
judgment (in condemnationem ire) if they are not reborn in Christ. . . . Some are
predestined to eternal life by the most merciful distributor of grace, who is also the
most just reckoner of justice for those whom he predestined for eternal death—prae-
destinavit ad aeternam mortem: not only in return for what they did by their own will
(volentes), but even if they were children who did nothing, then in return for origi-
nal sin. Наес est in illa questione definitio mea, ut occulta opera Dei habeant suum
secretum salva fide mea.” Аnd other similar judgments: (De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. 12, c.
27, c. 376): “in this first human who was created in the beginning, if not yet by virtue
of apparent evidence (secundum evidentiam), then already by virtue of foreknowl-
edge we consider to have arisen in the human race two societies, two realms [gosu-
darstvenna] (civitates)46 as it were. In them there will be people of two kinds: some
foreordained [prednaznachenny] for association with the wicked angels in torments
and others with the good angels in rewards, although on the basis of the secret—but
just—justice of God. De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. 21, c. 2 4, n. 1, c. 737: Praedestinati sunt in
aeternum ignem ire cum diabolo. Enchyr., t. 40, c. C, n. 26, c. 279: Bene utens et malis
tanquam summe bonus ad eorum damnationem quos iuste praedestinavit ad poenam
et ad eorum salutem quos benigne praedestinavit ad gratiam. Ep. CCIV, t. 33, n. 2, c.
939: Deus occulta satis dispositione, sed tamen iusta, nonnullos eorum poenis prae-
destinavit extremis. Bl. Augustine speaks no more about predestination to perdition,
but rather only of the massa perditionis, abandoned to judgment (and, of course,
condemnation) in accord with justice, but it goes without saying that this is only a
euphemistic veiling of what is essentially obvious. Clearly, Bl. Augustine is himself
horrified by his own logic and stops halfway. And this indecision and evasiveness
was inherited from him by all of Western doctrine, Eastern doctrine too having been
infected with it to a certain degree; both Thomas Aquinas and the Tridentine defi-
nition (just like the definition of the Eastern patriarchs) with one spirit and without
fear profess predestination to salvation but deny rejection or predestination to perdi-
tion in the struggle with the straightforward but uniquely consistent Augustinianism
of Jansen and Calvin. The latter proved to be the theological [600] springboard for
the orthodox [ortodoksal’ny] doctrine of predestination.
The final question for the doctrine of Augustinianism concerns the foundations
for divine election or rejection. This question is unanswerable for the human being,
for it is a mystery of the will of God: ‘me ignorari’ respondeo. It is with this igno-
rance that Bl. Augustine answers47 the question concerning the donum perseveran-
tiae, given to some and not others, as well as the question of the fate of baptized and
unbaptized children who have died, and suchlike questions. Fateor me non invenire
quid dicam. Sic et hoc quaeris quare; quia in hac re sicut iusta est ira eius, sicut magna
est misericordia eius, ita inscrutabilia iudicia eius.48 “Unsearchable is the mercy by
46. Bulgakov does not use the typical Russian theological translation of civitates, grada, here, which
is curious in light of his 1911 collection of essays bearing the name Dva Grada.—Trans.
47. De corr. et gr., t. 44, c. VIII, n. 17–19, c. 926–27.
48. De dono pers., c. VIII, n. 18, c. 1003.

which God, on whom He pleases, shows mercy, in the absence of any pre-existing
merits on that human’s part; inscrutable too is the truth by which, whom He pleases,
He hardens, also in the absence of any pre-existing merits (meritis) on that human’s
part, though in the majority of cases with the same merits as the one whom he pit-
ies. . . . Both, having the same start, receive a different outcome with the same merits
under which one is nonetheless freed by the great goodness of God just as the other
is judged without any injustice done to him. Can there really be injustice in God? In
no way (absit), but His ways are unutterable [neispovedimy] (investigabilis).”49
From different parties (from the Pelagians) Bl. Augustine bore the reproach that
his world-view was guilty of fatalism; the argument from the inscrutability of God’s
ways serves for him as one of the main grounds for rejecting this reproach.50 And in
all this Bl. Augustine maintained the reality of free will in the human being for the
entire duration of his path. Facite vobis, hoc dicit (Deus), Dabo vobis? Quare iubet, si
ipse daturus est? Quare dat, si homo facturus est? nisi quia dat quod iubet, cum adiuvat
ut faciat cui iubet? Semper est autem in nobis voluntas libera, sed non semper est bona.
Aut enim a iustitia libera est, quando servit peccato, et tunc est mala: aut a peccato
libera est, quando servit iustitiae, et tunc est bona. Gratia vero Dei semper est bona, et
per hanc fit, ut sit homo bonae voluntatis, qui prius fuit voluntatis malae. . . . Certum
est nos velle, cum volumus, sed ille facit, ut velimus bonum. . . . Certum еst nos facere
cum facimus: sed ille facit ut faciamus. . . . Ut ergo velimus sine nobis operatur; cum
[601] autem volumus, et sic volumus, faciamus, nobiscum cooperatur: tamen sine illo
vel operante ut velimus, vel cooperante cum volumus, ad bona pietatis opera nihil vale-
mus . . . etiam perversas fidei contrarias voluntates omnipotentem Deum ad credendum
posse convertere.51 These and similar texts, which we could multiply,52 witness to the
49. Ibid., c. XI, n. 25, c. 1007–8.

50. Julian says to him fato fieri quod merito non fit, applying this to the fate of children in particular.
Bl. Augustine answers: Nos autem cum vitiatae originis mala merita esse dicamus, gratia, dicimus intrare
parvulum in regnum Dei, quoniam bonus est Deus; et alium merito non intrare, quoniam iustus est Deus;
et in neutro esto [PL: esse fatum], quoniam quod vult facit Deus . . . istum secundum iudicium damnari,
illum secundum misericordiam liberari; cur istum potius quam illum damnet aut liberat, nos qui sumus
qui respondeamus Deo? (Contra Jul. Pel., t. 44, L. 4, c. VIII, n. 46, c. 761).
51. De gr. et lib. arb., t. 44, c. XV, n. 31–32; XVI, n. 32–33; XIV, n. 29, c. 898–901.
52. Non sufficit sola voluntas hominis, si non sit etiam misericordia Dei [PL adds here: non ergo
sufficit et sola misericordia Dei] si non sit etiam voluntas hominus (Enchyr., n, t. 40, XXXII, n. 9, c. 248;
year 421,) [ . . . ] totum Deo datur [PL: detur], qui hominis voluntatem bonam et praeparat adjuvandam,
et adjuvat praeparatam. . . . Nolentem praevenit, ut velit; volentem subsequitur, ne frustra velit (ib.).
Liberum ergo arbitrium evacuamus per gratiam? Absit: sed magis liberum evacuamus . . . per gratiam
sanatio animae a vitio peccati, per animae sanitatem libertas arbitrii, per liberum arbitrium iustitiae
dilectis . . . ita liberum arbitrium non evacuatur per gratiam, sed statuitur, quia gratia sanat voluntatem,
qua iustitia libere diligatur (c. XXX, n. 52, c. 233–34 [?]). Cum ergo fides in (nostra) potestate sit, quo-
niam cum vult quisque credit; et cum credit, volens credit (XXII, n. 55, c. 636 [?]). . quid est enim credere
nisi consentire verum esse quod dicitur? consentio autem utique volentis est (ib. c. 30, 54, 235 [?]). Cf. de
nat. et grat., t. 44, c. XXXII, n. 36, c. 264.—But at the same time, despite his admission of the freedom of
the will in belief or unbelief, neque [PL adds here: enim] credere potest (anima) quodlibet libero arbi-
trio, si nulla sit suasio vel vocatio cui credi [PL: credat]: profecto et ipsum velle credere Deus operatur
in homine et in omnibus misericordia eius praevenit nos (Spir. e. lit., t. 44, c. XXXIV, n. 60, c. 240.). . . .

fact that Bl. Augustine wants to preserve and maintain the freedom of the will, albeit
debilitated by the Fall, as an obedient instrument in the hands of God. Accordingly, he
tries to preserve the meaning both of correptio and of all asceticism of the will, and the
general fulfillment of the commandments as is affirmed in Christianity. The death of
this elder, ripe with age, interrupted the minting of this doctrine which he had need to
defend time and again against his enemies who had accused him of fatalism.53
Toward a Characterization of Augustinianism
The potent, albeit also paradoxical, thought of Bl. Augustine proved a determinative
influence for Western Christianity in both of its basic channels: Catholic and Prot-
estant (and, by contrast, it had almost no influence in the East, unless one counts the
somewhat reactionary, or rather defensive, character of its definitions on predestina-
tion). The complexity of this system made it possible for there to appear in both of
these channels of Western Christianity two divergent tendencies present in Augus-
tinianism: the defense of human freedom alongside its denial by religious determin-
ism, and the acknowledgement of predestination and the attempt to limit it at the
same time.
Both Catholicism and Protestantism with equal force absorbed the [602]
Augustinian teaching on the significance of grace in a person—which, in the inten-
sity of anti-Pelagian polemics, abolished anthropology along with its attendant
teaching on Divine–Humanity. Salvation by faith through grace, on the one hand
(in Protestantism), and on the other, as found in the confines of the one, salvific
Church, as an organization of the life of grace (in Catholicism), determined the
frame of mind of Western orthodoxy, making it overall predominantly soteriolog-
ical. In this soteriological accent, of course, is found the stamp of Augustinianism.
But further on, in their particularities, both of its branches are defined in opposition
to one another, though equally dependent Bl. Augustine, relying on his teaching. In
particular, Catholicism affirms primarily the significance of human freedom with
its active participation in the work of salvation, in the acquisition of merits, mer-
ita (which had become the foundational category of Catholic theology), and the
increase of grace, augmentum gratiae, on the basis of these merits (and further on
there also followed from here the doctrine of supererogatory powers, opera super-
erogatoria). In the Catholic stylization (according to the definition of Pope Gelas-
ius—Denzingeri n. 165), Bl. Augustine (cuius doctrinam secundum praedeсessorum
meorum statuta Romana sequitur et probat Ecclesia) appears as a defender of Catho-
lic pragmatism. Meanwhile, the anathemas of the Council of Trent in defense of the
freedom of the will54 apply in essence to historical Augustinianism no less than to the
53. See the letters of Prosper and Hilary to Augustine: CCXXV and CCXXVI: t. 44, c. 947–60.
54. Sess. r, c. 4 anathematizes the opinion: liberum hominis arbitrium а Deo motum et excitatum
nihil сooperari assentiendo Deo excitanti atque vocanti etc. Can. 5: si quis liberum arbitrium post Adae

Protestants whom they intended to target. It was Luther in particular who developed
the thought of Bl. Augustine with respect to the impotence of the will towards the
good in the fallen human being, and in this sense also the absence of that very free-
dom which can be granted only by grace. He proposed the teaching of the “bondage”
of the will, de servo arbitrio, liberum arbitrium est mortum—with its resultant quiet-
ism and passivism. But Calvin, developing this side of Bl. Augustine’s thought to its
endpoint, defended—instead of freedom—the pre-eternal and immutable concilium
Dei in predestination, that is, he made the human being completely an instrument in
the hands of an almighty God.
In a similar fashion, the relationship of the two branches of Western Christianity
was defined in relation to Bl. Augustine’s teaching on predestination: this question rep-
resented a sore point for the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. The Catholic
Church had to deal with Hincmar’s predestinationism which had explicitly asserted
two predestinations: [603] for bliss and for eternal torment.55 Although the Catholic
Church generally managed to plaster over the cracks, it never did manage to tie up
loose ends.56 In the Reformation on the other hand, and especially in Calvinism, there
flared up with new strength the irrational idea of predestination, not only for salva-
tion but also for perdition, and the corresponding anathemas of the Council of Trent
directed against Calvinism strike, in essence, at Augustinianism, too.57 It must be rec-
ognized that Augustinianism remains down to our own time determinative of West-
ern theology not only in its motifs but also in its rending contradictions; Western the-
ology neither exhausted nor overcame it, a fact generally visible in connection with its
weak acceptance of the idea of Divine–Humanity as the foundation of anthropology.
To us, in the East, has been given the advantage of freedom from Augustinianism, and
we ought to avail ourselves of it in order to lay bare its contradictions and to intensify
the problematic, which is exactly what is most important and valuable in this system.
Bl. Augustine posed the problem of the interrelationship between God and the
human being, and what is more, of God in His complete absoluteness and omnipo-
tence, and humanity in its complete abjection, its undivine humanity. In Bl. Augustine,
peccatum amissum et extinctum esse dixerit . . . but of course this is exactly, as we have seen, the straight-
forward teaching of Bl. Augustine himself which is here thus anathematized.
55. . . . gemina est praedestinatio, sive electorum ad requiem, sive reproborum ad mortem (PL, t. 121,
c. 368). [The quotation is in fact from Gottschalk, not Hincmar—Trans.] According to the judgment of
[Karl Josef von] Hefele, Calvin himself could not have expressed it in stronger terms: Leclercq, t. 4, pр.
146–47. Cf. the history of the question in В. Labaud: “Praedestination,” L’Affaire de Gottschalk (D. de th.
cat. rogm, fasc.).
56. Even in Thomas Aquinas one can encounter, alongside the official rejection of reprobatio, a
judgment such as this: sicut praedestinatio includit voluntatem conferendi gratiam et gloriam; ita rep-
robatio includit voluntatem permittendi aliquem cadere in culpam et inferendi damnationis poenam pro
culpa. S Th. 1a, qu. 23.
57. What else if not straightforward Augustinian doctrine is contained in Canon 17: si quis ius-
tificationis gratiam non nisi praedestinatis ad vitam contingere dixerit, reliquos vero omnes, qui vocan-
tur, vocari quidem, sed gratiam non accipere, utpote divina potestate praedestinatos ad malum. Canon 6
anathematizes (an Augustinian) determinism illustrated in the fates of the Apostle Paul and Judas the
Betrayer; it is precisely these two examples that we encounter in Bl. Augustine.

God and humanity are juxtaposed as two opposing, mutually related but nonetheless
foreign, impermeable quantities. Thе very act of comparing the two gives rise to a
fundamental misunderstanding: God becomes an infinite quantity, and humanity a
finite quantity that becomes a zero before the infinite. One wonders in what possible
sense these two quantities can be juxtaposed and compared? For in this very juxta-
position there is lacking a tertium comparationis, the foundation for such compari-
son being only the idea of Divine–Humanity, Divine and created Sophia. From this
foundational difficulty issue both the errors and derivatives as well as the vacillations
of thought we find in Bl. Augustine.
Above all, [604] his teaching on human freedom, owing to the lack of an anthro-
pological orientation, is distinguished by its complete lack of clarity with respect
to what it means in the strict sense. It appears in three different modes: 1) freedom
before the Fall, characterized by the capаbility of choosing between good and evil, 2)
freedom after the Fall, which does not have this choice and is bondage to sin, and
3) graced freedom, which receives the ability—also without a choice—to be deter-
mined, but now towards good. What exactly is the unifying principle that allows us
to speak specifically of freedom equally with respect to all three of these mutually
exclusive definitions of it? Is this freedom something self-evident, neither necessi-
tating nor allowing self-definition? Clearly not. We are left to understand freedom
only in some sort of formal sense, the well-known aseitas, the activity of a living
being in distinction to a dead one; but then can it also be distinguished from the
spontaneity of the animal world? It is totally evident that Bl. Augustine was incapa-
ble of rejecting freedom for soteriological and pastoral reasons: only to freedom can
any correptio be addressed, or any exhortation, command, threat, and plea. But is it
not а contradiction to address oneself with pleas to a freedom that is unfree, deter-
mined, in bondage? The entire problematic of the freedom of the will in relation to
its determination arises here and demands to be examined, or at least redressed, but
for Bl. Augustine these difficulties are as if nonexistent. His teaching on the freedom
of the will, lacking any anthropological foundation, remains empty of content and
can be turned in different directions, which is what we in fact see: Catholicism takes
the freedom of the will in the first mode, joining it with the third, and Protestantism
takes it in the second, but also uniting it with the third; both are correct with respect
to an Augustinianism which remains essentially incapable of offering an answer. If
one understands the freedom of the will as liberum arbitrium indifferentiae, that is, as
it еxisted before the Fall, then that signifies that the will is transcendental, for the life
of this world and of the fallen humanity in it does not know this freedom of choice
but instead is confronted with two forms of determinism: bondage to sin in the state
of nature and the unique bondage to grace for the elect. In both cases Bl. Augustine
teaches not freedom but rather the unfreedom of the will, and the question arises:
how is it that we are to understand this transcensus from freedom to unfreedom? Bl.
Augustine does not notice this, how a general interpretation of original sin—which
plays such an essential role in his entire construct—is absent. Is it only a hereditary
illness? Then why is it charged as sin, for which even children who have died with-
out baptism ought to [605] be punished with eternal torments? But if this is truly a

personal sin, then when and how was it performed, and—what is the main thing—
where is that freedom which alone makes this sin capable of being performed, since
it was lost already in the fall of Adam? The entire teaching of St. Augustine on free-
dom is therefore distinguished by its mechanistic and ambiguous character.58
We should note one inconsistency on St. Augustine’s part with respect to freedom
before the Fall and after it. As we have seen, he considers the activity of grace after the
Fall greater than before it, insofar as the later grace grants to the elect the impossibil-
ity of sinning, whereas the former grants only the possibility of not sinning. Why this
difference? Was human freedom before the Fall in fact not fuller, and, so to speak, less
darkened than after it? And we may even ask ourselves: how, under the presence of
the activity of grace, was the Fall possible at all? Of course, in Bl. Augustine one can
find a ready answer in the appeal to the inscrutability of God’s ways. Nonetheless, in
this doctrine of grace that Bl. Augustine develops, and notwithstanding this appeal to
God’s ways, one senses the doctrine’s incoherence as a contradiction or as a deus ex
machina that acts in one way in one circumstance and differently in another, depend-
ing on a groundless choice [proizvolneniia]. This to an even greater degree essentially
abolishes freedom, making it externally determined throughout. Therefore we must
acknowledge that an answer to the question of how the first sin was possible is not
found in Bl. Augustine, while at the same time the fact of this sin is the key position
determining the entirety of his further anthropology.
But the most difficult and at the same time most important component of
this doctrine is the relation between human freedom and divine effect—grace and
omnipotence. Clearly there [606] can be here no “interaction” in the sense of a rela-
tion of two co-posited principles belonging to one and the same ontological plane
(as, for example, the interaction of one person with another). Here there can be no
interaction, but only action, the one-sided act of God on the human being or in the
human being, deus ex machina. This is exactly what we find, as a logical postulate, in
the teaching on the ineluctable and invincible character of the effect of grace on the
human being. It operates by means of an ineluctable delight, as if by an interior per-
suasion. This is an important, deep, and fruitful thought from Bl. Augustine, but here
we must note the overpowering activity of grace with respect to human freedom,
completely analogous to the overpowering activity of sin in the fallen human’s con-
dition of unfreedom. In both situations we have one and the same result: the sheer
58. In this connection Bl. Augustine’s judgment in Retractiones I.15 (t. 32, c. 610) is characteristic,
where he has to defend against his own opinions expressed in polemic with the Manichees (de duab.
anim.). He has to clarify the cause of sin in newborn children incapable of exercising the freedom of
self-definition. “I answer that they are guilty (reos) according to their origination (from Adam). . . . Adam
sinned through his will, and by cause of this, sin entered the world . . . (n. 5) propterea non perturbat de
parvulis questio, quia ex illius origine rei tenentur, qui voluntate peccavit, quando libero et ad faciendum
et non faciendum motu animi non carebat, eique ab opera malo abstinendi summa potestas erat (n.
6).i.e., original “sin,” according to Bl. Augustine, is the sin only of Adam alone, but it functions as an evil
inheritance for his descendants. At the same time, it is precisely Adam who has the decisive significance
for the bondage of the will to sin, as a consequence of which the human being in a state of nature is
numbered in the massa perditionis. The dark fatalism of Augustinianism becomes even more clear here.

determinism of human freedom, its unfreedom. Hence it is clear that both forms
of determinism are already postulated beforehand by this worldview: both exter-
nal determinations, as “predeterminations,” exercise power over the unfree will of
the human being who inevitably becomes a marionette in the hands of destiny. The
Augustinian teaching on the unfreedom of the will is, of course, a system—albeit an
inconsistent one—of fatalism. Pelagius and his followers attempted (although per-
haps also incompetently) to defend the anthropological principle: the self-determi-
nation of the human being. Bl. Augustine, in his polemical enthusiasm, set up in the
place of the human being some sort of mechanized robot, as seen in the slogan: fata
volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt.
The touchstone for Bl. Augustine’s doctrine is his Christology—in particular, the
argument he develops from the fact of the Incarnation in favor of his doctrine. A
stranger to anthropology, as well as to any general teaching on humanity, Bl. Augus-
tine understands the Incarnation as a sheer deus ex machina, the activity of grace
according to foreordination [predustanovlenie]. Christ is born by the Holy Spirit, and
it is by the Holy Spirit, that is, by the power of grace, that His ministry proceeds.
Therefore the Incarnation is wholly the action of God on the human being. Such
a Christology clearly tends towards Eutychianism and monothelitism inasmuch as
there is found no place in it either for the proper life of the human nature in Christ
or for the human will; generally speaking, it is essentially non-Chalcedonian. In it
there is no place either for participation in the Incarnation by the ancestors of the
Savior, with the Most Pure [Virgin Mary] at the head, or for His own salvific, Divine–
Human feat, agony, and exinanition, such that we almost forget the proper life of the
hypostasized Logos Who joined His divine nature with human nature. He is, in [607]
Bl. Augustine’s stylization, more an object for God’s omnipotence59 than a subject, the
Divine–Human person. This trouble in Christology is symptomatic of the inclina-
tion of all Augustinian doctrine towards divine determinism, in which the person is
solely an object to be influenced and his freedom is . . . some sort of “thing.”
The uniting principle of the entire doctrine of Augustinianism proves to be
praedestinatio, which he identifies with praescientia. As the question is put in Augus-
tinianism, it is, undoubtedly, a system of double-predestination or fatalism, just as
Bl. Augustine was, in complete fairness, upbraided for this by his Pelagianizing
opponents. It is simply inconsistency and evasiveness on the part of Bl. Augustine
that he does not want to recognize reprobatio as one of the possibilities of shared
59. De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. XII. c. 27 [?]. Quis [PL adds here: porro] tamen impie decipiat [PL: desipiat],
ut dicam Deum malas hominum voluntates, quas voluerit, quando voluerit, ubi voluerit in bonum non
posse convertere? Sed cum facit, per misericordiam facit: cum autem non facit, per iudicium non facit.
Quoniam cuius vult miseretur et quem vult obdurat [Enchyr., t. 40, c. XCVIII, n. 25, c. 277]. Secundum
illam vero voluntatem suam, quae cum eius praescientia sempiterna est, profecto in coelo et in terra
omnia quaecumque voluit, non solum praeterita vel praesentia. sed etiam futura iam fecit (Psal. CXIII,
3 bis) (De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. 22, c. II, n. 2, c. 753). Cf. Enchyr. 98. For this very reason there exists the
prophecy idem quippe Deus utraque aeternam beatitudinem sanctorum et perpetua supplicia impio-
rum promisit, utraque ventura esse praedixit [PL: idem quippe Deus utraque promisit, utraque ventura
esse praedixit] (De civ. Dei, t. 41, L. 22, c. III).

praedestinatio. After original sin, the entire human race is doomed to perdition, is
the massa perditionis. From this mass are elected some who are predestined for sal-
vation and who receive for this the corresponding means of grace; the rest are left
to their own fate. Without any exaggeration we may compare this position with
a hospital which contains hopeless and dying sick patients: a doctor who has the
means to heal them gives this healing, at his whim [proizvolu], only to the elect,
leaving the others to die. Is it really the case that this inactivity by the doctor is not
also an activity equivalent to his direct help for the elect? And who can be satisifed
by this verbal, terminological distinction between praedestinatio and praescientia,
especially since Augustine himself asserts their identity (in contrast to the Pelagians
who distinguish them)?
Naturally, it is around precisely these points that the greatest number of con-
tradictions are concentrated, and the evasiveness of Bl. Augustine himself in the
question of reprobatio confounds many.60 But how could it be otherwise if in the
system of Augustinianism there is lacking [608] proper human self-determination
arising from freedom (the latter, at least, being exhausted with the original fall into
sin and ceasing to exist afterwards)? If we have two quantities that are connected,
the absolute omnipotence and omniscience of God on the one hand, and impotent,
sin-enslaved human nature on the other, then it is clear that the latter, in all circum-
stances, positively or negatively, is determined by God’s decision [proizvoleniem]. And
this decision [proizvolenie], in its inscrutability and concealment from the human
being, functions as divine despotism [proizvolom].61 Augustinianism just is a system
60. In the ninth century disputes about predestinationism concentrated on the name Gottschalk,
who presented to the Council in Quierzy (843) the following confession: credo et profiteor Deum
omnipotentem et incommutabilem praescisse et praedestinasse angelos sanctos et homines electos ad
vitam gratis aeternam, et ipsum diabolum, caput ommum daemoniorum, cum omnibus suis, propter
praescita certissime ipsoram propria futura maila merita aeternis (B. Labaud, 1. c. 2906–7).
A series of conciliar definitions were required in order to plug this dogmatic hole, and still the
Council of Trent had to once again anathematize the opinion ut pote divina potestate praedestinatos ad
malum. Gottschalk maintained that Christ spilled His blood only for the elect. “Illos omnes impios et
peccatores, pro quibus [PL adds here: idem] Filius Dei nec Corpus assumpsit, nec orationem, nec dico
sanguinem fudit: neque pro eis [PL adds here: ullo modo] crucifixus fuit” (PL, t. 121, Hincmar, de prae-
destinatione, c. 366–367, C–D.).
The Council of Valence in 855, contra Hincmar and the Council of Quierzy, admits a gemina prae-
destinatio (following Gottschalk and his disciples). The third canon: Fidenter fatemur praedestinationem
electorum ad vitam et praedestinationem impiorum ad mortem . . . in malis vero ipsorum malitiam prae-
scivisse, quia ex ipsis est, non praedestinasse, quia ex illo non est . . .
In Anselm of Canterbury we also find a double-predestination. De concordia praedestinatiae Dei
cum libero arbitrio, q. II, P. L., t. 158, c. 520 AB: Praedestinatio non solum bonorum est, sed et malorum
dici potest quemadmodum Deus mala quae non facit dicitur facere, quia permittit. Nam dicitur hominem
indurare cum non emollit, ac indicere [PL: inducere] in tentationem cum non liberat. Non est ergo incon-
veniens si hoc modo dicimus praedestinare malos, ut [PL: et] eorum mala opera, quando eos et eorum
mala non corrigit. Nonetheless, predestination is united with free will (с. III).
61. Proizvolenie at times functions simply as an older synonym of volya or khotenie or izvolenie, a
will for something concrete or a choice and decision; at other times the accent falls on the arbitrariness
of such a choice. Though I regularly translate proizvolenie as “choice,” the reader should keep it mind
that the word is accompanied by the shadow of caprice. The core semantic idea of the word proizvol,

of divine despotism [proizvola] applying to some people love and condescension but
to others justice, although can we in the face of such radical determinism even speak
of justice, since justice presupposes the ability to hold someone liable and, therefore,
the capacity to be responsible for one’s actions? At least in criminal law, justice puts
aside the sword and refuses to judge those whom it recognizes to be, due to their own
personal state, not responsible for themselves and not able to answer for themselves;
but here we see handed over to merciless judgment not only adults, but even new-
born children. In effect, it turns out that all responsibility for the fate of creation is
laid by Augustine on God.62
[609] If Bl. Augustine formally overcame Manicheism, the struggle against
which, both the externally and internally, was the work of his youth, then in his sys-
tem of predestination he absorbs it internally and makes God responsible for good
and evil, for which in Manicheism—with the greatest consistency—there were two
gods: the good god and the bad god.63 Soteriology here becomes eschatology. God
in His pre-eternal plan, even before our birth, foreordains some for salvation and
others He leaves behind (that is, He negatively foreordains them to perdition). As it
would later be expressed with complete consistency by Calvin: God created a part of
humanity for hell, just as he also indeed made hell for the praise of His might, suvere-
nitas, and yet Bl. Augustine sarcastically names the Origenists “pitiers,” misericordes.
Here the question of eschatology can already be traced to the general teaching on
on the other hand, simply is caprice, arbitrariness, or whim, from which it is extended in some places
to indicate despotism—a meaning which seems appropriate here given Bulgakov’s use of judicial and
political language in the immediate context.—Trans.
62. The rather benign union of predestinationism, in which all responsiblity for the fates of Cre-
ation is laid on God, alongside the attempt to preserve freedom and personal responsibility, is encoun-
tered in the Most Reverend Theophan [the Recluse] in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans,
part I, pp. 531–32; in regards to verses 29–30 of chap. 8, it says here: “Predestination is the inscrutable
activity of the pre-eternal God, but it clearly demands the harmony of divine qualities and perfec-
tions. . . . He knows both the beginning, middle, and end of every being and event—He knows also his
final determination for the fate of each, just as for the entire human race—He knows to whom will apply
the final: enter, and to whom will apply the final: depart. And just as He knows it, so also does he deter-
mine it to be. But just as in knowing beforehand He foreknows, so also in determining beforehand does
He predetermine (?). And because God’s knowledge or foreknowledge is true and trustworthy, so also is
His determination immutable. But, with respect to free creatures, this determination does not hamper
their freedom and does not make them unwillingly fulfill His determinations. God foresees their free
activities as free, sees the entire course of a free human and the general outcome of all his activities.
And seeing this, He determines, as if it had already been accomplished. For He does not simply prede-
termine, but He predetermines after having foreknown (Theod[oret of Cyrus]). . . . The predestination
of God embraces both the temporal and the eternal” [Episkopa Feofana, Tolkovanie pervykh vos’mi glav
Poslaniia sv. Apostola Pavla k Rimlianam [Moskva: Afonskago Russkago Panteleimonova Monastyra,
1890, izdanie vtoroe]. With respect to this insensibility to the problematic and antinomies, the caustic
acuity of Augustinianism becomes in its Calvinist redaction a costly reagent, because it makes impossi-
ble this blunting of the edges and this carefree union of predestination and freedom which is the simple
alternation of both points of view. With respect to this eclecticism, an Augustinian identification of the
powers of divine predestination and pre-election is the “more excellent way.”
63. Rus. lit. “white god” and “black god.” These are names from early Slavic mythology.—Trans.

God and the foundations of the world’s creation: here diverge the paths of Christi-
anity and . . . Islam.64
It should be further noted that this feature of predestinationism is an anthropo-
morphism—i.e., that it, without remainder, inserts God into the temporal process (just
as in Calvinism, too, of course). Although here and there an aeternum propositum is
spoken of, nevertheless it is precisely here that we unexpectedly find introduced the
temporal prae: praescientia, praedestinatio. The matter is presented as if God, before
creating the world, thought things over, predestined them, and afterwards created
the world according to the previously decided plan which He then implements (here
we see a similarity to deism, the difference being only that in deism everything is
already included beforehand in the mechanism of the world, such that God no lon-
ger interferes in its life, but here the interference is carried out continuously). Such
a conception (clearly inspired by the deliberately anthropomorphic language of the
Apostle Paul in Romans 8:28–30) is, obviously, insufficient for expressing the rela-
tionship of God to the world, but we do not find any other in Bl. Augustine (despite
the fact that it is precisely in his works—in the Confessions—that we encounter the
most powerful teaching in all of patrisitic literature on time [610] in relation to eter-
nity). In Bl. Augustine, the prologue in heaven contains the entire historical drama as
well as its epilogue, and the actors are only marionettes set in motion from without
(here again one feels the absence of a Christological anthropology, of a teaching on
Divine–Humanity in Bl. Augustine). The relationship between God and the human
being is determined externally, mechanistically; the human being is a thing in the
hands of the Creator Himself for Whom it is an object of ontological indifference.
The relationship is determined by His omnipotence and His caprice [proizvolom], by
a total divine absolutism, in which love occupies a place of only subordinate detail.
But an internal co-imaging—if it can be thus expressed—a mutual connection and
mutual grounding of God and the human being in anthropology is simply lacking.
The human being is for God an external object for domination.
These features of Augustinianism аre most pronounced in his interpretation of
the foundations of predestination, when he feels himself called to perform the role of
Job’s friends, to be an advocate for God. Naturally we find resistance in the undark-
ened human consciousness when encountering this apologia for despotism, even if it
be a despotism divine.65 Such a theodicy—sic volo sic iubeo—can satisfy only those
who are already satisfied and hypnotized in submissiveness. But then in others this
theodicy provokes this Karmazovism: “It’s not God that I do not accept, but rather
64. It was a trope of Russian religious thought of the Renaissance era to compare Christianity and
Islam (negatively) precisely on the question of God’s absolutely omnipotent and determinative will. See,
for example, the introduction of Vladimir Soloviev’s Russia and the Universal Church.—Trans.
65. In contrast to Bl. Augustine. St. John Chrysostom says, “But when he says, “Which He prepared
for glory,” he expresses by this that not everything happens by God alone, because if this were the case,
then nothing would prevent Him from saving all. And although the greater part belongs to God, nev-
ertheless we add something small from ourselves” (Homilies on the Epistle to the Romans 16, РG, t. 9, n.
9, c. 561–62).

God’s world.” Bl. Augustine, as we have seen, responds to all questions concerning
the foundations of the divine election of some and the non-election of others by
professing his ignorance and by appealing to the inscrutability and unknowability of
the ways of God. (He also employs here the text of Romans 11, without noting that
in the Apostle’s thought this text speaks precisely of universal compassion: “for He
enclosed all in disobedience66 that He might have mercy on all”; but in Bl. Augustine
the text has the direct opposite meaning.) The postulate of negative theology in this
case is, of course, completely appropriate and cannot be disputed, but nevertheless
there should be a defined place for it, so that it might not otherwise become a refuge
for craftiness and evasiveness of thought. Unfortunately, it is precisely the latter that
we have in Bl. Augustine. He develops a neatly rational, logically tight theory of the
salvation of some and the perdition of others, and this is simultaneously for him also
a theodicy that, by design, ought to satisfy the questioning of human inquisitive-
ness. And then, [611] taking his deduction to the logical dead-end of despair where
the human mind raises the question—being necessarily led to this questioning—Bl.
Augustine’s answer is ignorance and the inscrutability of God’s ways. This refusal to
answer is experienced not as a feat of faith that has humbled itself before the inscru-
table but rather as an evasive self-deception. This completely groundless despotism
in election or non-election which Bl. Augustine teaches here cannot and ought not
to be accepted by the undarkened human conscience, even in the face of threaten-
ing prohibitions for thought (which is generally taken to be the case in questions of
eschatology). His own theory of predestinationism—which is both a theodicy and
an eschatology—commits him to this answer: if he affirms the one, then he must also
admit the other. If he rationalizes the force and meaning of election, then he ought
to indicate its foundations too. Otherwise we find a hole in the very foundation of
the doctrine. With this irrational rupture in the cloth the entirety is undone from top
to bottom. Bondage of thought is not theology. Here we find neither antinomy nor
legitimate ignorance but simply a dead-end.
In the constructs of Bl. Augustine there is no place at all for mystery: on the con-
trary, here everything is rationalized, all questions can, in principle, be answered. If
the great apostle speaks of the unfathomable depth of the Wisdom of God [premud-
rosti Bozhiei] on the paths of universal salvation, then here this unfathomability
applies to what has been made completely comprehensible, namely as the despotism
of election, and in this arbitrary character there remains nothing of mystery. Truly
the ways of God are inscrutable, and yet just are His paths. But here, under the pre-
text of inscrutability, what is abolished is justice itself. It is not possible, under the
pretext of ignorance, to ascribe to God that which our conscience and reason can-
not accept as truth and justice, finding here a contradiction in God Himself. This is
blasphemy and not humility—doctrinairism, but not docta ignorantia or a wise and
pious ignorance. And one must not quiet the conscience by quoting texts that bear
no relationship to the matter at hand.
66. Bulgakov’s text reads nepovinovanie, whereas the Synodal version reads neposlushanie, and the
Slavonic protivlenie.

Thus Augustinian predestinationism disintegrates from within; it suffers a

catastrophe, although it also remains an unforgettable monument of human thought;
to the every end it walks its notorious road. It is, so to speak, an experiment of theo-
logical thought, destined soоner for a historical museum of theology than for life,
where it remains a dead ghost.
There remains one more side of Augustinianism as yet unanalyzed, namely its
exegesis—its biblical foundation.
On Predestination according to the Apostle Paul: Romans 8:28–30 and

Ephesians 1:3–12 in Blessed Augustine’s Interpretation
[612] In his exposition of his teaching on predestination, Bl. Augustine relies, in

terms of exegesis, primarily on the already indicated texts from the Apostle Paul,
subjecting them to an abstractly-literal interpretation, outside of the overall con-
text of the development of thought in the Apostle Paul. His main text is, of course,
Romans 8:28–30: “We know that for those who love God, for those called according
to His choice [proizvoleniiu]67 (τοῖς κατὰ πρόθεσιν κλητοῖς οὖσιν) all things work
together for good, because those whom68 He foreknew (προέγνω) He also predes-
tined (προώρισεν) to be conformed (συμμόρφον) to the image of His Son, so that
He might be the firstborn among many brethren. And those whom He predestined,
He also called (ἐκάλεσεν), and those whom He called, He also justified (ἐδικαίωσεν),
and those whom He justified He also glorified (ἐδόξασεν).” Bl. Augustine repeatedly
refers to this text, seeing in it an expression of a total and exhaustive relation to the
world, a relationship defined in the spirit of an all-permeating determinism, and—
to all appearances—one excluding any significance for the free self-determination
of the human being. This interpretation is capable of acting on the soul in a con-
founding and scandalizing manner. Exegesis has attempted to save itself from these
horrifying assertions—beginning already with Pelagius and Chrysostom69—through
distinguishing and, to a certain degree opposing, foreknowledge, which ostensi-
bly concerns human freedom, and predestination, which becomes, as it were, the
67. Bulgakov’s text reads proizvoleniiu, whereas the Synodal version reads izvoleniiu, and the Sla-
vonic preduvideniiu.
68. Bulgakov’s text reads tekh, whereas the Synodal version reads tem—perhaps anticipating the
multiple uses of tekh coming in verse 30, as well as following the Greek more closely.
69. Such a way out of the difficulty, following in the footsteps of Tridentine theology, is also indi-
cated in the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, chap. 3: “We believe that the all-blessed God predestined
for glory those whom He elected from eternity, and that he rejected those whom He handed over to
judgment, not, however, because He desired thereby to justify some but others to leave behind and to
judge without cause . . . but insofar as He foresaw that some would use well their free will, and others
in an evil manner, He therefore predestined some for glory and others He judged. . . . But what blas-
phemous heretics say, that God predestines or judges without taking any consideration of the deeds of
those predestined and judged, this we consider madness and wickedness. . . .” Cf. Thom. Aquin. In. Rom.
VIII, lect. 6: Differt (praedestinatio) a praescientia secundum rationem, quoniam praescientia importat
solam notitiam futurorum, sed praedestinatio importat causalitatem quandam respectu eorum.

consequence or outcome of this foreknowledge. Bl. Augustine insists—implacably

and not without certain formal grounds—that God’s foreknowledge is also His pre-
destination and is thus identical with it in one pre-eternal act. To this he joins Ephe-
sians 1:3–12 as well, where it is said that “God elected us (ἐξελέξατο) in Christ before
the creation (καταβολῆς) of the world . . . having predestined to adopt us to Himself
through [613] Jesus Christ according to the good-pleasure of His will,” with this “us”
being interpreted, with insufficient grounds, in a restrictive manner, in opposition to
those not elected for this. (However, this text possesses a secondary and, so to speak,
supplementary meaning for him.)
Without going into detail concerning the complicated exegesis of the Epistle to
the Romans (the best representatives of contemporary scholarship of the text refuse
to see even a shade of deterministic-fatalistic meaning in Rom. 8:28–3070), we can
70. We bring forward as examples the judgments of a few researchers:

[P. M.-J.] Lagrange. Études bibliques. St. Paul [épître] aux Romains, 3-me éd, 1922, p. 246–47. Ainsi
donc la question traitée directement par Paul (in ch. VIII, 28–30) du tout celle de la prédestination et de
la réprobation, mais uniquement de l’appel des gentils à la grâce du christianisme ayant pour anthitèse
l’incredulité des Juifs. Mais il est incontestable que cet appel est en même temps un appel au salut.
F[erdinand]. Prat. La théologie de St. Paul, I-re p. Paris 1908, pp. 334–35.
The exegesis of Bl. Augustine, finding here a division of those elected and those not elected to eter-
nal blessedness, cette distinction irréprobable (?) au point de vue théologique à condition de definir les
termes, n’a au point de vue de l’exégèse aucun fondement ni dans le language de Saint Paul, ni dans la
tradition patristique. St. Paul ne connait qu’une seule cathégorie d’appelés—ceux qui ont reçu la grâce
efficace de la foi—pour lui applées et chrétiens sont synonimes.
Prat (1. c. 340) summarizes the following results of patristic exegsis:
1. La prescience, qui est essentiellement un acte intellectuel, précède la prédestination et la dirige,
les justes et les élus n’etant pas connus d’avance parce qu’ils sont prédestinés, mais bien prédes-
tinés pour avoir été connus d’avance.
2. La prédestination est un acte de la volonté consequente (?) de Dieu; elle se rapporte à la collation
de la grâce efficace et non pas directement à la collation de la gloire.
3. Enfin, dans le texte de St. Paul, les mots «connus d’avance, prédestinés, justifiés» fort probable-
ment aussi «glorifiés», ayant la même extention, s’appliquent aux mémes personnes, c’est à dire,
à ceux qui aiment Dieu, aux chretiens dont la foi est virifiée par la charité.
Augustine, on the other hand, differntiates the elect into two categories que la tradition antérieure
ne connaissait. point et il donna de la prédestination une définition ignorée jusqu’à lui (ib). [Frédéric]
Godet. Commentaire sur l’épitre aux Romains, tome second. Neuchatel-Paris, 1890, summarizes his
interpretations of Rom. 8:28–30 in the following manner:
In what then does divine predestination, which is undoubtedly affirmed by the apostle here, con-
sist? Is the freedom of the human being’s will excluded by this thought, or, on the contrary, is it included?
There are two grounds in favor of a decision for the latter meaning: 1) The Apostle takes as foundational
a decree of predestination or foreknowledge, which demonstrates that this decree is defined by a certain
fact which is antecedent in God’s knowledge (qui tombe d’avance sous le regard divin). What is more, it
is unimportant that this knowledge is eternal, while this fact, constituting its object, takes place only in
time. From this kind of foreknowledge it equally follows that we view this fact as bound up in its being,
to a certain degree, with a factor distinct from Divine causality, namely human freedom. 2) The Apostle
does not make the act of faith the object of the decree of predestination in the strict sense. In this decree
of faith there is already presupposed its unique object which is, according to the Apostle’s word, the final
participation of the faithful in the glory of Christ. According to the Apostle Paul’s thought, the fullness
of human freedom is not only not excluded in the act of faith, but is even included in it. For it is the

nonetheless establish the invalidity [614] of a literal, Augustinian exegesis. St. Paul
expounds his thought in this text in a deliberately anthropomorphic manner, apply-
ing to the pre-eternal determination of God temporal terms—foreknowledge, predes-
tination—and thereby inserts the acts of God into the temporality of the world, into
unique motive for the distinction which is clearly established between the divine acts of foreknowledge
and predestination. Once human freedom is recognized in the achievement of salvation, in what does
predestination consist, as the Apostle Paul understands it? It boils down to the following three points:
1. The decree (προορισμός) by which God decided to bring the faithful to the full likeness of His
Son. There is nothing more fitting for His goodness and wisdom than this decree: “You belong
through your faith to Him Whom I give to you as Savior; He will therefore belong to you—t’ap-
partiendra—fully, and I will not leave you until I make you completely like Him, the God-Man
(l’homme-Dieu).
2. The foreknowledge (πρόγνωσις) by which God knows in advance all individuals who will freely
heed the divine invitation to participate in this salvation. This second element is as necessary in
the decree of salvation as the first. God’s plan would risk not being realized if God were inca-
pable of foreknowing beforehand the complete fidelity of the Elect One Whose fidelity grounds
God’s plan as well as the faith of those who believe in this Elect One. If the Savior or the faithful
were lacking, there would be no salvation. God’s plan presupposes the adequate foreknowledge
of both.
3. The adaptation (l’arrangement) of all circumstances of history in order to facilitate the realiza-
tion of the plan adopted in favor of those foreknown. This is what the Apostle Paul speaks of in
verse 28, that “all things work together for good for those called according to His purpose” (F.
Godet, Comm. sur l’ép. aux Rom., II, 217v8). Ainsi trois points: 1° le but marqué par le décret,
2° Les individus, personnellement préconnus, qui doivent l’atteindre. 3° le chemin par lequel ils
doivent y être conduits (ib.).
Rom. 9:10–13, on Esau and Jacob.
The resolution of the problem of divine preference for one over another can be found only dans le
point de la préscience portant non sur quelque oeuvre méritoire, mais sur un élément de la vie humaine,
qui tout en étant de nature morale, laisse subsister dans son intégrité la gratuité du dessein divin. Cet
élement, c’est la foi (Godet, I, c. II, 268).
Against the interpretation of Romans 9 in the spirit of complete determinism, Godet (ib. 314)
points to its contradiction with the Apostle Paul himself in the same epistle: II: 4, 6–10; VI: 12–13; the
full freedom of the human being in accepting or rejecting salvation: 8: 13; I Cor. 10:1–12; Gal. 5:4; Col.
1:23; the possibility of a fall from the state of grace through neglect. Finally, Jn. 5: 40; Мt. 23:27; Rom. X.
[A. d’]Alès. Prédestination (Dict. Apolog. de la Foi Cath., IV, 200): Les analogies invoquées par
l’Apotre ont pu être faussées par une exégèse maladroite; il importe d’en retablire le sens exact. Ni
Jacob ne fait ici figure d’élu, no Essai figure de reprouvé, donc le discernement fait par Dieu entre les
deux jumeux n’est pas un exemple de prédestination. L’endourcissement du pharaon n’est pas presenté
comme un acte arbitraire de bon plaisir divin, mais comme un châtiment mérité. Enfin Dieu ne travaille
pas sur sa matière humain avec la même indifference que le poitier sur l’argile, et ne fabrique pas des
vases de colère comme celui-ci des vases d’ignominie. Toute cette page tend à révendiquer la souveraine
independance de Dieu dans la dispensation de ses dons naturels ou surnaturels, mais non à le répre-
senter comme un tyran capricieux.
«There can be no question that St Paul fully recognizes the freedom of the human will. The large
part which exhortation plays in his letters is conclusive proof of this. But whatever the extent of human
freedom there must be behind it the Divine Sovereignty. It is the practice of St Paul to state alternately
the One and the other without attempting the exact delimination between them. . In the passage before
us (VIII: 27–9) the Divine Sovereignty is in view, not on its terrible but on its gracious side. It is a proof
how “God worketh all things for good to those who love Him” (Sanday and Headlam, The Epistle to the
Romans, 5th ed., p. 216).

its past ages. It goes without saying [615] that such a use of words requires a new,
theological interpretation (see below). Bl. Augustine exaggerates the anthropomor-
phic side of the Apostle Paul’s exposition and in a deistic manner transforms God
into a mechanic who starts the machine of the world and pre-establishеs everything
and everyone in it (and of course, in complete contradiction to Bl. Augustine’s doc-
trine of the freedom of the will).
But this deistic-deterministic interpretation does not in the first place corre-
spond to the general context of the Epistle to the Romans, just as it does not conform
to the completely practical—or rather volitional—spirit of the Apostle Paul’s epistles.
The main theme of the Epistle to the Romans is salvation not by works of the Law
and not on the grounds of an election understood as a legal title and privilege, but
rather by faith in the redeeming sacrifice of the Son of God and the corresponding
life of faith. And it is even specifically in chapter 8 that the Apostle exhorts us to
live not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit (12–13), not the spirit of
bondage but of adoption (15), being inspired and sustained by the Spirit in our infir-
mities, sufferings, and endurance. And as а special consolation the Apostle testifies to
the good will of God towards people, expressed in His complete determination that
they be conformed to the image His Son, and therefore the Apostle also testifies to the
corresponding providence and help for people without which they would not be able
to attain this lofty goal: for those who love God, “all things work together for good.”
The expressions foreknowledge and predestination are only special verbal forms
for expressing this love on God’s part, but they do not in any way contain that lim-
iting sense which was put into them by Bl. Augustine (and later by Calvin), namely
that God elected some and rejected others, or that here it speaks not only of the
elect but also of the non-elect. On the contrary—here the Apostle Paul speaks of
(pre)-election and (pre)-determination in general, аs the common foundation for
both the creation of the human being and for the relationship of God to the world
(the same thing, and even more self-evidently, is true of Eph. 1:4 also): this is in the
fullest sense the Good News of salvation. And this is confirmed with complete clar-
ity in the following triumphant words from the very same text, Romans 8:31–32: “If
God is for us, who can be against us? The One who did not spare His own Son, but
rather gave Him up for us all—ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν πάντων—how will He not give us with
him τὰ πάντα—everything? Precisely this juxtaposition of πάντων—πάντα bears a
[616] logical stress completely opposed to that which Bl. Augustine gives it; it speaks
not of a limited, exclusive salvation, as the privilege of some, but rather of its univer-
sal scope, of the universality of the work of Christ. (And this same thing is confirmed
by 2 Tim 1:9 as well: “Having saved us and called us—καλέσαντος—with a holy
call71—κλήσει—not according to our works, but according to His purpose [izvole-
niiu] (πρόθεσιν) and His grace given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages of time,”
and especially by 1 Tim. 2:4-5: “Who desires that all people—πάντας ἀνθρώπους—be
71. Bulgakov’s text reads prizvaniem, whereas the Synodal version and the Slavonic read
zvaniem.—Trans.

saved and attain the knowledge of the truth, for God is one, and one is the Mediator
between God and humans—ἀνθρώπων—the human Christ Jesus.” As we can see,
this text which speaks of the universality salvation Bl. Augustine is forced to inter-
pret with blatant violence to its straightforward meaning, to interpret in a restrictive
fashion: “all” = “all the elect.” Chapter 8 of Romans ends in full accordance with this
Good News of salvation (and of course, in complete contradiction to Bl. Augustine’s
restrictive interpretation) with a hymn to God’s love: “Who will separate us from the
love of God?” (35–39). All trials and temptations—“we overcome them all through
the One who loved us,” . . .”Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ
Jesus, our Lord.” If we furthermore take into consideration that, even for Bl. Augus-
tine, election constitutes the mystery of God, unknown to the human being him-
self, then we must necessarily relate this not a limited number of the elect but to
humanity as a whole, or, more accurately, to Divine–Humanity, which is precisely the
pre-eternal foundation of created humanity.
All of the previous content, chapters 1–8 of the Еpistle to the Romans, function
as it were as the general presupposition for the discussion of the problem—agonizing
to the Apostle himelf and scandalizing to all others—concerning the election and
rejection of Israel, the “Jewish Question” in its religious formulation.72 The antinomy
of this question consists in the simultaneous recognition both of the incontrovertible
nature of election and of the rejection of Israel which has not accepted Christ, and
in his development of this antinomy, the Apostle Paul, going from thesis to antith-
esis and back, touches on the paths of the direction of God’s Providence in history
(for Bl. Augustine these “historiosophical” problems are imperceptibly transformed
into problems of eternal salvation and perdition). In the development of his ideas,
the Apostle Paul—in addition to а rabbinic style of thought and exposition73 that is
here felt more strongly than in [617] other places—allows for certain texts which
72. The term “Jewish Question” had a long history in European political and religious life, encom-
passing everything from the political status of Jews in the new nation-states to the enduring religious
significance of Judaism in its relationship to Christianity. In the Russian context the “Jewish Question”
revolved largely around the issue of the Pale of Settlement and the anti-Jewish pogroms which took
place therein. By Bulgakov’s time this grave situation had already received serious political and theo-
logical attention writers of the Russian Religious Renaissance, and especially from Vladimir Soloviev
(on which see now ed. Gregory Yuri Glazov, Vladimir Soloviev, The Burning Bush: Writings on Jews and
Judaism [Notre Dame: UND Press, 2016]). In this essay, Bulgakov uses the term “Jewish Question” in
a more strictly theological register, applying it to the question of the Israel’s eschatological salvation as
St. Paul pursues it in Romans 9-11. For Bulgakov’s writing on the “Jewish Question” more generally, see
the four essays compiled in Prot. Sergii Bulgakov, Khristianstvo i evrejskij vopros (Paris: YMCA Press,
1991). For critical commentary, see Rowan Williams’s Sergii Bulgakov: Towards a Russian Political The-
ology (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1999), specifically the appendix, “Bulgakov and Anti-Semitism,” and now
(the not completely satisfying) “On the Question of Sergius Bulgakov’s ‘Anti-Semitism’: The Report of
a Devil’s Advocate” in Robert F. Slesinski, The Theology of Sergius Bulgakov (Yonkers, NY: St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2017).—Trans.
73. Specifically, this concerns that sharp expression of predeterminism which we find in Rom.
8:28–29. According to Flavius Josephus, “the Pharisees ascribed everything to Destiny and to God
(εἱμαρμένη καὶ θεᾧ), while, nevertheless, the choice of good and evil remains with the human being.” In

sound deterministic-fatalistic and which are then used by Bl. Augustine as confirma-
tion for his own doctrine. This includes, first and foremost, the famous text concern-
ing Rebekah, and later on, the one concerning Pharoah. When outlining the paths
of God’s direction in the genuine election of the “children of God,” which does not
depend on works, that is, merits (for no merits are sufficient to justify election, to be
adequate to it), the apostle says: “For when they (the children of Isaac) had not yet
been born and had done neither good nor evil, so that the will of God in election
might come to pass not from works but from the One calling, it was said to her, ‘The
older will be in bondage to the younger’ (Gen. 25:23), as it is written, ‘Jacob have I
loved, and Esau have I hated’ (Mal. 1:23). What shall we say? Can there be injustice
in God? By no means. For He says to Moses, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have
mercy; and I will pity whom I will pity’ (Exod. 33:19). And so ‘Mercy does not depend
on the one desiring or striving, but on God who has mercy.’” (Rom. 9:11–16).
First of all, what is being spoken of in this example of Esau and Jacob? It speaks
of a certain struggle for the definite goals of Providence in history, but by no means
of salvation or perdition (the expression “hate” in the prophet Malachi does not in
any way have a literal meaning and refers only with the different fates and privileges
of Israel with respect to Esau, who also receives from his father a blessing, although
not the blessing of primogeniture). Here we find general evidence for the idea of
God’s participation in history, from which there naturally arises the related special
problematic of the interaction of God and the human being, of its foundations and
of the relation between human self-determination and God’s determination, even
more precisely, of the relativity of human freedom. But this is, of course, completely
different than what Bl. Augustine sees here,74 for here it is not a question of predesti-
nation as it is spoken of in chapter 9, but on the contrary, here a completely different
problem is taken up.
This problem is developed further in the example of Pharaoh: “For the Scripture
says to Pharaoh: ‘For this very reason have I established you, to show My power over
you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the earth’” (Exod. 9:16).
“And so, He has mercy on whom He wishes; and He hardens whom He wishes”
(Rom. 17–18). And further on: “And what if God, wishing to show His anger and
display His might, with great long-suffering spared vessels of wrath prepared for
perdition so that along with them He might display the [618] riches of His glory on
the vessels of mercy which He prepared beforehand for glory” (22–23). Related are
the following similar texts: “The Lord hardened the heart of Pharoah” (Exod. 9:12, cf.
4:21). Here, yet again, what is spoken of is not of election or rejection, but rather the
fact that God for the sake of His purposes directs both human infirmities and even
the hardening of hearts; the passage speaks of the List der Vernunft, no more than
Pirke-Abboth III: 24 we read: “all is foreseen, and free will is given, and the world is judged by grace, and
everything corresponds to works” (Sanday and Headlam, 1. p. 349).
74. Cf. also Retractiones, PL, t. 32, L. I, c. ХХIII (Expositio quarumdum propositionum ex Epistola
Apostoli ad Romanos).

this, in connection with its explanation of the historical fates of Israel. The text, in any
case, bears no relation to the question of the paths of personal salvation or rejection.
This idea of God’s relationship to the world as both Creator and Providential
Guide is expressed by the apostle in the paradoxical comparison of God with a pot-
ter: “And who are you O human, that you argue with God? Will that which is made
say to the (its) maker: ‘Why did you make me like this?’ Is not the potter master
over the clay to make from the same mixture one vessel for honorable (usage) and
another for shame?” (9:20–22). The paradox of this comparison consists in the fact
that it singles out, it isolates, from the entire complex of relationships the Creator and
Providential Guide has to the world, only one side, namely the active relationship of
the Creator to creation—so God creates Adam from the clay to afterwards breathe
into him a living soul. But it in no wise follows that the comparison of the potter and
the clay may be applied to the whole, to see here a characterization of all the interre-
lations between God and the human being, and consequently to completely exclude
freedom and any self-determination on the human side. God is not a potter, and the
human person is not clay. When explaining any proverbial image,75 it is important
to establish the right point of view, to find the tertium comparationis. In this case the
comparison refers to the omnipotence of the Creator in creating the world, Who by
His creative act determines the what of creation in all of its varieties. Here we have
an expression of the character of creaturehood, according to which the human being
has not created himself but is given to himself by God. This by no means excludes,
however, his own (albeit created) freedom and self-determination. And all creatures,
for all their differences, have in themselves the love of God, they bear the seal of this
love, are dignified in having their being conferred on them, and in turn are worthy of
it, in their own way, even if they are differing vessels. The comparison of vessels for
honorable and shameful use in no way need be understood in malam partem, as an
expression of the exaltation of some and the disdainful humiliation of others. Here it
could not be more appropriate to recall the other comparison from the Apostle Paul
concerning the different members of the body of the Church, equally important and
necessary in all their differences (1 Cor. 12:14–26).
But the positive side of the Apostle Paul’s image of the potter and the clay [619]
consists in the fact that by God’s creative act the ontological foundation and the fate
of every creature have been established together, including the creature’s freedom.
This freedom is not absolute but relative, and it operates only within the boundaries
of its ontological limits. In this sense is it said: “For the gifts and calling of God are
immutable” (Rom. 11:29). God-Creator does not pre-determine but rather determines
the form of every creature, and He includes all its variety—as one of many pre-con-
ditions—in the inscrutable paths of His Wisdom [Premudrosti] in the providential
ordering of the world. Applied to the “Jewish Question,” which was under consider-
ation, this means that according to His purpose, God created the Jewish nation—as
75. Ru. pritochnago, related to a proverb or parable. Scriptural proverbs or images are what Bulga-
kov has in mind.—Trans.

such—and the non-Jewish nations, the Gentiles (just as in an egg we find both the
yolk and the white). Later on the characteristics of true Israel and its mysterious fate
are explained. But what is most remarkable in this entire judgment on the fate of
Israel—which constitutes, indisputably, the pragmatic center of this Epistle to the
Romans concerning the Jews—is that in this letter no verdict is given separating the
elect and non-elect, those called and those rejected, but instead, pace Bl. Augustine,
we find a verdict of universal mercy both for Israel and not-Israel. And this applies
not only to the quite remarkable, mysterious, and greatly significant question of the
salvation of all Israel (right now this question lies outside of our consideration), but
also to the fates of the Gentile world which is tied up with Israel. “Just as you were
once disobedient to God and have now received mercy in accordance with their dis-
obedience, so too they now are disobedient for you to be shown mercy, so that they
too might themselves receive mercy. For God enclosed all in disobedience76 in order
to have mercy on all” (Rom. 11:30–33). And this contemplation of divine fates makes
burst from the heart of the apostle a triumphant hymn (which Bl. Augustine abuses
so violently for his own totally opposed view, applying it to our inability to give an
answer for election, not only to salvation but also to perdition). “O, the depth of the
riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable his judgments [sud’by]
and how unsearchable His paths! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or
who has been His counselor? (Ps. 40:13). Or who has given to Him, that He should
repay? (Ps. 40:13–14). For all is from Him, through Him, and to Him—ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ
δἰ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτόν. To Him be praise forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33–36). In these
words we find the center of the entire epistle, its main idea, in complete opposition
to the Augustinian interpretation. If we can find here a teaching on predestination
(within, at least, generally acceptable limits), then we must do so not with respect to
an Augustinian-Calvinistic predestination of some for salvation and the abandon-
ment of others for rejection, but rather predestination for universal mercy.
[620] And so, the analysis of this complicated and difficult passage of Romans
8:28–11:36 leads to the general conclusion that it does not in any way bear the mean-
ing that could be given to it out of context. The text concerning foreknowledge and
pre-election has a meaning that is not eschatological but only providential. It expresses
the general idea that the salvation of the human person is not acquired by the works
of the Law, by right and on legal bases, in accord with the rabbinic doctrinal which
was partially inherited by Catholic dogmatics; instead it is granted by God through
the power of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ and realized through the guidance
of God’s Providence which operates by paths unsearchable for human beings. These
paths, as they appear before the human person, are expressed in anthropomorphic
images as God’s foreknowledge and predestination. The mystery of the Providence of
God in His wisdom and knowledge are united with the mystery of the omnipotence
of the act of Creation in its manifold diversity that establishes the faces and quali-
ties of Creation. All this cumulatively defines the universal, divine determination of
76. But here Bulgakov has poslushanie, following the Synodal version. Cf. n.66 above.—Trans.

Creation that does not exclude, but rather includes, presupposes, the participation of
human freedom, its self-determination.
It is the business of religious philosophy and theology to unite in a general con-
ceptual framework both theses, which from the outside sound like contradictions or
at least antinomies (by no means the same thing), and, consequently, as thesis and
antithesis.77 In the theological richness of his epistles the Apostle Paul gives us this
material as a theme for a theologizing in which he himself did not engage. With the
regal majesty of a Spirit-bearing evangelist and with the inherited rabbinic technique
of the epistle, he postulates in a series of yesses and noes, sometimes even in the
very same phrase. We find one of his most characteristic combinations of a similar
type of antinomistic affirmations in Philippians 2:12–13, the second, determinis-
tic-sounding part of which Bl. Augustine so often appeals to for confirmation of his
own doctrine: “With fear and trembling work out your own salvation, for—θεὸς–God
is the one who works—ὁ ἐνεργῶν—in you both the will and the activity according to
His good-will.”78 The first half of the text addresses human will and freedom, and
the second speaks of the Divine activity within us. In this interrelation consists the
main problem of the historiosophy that is given to us in the apostolic epistles. In his
epistles the Apostle Paul with equal ease passes between thesis to antithesis.79 In par-
ticular, in the Epistle to the Romans, after 8:28–11:36, [621] the apostle again moves
to its exhortatory section, just as this itself is preceded by the teaching on faith as a
feat of human freedom (an idea developed with particular clarity in the Epistle to
the Hebrews, chap. 11). And indeed, in presupposing the Augustinian determinism
which Augustine inserted into the Epistle to the Romans, the entire teaching—not
only the Old Testament (and especially of the Decalogue), but also of the Gospel
and of the entire New Testament—would as it were lose its meaning, for all of it is
addressed to the human being, to his activity and freedom.
DEPARTMENT OF THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME
77. Cf. Fr. Pavel Florensky’s treatment in “Letter Six: Contradiction” (121) of the Pillar and Ground
of Truth, trans. Boris Jakim (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), where this chapter of Romans
is given as an example of a contradiction not to be resolved by theology.—Trans.
78. Bulgakov’s text reads: ibo Bog est’ proizvodyashii v vas i zhelanie i destvie po blagovoleniiu.
The Synodal version, however, reads: potomy shto Bog proizvodit v vas i xotenie i destvie po (Svoemu)
blagovoleniiu. This is a good example of the relative accuracy of Bulgaokv’s recall of Russian biblical
texts.—Trans.
79. There is an inconsistency in St Paul’s language regarding Divine Sovereignty and human
responsibility. Ch. IX implies arguments which take away Free-will; ch. X is meaningless without the
presupposition of Free-will. And such apparent inconsistency of language and ideas pervades all St
Paul’s epistles: Phil. 2, 12–13. Contrast again «God gave them up unto a reprobate mind» and «where-
fore thou art without excuse» (Rom. 1:17; 2:1). . . . The antinomy [ . . . ] of chapt[s]. IX and X is one which
is and must be the characteristic of all religious thought and experience (Sanday and Headlam, p. 348).


Augustinianism and Predestination

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Augustinianism and Predestination

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A TRANSLATION OF “AUGUSTINIANISM AND

PREDESTINATION” BY SERGIUS BULGAKOV

Father Sergius Bulgakov belonged to that generation of Russian thinkers eager to

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first in Lamb of God, in Bulgakov’s treatment of the Christology of Apollinarius of

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The Teaching of Blessed Augustine on Freedom

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the existence of freedom is demonstrated primarily from Scripture.21 One should

21. Tom. 44, cap. I–VII.

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49. Ibid., c. XI, n. 25, c. 1007–8.

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Toward a Characterization of Augustinianism

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Thus Augustinian predestinationism disintegrates from within; it suﬀers a

On Predestination according to the Apostle Paul: Romans 8:28–30 and

[612] In his exposition of his teaching on predestination, Bl. Augustine relies, in

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consequence or outcome of this foreknowledge. Bl. Augustine insists—implacably

70. We bring forward as examples the judgments of a few researchers:

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