In this video, our aim is to establish three historical facts.

Number 1, St. Augustine of the 5th century was the first known Christian leader to promote a Calvinistic sociology.

Number 2. St. Augustine was influenced by Gnostic Manichianism and its deterministic philosophy for about a decade of his life prior to becoming a Christian.

Number three, the Reformers, especially Martin Luther and John Calvin, were greatly influenced by Augustine in their formation of modern Calvinistic sociology.

Our goal in this video is simply to present the facts.

As has been said, facts don't care about feelings.

We want the audience to objectively understand the facts of the matter so as to make an educated decision.

So do the facts support the claim that Augustine was the first known Christian leader to promote a Calvinistic

sociology? There are literally dozens of quotes from non-Calvinistic sources who would

establish this fact. However, that could come across as bias. So why not listen to Calvinistic

sources and their findings with regard to the history of Calvinism?

A respected Calvinistic historian Lorraine Bettner wrote,

The early church fathers placed chief emphasis on good works such as faith, repentance, almsgiving, prayers,

submission to baptism, etc. as the basis for salvation. They, of course,

taught that salvation was through Christ, yet they assumed that man had full power to accept or

reject the gospel. They, the early church leaders, taught a kind of synergism in which there was

a cooperation between grace and free will. This cardinal truth of Christianity was first clearly seen by

Augustine the great spirit-filled theologian of the West. In his doctrine of sin and grace,

he went far beyond the earlier theologians, taught an unconditional election of grace, and restricted

the purpose of redemption to the definite circle of the elect.

We cannot be more unbiased than to look at John Calvin's own conclusions with regard to the early church writings.

John Calvin said, all ancient theologians, with the exception of Augustine, are so confused, vacillating and contradictory on this subject that no certainty can be obtained from their writings.

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