Augustine, like Paul, had been “apprehended” by the grace of God. He entered the Christian faith by what seemed to him catastrophes. The great original catastrophe was his condition at birth, sinful alienation from God. And the only freedom from that catastrophe was a new birth. Augustine bound the receiving of grace to membership in the visible church. He also supported, however, the doctrine that God chooses whom he will and gives them power to serve him, which makes salvation a matter between God and the individual. It was this doctrine, recovered in the Protestant Reformation, that gave
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