I came home on lunch break and opened my bible to read something and the first verse I see is: "God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus" - 1 Th. 5:9
Predestination is an amazingly biblical doctrine, it's everywhere. In the words of Charles Spurgeon, "there is no greater Predestinarian than Paul in Romans 9 to 11". After being a Calvinist for a while (some will contest whether I ever was), I found the doctrine very biblical, pastoral, and most importantly (joke) very Augustinian. Reading Pelikan, it's funny he says that the pseudo-Augustine triumphed over the real Augustine in the predestinarian controversy in the 9th century. It's probably the only area I would concede to the Presbyterians that they are more Augustinian than we are on.
So while I am happily Roman Catholic, if I had to find the strongest opposition to Catholicism, I'd be a Calvinist in the Anglican Church. Then you get the strength of Anglo-Catholic ecclesiology, with the strength of Calvin's doctrine of predestination.
... I talk about theologies as if they are fighting robots or something.
I had an encounter with a very well-read Catholic friend and apologist I had just met in the last week and he was asking questions ("fishing," as I would call it) about Protestantism. I mentioned many, if not most, contemporary Protestants would say Luther was wrong in the fundamentals of the Reformation and I said Luther, Calvin, et al, were very much Augustinian in their theology. His response: "Augustine was wrong in a lot of things including his theology."
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He didn't want to talk about Augustine after that.
Praying that you become an evangelical Anglican who affirms the 39 Articles. ;)
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