Calvinist vs arminian debate in the early age of christianity?

[Jesusthekingofking]

500 yrs after the reformation, the Calvinist and Arminian debate is still ongoing on strong, whether it's among the scholars or layman Christians. You can simply google or search in youtube how much hatred and attack btw these 2 group back and forth. I wonder why before the 16th there's no heated debate among the church fathers, are we assuming they don't have the intellect to read the bible? isn't it's them who pass down the bible to us?

The only possibility I can think of is, both could be wrong. Maybe Calvinism is merely a product of the enlightenment?

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Since John Calvin was around before the enlightenment as a movement proper even existed, I think not. John's Calvin's influences were the humanitarian movement of his day and it's emphasis on the sources in their original language (he could read Koine Greek) as well as St Augustine.

I'm sure others could be more specific.

I do wonder why in Protestantism this debate has caused much pain and schism while in pre-reformation Churches it has been mostly a point of dispute. Though most pre-reformation Churches reject Calvin's more eccentric Ideas. I can't recall it's name, but Calvin did at some point preach the idea that God gives certain people a false sense of security, a false grace and allows them to feel as if they have been saved when in reality they haven't.

I suppose it was Calvin's insistence of double predestination being made a doctrine or part of a creed that made the issue as vociferous as it was in reformed circles.

 

[Jesse Dornfeld]

Yes. It is a natural course that different things within scripture gets brought up in somewhat of a new light throughout the ages, but the pieces have always been there for discussion, just perhaps not as vehemently categorized for debate.

It should be noted that the tenets of Calvinism, that being TULIP was actually a countermeasure to a different soteriology system. I find myself more sympathetic to Calvinism personally, but this is a peripheral that doesn't decide if someone is saved or not I don't think.

I want to pull a quote from St. Augustine here and let people make up their own minds on where Augustine stands in terms of Free Will vs God's Sovereignty.

Augustine:
"Hence we must inquire in what sense is said of God what the apostle has mostly truly said: 'Who will have all men to be saved.' For, as a matter of fact, not all, nor even a majority, are saved: so that it would seem that what God wills is not done, man’s will interfering with, and hindering the will of God. When we ask the reason why all men are not saved, the ordinary answer is: 'Because men themselves are not willing.' This, indeed cannot be said of infants, for it is not in their power either to will or not to will. But if we could attribute to their will the childish movements they make at baptism, when they make all the resistance they can, we should say that even they are not willing to be saved. Our Lord says plainly, however, in the Gospel, when upbraiding the impious city: 'How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!' as if the will of God had been overcome by the will of men, and when the weakest stood in the way with their want of will, the will of the strongest could not be carried out. And where is that omnipotence which hath done all that it pleased on earth and in heaven, if God willed to gather together the children of Jerusalem, and did not accomplish it? or rather, Jerusalem was not willing that her children should be gathered together? But even though she was unwilling, He gathered together as many of her children as He wished: for He does not will some things and do them, and will others and do them not; but “He hath done all that He pleased in heaven and in earth.”