Well if you studied church history and Augustine you should’ve came across Pelagius. If you notice you all who oppose the biblical doctrines of sinful man, election, predestination, perseverance of the saints or security of the believer, basically make the same arguments Pelagius made. Catholicism is no different from your Pelagius views regarding salvation. It is why it’s rejected. The basic foundation is still the same, man working for his salvation and trying to earn Gods favor
I told you what I know...I can't make believe to know what I don't know. Pelagius believed man could be saved by himself...without the Holy Spirit. The, at the time only church around, Catholic Church rejected this. This is one of the reasons they liked Augustine..there was pretty much no other reason other than he had a good brain on his shoulders (my opinion. not the CC's).
You say "all you"...do you realize that you go against the rest of Christianity? Calvinism is the only denomination that believes as you do..it's the only denomination that has its own commentators and teachers...You can learn from no one else because you don't believe as any other Christian does. Do you ever wonder why??
As to catholicism,,,I did say that it's strange that you love Augustine but hate catholicism -- it's the same thing! Augustine practically made up the current Catholic doctrine regarding Original Sin and predestination. (I'm not catholic).
You have a misconception about biblical teaching.
Man cannot work for his salvation or try to earn God's favor. If you need me to, I can post ECFs who plainly said that we are saved by faith alone -- which is what the CC believes today. They recanted on Trent, which was only declared for the reason of countering the reformation and so they added works to the mix for Justification. I can post Vatican docs that clearly state that we are saved by faith alone.
Where we part is after salvation...
Then comes sanctification.
This is a cooperative effort between God and man.
God requires us to obey Him....
and Man obeys Him.
The reason you have a problem with this is due to free will. Believing free will does not exist messes up the entire N.T.
I keep asking every calvinist I speak to to show me where free will is taken away from man's nature, but so far, no answer.
God gave man free will in the Garden.
God said everything He made was good.
Adam and Eve lost the PRETERNATURAL gifts when they fell -- not the nature God had given them.
They retained free will.
Satan certainly doesn't take it away because he's not the one that creates.
Man does not have the ability to remove something from his nature --- this is proven by the fact that we still have the same nature we had 5,000 years ago..and will continue to have.
So where did our free will go?
And as to earning God's favor...
Yes..we earn God's favor by obeying Him...
(after salvation).
You deny this? Do you think God does NOT want us to obey Him? Need scripture?