Eternal Security Before The Reformation

Roman Catholics sometimes claim that Evangelical beliefs are both highly objectionable and unprecedented in church history prior to the Reformation. But what if it can be shown that those beliefs not only were held before the Reformation, but were even held by Roman Catholic Saints or other people who are well-regarded in Catholic circles?

The concept that a person is certain of going to Heaven if he becomes a Christian (often called "eternal security"), whether in a form that concept takes in Calvinism or in some other form, is frequently criticized by Roman Catholics. In an article at the Catholic Answers web site, we read:

All they [people who believe in eternal security] have to do is "accept Christ as their personal Savior," and it’s done. They might well live exemplary lives thereafter, but living well is not crucial and definitely does not affect their salvation....

Scripture teaches that one’s final salvation depends on the state of the soul at death. As Jesus himself tells us, "He who endures to the end will be saved" (Matt. 24:13; cf. 25:31–46). One who dies in the state of friendship with God (the state of grace) will go to heaven. The one who dies in a state of enmity and rebellion against God (the state of mortal sin) will go to hell.

Elsewhere, in another Catholic Answers article:

It was not until the time of John Calvin that anyone would claim that it was impossible for a true Christian to lose his salvation. That teaching, which was not even shared by Martin Luther and his followers, was a theological novelty of the mid-sixteenth century, a teaching which would have been condemned as a dangerous heresy by all previous generations of Christians....

In time the "once saved, always saved" teaching even degenerated in many Evangelical circles to the point that some would claim that a Christian could commit grave sins and still remain saved: sin did not injure his relationship with God at all....

The early Church Fathers, of course, were unanimous in teaching the reality of mortal sin....

The idea that one could never lose salvation would have been unimaginable to them [the church fathers], since it was evident from the Bible that baptism saves, that the baptized can deny Christ, and that those who deny Christ will not be saved unless they repent, as did Peter.

It was equally unthinkable to predestinarian thinkers, such as Augustine, who, just two years before he died, taught in his book The Gift of Perseverance that not all who were predestined to come to God’s grace were predestined to remain with him until glory. This was, in fact, the teaching of all the high predestinarians (Augustine, Fulgentius, Aquinas, Luther)—until the time of Calvin.

Notice the use of terms like "novelty", "all", "unanimous", and "dangerous heresy". We're being told that eternal security is a highly objectionable doctrine that nobody advocated prior to the Reformation.

A lot could be said about the false or misleading claims, as well as some significant information that's not mentioned, in these Catholic Answers articles. I want to focus on the issue of whether the concept of eternal security, whether defined in a Calvinistic manner or otherwise, was held by anybody prior to the Reformation.

The second article linked above goes on to cite alleged patristic support for the Roman Catholic position on eternal security. Some of the citations are problematic. For example, Hermas of Rome (note the significance of his location) is quoted. But he believed in the concept of limited forgiveness (The Shepherd, 1:2:2). You could lose your salvation without any possibility of regaining it. Roman bishops living shortly after the time of Hermas would oppose the concept, illustrating the diversity of views that could exist even in one city within a relatively short period of time. The patristic sources who deny eternal security in some way widely differ with each other in how they do it.

Patristic scholars often refer to the large variety of views that existed among the church fathers, including on issues related to justification. An individual father will sometimes seem to be inconsistent on an issue, whether knowingly or not, and some fathers acknowledge that they've changed their mind on an issue. The same can be said of Christians who lived in the later centuries prior to the Reformation. We shouldn't conclude that a source couldn't have ever advocated a position on an issue just because he sometimes contradicted that position. People are often inconsistent, and their beliefs develop over time.

As Robert Eno noted:

"Origen of Alexandria (ca. 185-253) is not an easy author to interpret....The theological issues discussed depend very much on the words in front of him at any given moment. Bringing out one theological point here, he may stress another, even a seemingly contradictory point a few verses later." (in H. George Anderson, et al., edd., Justification By Faith [Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1985], p. 112)

In the same book, we read of "a bewildering variety" of views related to justification that existed in the late medieval period (p. 21). William Rusch refers to how "a variety of images and strands of thought on salvation existed side by side [in the church fathers] in ways that at least at first reading seem not to be compatible" (p. 134). D.H. Williams refers to "the developing views of soteriology in early Christianity" (Evangelicals And Tradition [Grand Rapids. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005], p. 141), and he discusses a variety of beliefs, sometimes inconsistent, that existed among the fathers (pp. 127-140).

Augustine wrote about the large variety of views of salvation that existed in his day, including some that involved some form of eternal security:

"I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin. In respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not without reason, condemned him for this and other errors...There are others, again, with whose opinions I have become acquainted in conversation, who, though they seem to reverence the holy Scriptures, are yet of reprehensible life, and who accordingly, in their own interest, attribute to God a still greater compassion towards men. For they acknowledge that it is truly predicted in the divine word that the wicked and unbelieving are worthy of punishment, but they assert that, when the judgment comes, mercy will prevail. For, say they, God, having compassion on them, will give them up to the prayers and intercessions of His saints. For if the saints used to pray for them when they suffered from their cruel hatred, how much more will they do so when they see them prostrate and humble suppliants? For we cannot, they say, believe that the saints shall lose their bowels of compassion when they have attained the most perfect and complete holiness; so that they who, when still sinners, prayed for their enemies, should now, when they are freed from sin, withhold from interceding for their suppliants. Or shall God refuse to listen to so many of His beloved children, when their holiness has purged their prayers of all hindrance to His answering them?...So, too, there are others who promise this deliverance from eternal punishment, not, indeed, to all men, but only to those who have been washed in Christian baptism, and who become partakers of the body of Christ, no matter how they have lived, or what heresy or impiety they have fallen into. They ground this opinion on the saying of Jesus, 'This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that if any man eat thereof, he shall not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If a man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.' Therefore, say they, it follows that these persons must be delivered from death eternal, and at one time or other be introduced to everlasting life. There are others still who make this promise not even to all who have received the sacraments of the baptism of Christ and of His body, but only to the Catholics, however badly they have lived. For these have eaten the body of Christ, not only sacramentally but really, being incorporated in His body, as the apostle says, 'We, being many, are one bread, one body;' so that, though they have afterwards lapsed into some heresy, or even into heathenism and idolatry, yet by virtue of this one thing, that they have received the baptism of Christ, and eaten the body of Christ, in the body of Christ, that is to say, in the catholic Church, they shall not die eternally, but at one time or other obtain eternal life; and all that wickedness of theirs shall not avail to make their punishment eternal, but only proportionately long and severe....I have also met with some who are of opinion that such only as neglect to cover their sins with alms-deeds shall be punished in everlasting fire...But, say they [others], the catholic Christians have Christ for a foundation, and they have not fallen away from union with Him, no matter how depraved a life they have built on this foundation, as wood, hay, stubble; and accordingly the well-directed faith by which Christ is their foundation will suffice to deliver them some time from the continuance of that fire, though it be with loss, since those things they have built on it shall be burned." (The City Of God, 21:17-20, 21:22, 21:26)

Some other examples:

"Saint Jerome, though an enemy of Origen, was, when it came to salvation, more of an Origenist than Ambrose. He believed that all sinners, all mortal beings, with the exception of Satan, atheists, and the ungodly, would be saved: 'Just as we believe that the torments of the Devil, of all the deniers of God, of the ungodly who have said in their hearts, 'there is no God,' will be eternal, so too do we believe that the judgment of Christian sinners, whose works will be tried and purged in fire will be moderate and mixed with clemency.' Furthermore, 'He who with all his spirit has placed his faith in Christ, even if he die in sin, shall by his faith live forever.'" (Jacques Le Goff, The Birth Of Purgatory [Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1986], p. 61)

"Jerome develops the same distinction, stating that, while the Devil and the impious who have denied God will be tortured without remission, those who have trusted in Christ, even if they have sinned and fallen away, will eventually be saved. Much the same teaching appears in Ambrose, developed in greater detail." (J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines [San Francisco, California: HarperCollins Publishers, 1978], p. 484)

"Like Hilary and Ambrose, Ambrosiaster distinguishes three categories: the saints and the righteous, who will go directly to heaven at the time of the resurrection; the ungodly, apostates, infidels, and atheists, who will go directly into the fiery torments of Hell; and the ordinary Christians, who, though sinners, will first pay their debt and for a time be purified by fire but then go to Paradise because they had the faith. Commenting on Paul, Ambrosiaster writes: 'He [Paul] said: 'yet so as by fire,' because this salvation exists not without pain; for he did not say, 'he shall be saved by fire,' but when he says, 'yet so as by fire,' he wants to show that this salvation is to come, but that he must suffer the pains of fire; so that, purged by fire, he may be saved and not, like the infidels [perfidi], tormented forever by eternal fire; if for a portion of his works he has some value, it is because he believed in Christ.'" (Jacques Le Goff, The Birth Of Purgatory [Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press, 1986], p. 61)

"we find Ambrosiaster teaching that, while the really wicked, 'will be tormented with everlasting punishment', the chastisement of Christian sinners will be of a temporary duration." (J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines [San Francisco, California: HarperCollins Publishers, 1978], p. 484)

In closing, I want to address some potential objections:

- It might be argued that sources like the ones I've cited aren't denying that salvation can be lost, but rather are denying that the loss is permanent. But I see no reason to conclude that all of these sources thought that even a temporary loss of salvation was in view. And even if they did have a temporary loss of salvation in mind, the fact would remain that they believed that one's becoming a Christian made it certain that he would eventually go to Heaven. If the alleged loss of salvation that could occur between becoming a Christian and reaching Heaven was sure to be only temporary, then how is such a scenario significantly distinguishable from a scenario involving God's discipline of His children rather than a loss of salvation? In other words, what a Calvinist or some other proponent of eternal security would classify as discipline is being classified, instead, as a temporary loss of salvation accompanied by a certainty of future restoration. But what significance is there in that distinction?

- Some people might object that somebody like Jerome allows for negative consequences to a believer's sin in the next life, not just this life. Thus, since he allows for something along the lines of Purgatory, his view, although wrong, is significantly less objectionable. But, in the context of disputes over eternal security, how significant is it to place some of the negative consequences of sin in the afterlife rather than this life? Critics of eternal security often claim that the certainty of going to Heaven is what's most objectionable, even if the proponent of eternal security allows for negative consequences to sin in this life. If acknowledging such negative consequences in this life doesn't remove the most objectionable element of eternal security, then why would acknowledging negative consequences in the afterlife do so? And what about the negative consequences that Evangelicals often include in the afterlife? For example, Erwin Lutzer, in his book Your Eternal Reward (Chicago, Illinois: Moody Press, 1998), argues for tears at the judgment seat of Christ and loss of rewards as a result of sin. In order to maintain an objection to a view like Lutzer's that wouldn't apply to a view like Jerome's as well, the critic of eternal security would have to develop a more nuanced objection than what we commonly hear.

It should also be noted that the Bible and the earliest church fathers often define the afterlife in a way that doesn't allow for anything comparable to Purgatory. Evangelicals have good reason for disagreeing with any Purgatory-like elements in the views expressed by men like Ambrosiaster and Jerome. Evangelical proponents of eternal security are correct in agreeing with such men about the certainty of a Christian's future in Heaven while disagreeing with them about the means by which God disciplines His children.

Whatever problems there are with some forms of eternal security (a diminished view of the connection between justification and sanctification, for example), the concept that anybody who becomes a Christian is certain of going to Heaven predates the Reformation. As with other doctrines, different people believe in eternal security for different reasons. But much of the same Biblical evidence and reasoning that leads modern Evangelicals to a belief in eternal security led other people to the same conclusions long before the Reformation.

Update On 5/2/24: Here's a series I wrote in 2024 that discusses this subject further.