Restoring Apostolic Faith

People assume if you’re serious about theology, Augustine is somewhere near the top of your bookshelf.

He’s not on mine.

Not because he was evil, though I do believe he always had one foot in Gnostic beliefs and one foot in the Church. Not because he didn’t love Christ, I believe some part of him actully did. But because when I go looking for the voice of the apostles still echoing through history, I don’t find it in Augustine’s courtroom. I find it at a table—with Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Athanasius, and Gregory of Nyssa.

They speak a different language.

Where Augustine begins with guilt, inherited corruption, and divine favoritism before the world was made—they begin with creation, communion, and a Father who raises children, not a Judge building a case file.

Two Roads: One Starts in a Courtroom, the Other at a Table

Augustine’s Path	Apostolic & Pre-Augustinian Fathers’ Path
Humanity begins guilty, condemned for Adam’s sin.	Humanity begins beloved, immature, and made for growth.
Salvation = God rescues a selected few from His own wrath.	Salvation = God heals, adopts, and invites us into His life.
The will is dead—we can’t even respond.	The will is wounded, but still able to choose obedience or rebellion.
Many souls created only to perish.	All are created for communion—some tragically refuse.
Tone: guilt, fate, predestination.	Tone: participation, obedience, transformation.

Same faith. Same Christ. Different starting line.

Why I Sit With These Fathers

Clement of Rome (c. 95 AD)

1 Clement — the earliest Christian writing outside the New Testament.

Likely knew Peter or Paul, or at least sat with those who did. His writing isn’t philosophical or speculative. It sounds like Acts—call to holiness, unity, repentance, and costly obedience.

He doesn’t talk about inherited guilt or predestination. He talks about honoring Christ through actual faithfulness.

If the Church were a family, Clement is the elder at the table saying, “I knew the apostles—this is what they meant.”

Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107 AD)

Seven Letters on the Road to Martyrdom

He doesn’t write like a theorist. He writes like a man in chains. Christ is the Physician. The Church is a hospital. Unity, Eucharist, obedience—this is the medicine of immortality. No courtroom. No fate. Just a God who heals.

Polycarp of Smyrna (c. 110 AD)

Letter to the Philippians

A disciple of John the Apostle. He talks about endurance, righteousness, imitation—not inherited guilt. He dies praying forgiveness over his executioners. That’s his theology.

Justin Martyr (mid-2nd century)

First Apology | Dialogue with Trypho

Philosophically trained—but refuses to surrender freedom or responsibility. Humanity is rational and free, able to respond or resist truth. Salvation is relationship, not legal status.

Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180 AD)

Against Heresies

This is where Augustine and the Apostolic tradition part ways.

• Creation is good—intentional, delightful.

• Humanity wasn’t perfect and then fell; we were children meant to mature.

• Sin didn’t end the story. It simply made the need for grace obvious.

• Salvation is recapitulation—Christ re-lives our human story, heals it from the inside, and leads us to glory.

Where Augustine sees inherited damnation, Irenaeus sees delayed growth.

Origen (3rd century)

On First Principles

Not all his conclusions aged well—but his instincts matter: God is not insecure. His mercy is vast. Salvation is transformation. Judgment exists—but its goal is healing, not humiliation.

Athanasius (4th century)

On the Incarnation

“If God let humanity remain in corruption, He would deny His own goodness.”

For Athanasius, salvation is not a legal escape—it’s a cosmic rescue. God enters death so humanity can enter life.

Gregory of Nyssa (4th century)

On the Making of Man

Asks why God made fragile beings instead of flawless ones. His answer: because love needs vulnerability. True perfection is not power—it is mercy poured into weakness.

And Then… Augustine

(I won’t get into relics and the bones of Stephen, but you should)

City of God | Confessions | Enchiridion

Brilliant, expert rhetoric—but he shifts the center of gravity:

• Humanity is not just broken; it is guilty before it breathes.

• God elects a few to save; the rest exist as vessels of wrath.

• Salvation is legal pardon, not relational healing.

• The will is chained. Love is irresistible for the elect, unreachable for the rest.

Compare this with the men above—and it’s not a footnote. It’s a different map.

Why This Still Matters Today

Because most of Western Christianity runs on Augustine’s operating system—often without knowing it.

We hear it in sermons that start with “you are filthy rags” instead of “you are image-bearers.”

In altar calls built on fear of hell instead of invitation into holiness.

In the idea that grace is God holding back wrath—not God extending His life.

But if you go back—

Before councils, before Rome baptized philosophy, before the West hardened grace into a legal category—

back to Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Athanasius—

you hear another voice:

Not “God is against you unless grace intervenes,”

but “God is for you—that’s why grace exists.”

So Where Do We Go From Here?

I’m not starting a new movement or building a brand. I’m simply stepping back to the oldest voices we have—men who still smelled the sea of Galilee in their memory of Christ.

And I’m choosing their table over Augustine’s courtroom.

Not because they were perfect.

But because they still sounded like the apostles.

Final Thought

You don’t have to agree with me.

But if the faith you inherited sounds more like a legal battle than a Father calling His children home—it’s worth asking why.

Maybe the problem isn’t Jesus.

Maybe it’s the lens we’ve been handed.

The early fathers weren’t naïve or soft. Most of them bled for their confession. They preached repentance, judgment, holiness—but always inside the larger truth that God’s first posture toward humanity is love, not suspicion.

So no, I don’t stand with Augustine at the courtroom bench.

I’d rather sit at the table with Clement, Ignatius, Irenaeus and the rest—where the gospel still smells like salt air, bread, and hope.