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A Few Thoughts on the Church Fathers

© Michelle Powell-Smith

In reflecting on the impact of the church fathers, I am immediately drawn to the astonishing influence of negative and positive theology on modern Christianity. Clearly, the Western church, including both modern Protestantism and Catholicism, is most highly influenced by negative theology, while the Eastern Orthodox Church is clearly looking back to positive theology. Negative theology in the early Christian era is adequately represented by individuals, particularly Augustine. Positive theology, even very early on, was generally geographically located in the East and can be represented by Origen and the Cappadocian fathers.

Negative theology has impacted the Western church, and, in fact, the Western world in ways too numerous to mention. The negative qualities of the Western church, including predestination, a belief in the natural evil of man, and a well-developed belief in hell all have their roots in the early Christian era. Augustine is one of the most influential of the church fathers, and is responsible for a great deal of modern, Western Christian thought. Augustine believed that humanity had fallen in the garden, and that they had fallen so far as to lose any natural goodness that they had possessed. Enjoyment or pleasure of any sort is, by its very nature, evil. Our only hope for salvation is through grace, and it is only through grace that we may be forgiven our sins. If we are not forgiven, are not worthy of grace, then our sentence is clear: "everlasting punishment". Augustine's belief in grace was also accompanied by a belief in predestination. Humans lacked free will, and therefore, had no control over their own destinies. Augustine's harsh theology goes beyond scripture and salvation and into the realm of action. Augustine is continually concerned with carnality, and attributes the Fall to carnal desire (and action). Augustine's impressions of carnal desire are clearly related to his own life experiences, as related in his Confessions. It is strange to realize that one man's obsessions and neuroses can influence the following centuries in such a profound manner. Augustine's legacy is present in the modern Western church. The intensely negative attitude toward sexuality present in Augustine exists today in many churches. Augustine's belief in predestination continues in Calvinism, as well as many other Protestant sects. While the Western church developed with a generally negative attitude toward humanity, the Eastern Church did not. On the whole, the Eastern fathers believed in the natural goodness of humanity, a goodness that had not been completely lost in the fall. Salvation was possible for all, and there was no conception of predestination.

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