A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumesRobertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Religion
A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 of 2: Third edition, Revised and Expanded, in two volumes
Robertson, J. M. (John Mackinnon)
Free thought -- History
If then it were to be seriously understood that the future lot of
all was foreordained, all expenditure on masses for the dead, or to
secure in advance a lightening of purgatorial penance, or even to buy
off penance on earth, was so much waste; and the Teutons were still
as ready as other barbarians to make their transactions with Church,
God, and the saints a matter of explicit bargain. [1254] Gottschalk,
accordingly, had to be put down, in the general interests of the
Church. It could not truthfully be pretended that he deviated from
Augustine, for he actually held by the "semi-Pelagian" inconsistency
that God predestinates good, but merely foreknows evil. [1255]
There was in fact no clear opposition between his affirmations and
those of Rabanus Maurus, who also professed to be an Augustinian;
but the latter laid forensic stress on the "desire" of God that all
men should be saved, and on the formula that Christ died for all;
while Gottschalk, more honestly, insisted that predestination is
predestination, and applied the principle not merely, as had been
customary, to the future state of the good, but to that of the bad,
[1256] insisting on a prædestinatio duplex. His own fate was thus
economically predestinate; and he was actually tortured by the scourge
till he cast into the fire his written defence, "a document which
contained nothing but a compilation of testimonies from Scripture,
and from the older church-teachers." [1257]
Gottschalk later challenged a fourfold ordeal of "boiling water,
oil, and pitch." His primary doctrine had been the immutability
of the divine will; but he brought himself to the belief that
God would work a miracle in his favour. His conception of
"foreordination" was thus framed solely with regard to the
conception of a future state. The ordeal was not granted, the
orthodox party fearing to try conclusions, and he died without
the sacraments, rather than recant. Then began the second reaction
of feeling against his chief persecutor, Hincmar. Neander, vi, 190.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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