Editing Augustine of Hippo (section)

==== Predestination ====
{{Main|Augustinian soteriology}}Augustine taught that God orders all things while preserving human freedom.{{sfn|Levering|2011|p=44}} Prior to 396, he believed [[predestination]] was based on God's foreknowledge of whether individuals would believe in Christ, that God's grace was "a reward for human assent".{{sfn|Levering|2011|pp=48–49}} Later, in response to [[Pelagius]], Augustine said that the sin of [[pride]] consists in assuming "we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us (in his foreknowledge) because of something worthy in us", and argued that God's grace causes the individual act of faith.{{sfn|Levering|2011|pp=47–48}}

Scholars are divided over whether Augustine's teaching implies [[double predestination]], or the belief God chooses some people for damnation as well as some for salvation. Catholic scholars tend to deny he held such a view while some Protestants and secular scholars have held that Augustine did believe in double predestination.{{sfn|James|1998|p=102}} About 412, Augustine became the first Christian to understand predestination as a divine unilateral pre-determination of individuals' eternal destinies independently of human choice, although his prior Manichaean sect did teach this concept.{{sfn|Widengren|1977|pp=63–65, 90}}{{sfn|Stroumsa|1992|pp=344–345}}{{sfn|Wilson|2018|pp=286–293}}{{sfn|van Oort|2010|p=520}} Some Protestant theologians, such as [[Justo L. González]]{{sfn|González|1987|p=44}} and [[Bengt Hägglund]],{{sfn|Hägglund|2007|pp=139–140}} interpret Augustine's teaching that grace is [[irresistible grace|irresistible]], results in conversion, and leads to [[perseverance of the saints|perseverance]].

In ''On Rebuke and Grace'' (''De correptione et gratia''), Augustine wrote: "And what is written, that He wills all men to be saved, while yet all men are not saved, may be understood in many ways, some of which I have mentioned in other writings of mine; but here I will say one thing: He wills all men to be saved, is so said that all the predestinated may be understood by it, because every kind of men is among them."<ref name="St. Augustine of Hippo" />

Speaking of the twins Jacob and Esau, Augustine wrote in his book ''On the Gift of Perseverance'', "[I]t ought to be a most certain fact that the former is of the predestinated, the latter is not."<ref>Augustine of Hippo, ''On the Gift of Perseverance'', Chapter 21</ref>