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Question 4

Bercot notes that the early Christians repeatedly used the term “free will” and even claims they “coined it”; what do you think it means that Christians across Rome, Syria, Egypt, and Gaul were unified on this point, and what does that suggest about what ordinary churches assumed long before Augustine, Luther, and Calvin?

Another way to ask: What does it mean that churches in many places agreed about “free will” very early on? What does that suggest regular Christians believed before Augustine, Luther, and Calvin?

Direct Answer The transcript suggests this was not a local oddity but a widespread, early, “ordinary” Christian assumption: people are responsible because they truly can choose. Bercot uses the geographic spread to argue that belief in free will was part of the historic faith long before later Western systems (Augustine, then Luther/Calvin) popularized denial of free will.

Support from Transcript:

Bercot says he was surprised to find the phrase “free will” in Justin and concludes: “No, it was a term that the early Christians use… They’re the ones who coined it.”
He quotes multiple writers using the concept explicitly: Justin, Tatian, Melito, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Cyprian, Methodius.
He emphasizes their locations: Irenaeus in “France,” Justin in “Rome,” Tatian in “Syria,” Clement in “Alexandria, Egypt,” and says “they all say the same thing.”
He explains why they discussed it so much: Roman Stoicism taught fate/predetermination, and Christians “were having to write to counter that.”

Discussion Follow-ups If this unity is as broad as Bercot claims, how should that affect how much weight you give to later theological traditions when they sharply differ from the earlier consensus?

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