Letter 1

From: Ferrandus, deacon of Carthage To: Fulgentius of Ruspe, bishop Date: ~525 AD Context: Ferrandus [fl. 520s-540s, deacon of Carthage and theological writer, disciple of Fulgentius of Ruspe] writes to his teacher Fulgentius with a complex theological question about grace and predestination. Ferrandus, the least of the servants of Christ, to the most holy and blessed Bishop Fulgentius, greetings in the Lord. The question that has been troubling me — and that has been troubling several of us who discuss these matters together here in Carthage — is one that I want to bring to your attention before I attempt any answer, because the subject is one where your authority is greater than mine. The question is this: if God from eternity has foreknown all things, including the decisions that each person will make, how can those decisions be genuinely free? And if they are not genuinely free, how can persons be genuinely responsible for them and justly held accountable for the sins they commit? Augustine's response to this — that foreknowledge and predetermination are not the same thing, that God can know what will freely be done without determining that it must be done — seems to me correct but incomplete. It does not fully account for the passages in Augustine himself where he speaks of God's will as the ultimate cause of every event, including every act of faith and repentance. I raise this not as a doubter but as someone who wants to hold these things together more coherently than I currently can. Your unworthy student, Ferrandus