That is an error. Clearly, you may not have read Augustine's Treatise on the Predestination of the Saints or the many excerpts from it that have been posted on this thread.
Many have been posted. I shall refer to the Catholic Encyclopedia in order to show that the excerpts are out of context, in much the same manner, as many post out of context Bible verses:
The history of dogma shows that the origin of heretical Predestinarianism must be traced back to the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of St. Augustine's views relating to eternal election and reprobation. But it was only after the death of this great doctor of the Church (430) that this heresy sprang up in the Church of the West, whilst that of the East was preserved in a remarkable manner from these extravagances. Beginning from the anonymous author of the second part of the so-called "Prædestinatus" (see below) up to Calvin, we find that all the adherents of this heresy have taken refuge behind the stout shield of Augustinism. The question therefore to be answered at present is this: Did St. Augustine teach this heresy? We do not wish to gainsay that St. Augustine in the last years of his life fell a victim to an increased rigorism which may find its psychological explanation in the fact that he was called to be the champion of Christian grace against the errors of Pelagianism and Semipelagianism. Still the point at issue is whether he, in order to establish the predestination of the just, gave up his former position and took refuge in the so-called "irresistible grace" (gratia irresistibilis) which in the just and in those who persevere destroys free will. Not only Protestant historians of dogma (as Harnack) but also a few Catholic scholars (Rottmanner, Kolb) even up to the present time have thought that they found in his works evident indications of such a strange view. But among most of the modern students of St. Augustine the conviction is constantly gaining ground that the African Doctor at no time of his life, not even shortly before his death, embraced this dangerous view of grace which Jansenism claims to have inherited from him. Even the Protestant writer E.F.K. Müller emphasizes the fact that St. Augustine, with regard to the liberty of the will in all conditions of life, "never renounced his repudiation of Manichæism, a step which had caused him so severe a struggle" (Realencyk. für prot. Theologie, Leipzig, 1904, XV, 590).
The only ambiguous passage containing the expressions "unavoidable and invincible" (De corrept. et gratia XII, xxxviii: indeclinabiliter et insuperabiliter) does not refer, as is clear from the context, to Divine grace but to the weak will which by means of grace is made invulnerable against all temptations, even to the point of being unconquerable, without, however, thereby losing its native freedom. Other difficult passages must likewise be explained in view of the general fundamental principles of the saint's teaching and especially of the context and the logical connexion of his thoughts (cf. J. Mausbach, "Die Ethik des hl. Augustinus", LI, 25 sq.; Freiburg, 1909). Hence St. Augustine, when towards the end of his life he wrote his "Retractations", did not take back anything in this matter, nor had he any reason for doing so. But as to God's relation to sin, nothing was further from the thoughts of the great doctor than the idea that the Most Holy could in any way or for any purpose force the human will to commit sin. It is true that God foresees sin, but He does not will it; for He must of necessity hate it. St. Augustine draws a sharp distinction between prœscire and prœdestinare, and to him the infallible foreknowledge of sin is by no means synonymous with a necessitating predestination to sin. Thus he says of the fall of Adam (De corrept. et gratia, 12, 37), "Deo quidem præsciente, quid esset Adam facturus injuste; præsciente tamen, non ad hoc cogente" (cf. Mausbach, ibid. 208 sq.). The question whether and in how far St. Augustine assumed, in connexion with the absolute predestination of the elect, what was later on known as the negative reprobation of the damned, is quite distinct from our present question and has nothing to do with heretical Predestinarianism.
If the truth actually mattered to Roman Catholics, they would read the works they're tossing around like popcorn.
Strange and novel theologies require that one takes good and holy writings, tosses them in a wood chipper, and when retrieved, a certain number of words and phrases are arranged in random order in order to mean something other than what the author intended. I hadn't thought of that before - the wood chipper is the legacy of the Reformation.
Was it hidden in a Dominican trunk somewhere and Calvin fetched it out?
It may have been in a trunk, under lock and key by Rome. But thankfully, men were printing the Bible in a variety of languages and as men, Calvin included, began to read the Bible for themselves, the truth became clear.
A variety of languages, accuracies, and meanings - as Luther began - in order to support heretical theologies. Wasn't it Luther who twice sneaked in the "alone" and mistranslated "grace alone"? And attempted to take an axe to much of the NT, to go along with his amputation of the Deuterocanonical books of the OT? There was no way that Calvin could take that, so he did better. He created a new cruel and tortured religion, and imposed it upon the good burghers of Geneva.
Rome stood condemned by its error, as it does today.
The Reformation gave us wood chippers and fuzzy logic generators which are useful in their own way today.
“”The Reformation gave us wood chippers and fuzzy logic generators which are useful in their own way today.””
Spot on,my friend!
As The late Hilaire Belloc rightfully compares the reformation with Mohammed
“There is thus a very great deal in common between the enthusiasm
with which Mohammed’s teaching attacked the priesthood, the Mass and the
sacraments, and the enthusiasm with which Calvinism, the central motive
force of the Reformation, did the same. As we all know, the new teaching
relaxed the marriage laws_but in practice this did not affect the mass of
his followers who still remained monogamous. It made divorce as easy as
possible, for the sacramental idea of marriage disappeared. It insisted
upon the equality of men, and it necessarily had that further factor in
which it resembled Calvinism the sense of predestination, the sense of
fate; of what the followers of John Knox were always calling “the
immutable decrees of God.”-Hilaire Belloc