Calvinists misuse/misread the Apostle Paul much like the Gnostics
Irenaeus' words in response to heretical teachings in the late 2nd century are relevant today as Augustinian-Calvinists have done the same thing to Paul's Epistles as the Gnostics were doing in the 2nd century. In the words of the 2nd-century apologist, the Apostle Paul's "[passages have received other interpretations from the" Calvinists. Additionally, like the Gnostic heretics, Calvinists "have altogether misunderstood what Paul has spoken" and "are indeed utterers of falsehood". Unlike the 2nd century Gnostics, the Calvinists' errors taken from Gnosticism are limited to their determinism and their doctrine of man. Gnostics held to an almost identical view of today's Calvinists regarding "total inability" (deadness) and were essentially monergists. On both of these counts, Irenaeus (and every other early church leader) would consider Augustinian-Calvinists' "mad opinions" to be "falsehood".
Irenaues wrote, "But it is necessary to subjoin to this composition, in what follows, also the doctrine of [the Apostle] Paul after the words of the Lord, to examine the opinion of this man, and expound the apostle, and to explain whatsoever [passages] have received other interpretations from the heretics, who have altogether misunderstood what Paul has spoken, and to point out the folly of their mad opinions; and to demonstrate from that same Paul, from whose [writings] they press questions upon us, that they are indeed utterers of falsehood, but that the apostle was a preacher of the truth, and that he taught all things agreeable to the preaching of the truth; [to the effect that] it was one God the Father who spoke with Abraham, who gave the law, who sent the prophets beforehand, who in the last times sent His Son, and conferred salvation upon His own handiwork — that is, the substance of flesh. Arranging, then, in another book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which He taught concerning the Father not by parables, but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning…and the exposition of the Epistles of the blessed apostle, I shall, with God's aid, furnish you with the complete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge, falsely so-called; thus practicing myself and you in [these] five books for presenting opposition to all heretics."
Against Heresies (Book 4, Chapter 41)
Irenaues wrote, "But it is necessary to subjoin to this composition, in what follows, also the doctrine of [the Apostle] Paul after the words of the Lord, to examine the opinion of this man, and expound the apostle, and to explain whatsoever [passages] have received other interpretations from the heretics, who have altogether misunderstood what Paul has spoken, and to point out the folly of their mad opinions; and to demonstrate from that same Paul, from whose [writings] they press questions upon us, that they are indeed utterers of falsehood, but that the apostle was a preacher of the truth, and that he taught all things agreeable to the preaching of the truth; [to the effect that] it was one God the Father who spoke with Abraham, who gave the law, who sent the prophets beforehand, who in the last times sent His Son, and conferred salvation upon His own handiwork — that is, the substance of flesh. Arranging, then, in another book, the rest of the words of the Lord, which He taught concerning the Father not by parables, but by expressions taken in their obvious meaning…and the exposition of the Epistles of the blessed apostle, I shall, with God's aid, furnish you with the complete work of the exposure and refutation of knowledge, falsely so-called; thus practicing myself and you in [these] five books for presenting opposition to all heretics."
Against Heresies (Book 4, Chapter 41)
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