Augustine was not a Calvinist

Calvin misread Augustine, in part because he failed to understand the Platonic thinking patterns that Augustine brought to theology. While I do not think like a Platonist, and I believe that the Bible does not promote a Platonic world view, you cannot understand Augustine unless you understand the way that he thinks.

It starts with the basic philosophical question, which is real and true, the one or the many. We are not Platonists and we assume that the individual objects are real and the idea is mere abstraction. A demonstration of this question has to do with cars. Which is more real, good and true. Cars or car-ness. (In order to sound more like a philosopher, at this point I should substitute an invented foreign word, like 'autolichkeit'.)

We assume that cars are real and the idea or concept of car-ness is not. I assert that some 'cars' are so poor that they barely could meet the definition. Consider the disaster that is the Aerojet, Yugo, Pinto, El Camino, the East German Trabant, etc. Even the best cars will eventually end up in the junk-yard. There is nothing of enduring, true value in individual cars, but the idea of car-ness is lasting and beautiful.

Now let's extend this way of thinking to people. What is the ultimate nature of humanity? While Adam was created in God's image, Augustine asserts, the nature of his (and our) humanity was destroyed and corrupted by his sin. The new nature of man is a mass of perdition (missa perditionis.) The nature of humanity dictates that all people, by simply carrying out their nature, are going to hell. Their default status is condemnation and death. From this miserable lot, God reaches in and grabs some (one at a time) gives them live and sets them on the narrow way. What is God doing? He is changing their nature from that of the old Adam to that of the new Adam, Jesus Christ. The nature and ideal of the saved is transformed from death to live, from condemnation to redemption, from sin to holiness, from hellians to sons of the Most High.
This explains much of Augustine's thought: why Christians still sin, and yet why they improve as they are being transformed; why God's chosing some does not violate his will that all would be saved; how we, who are still sinners, can be considered holy and saints; and how Christ being present in an ideal way in the Lord's Supper is more real than if he were merely present in particulars (that is, Augustine -- instead of denying the real presence --describes Christ's presence in the most real way that he can understand.)

Unless we understand an authors original intent we cannot understand his thought properly. A discerning read of Augustine shows that he is not a Calvinist, but turns out to quite a close to Luther.