Augustine and Pelagius
By R.C. Sproul
"It is Augustine who gave us the Reformation." So wrote B. B. Warfield in
his assessment of the influence of Augustine on church history. It is not
only that Luther was an Augustinian monk, or that Calvin quoted Augustine
more than any other theologian that provoked Warfield's remark. Rather, it
was that the Reformation witnessed the ultimate triumph of Augustine's
doctrine of grace over the legacy of the Pelagian view of man.
Humanism, in all its subtle forms, recapitulates the unvarnished
Pelagianism against which Augustine struggled. Though Pelagius was
condemned as a heretic by Rome, and its modified form, Semi-Pelagianism was
likewise condemned by the Council of Orange in 529, the basic assumptions
of this view persisted throughout church history to reappear in Medieval
Catholicism, Renaissance Humanism, Socinianism, Arminianism, and modern
Liberalism. The seminal thought of Pelagius survives today not as a trace
or tangential influence but is pervasive in the modern church. Indeed, the
modern church is held captive by it.
What was the core issue between Augustine and Pelagius? The heart of the
debate centered on the doctrine of original sin, particularly with respect
to the question of the extent to which the will of fallen man is "free."
Adolph Harnack said:
"There has never, perhaps, been another crisis of equal importance in
church history in which the opponents have expressed the principles at
issue so clearly and abstractly. The Arian dispute before the Nicene
Council can alone be compared with it." (History of Agmer V/IV/3)
The controversy began when the British monk, Pelagius, opposed at Rome
Augustine's famous prayer: "Grant what Thou commandest, and command what
Thou dost desire." Pelagius recoiled in horror at the idea that a divine
gift (grace) is necessary to perform what God commands. For Pelagius and
his followers responsibility always implies ability. If man has the moral
responsibility to obey the law of God, he must also have the moral ability
to do it.
Harnack summarizes Pelagian thought:
"Nature, free-will, virtue and law, these strictly defined and made
independent of the notion of God - were the catch-words of Pelagianism:
self-acquired virtue is the supreme good which is followed by reward.
Religion and morality lie in the sphere of the free spirit; they are at any
moment by man's own effort."
The difference between Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism is more a
difference of degree than of kind. To be sure, on the surface there seems
like there is a huge difference between the two, particularly with respect
to original sin and to the sinner's dependence upon grace. Pelagius
categorically denied the doctrine of original sin, arguing that Adam's sin
affected Adam alone and that infants at birth are in the same state as Adam
was before the Fall. Pelagius also argued that though grace may facilitate
the achieving of righteousness, it is not necessary to that end. Also, he
insisted that the constituent nature of humanity is not convertible; it is
indestructively good.
Over against Pelagius, Semi-Pelagianism does have a doctrine of original
sin whereby mankind is considered fallen. Consequently grace not only
facilitates virtue, it is necessary for virtue to ensue. Man's nature can
be changed and has been changed by the Fall.
However, in Semi-Pelagianism there remains a moral ability within man that
is unaffected by the Fall. We call this an "island of righteousness" by
which the fallen sinner still has the inherent ability to incline or move
himself to cooperate with God's grace. Grace is necessary but not
necessarily effective. Its effect always depends upon the sinner's
cooperation with it by virtue of the exercise of the will.
It is not by accident that Martin Luther considered "The Bondage of the
Will" to be his most important book. He saw in Erasmus a man who, despite
his protests to the contrary, was a Pelagian in Catholic clothing. Luther
saw that lurking beneath the controversy of merit and grace, and faith and
works was the issue of to what degree the human will is enslaved by sin and
to what degree we are dependent upon grace for our liberation. Luther
argued from the Bible that the flesh profits nothing and that this
"nothing" is not a little "something."
Augustine's view of the Fall was opposed to both Pelagianism and
Semi-Pelagianism. He said that mankind is a massa peccati, a "mess of sin,"
incapable of raising itself from spiritual death. For Augustine man can no
more move or incline himself to God than an empty glass can fill itself.
For Augustine the initial work of divine grace by which the soul is
liberated from the bondage of sin is sovereign and operative. To be sure we
cooperate with this grace, but only after the initial divine work of
liberation.
Augustine did not deny that fallen man still has a will and that the will
is capable of making choices. He argued that fallen man still has a free
will (liberium arbitrium) but has lost his moral liberty (libertas). The
state of original sin leaves us in the wretched condition of being unable
to refrain from sinning. We still are able to choose what we desire, but
our desires remain chained by our evil impulses. He argued that the freedom
that remains in the will always leads to sin. Thus in the flesh we are free
only to sin, a hollow freedom indeed. It is freedom without liberty, a real
moral bondage. True liberty can only come from without, from the work of
God on the soul. Therefore we are not only partly dependent upon grace for
our conversion but totally dependent upon grace.
Modern Evangelicalism sprung from the Reformation whose roots were planted
by Augustine. But today the Reformational and Augustinian view of grace is
all but eclipsed in Evangelicalism. Where Luther triumphed in the sixteenth
century, subsequent generations gave the nod to Erasmus.
Modern evangelicals repudiate unvarnished Pelagianism and frequently
Semi-Pelagianism as well. It is insisted that grace is necessary for
salvation and that man is fallen. The will is acknowledged to be severely
weakened even to the point of being "99 percent" dependent upon grace for
its liberation. But that one percent of unaffected moral ability or
spiritual power which becomes the decisive difference between salvation and
perdition is the link that preserves the chain to Pelagius. We have not
broken free from the Pelagian captivity of the church.
That one percent is the "little something" Luther sought to demolish
because it removes the sola from sola gratia and ultimately the sola from
sola fide. The irony may be that though modern Evangelicalism loudly and
repeatedly denounces Humanism as the mortal enemy of Christianity, it
entertains a Humanistic view of man and of the will at its deepest core.
We need an Augustine or a Luther to speak to us anew lest the light of
God's grace be not only over-shadowed but be obliterated in our time.
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R.C. Sproul is now the distinguished visiting professor of systematic
theology and apologetics at Knox Theological Seminary.