I came across an interesting article which points to the relationship between evangelicals and the people they love to denounce, humanists.

http://www.humanists.org/hum_lamont.htm What is Humanism?

Humanism, having its ultimate faith in humankind, believes that human beings possess the power or potentiality of solving their own problems, through reliance primarily upon reason and scientific method applied with courage and vision.

Humanism believes, in opposition to all theories of universal predestination, determinism, or fatalism, that human beings, while conditioned by the past, possess genuine freedom of creative choice and action, and are, within certain objective limits, the masters of their own destiny.

What is Pelgianism?

http://www.bible.acu.edu/s-c/Default.asp?Bookmark=5169

Pelagianism is the "doctrine of the sufficiency of man's natural powers to effect his own salvation." There is, however, more involved in real life Pelagianism: the operation of human free will in deciding matters of good and evil and salvation. It also deals with how far you want to push the grace of God and whether there is original sin that makes you culpable beyond your own choices (which Pelagius denied).

Finally, because of his decisionism and rejection of original sin, Pelagius rejected infant baptism in favour of adult baptism.

Paul Tillich has some interesting reflections on PELAGIANISM as an "American" doctrine or proclivity. He writes:

America is very much in favor of this Pelagian idea that every individual can always make a new beginning, that he is able by his individual freedom to make decisions for or against the divine. The tragic element, on the other hand, is very much known in Europe, and is not so near the heart of Americans. In Europe the negative side of Augustinianism--we could call it existentialism--has emphasized the tragic element and has reduced the ethical zeal and impact that Pelagianism can have. (Paul Tillich: A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN THOUGHT [1968], 124)

http://www.leaderu.com/theology/augpelagius.html

"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.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-05/npnf1-05-04.htm#P106_10241

The East laid especial stress on free will: and the West dwelt more pointedly on the ruin of the human race and the absolute need of God's grace for salvation. But neither did the Eastern theologians forget the universal sinfulness and need of redemption, or the necessity, for the realization of that redemption, of God's gracious influences; nor did those of the West deny the self-determination or accountability of men. All the elements of the composite doctrine of man were everywhere confessed; but they were variously emphasized, according to the temper of the writers or the controversial demands of the times. Such a state of affairs, however, was an invitation to heresy, and a prophecy of controversy; just as the simultaneous confession of the unity of God and the Deity of Christ, or of the Deity and the humanity of Christ, inevitably carried in its train a series of heresies and controversies, until the definitions of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the person of Christ were complete. In like manner, it was inevitable that sooner or later some one should arise who would so one-sidedly emphasize one element or the other of the Church's teaching as to salvation, as to throw himself into heresy, and drive the Church, through controversy with him, into a precise definition of the doctrines of free will and grace in their mutual relations.

The real question at issue was whether there was any need for Christianity at all; whether by his own power man might not attain eternal felicity; whether the function of Christianity was to save, or only to render an eternity of happiness more easily attainable by man.

Arguments of Pelagius were such as the following: "If Adam's sin injured even those who do not sin, Christ's righteousness ought likewise to profit even those who do not believe" (2-4); "No man can transmit what he has not; and hence, if baptism cleanses from sin, the children of baptized parents ought to be free from sin;" "God remits one's own sins, and can scarcely, therefore, impute another's to us; and if the soul is created, it would certainly be unjust to impute Adam's alien sin to it"

http://public.csusm.edu/public/guests/rsclark/Pelagius.htm

"This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live" (Deut 30.19). Pelagius argued for three features in action: 1)power (posse); 2)will (velle); 3)the ability to make it so (esse).

Luther retained infant baptism, he did so on different grounds. For Luther, baptism is the gospel made visible. For Calvin, it was the sign and seal of the covenant.

He was, ironically, like much of Reformed theology, a creationist regarding the soul, i.e., he taught each soul is created immediately by God so that it does not participate in original sin (7).

As the Puritans (i.e., 16th through early 18th century English, Dutch and North American Calvinists) put it in their rhyme: 'In Adam's fall, sinned we all'.

It was not Pelagius himself but a follower, namely Julian of Eclanum (c.386-c.455), who initiated the famous literary battle with Augustine over the doctrines of sin, grace, predestination and free will. Augustine taught the view later described as 'total depravity' or 'total inability', i.e., humans apart from prevenient grace [grace which works first] are unable to will to choose to believe. Remember, the Pelagians (particularly Julian) had affirmed the total freedom of the human will as the necessary postulate of moral responsibility. Not so for Augustine. In Augustine's view, one is guilty because one was in Adam. When we sin actually, we're only doing what comes naturally.

For Augustine our will is so sin impaired by Adam's fall that it only chooses evil apart from Grace. Pelagius, Celestius and Julian, naturally denied predestination while Augustine affirmed it. For Augustine, one believes because he is elect. It was unthinkable that humans should exercise the initiative in salvation.

Augustine began responding to the Pelagians in 411-2. He first defended infant baptism as the means by which God washes away original sin in response to Coelestius and Julian who had argued that children were eligible for eternal life without baptism.

This was a shocking affront. For most of the ancient Church infant baptism was a given, since it was widely understood that it washed away original sin. This one of the reasons Augustine taught it and the Pelagian denial of the grace of baptism to the children of beleivers was one of the most heinous aspects of their theology

Its important to realise that Pelagius was a moralist, i.e., he was very much concerned about Christian behaviour and was concerned that the pessimistic Augustinian anthropology and soteriology (doctrine of salvation) would discourage good behaviour. Augustine's prayer, 'Give what you command, and command what you will', seemed to Pelagius, to strip humans of their freedom and hence moral responsibity (26).

Most soteriological moralism is rooted in an attempt to get folk to behave properly. The question is not whether to behave, but why? For justification or as a result of it? Historically and theologically attempts to get folk to be good apart from divine grace must be judged a failure. This would seem to be the lesson of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians and the Reformation generally (27).

Historically it has been the case that those who have sided with Pelagius; i.e., those who have broken the link between Adam and us; have also broken the link between the redeemed and Christ. They have argued that just as one is not sinful 'in Adam', is one not righteous 'in Christ'. Grace, in this system, only helps one to do what one could do naturally. It is not, therefore of the essence of salvation.

The key unstated presuppositon, in Pelagius' argument, was the there is a universal standard of justice to which all, even God are bound. Flowing from this belief is the further belief that justice requires absolute freedom of the will. Why? Because if God is absolutely sovereign, then humans must be only puppets, thus depriving God of his justice by stripping humans of their freedom and their moral responsibility. God is just. Therefore humans must have a free will

In Augustinian theology, grace (L. gratia) is the unearned and undeserved favour of God. It is the sine qua non of the Christian doctrine of salvation. This has been the Western consensus since the 4th century. On this point, Rome and the Protestants agreed, if only formally. The conflict between Rome and the Protestants was never, whether grace and faith, but what sort of grace and what sort of faith?

Grace, in the Pelagian theology, however, became superfluous. Since we are not sinners in Adam, we have no need of grace from the beginning. At best, grace can be said to bring out our natural abilities.

In Augustinian theology, grace (L. gratia) is the unearned and undeserved favour of God. It is the sine qua non of the Christian doctrine of salvation. This has been the Western consensus since the 4th century. On this point, Rome and the Protestants agreed, if only formally. The conflict between Rome and the Protestants was never, whether grace and faith, but what sort of grace and what sort of faith?

Grace, in the Pelagian theology, however, became superfluous. Since we are not sinners in Adam, we have no need of grace from the beginning. At best, grace can be said to bring out our natural abilities.

The Pelagians retained, however, the analogy between Adam and Christ (Romans 5.12-21). This forced them to argue that what was true for us relative to Adam; i.e., one falls by imitating Adam; is also true for us relative to Christ; i.e., one becomes righteous by exercising the will to sinlessness in imitation of Jesus.

Since Anselm (1033-1109) most of the Church has understood Christ's death in forensic, i.e., legal categories. In Cur Deus Homo, Anselm argued that God having willed to redeem us, he could so in no other way than by the incarnation. The penal, substitutionary doctrine of the atonement was also at the heart of the Protestant Christologies and soteriologies, whether Calvinist or Lutheran. Since the 18th century this has been the evangelical doctrine of the atonement as well.

Not so, however, for the Pelagians. In their scheme, it has been considered unjust for Christ to have suffered vicariously for sinners. How can one righteous person suffer for others, especially the unrighteous? This was Pelagius' argument and has been followed in more Modern times by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) and Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875) (35). The Pelagian move here is perhaps the classic example of the power of an a priori notion which comes to control one's theology.

-- J Fernandes (mandolin@operamail.com), November 15, 2003

Answers

Send this thread to “ New Answers” to invite further comment by posting this statement.

-- Bumper (bump@bump.com), January 15, 2004.