Pelagius, Pelagianism
Pelagianism
is that teaching, originating in the late fourth century, which stresses man's
ability to repent.
Pelagius
was an eminently moral person, who became a fashionable teacher at Rome late in
the fourth century. British by birth, he was a zealous ascetic. Whether he was
a monk or not we cannot say, but he clearly supported monastic ideals. In his
early writings he argued against the Arians but fired his big guns against the
Manichaeans. Their dualistic fatalism infuriated the moralist in him.
When
the Visigoths surged upon Rome in 410/411, Pelagius sought refuge in Africa.
After avoiding an encounter with Augustine, he moved on to Jerusalem, where he
gained a good reputation. No one took offense at his teaching.
Meanwhile
in Africa, Pelagius's pupil Coelestius, a less cautious and more superficial
man, had pointedly drawn out the consequences of Pelagius's teaching on
freedom. Churchmen in the area of Carthage solemnly charged him with heresy.
According to Augustine, Coelestius did not accept the "remission of
sins" in infant baptism. Such an assertion of "innocence" of
newborn babies denied the basic relationship in which all men stand "since
Adam." It was claiming that unredeemed man is sound and free to do all
good. It was rendering salvation by Christ superfluous. The keystone of
Pelagianism is the idea of man's unconditional free will and his moral
responsibility. In creating man God did not subject him, like other creatures,
to the law of nature but gave him the unique privilege of accomplishing the
divine will by his own choice. This possibility of freely choosing the good
entails the possibility of choosing evil.
In other words, when man sins it is not God's fault!
Pelagius
believed that there are three features in human action: 1) power (posse), 2)
will (velle), and the 3) realization (esse). The first comes exclusively from
God; the other two belong to man. Thus, as man acts, he merits praise or blame.
Whatever his followers may have said, Pelagius himself held the conception of a
divine law proclaiming to men what they ought to do and setting before them the
prospect of supernatural rewards and punishments. If man enjoys freedom of
choice, it is by the express bounty of his Creator; he ought to use it for
those ends that God prescribes.
The
rest of Pelagianism flows from this central thought of freedom. First, it
rejects the idea that man's will has any intrinsic bias in favor of wrongdoing
as a result of the fall. Since each soul is created immediately by God, as
Pelagius believed, then it cannot come into the world soiled by original sin
transmitted from Adam. Before a person begins exercising his will, "there
is only in him what God has created." The effect of infant baptism, then,
is not eternal life but "spiritual illumination, adoption as children of
God, citizenship of the heavenly Jerusalem."
Second,
Pelagius considers grace purely an external aid provided by God. He leaves no
room for any special interior action of God upon the soul. By "grace"
Pelagius really means free will itself or the revelation of God's law through
reason, instructing
us
in what we should do and holding out to us eternal sanctions. Since this revelation
has become obscured through evil customs, grace now includes the law of Moses
and the teaching and example of Christ.
This
grace is offered equally to all. God is no respecter of persons. By obedience
to God's Spirit, men advance in holiness. God's predestination operates
according to the quality of the lives God foresees men will lead. It does reflect an awareness of man's high
calling and the claims of the moral law.