WE have already called attention to the serious inroads of Arminianism in modern theological thinking. It is a danger which is not very seriously laid to heart, it is to be feared, though it strikes at the very bed-rock truths of the doctrines of grace. Belonging to the same category is the system of error embraced under the designation of Pelagianism. Older than Arminianism, as a formulated system, yet, in one of its phases, Semi-Pelagianism, it brings within its compass some of the views which were prominently set forth by the Arminian theologians in the 17th century. The issues involved in the Pelagian controversy are not to be set aside as merely of interest to theologians or ecclesiastical historians. They are of perennial interest and assert themselves periodically in religious history. At bottom the controversy was concerned with the age-long controversy of free-will. Like most of the serious heresies which have disturbed the peace of the Church Pelagianism cast its roots into the early centuries of the Christian era. Historically, however, the Pelagian controversy proper was fought out between 411 and 418. At the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431) the positions maintained by Pelagius were condemned. At some time between 398 and 402, if not earlier there arrived at Rome a British monk, known to history by his Latin name, Pelagius. He prepared a book of Eulogiar, or extracts from Scripture selected as he thought, to emphasise the freedom of the will and especially to counteract what he considered the enervating effects of
Augustine’s Confessions. Associated with him was Coelestius. Another of the ablest of the Pelagians was Julian of Eclanum in Italy who was the real theologian of Pelagianism. The great defender of the orthodox doctrine was Augustine who joined issues with the Pelagian defenders.
What then are the leading tenets of Pelagianism? They may be summarised as follows:—(1) Everything that God creates is essentially good and cannot in its nature be convertible; consequently human nature remains indestructibly good: so there can be no such thing as a sinful nature or original sin. (2) Man’s free will is an absolute and indefectible freedom of choice unaffected by previous choices. Sin is choosing that which is contrary to what reason tells us is righteous. By virtue of this free will man is rendered independent of God. (3) The desires of the flesh are not as such evil; sin consists not in desire itself as such, but in its excess which is due solely to the free choice of each individual will. (4) Every man by birth is in precisely the same condition morally as Adam was before he sinned i.e., endowed with “natural holiness” (reason and free will). Hence there can be sinless men. (5) Adam sinned through free will; his descendants also sin through free will; neither in his case nor theirs is physical death a consequence of sin, but spiritual death is; this is in no sense inherited from Adam but is acquired by each man through his own sins. (6) The idea of inherited sin and of inherited guilt is unthinkable. The only difference between children born now and that of Adam before the Fall is one not of nature but of environment: the former are born into a society in which evil customs and habits prevail. (7) By grace is meant either man’s natural constitution (“the grace of creation”), by virtue of which some heathen have been perfect men, as good in every respect as perfect Jews or perfect Christians. Grace, of whatever kind, is emphatically not an inward power enabling the will: it is rather something external, which the will may grasp if it chooses to. Law and Gospel are alike in operation, and men can enter the Kingdom of
Heaven as well through the one as the other. (8) Grace is given according to men’s merits; it would not be consistent with God’s justice to give it to sinners. In reading this summary the reader will readily agree that the Church acted wisely in rejecting a system so antagonistic to the very essence of the gospel of the grace of God. Yet, unfortunately various phases of this ancient heresy are very much alive in much of the religion and theological thinking of the present day. “In temper and spirit,” it has been truly said, “it was undoubtedly in marked contrast with the instinctive religious attitude reflected in every writing of the New Testament and in the traditional piety of the Church.” Its whole conception was more in keeping with certain aspects of the Greek philosophy than in accordance with the gospel. The main difference between the orthodox doctrine and Pelagianism is found in the Pelagian view of human nature. Augustine asserted in opposition to the Pelagian doctrine that human nature was utterly corrupt; that the will was perverted and depraved at its very root and incapable in its own strength of choosing and doing good. The Augustinian doctrine has behind it the teaching of Scripture and the experience of those taught by God’s Spirit. Augustine traced all human goodness not to the creature but to the Creator and whatever goodness, possessed by any sinner, came from the fountain of all grace and the sinner had no merit in its possession.
Another phase of Pelagianism is that advanced by John Cassian, formerly a deacon of Chrysostom, which is generally known under the designation Semi-Pelagianism. Cassian held Augustine in great respect. He believed in the doctrine of original sin and in the universal need of grace but he held—
- That the first movement of faith by which man grasps grace and profits by it is the effort of man’s native capacity unaided.
- That grace is not irresistible; man can of his own free choice reject, just as he can accept it, though, unless he accepts it, he remains powerless to be or do good.
- That God offers His
grace freely to all men, and genuinely and literally wills all men to be saved; that all men do not profit by grace is due solely to their own rejection of it. 4. That, consequently, God’s predestination, of which Scripture certainly speaks, is grounded on His foreknowledge of those who would accept or reject His grace, not on any absolute selection of His sovereign choice. It will be seen from this summary that Cassian’s position was practically that of modern Arminianism or in other words that Arminianism is developed Semi-Pelagianism.
Socinianism accepted the Pelagian doctrines while in opposition to the Jansenists in the Church of Rome the Jesuits adopted Semi-pelagian doctrines. While all the branches of the Protestant Churches which accept Arminianism are Semi-Pelagian in their doctrines of human nature, the will, grace, etc. Man’s state as represented under Pelagianism, Semi-Pelagianism, Augustinianism (or Calvinism) has been happily represented as follows: under Pelagianism, man is sound; under Semi-Pelagianism, he is sick; under Augustinianism, he is dead.
The Church of Christ in days gone by jealously defended the doctrines of grace and any heresy which aimed at overthrowing them from the place given them in the system of truth was challenged as an intruder and aggressor. We have fallen on different days. Error now walks through the open gates of the professing Church in too many cases unchallenged and where faithful defenders still stand guard their voices are but few and feeble in comparison to those of the giants of other days who made the citadels of error to shake when they did battle with the foe. Pelagianism is found lurking in unexpected places at times. For instance in the well-known saying: “God helps those who help themselves” and in its counter-part, the far too oft repeated phrase of modern evangelistic preachers, that “God would help if we would only give Him a chance” we have Pelagianism boldly asserting itself and in the latter phrase in a peculiarly daring form.