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Looking back from today’s vantage point, we can see Pelagian teaching – while still widely influential in certain contexts – has no place in orthodox Reformed theology. We read in the Westminster Confession of Faith:
“I. Our first parents, begin seduced by the subtlety and temptations of Satan, sinned in eating the forbidden fruit. This their sin God was pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, to permit, having purposed to order it to his own glory. II. By this sin they fell from their original righteousness and communion with God, and so became dead in sin, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body. III. They being the root of mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their posterity, descending from them by original generation. IV. From this original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed all actual transgressions. V. This corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated; and although it be through Christ pardoned and mortified, yet both itself, and all the motions thereof, are truly and properly sin. VI. Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, doth, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner, whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries spiritual, temporal, and eternal.”[1]
While there is no room within orthodox Reformed theology for Pelagianism, certain circles of Christianity have embraced a form of it, known as Semi-Pelagianism. Semi-Pelagianists agreed with Augustine that the Fall happened, that Adam’s act was not isolated, and human nature was changed as a result. Semi-Pelagianists also believed that grace was necessary for salvation, as opposed to simply providing help like Pelagius taught. However, Semi-Pelagianists differed from Augustine in thinking that while humanity is so fallen that it cannot be saved apart from the grace of God, it is not so fallen that it is removed from the responsibility of accepting or rejecting God’s grace. Semi-Pelagianists taught that the human will is weakened by sin, but not enslaved to it.[2]
The Semi-Pelagianists were originally condemned at the Council of Orange in 529 AD, but their teaching can still be found alive and well in theologies that require an element – no matter how small – of human cooperation in salvation. Whereas Reformed theology affirms man is dead and unable to incline himself to the things of God in the slightest bit, others adhere to the teaching that man is merely sick and salvation is more synergistic than monergistic. “The key word is cooperation: no one can save himself but, by cooperating with the grace of God, salvation can be appropriated by anyone.”[3]
As we look back on the development of the theology of original sin, it is important to remember why we have undertaken this task in the first place: to better understand man’s origins. In doing so, we hope to provide insight and aid to those who wander in life. Ignorant to the fact that he is not created basically good, man is doomed to assume this life is the basis for ultimate reality.
And with no inkling as to his whence or his wither, man sets out in an attempt to determine the outcome of his life. He lives according to what he believes is right, true, good, and just. He also lives unaware that no matter how right, true, good, or just something appears to him, it is ultimately finitely so, and bears no eternal consequence, except to further align his path along the road to perdition.
His only recourse is an understanding of his existence in terms of his origin – his condemnation on the part of Adam – and his need for both the wholeness and the holiness Christ’s redeeming blood brings. Man was created in the image of God, Adam later tarnished that image, and man now bears it with him. This is the most basic foundation for his worldview; without understanding he is created in the image of God but exists in a depraved and fallen state – and coming to terms with all of the implications that follow from this truth – man will continue to live hopelessly lost and without purpose.
Unless man realizes his path was set for him by Adam and will only find resolution in Jesus Christ, he will continue to engage in a life concerned with little more than fulfilling his own wants and desires. His disabling at the fall changed nothing in his obligation, man is still held accountable for living a life pleasing and glorifying to God, whether he recognizes it or not.
[1] WCF, Chapter 6
[2] Sproul 25
[3] Allen, David. Semi-Augustinians. In Christian History. 2000 19.3: 32.
As we move through the generations following the Pelagian controversy[1], the next individual of note to deal with this concept of original sin in any exhaustive fashion is Thomas Aquinas, his Summa Theologica devoting several questions to the issue of original sin, its origins, and its effects. The writings and teachings of Aquinas became foundational in the development of Catholic Church doctrine as we know it today.
In Aquinas we see something of a middle ground between Pelagius and Aquinas, both of whom he references in his Summa: “According to the Catholic Faith we are bound to hold that the first sin of the first man is transmitted to his descendants, by way of origin. For this reason children are taken to be baptized soon after their birth, to show that they have to be washed from some uncleanness. The contrary is part of the Pelagian heresy, as is clear from Augustine in many of his books.”[2]
Aquinas taught that man was indeed fallen – as Augustine did – but differed from Augustine in that salvation was more a cooperation of efforts than a monergistic act. According to the Summa, original sin is the absence of original justice, or a privation.[3] However, to limit Aquinas’ teaching on original sin to only privation would be incorrect. Man was originally created to seek the highest good and practice the three virtues of faith, hope, and love. In falling, Adam lost the ability to please God through the pursuit of these aims in addition to losing his original righteousness.[4]
“…the natural good which sin diminishes is the natural inclination to virtue. Now the reason why man inclines to virtue is that he is rational.”[5] This corrupted nature – consisting of the negative loss of righteousness (and resultant inability to fulfill the virtues of faith, hope, and love) and positive turning toward lesser goals (the lesser virtues) – was transmitted to all of Adam’s posterity.[6]
Whereas Pelagius taught that man was equally and absolutely free by nature of his own free will to pursue evil or good and Augustine taught man was absolutely dead and incapable of pursuing good, Aquinas teaches that man has only lost the power to pursue faith, hope, and love. Man is still able to attain what Aquinas termed the four natural virtues: prudence, justice, courage, and self-control. These qualities enable man to experience some degree of earthly good, but ultimately still preclude him from salvation.[7]
Aquinas’ teaching here is monumental for the Catholic Church, setting the parameters for the administration of the sacraments. Man’s restoration to the presence and acceptability of God is possible only through the free and unmerited grace of God.[8] However, while this grace is unmerited, it still must be implemented and applied by the individual; Aquinas taught the necessity of cooperating grace. While Christ won grace for the sinner, the church alone is permitted to impart it through the sacraments. Assisted by this special grace, man is capable of doing works that please God and gain merit.[9]
Aquinas also sides with Augustine and against Pleagius in regards to transmission of original sin; Aquinas agreed with Augustine that Adam’s sinful and rebellious act was not an isolated incident. “Original sin, in the Thomistic view, is rather the state of spiritual disorderliness into which Adam was cast as a result of his actual sin, and because of this fallen state constituted the basis for all human existence – as opposed to the sins pertaining strictly to an individual which are not inherited by his children – the first parents bore their children into it.”[10] Aquinas himself said, “Original sin in one man or another is nothing other than that which extended to him, in his origin, from the sin of the first parent.”[11]
[1] We only pass over Semi-Pelagianism until later in our investigation
[2] Sum. llallae. Q. 81, Art. 1.
[3] Ibid Q. 82, Art. 1.
[4] Walker 246.
[5] Sum. llallae Q. 85, Art. 2.
[6] Walker, 246.
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] Shelly, Bruce. Church History in Plain Language. Thomas Nelson Publishers, Nashville; 1995. 201-202.
[10] Cohen 505
[11] from De Malo 4.2, as found in Cohen, 505.
In contrast to Pelagius, St. Augustine held to a much higher concept of Adam before the fall, a deeper view of the Fall itself, and a greater appreciation for God’s grace. “Augustine is in no doubt that man is totally depraved. Apart from the grace of God man is lost; his own best efforts will not avail to rescue his soul.”[1]
Augustine’s view of Adam before the fall is generally expressed in the Latin, “posse peccarre, possee non peccarre,” or, “able to sin, able not to sin.” In other words, man was created good with the ability to do good, possessed free will, and was endowed with the possibility of not sinning and immortality.[2] Man possessed reason, and while in the garden was the recipient of God’s grace, which enabled him to serve God.
Augustine is at pains to point out that even before the fall, man was subject to the possibility of change and development. He could either obey or disobey, and his resulting disobedience had monumental implications: “Augustine writes much more straightforwardly of the results of sin. Whereas Adam was free to serve God (and free not to) before he fell, with his fall his posterity lost their truest freedom; death of the body became inevitable, and death of the soul became a real possibility.”[3]
Despite this natural inclination to do good, Adam still succumbed to temptation. In pride he rebelled against God and ate the forbidden fruit. The fall of man meant humanity was susceptible to the dominion of sin; as man rebelled against God – to whom man was rightfully subservient – so did man lose the ability to control that which was naturally should have been subservient to him – namely, his human body.[4]
Augustine holds to a deeper view of the Fall because while he taught Adam was created good with the ability to do either good or evil, he still felt (in contrast to Pelagian teaching that Adam was created with the absolute equal ability for good or evil) Adam possessed a natural predisposition for good. In thinking this, Augustine postulates that the Fall was that much more dramatic because rather than choosing evil, Adam had to overcome his tendency for good in order to disobey God.
Where Pelagius sees Adam as an isolated person and his act of disobedience as an isolated incident, Augustine would say that modern humanity is tied very closely to Adam’s act of disobedience. Adam was our legal representative (expressed by the concept of federal headship), and we are held legally responsible for his actions. Additionally, Augustine taught that all of humanity was physically present in Adam’s loins – in lumbis Adami. “Adam, created originally righteous, sinned, thereby losing God’s gratia adjurtoria. Further, all men actually sinned in Adam…In sinning the father of the race was not merely … representative of his heirs, they sinned in him.”[5]
Following the Fall, all of humanity was stricken with the inherent stain of original sin. In accordance with this, man was deprived of true free will. While man still had the ability to make choices, ultimately he was left with nothing in his being except a necessity to sin, the extreme opposite of his pre-fall tendency towards obedience. Additionally, man faced existence marred by the obstruction of knowledge, the loss of paradise (the curse upon the earth), and the loss of God’s grace (forfeiture of the ability to do good). “The saving grace of God alone can free the human will from bondage to sin.”[6]
Man was predisposed to obey God before the Fall, and incapable of doing so after it. In addition, man became predisposed to the pursuit of the sensual life as lust began to rule his spirit; Augustine termed this susceptibility to lust concupiscence. Finally, man became both capable of and subject to death.
[1] Sell 126
[2] Walker 164
[3] Sell 128
[4] Cohen, Jeremy. Original Sin as the Evil Inclination – A Polemicist’s Appreciation of Human Nature. In Harvard Theological Review. Volume 73 (Jul-Oct, 1980); 504.
[5] Sell 127
[6] Sell 131
“What is the meaning of life?” “What is my purpose?” “What am I supposed to do?” “Why am I here?” Perhaps no questions are more ingrained in the very fabric of man’s existence than these. But why? What is it about the nature of man that he should so desperately seek direction and purpose?
Inherent within all men is a desire to comprehend the whence and the wither of their existence. Man is given to inquiry concerning his very identity and purpose; he is eager to understand who he is, where he is destined to go, and why.
However, before man should endeavor to uncover such monumentally important information regarding who he is and where he is going, it is prudent he should seek first who he is in regards to where he has come from. For how can he decipher where he is going if he does not fully understand where he has come from? “The question of origins is one of the most significant that a person ever faces: where we came from is crucial to understanding who we are and where we are going.”[1]
The Scriptures tell us man exists in a fallen state, corrupted by a sin-nature and conceived spiritually dead, with a heart of stone. But the average person, with no inclination to the things of God, is ignorant to his depravity. He is unaware that his legal representative – Adam – perpetrated the first sin, thereby dooming all of humanity to this fallen state we now find ourselves in.
So the question poses itself: Why has the average individual never seen fit to inquire of his origins? He likely assumes that man is basically good. And why should he bother to investigate his past if he is under the belief that man is good? If that idea alone – that man is wholly and inherently good – informs his worldview, then his entire perception of reality is skewed. Man lives blindly, deceived as to the truth of his existence.
Understanding, then, that man has a misinformed worldview due to the idea that humanity is basically good, we need to first remedy this notion that man is born naturally good before attempting to reconcile man’s worldview with reality. The best way to do this in the space provided is investigate the development of the doctrine of original sin.
Original sin can be defined as follows: “Original sin is not the first sin. It’s the result of the first sin, it refers to our inherent corruption, by which we are born in sin, and in sin did our mother’s conceive us.”[2] While this concept is relatively clear today, that was not always the case – in the earliest days of the church, the doctrine of original sin was anything but clear.
Our investigation to elucidate man’s origin through the development of the doctrine of original sin takes us first to the early fifth century, just before Rome fell to Alaric the Visigoth. A monk named Pelagius was born in Britain around 360 A.D. and served for thirty years as chaplain to the Roman Senatorial house of Anicii.[3] From early in his career, Pelagius was sure of one thing: humans were created good: “Pelagius said there is no such thing as original sin. Adam’s sin affected Adam and only Adam. There is no transmission or transfer of guilt or fallenness or corruption to the progeny of Adam and Eve.”[4] What concerns us for the topic at hand is just this, Pelagius’ view on original sin.
Pelagius taught that man was equally free to choose good or evil – man has absolute autonomy and independence in regards to his will. Man is free from everything, including God Himself, man possessing absolute equal ability to do either good or evil. Pelagius believed, “If I ought, I can,” denying that man inherits original sin from Adam and affirming that all men have the power not to sin.[5] “Pelagian man is created mortal by God. He is, moreover, sinless, as was Adam before the Fall. Possibilities of evil and good confront him, and he is able to choose between these by the exercise of his free will.”[6]
However, while man has this freedom in his will, he is still susceptible to influence. According to Pelagius, man is a creature of habit and sin is just this, an acquired habit. The human will is affected by its own actions, acquiring a disposition according to how it is exercised. “There was no ‘great sin’ (as Augustine proposed) behind the misery of the human condition…the trouble was habit and not nature.”[7]
By Pelagius’ accounting, man is born tabula rasa, and any actions thereafter serve to create tendencies in the will of man according to those very actions. “Far from being defiled as a result of Adam’s weakness in disobeying one commandment, Adam’s posterity my actually become stronger than Adam by obeying many commandments. This goal is to be attained by the consistent right exercise of the will, and such exercise is, to reiterate the point, naturally open to man.”[8]
Pelagius can say that man is born tabula rasa because as he sees it, Adam’s act of disobedience in the garden was an isolated incident, having no effect on humanity. “The whole human race neither dies because of Adam’s sin, nor rises because of Christ’s resurrection.”[9] His sin was a singular, excusable mistake with no consequences for his body or soul. “For him every person’s sin was one’s own. Adam’s fault lay in his example – he did not infect the human race, but he did lead it astray.”[10] This leaves Adam’s posterity with equal capacity for both good and evil. And while there are no inherent flaws as a result of Adam’s sin, there is still his bad example, and it is through this poor moral showing by Adam in the garden that Pelagius gives an accounting for the sin in the world. “Adam’s sin set them an ill example, which they have been quick to follow.”[11]
Since sin only exists thanks to Adam’s bad example and man is born tabula rasa, Pelagius is confident in saying that man exists today in the exact same moral condition Adam enjoyed before the Fall, and redemption is achievable merely through the exercise of one’s free will to do and follow good. “Infants enjoy the status of Adam before the Fall and hence may attain eternal life irrespective of baptism. Both the law and the gospel are means of salvation.”[12] Given this, Pelagius is able to say that God’s natural grace is evidence that He gave man free will, and His supernatural grace exists to assist men in the exercise of their free will for good.
The teachings of Pelagius were propagated and made more accessible by his disciples Julian of Eclanum and Celestius. In roughly 410 AD, Celestius was charged with the following theological errors: “(1) Adam was made mortal and would have died whether he had sinned or had not sinned. (2) The sin of Adam injured himself alone, and not the human race. (3) New-born children are in that state in which Adam was before his fall. (4) Neither by the death and sin of Adam does the whole race die, nor by the resurrection of Christ does the whole race rise. (5) The law leads to the kingdom of heaven as well as the Gospel. (6) Even before the coming of the Lord there were men without sin.”[13]
Where Celestius may have been somewhat more radical than Pelagius, Pelagius’ views may be summarily stated according to the following three points: 1) Adam’s fall has no effect on mankind, 2) humans are born perfectly free, and 3) perfection is attainable in this life. Pelagius’ views leave him known to history primarily as the heretic who did battle with St. Augustine in the Pelagian Controversy.
[1] Kelly, Douglas. Creation and Change. Christian Focus Publications, Great Britian; 1997. 1.
[2] Sproul, R. C. The Pelagian Captivity of the Church. In Modern Reformation. Volume 10, Number 3 (May/June); 2001. 24.
[3] Frend, W. H. C. The Rise of Christianity. Fortress Press, Philadelphia; 1984. 673-674.
[4] Sproul 24
[5] Walker 168
[6] Sell, Alan. Augustine versus Pelagius: A cautionary tale of perennial importance. In Calvin Theological Journal. [………] 122.
[7] Frend 674
[8] Sell 122
[9] ibid 121
[10] Frend 674
[11] Walker 168
[12] Sell 121
[13] Walker 169; also in Sell 120-121
Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life
– Proverbs 4: 23
Much theological speculation can go into the debate on what is meant in scripture by the term “heart”: is the seat of emotions? of the soul? our volitional center? do we employ it consciously or unconsciously?
I often pray the Lord to guard my heart, asking that He would preserve my heart from seeking fulfillment, satisfaction, completion, and joy in anything but Him.
Referring to a “God-shaped hole” in each of us has become cliché, but I find it relevant, pertinent, and accurate. My heart aches for a sense of belonging, a belonging that will only be found in the plan, purpose, and perspective of our Lord.
Augustine was spot on when he said: “Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”
We were created by Him and for Him, and only through Him will we fulfill our purpose.
May the Lord guard our hearts against false hope, ever preserving our hearts for Him and Him alone.
