Why is pelagianism wrong

This latter work, which survives only in fragments today, contains four points of emphasis:. Men are born morally neutral with an equal capacity for either good or evil. Whereas previously he spoke of divine grace as merely providing help , here he seems to assert it is necessary for salvation. He finally admits that Adam's sin did adversely affect his posterity, but only by way of setting a bad example.

He discusses certain texts in Paul that appear to say we are driven to sin by the corruption of our flesh, a doctrine he rejects. It is important to keep this in mind as a foundational assumption in all of Pelagius' thinking. He was concerned above all else with right conduct. He was especially hostile to what he perceived to be the tendency of grace to grant a license for sin cf. Consider the following statement:. Whenever I am called upon to speak upon moral training and the course of holy living, I am accustomed first to display the power and quality of human nature and show what it is able to accomplish , and then from this to incite the mind of the hearer to some forms of virtue, lest it profit nothing to summon to those things which it would have thought to be impossible for it.

According to Pelagius, Adam was not created holy. He was not constitutionally inclined either toward good or evil. He was morally indifferent or neutral. In this state of moral equilibrium , Adam was no more disposed to good than to evil.

Pelagius argued that if Adam had possessed any moral character prior to moral action , his moral responsibility would be destroyed.

Because he was a creature, Adam's body was mortal. That is to say, it was Adam's destiny to die physically whether or not he ever sinned. Physical death, therefore, is not a penalty for sin passed on to Adam's posterity, but is rather an inevitable corollary to man's essential character as created. Furthermore, Adam's sin in no way affected his posterity except insofar as it set a bad example for them. Referring to Paul's statement in Romans , Pelagius insisted that "It is said we sinned in Adam, not because sin is innate, but because it comes from imitation [emphasis mine].

Consequently, all men come into being in the exact condition as was Adam before the fall. Pelagius believed each soul is created immediately by God and thus cannot come into the world contaminated or corrupted by the sin of Adam. The doctrine of transmitted sin tradux peccati or original sin peccatum originis , says Pelagius, is blasphemous. Sin is not born with man, but is committed afterwards by man. It is not the fault of nature, but of free will. Thus, according to Pelagius, an infant is not born in sin nor does it possess any innate moral characteristics.

Such are obtained only by the exercise of the will and the habits that develop from it. Adam did have the free will to make moral decisions, but he was inclined to do good when God initially created him. When God gave Adam the command not to eat from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, He provided Adam with the necessary conditions to exercise his good moral nature by choosing to obey Him.

Adam acted as the representative of the entire human race and when he sinned, and humanity as a whole was deemed guilty before God. The teaching of the federal headship of Adam is rare in churches today and can even be off-putting to Christians. People who struggle with the biblical teaching of federal headship should consider three things. First, we all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God Romans There are none who can say they deserve to go to heaven by their own efforts.

Second, Adam was perfect and untarnished by sin when he was created directly by God. If there was anyone who could have lived in perfect obedience to God, it was Adam. Thirdly, we should consider how unfair it was for Christ to represent us on the cross when He died for our sin.

Just as the condemnation for sin was channeled through the rebellion of one man, our righteousness is channeled through the completed work of Christ. As new creations, Christians no longer dwell under the cursed headship of Adam, but instead now live under the headship of Christ, Who is our unfailing Hope of salvation. What Scripture says about our sin nature. As mentioned, in addition to the imputed guilt of Adam, all people inherit a corrupt, sinful nature. The notion people are born morally neutral to choose between good and evil is false.

The Bible clearly teaches people are born with a corrupt moral nature and we are only inclined to sin Psalm ; Jeremiah Humans are born in a state of spiritual deadness to the Lord; cut off from communion with Him.

Even the good deeds people do are an abomination to the Lord. Proverbs teaches even when the wicked plow the field, it is considered sin Proverbs All people apart from Christ are wicked and are incapable of doing anything good.

This may seem unrealistic. The answer is yes. Consider the fact that everyone is born in sin and does not know God. This amounts to idolatry because the sinner has placed something other than God as their reason for living.

Pelagianism fails to understand the extent to which sin has corrupted our nature. What Scripture says about salvation. The train of thought in Pelagianism is that people have a role in their own salvation because they possess the ability to come to faith and God responds in turn by extending His grace to those who believe.

Scripture teaches we are dead in our trespasses. While he said that Christians need the grace of God for salvation, in reality he redefined the grace of God to mean the free-will that God gave all people and the gift of the perfect moral law and example of Christ.

The grace of God was in other words a matter of gifts that were common to all mankind. In AD, Rome was attacked by a force of Visigoths under Alaric, who were seeking revenge for atrocities committed against them at the instigation of the Emperor Honorius, who had incited the Romans to murder the families of Goths serving with the Roman military. The resulting sack of Rome was quite mild by ancient standards, only a few buildings were burned, churches were spared, and there was no mass slaughter; nevertheless, it had a huge psychological impact, and many people left the city afterwards, Pelagius among them.

He was one of those who crossed the Mediterranean to Carthage in north Africa, not far from Hippo Regius, where Augustine had been bishop since Augustine of Hippo is quite simply the great figure of Western Christianity; all subsequent theology in the West builds upon his work. His history is well known; most likely of Berber extraction, he was born in Thagaste, in modern-day Algeria, in His mother, Monica, was a Christian, his father, Patricius, was not.

A brilliant man, he was a wild rebel in his youth, but did not squander his talents. He trained as a teacher of rhetoric, and was converted in , when he was living and working in Milan. Always a deep thinker, by he was already the leading Western theologian. Augustine was a very different man from Pelagius. Whereas Pelagius was one of those people who have very little sense of sin, and had been a monk from an early age, Augustine had the bitter memories of an early life filled with sin, and mourned that he had sought God so late in his life.

As a result of his struggles against sin, he also had a far less simplistic understanding of the nature of the human will. While for Pelagius the problem was that people sinned, for Augustine it was that people are sinners, a far more profound insight.

It was inevitable that as soon as he heard the opposition of Pelagius, Augustine would take up his pen in reply; and that is what he did. While the quarrel between Nestorius and Cyril was dominated by politics and took place more in the political than the theological sphere, Augustine addressed Pelagius almost entirely in the theological arena.

Pelagius was a false teacher, and so it was the teaching and not the man that had to be opposed. Pelagius did not come to North Africa alone; he came attended by many of his disciples, among whom was a brilliant ex-lawyer called Celestius. One of the key texts was Romans But not as the offence, so also is the free gift.

For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgement was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. Therefore as by the offence of one judgement came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

Citing a catena of Scriptural citations, in Romans , Paul writes,. As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. We find people doing the same thing today, appealing not to the Bible, but to what they fear the consequences of a doctrine might be, irrespective of whether the Bible teaches it or not. In a local Council of African bishops was convened at Carthage to consider the teaching of Pelagius.

With Augustine, the greatest theologian of the age, as the Prosecutor, the verdict was practically a foregone conclusion; Pelagius was condemned as a heretic who was teaching contrary to Scripture.