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Course 10 · Lesson 2.1

Pelagius and Augustine

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 2.1

What you will learn

  • Describe who Pelagius and Augustine were and how their dispute began.
  • State Pelagius’s teaching on nature, law and free will as he and his defenders put it.
  • State Augustine’s reply on grace, the will and the need for help from God.
  • Name the main church decisions that followed and what they decided.

The big idea

Early in the fifth century a monk named Pelagius taught that God commands nothing impossible and that human beings, made free, can obey if they choose. Augustine of Hippo replied that the will is wounded by sin and that every good, including the first desire for God, is a gift of grace. The dispute was fought out in letters, treatises and church councils. It set the terms for almost every later Western argument about grace and free will.

Key terms

Pelagianism
The teaching, condemned by the church, that human beings can fulfill God’s commands and begin to be saved by their own natural powers, with God’s help as instruction and example.
Grace
God’s free and undeserved favor and help. How grace works on the will is the subject of this whole module.
Free will (liberum arbitrium)
The power of choice. The debate is about what the will can do after the fall without grace.
Predestination
God’s eternal purpose concerning the salvation of persons. Augustine’s later teaching on this point was highly contested.
Council of Carthage (418)
A North African council that issued canons against Pelagian teaching on sin and grace.
Synod
A gathering of bishops to decide a matter of church teaching or discipline.
Perseverance
Continuing in faith and grace to the end of life. Augustine taught that this too is a gift of God.

Background

Pelagius was a lay ascetic, probably from Britain, who taught in Rome around the turn of the fifth century. He was widely respected for his moral seriousness. When Rome fell to the Goths in 410, he and his follower Caelestius went to North Africa, where Augustine was bishop of Hippo. There the controversy began. Knowledge of Pelagius comes partly from his own writings, such as his letters and a commentary on Paul, and partly from Augustine’s descriptions. Modern scholars warn that Augustine’s summaries may be unfair, and that Pelagius should be read in his own words.

Augustine was by then a seasoned theologian. He had written the Confessions around 400, and in them he had prayed to God, “Give what you command, and command what you will.” When he heard that someone had objected to that line, he saw a deep difference between their understandings of God and the self. For the rest of his life he defended his view of grace in many works, including On the Spirit and the Letter, On Nature and Grace, On Grace and Free Will, and On the Predestination of the Saints.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What Pelagius and his followers taught

Pelagius was concerned about moral laziness. Some Christians, he believed, excused sin by saying that human nature was too weak to obey. He answered that God would not command what cannot be done. Human beings are given the freedom to choose good or evil, and the capacity for righteousness is part of their created nature. Grace, in his teaching, includes creation itself, the law, the example of Christ, the forgiveness of past sins and the teaching of the gospel.

Caelestius and later Julian of Eclanum, a Pelagian bishop, drew sharper conclusions. They taught that Adam’s sin harmed only himself, that infants are born in the same condition as Adam before the fall, and that death was natural and not a result of sin. They held that infants are baptized to enter the kingdom of heaven, not to be forgiven. Pelagius himself denied some of these positions in some places, and scholars debate how far he held them.

Step 2: What Augustine replied

Augustine argued from Scripture and from experience. Paul asks, “What hast thou that thou didst not receive?” (1 Corinthians 4:7), and Jesus says, “Without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5). The prayers of the church ask God to convert the unbelieving and to keep the faithful. If these prayers are sincere, Augustine said, then God must be the giver of such things.

He taught that after the fall the will is free in the sense that it chooses what it wants, but it wants wrongly. It needs God to heal and redirect it. Grace in his teaching is therefore not only instruction. It is an inward gift that changes the will, gives the desire for God and enables obedience. Even faith, which seems like the human response, is a gift (Ephesians 2:8).

Step 3: The first points of conflict

Three questions stand out. First, does a person need grace to do any good at all, or only to do it more easily? Augustine said the former, Pelagius the latter. Second, does a person begin to turn to God before grace, or does grace come first? Augustine said grace comes first. Third, what of infants? If they have no sin, why are they baptized, and why does death touch them? Augustine saw in the church’s practice evidence of original sin.

Step 4: The church’s decisions

A North African council at Carthage in 411 condemned Caelestius. In 415 a synod in Palestine at Diospolis examined Pelagius and accepted his explanations. North African bishops objected, and in 416 councils at Carthage and Milevis appealed to Pope Innocent I, who supported them. His successor Zosimus at first seemed sympathetic to Pelagius and Caelestius, but after pressure and an imperial edict he condemned them. A council at Carthage in 418 issued canons affirming that grace is needed for each good act and that infants are baptized for the remission of sins.

Later the Council of Ephesus in 431, the third ecumenical council, condemned Caelestius and his teaching. The Eastern churches did not take up Augustine’s controversy in the same way, but they too rejected the Pelagian position, and they do not teach that the human will can save itself.

Step 5: What the dispute left unsettled

The church condemned Pelagianism without adopting everything Augustine taught. Many Christians in southern Gaul, led by monks such as John Cassian, accepted the need of grace but objected to Augustine’s late teaching on predestination. Their position was later called semi-Pelagian by critics. The next lesson tells how the church settled the matter at Orange in 529.

  1. Why might a pastor find Pelagius’s argument attractive, and what would he fear in Augustine’s reply?
  2. What does Augustine mean by saying that the will is free yet needs healing?
  3. Is a command a good evidence of an ability to obey? Where does Scripture seem to deny it?
  4. How does the church’s practice of praying for conversion bear on the dispute?
  5. What is lost if grace means only teaching and example?
  6. What is lost if grace works in such a way that the human response seems to disappear?

Examples

Augustine’s prayer

In the Confessions Augustine prays, ‘Give what you command, and command what you will.’ He had in mind chastity, which he knew he could not achieve alone. A friend who heard the line in Rome objected that it excused weakness. Augustine saw in the objection the heart of the matter: whether the obedience God asks is also given by God.

A letter from Pelagius to a young woman

In a letter to a young Roman woman named Demetrias, Pelagius urged her to dedicate herself to God and stressed that she had the power to choose. Readers disagree about what to make of such passages. His supporters read them as pastoral encouragement. His opponents read them as a denial of the need for grace.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catholic Church holds that Pelagianism was rightly condemned and honors Augustine as a Doctor of the Church. It teaches that grace is necessary for salvation and for every act that merits eternal life, and that the first impulse toward faith is a grace of God. It has not adopted every part of Augustine’s later teaching on predestination.

Orthodox

Orthodox churches reject Pelagianism, since they teach that human beings need divine grace to be saved. They also generally hold that Augustine pressed his case too far, and they emphasize that grace does not override freedom. Augustine is venerated as a saint in some Orthodox traditions, though many Orthodox writers criticize some of his teaching.

Lutheran and Reformed

Lutheran and Reformed Christians see Augustine as the chief patristic witness to the doctrine of grace and sin. They read Pelagianism as an enduring error found wherever people think they can contribute to their own salvation. Both traditions teach that the will in its fallen state is unable to come to God without the Holy Spirit.

Arminian and Wesleyan

Arminius and Wesley said they were not Pelagian. They taught that human beings are unable to turn to God by their own power, and that prevenient grace enables a free response. They held that Augustine’s later teaching on irresistible grace and predestination goes beyond Scripture.

Scholarly views

Many historians hold that the real Pelagius was a more moderate figure than the one opposed by Augustine. Some stress the cultural setting of Roman asceticism. Others argue that the dispute exposes a real tension in Paul. Most agree that the dispute was not simply a misunderstanding.

Why it matters

Almost every later argument about free will, grace and merit repeats a move made in this controversy. Reformation debates, Calvinist and Arminian disputes, and present discussions among evangelicals and Catholics all appeal to Augustine and to Pelagius’s opponents. A student who knows the original argument can recognize the same positions in new clothing and can ask whether a modern speaker has described the other side fairly.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Pelagius denied that grace exists.

Correction: Pelagius used the word grace and meant creation, the law, forgiveness and the example of Christ. His critics said that this was not enough, because it left out the inward help of God in the will.

Misunderstanding: Augustine denied free will.

Correction: Augustine wrote a treatise defending free will against the Manichees. He held that fallen human beings choose freely but wrongly, and that grace frees the will to choose the good.

Misunderstanding: The church adopted all of Augustine’s teaching against Pelagius.

Correction: Councils condemned Pelagian errors. They did not adopt Augustine’s strictest views on predestination, and they did not make him the measure of every point.

Misunderstanding: Eastern Christians never knew the Pelagian dispute.

Correction: The Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned Caelestius, and the East rejected the same errors. Its language about grace and freedom developed in different terms.

Knowledge check

What was Pelagius’s central concern?

Pelagius was concerned about moral laxity. He taught that God commands nothing impossible, that human beings are made free and capable of obeying, and that grace consists chiefly of creation, the law, Christ’s example and forgiveness. Critics said that this left no room for an inward gift of grace that heals and strengthens the will.

What was Augustine’s central reply?

Augustine replied that the will, damaged by sin, needs God to heal it and to give the desire and ability for every good, including the first act of faith. He appealed to texts such as John 15:5 and 1 Corinthians 4:7 and to the church’s prayers for conversion. Grace is therefore a gift that goes before and works within the will.

Which councils addressed the Pelagian controversy?

Carthage in 411 condemned Caelestius. Diospolis in 415 accepted Pelagius’s explanations. Councils at Carthage and Milevis in 416 and a larger council at Carthage in 418 issued canons against Pelagian teaching, and the Council of Ephesus in 431 condemned Caelestius’s teaching again. The Pope’s actions during this period also shaped the outcome.

Why is the later reaction in Gaul called semi-Pelagian?

Monks in Gaul accepted the need for grace but objected to Augustine’s late teaching on predestination, holding that people could begin to turn to God before grace. Critics gave the position the label semi-Pelagian. The term comes from later centuries, and many scholars now prefer to describe the monks’ views in their own terms.

Think it through

  1. Where in your own experience do you feel that your will helps or hinders what you most want to do?
  2. What would a pastor who agrees with Pelagius say to someone who says ‘I cannot stop sinning’? What would Augustine say?
  3. Why is it hard to describe an opponent’s position fairly when the debate touches on how a person is saved?

Independent assignment

Two prayers, two theologies

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Read the passage in Augustine’s Confessions where he prays ‘Give what you command’. In one paragraph, explain what the prayer assumes about the will and about God. In another, write what a thoughtful Pelagian might say in reply. In a third, say what you think the strongest point in each position is. Do not choose a winner. Record one question you would still want to ask.

Further study