Pelagianism

[yrieithydd]

I wasn't awake earlier enough to listen to the Sunday worship from St Mike's Aber this morning* but mum heard a bit of it and reckoned that Stuart's second talk fell into Pelagianism. The transcript can be found here. What do people think?

*Aber's doing well today as Dechrau Canu is about to be broadcast from there!

Comments

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

He was never convicted of it!

Augustine was wrong :)

I say that when God saw the world and it was good, original sin didn't enter into Adam when he left the garden and become hereditary.

We are shaped by the things that are around us, but we are created as good beings. That we can be utterly depraved, I agree, but we are not thus born.

It makes more sense of the incarnation to have pelagianism, anyway. Because if we all have the potential to be God's child, but we eschew it, that is more remarkable than making Jesus more special and less human.

[curig.livejournal.com]

I think we need to define our terms first. My understanding is something along the lines of:

In it Pelagius denied the primitive state in paradise and original sin (cf. P. L., XXX, 678, "Insaniunt, qui de Adam per traducem asserunt ad nos venire peccatum"), insisted on the naturalness of concupiscence and the death of the body, and ascribed the actual existence and universality of sin to the bad example which Adam set by his first sin. As all his ideas were chiefly rooted in the old, pagan philosophy, especially in the popular system of the Stoics, rather than in Christianity, he regarded the moral strength of man's will (liberum arbitrium), when steeled by asceticism, as sufficient in itself to desire and to attain the loftiest ideal of virtue. The value of Christ's redemption was, in his opinion, limited mainly to instruction (doctrina) and example (exemplum), which the Saviour threw into the balance as a counterweight against Adam's wicked example, so that nature retains the ability to conquer sin and to gain eternal life even without the aid of grace.*

*From the Catholic Encyclopedia.

[angelofthenorth.livejournal.com]

Right.

The stuff I've read on it was more emphasising that mankind is not inherently evil.

The point is that we can conquer sin, but we cannot redeem ourselves from the sins we've committed.

Pelagius' position allows for the redemption of non-Christians who've never heard the word of God, yet followed the nature that God has given them.

Yes, I would argue that we have the potential to attain that ideal. We, however, can't. This is where the law falls down, and Christ redeems us.

Or something like that. WLM is a hotspot for reconstructed pelagianism...