Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
we must dispute the view that maintains that our nature has been weakened and changed through sin. I think, therefore, that before all else we must inquire what sin is. Is it some substance? Or is it a name wholly lacking substance, by which is expressed neither a thing nor an existent nor some kind of body, but the action of doing something evil? I believe it is the latter, and, if it is, how could that which lacks substance have weakened or changed human nature? . . .
(21.23) Those for whom you seek a physician are in good health. And not even the first man was condemned to death for such a reason, for he did not sin afterwards. . . . His descendants also are not only not weaker than he, but have actually fulfilled more commandments, since he neglected to obey even the one. . . . (30.34) How can people be answerable to God for the guilt of a sin which they know is not theirs? For if it is necessary, it is not theirs. Or if it is theirs, it is voluntary; and if it is voluntary, it can be avoided.62
(iii) Salvation Outside Christianity
Pelagius argued for the possibility of salvation beyond the borders (whether temporal or geographical) of Christianity. From Pelagius, On Nature, as quoted in Augustine, On Nature and Grace:
(2.2) Even if, in some nature or in some past time, faith in the blood of Christ was not known to [humanity], God is not unjust and would not deprive the just of their reward for justice if the mystery of Christ's nature as both human and divine, which was manifest in the flesh, had not been proclaimed to them. . . . For there still exist some people in remote places, although it is said that they are few in number, to whom the Gospel has not yet been preached—what should human nature do or what has it done, either before, when it had not yet heard that salvation was to come to pass, or now, if it has not learned that it was accomplished? What should it do except fulfill God's will by believing in the One who made heaven and earth and who created human nature itself (as it is naturally perceived), and by living rightly, even though it has not been tinged with any faith in the Passion and Resurrection of Christ?63
62. Quoted in nat. et. gr. 9.10–30.34 (BA 21:258–306); trans. Mourant and Collinge, FOTC 86:28–47. Note the final syllogism. Caelestius, in a book of syllogisms entitled Definitiones, argued in a similar vein: "We must ask whether a person ought to be without sin. Undoubtedly, one ought to be. If one ought to be, one can be. If one cannot be, then one should not have to be. And if a person ought not to be without sin, then the person, therefore, ought to be with sin; and then sin will no longer be sin. . . . Or if it is absurd to say that, then it is necessary to admit that a person ought to be without sin, and it is obvious that one is not obliged to do more than one's ability" (quoted by Augustine, De perfectione justitiae hominis 3.5, CSEL 42:6; my trans.).
63. Quoted in nat. et. gr. 2.2 (BA 21:246–48); trans. Mourant and Collinge, FOTC 86:23–24.
Against the Pelagians 403
Augustine's View Briefly Stated
The Pelagian controversy drew out Augustine's tenacious long-windedness, but he was also capable of stating his views with cogent brevity. He opens his rebuttal to Pelagius's On Nature with a survey of his own core positions on creation, sin, and redemption. What undergirds Augustine's logic here are two fundamental convictions: (i) Christ is the one and only savior; and (ii) there is no salvation outside the Church. Note his appeal to Romans 5:12, what would become his favorite text to justify the North African view on the universal scope of original sin. From On Nature and Grace:
(3.3) In the beginning humanity's nature was created without any fault and without any sin; however, this human nature in which we are all born from Adam now requires a physician because it is not healthy. Indeed, all the good qualities that it has in its organization, life, senses, and understanding, it possesses from the most high God, its Creator and Shaper. On the other hand, the defect—which darkens and weakens all those natural goods so that there is a need for illumination and for healing—is not derived from its blameless Maker, but from that original sin that was committed through free will. Consequently, that criminal nature draws upon itself the most righteous punishment. For if we are now a new creation in Christ, "we were," nevertheless, "children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even though we were dead through our offenses, has given us life together with Christ, by whose grace you have been saved" (Eph 2:3–5).
(4.4) This grace of Christ, then, without which neither children nor adults can be saved, is given gratuitously and not for our merits, and for this reason is called "grace." "[They are] justified," says the Apostle, "freely by His blood" (Rom 3:14). As a result, those who are not liberated through grace—either because they have not yet been able to hear or because they have not wished to obey or because, when on account of their age they were not capable of hearing, they did not receive the bath of rebirth, which they could have received and by means of which they would have been saved—are justly condemned. For people are not without sin, whether the sin they contracted originally or sins they added through their own misconduct. "For all have sinned," either in Adam or in themselves, "and are deprived of the glory of God" (Rom 3:23).
(5.5) As a result, the whole human mass64 ought to be punished, and if the punishment of damnation were rendered to all, beyond all doubt it would be justly rendered. This is why those who are liberated from it by grace are
64. "The whole human mass": This imagery, drawn from Rom 9:21, first appears in Simpl. 1.q.2.19, cited earlier.
not called vessels of their own merits, but "vessels of mercy" (Rom 9:23). But whose mercy was it but the One who sent Jesus Christ into this world to save sinners, whom He foreknew, predestined, called, justified, and glorified? Who then is so insane, so demented, as not to give ineffable thanks to the mercy of God, who liberates those He wills, considering that one could in no way complain against God's justice had He condemned absolutely everyone?
(6.6) If we understand this according to Scripture, we are obliged not to dispute against the grace of Christ nor to try to show that human nature, in infancy, needs no physician because it is healthy and, in adults, can be sufficient, if it wishes, to obtain justice for itself. . . .
(8.9) Notice what [the author of On Nature] said [about salvation outside Christianity]. I, however, for my part, say that an infant born where it was not possible for him to be rescued through the baptism of Christ, having been overtaken by death, was thereby in such a state—that is, of having departed without the "bath of rebirth" (Ti 3:5)—because he could not have been otherwise. Therefore, our author would absolve this infant and, contrary to the statement of the Lord, would open to him the kingdom of heaven. But the Apostle does not absolve him when he says: "Through one man sin entered the world, and through sin death, and thus it was passed on to all human beings, in whom all have sinned" (Rom 5:12).65 Justly, therefore, because of the condemnation that runs through the whole mass of humanity, one is not admitted into the kingdom of heaven, even though one not only was not a Christian but could not have been one.
(9.10) But they say, "One is damned not because it is said, 'All have sinned in Adam,' not because of sin contracted in the origin of one's birth, but rather because of imitation of him." If, therefore, it may be said that Adam is the author of all sins that followed his own, since he was the first sinner in the human race, how then does it happen that Abel is not placed at the head of the just rather than Christ, because Abel was the first just man? I leave aside the case of infants. Consider instead the case of a young man or an old man who died in a place where he could not have heard the name of Christ. Could he, or could he not, have become just by his own nature and free will? If they say he could have, then see what amounts to rendering the cross of Christ void (1 Cor 1:17): to contend that without the cross anyone can be justified by the law
65. "By one man sin entered into this world, and by sin, death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned" (Rom 5:12): This is one of Augustine's key proof texts, but his Old Latin version says "in whom all have sinned" (in quo omnes peccaverunt), that is: in Adam, all humanity sinned. But that does not match Paul's original Greek, which says "inasmuch as all have sinned." Pelagius himself has the same inaccurate Latin translation; and Jerome maintained it in his Vulgate. On this issue, see Bonner, St. Augustine, 372–74; also J. Patout Burns, "The Interpretation of Romans in the Pelagian Controversy," Augustinian Studies 10 (1979): 43–54.