Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and the Pelagian Controversy
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) and the Pelagian Controversy
The Pelagian controversy, which erupted in the early fifth century, brought a cluster of questions concerning human nature, sin, and grace into sharp focus. Up to this point, there had been relatively little controversy within the church over human nature. The Pelagian controversy changed that, and ensured that the issues associated with human nature were placed firmly on the agenda of the western church.
The controversy centered primarily upon two individuals: Augustine and Pelagius (c.354–c.420). The controversy is complex, at both the historical and the theological level, and, given its impact upon western Christian theology, needs to be discussed at some length. It is important to appreciate that “Pelagianism” is best regarded as an amalgam of the ideas of several writers working in Rome in the final years of the fourth century – primarily Pelagius himself, but also Caelestius, and Rufinus of Syria. “Pelagianism” certainly included some ideas and emphases deriving from Pelagius; yet other ideas linked with the movement owe their origins to others. For example, Pelagianism's views on mortality and the transmission of sin appear to owe more to Caelestius and Rufinus than to Pelagius himself. For this reason, it is probably best to think of “Pelagianism” as a movement based on a synthesis of the ideas of these three thinkers, rather than as representing the ideas of Pelagius himself.
We shall summarize the main points of the controversy by considering four basic theological themes: the “freedom of the will,” the nature of sin, the nature of grace, and the basis of salvation.
The “Freedom of the Will”
For Augustine, the total sovereignty of God and genuine human responsibility and freedom must be upheld at one and the same time, if justice is to be done to the richness and complexity of the biblical statements on the matter. In his own lifetime, Augustine was obliged to deal with two heresies which he believed had simplified and compromised the Christian faith. Manicheism was a form of fatalism (to which Augustine himself was initially attracted) which upheld the total sovereignty of God but denied human freedom, while Pelagianism upheld the total freedom of the human will while denying the sovereignty of God. Before developing these points, it is necessary to make some observations concerning the term “free will.”
The term “free will” (the traditional translation of the Latin liberum arbitrium) is not biblical but was introduced into western Christianity by the second-century theologian Tertullian. (Tertullian's gift for coining new theological terms was noted earlier; see p. 304.) Augustine retained the term but attempted to restore a more Pauline meaning to it by emphasizing the limitations placed upon human free will by sin. Augustine's basic ideas can be summarized as follows. First, natural human freedom is affirmed: human beings do not do things as a matter of necessity but as a matter of freedom. Second, human free will has been weakened and incapacitated – but not eliminated or destroyed – through sin. In order for that free will to be restored and healed, it requires the operation of divine grace. Free will really does exist; it is, however, distorted, compromised, and weakened by sin.
In order to explain this point, Augustine deployed the analogy of a pair of scales with two balance pans. One balance pan represents good and the other evil. If the pans were properly balanced, the arguments in favor of doing good or doing evil could be weighed, and a proper conclusion drawn. The human free will thus weighs up the arguments in favor of doing good and evil, and acts accordingly.
But what, asked Augustine, if the balance pans were loaded? What would happen if someone were to place several heavy weights in the balance pan on the side of evil? The scales would still work, but they would now be biased toward making an evil decision. Augustine argued that this is what has happened to humanity through sin. The human free will has become biased toward evil. It really exists, and really can make decisions – just as the loaded scales still work. But, instead of giving a balanced judgment, a serious bias exists toward evil.
For Pelagius and his followers (such as Julian of Eclanum, c.386–c.455), however, humanity possessed total freedom of the will and was totally responsible for its own sins. Human nature was essentially free and well created, and was not compromised or incapacitated by some mysterious weakness. According to Pelagius, any imperfection in humanity would reflect negatively upon the goodness of God. For God to intervene in any direct way to influence human decisions was equivalent to compromising human integrity. Going back to the analogy of the scales, the Pelagians argued that human free will was like a pair of balance pans in perfect equilibrium and not subject to any bias whatsoever. There was no need for divine grace in the sense understood by Augustine (although Pelagius did have a quite distinct concept of grace, as we shall see later).
In 413, Pelagius wrote a lengthy letter to the Roman noblewoman Demetrias (fl.413–40), who had recently decided to turn her back on wealth in order to become a nun. In this letter, Pelagius set out his views on human free will, and their consequences. God has made humanity and knows precisely what it is capable of doing. All the commands given by God to humanity are capable of being obeyed, and are meant to be obeyed. It is no excuse to argue that human frailty prevents these commands from being fulfilled. God has made human nature and only demands of it what it can endure.
[Instead of regarding God's commands as a privilege] we cry out at God and say, “This is too hard! This is too difficult! We cannot do it! We are only human, and hindered by the weakness of the flesh!” What blind madness! What blatant presumption! By doing this, we accuse the God of knowledge of a twofold ignorance – ignorance of God's own creation and of God's own commands. It would be as if, forgetting the weakness of humanity – which, after all, is God's own creation! – God had laid upon us commands which we were unable to bear.
Pelagius thus makes the somewhat uncompromising assertion that “since perfection is possible for humanity, it is obligatory.”
The Nature of Sin
For Augustine, humanity is universally affected by sin as a consequence of the Fall. The human mind has become darkened and weakened by sin. Sin makes it impossible for the sinner to think clearly, and especially to understand higher spiritual truths and ideas. Similarly, as we have seen, the human will has been weakened (but not eliminated) by sin. For Augustine, sinners are to be considered as being seriously ill and are unable to diagnose their own illness adequately, let alone cure it. It is through the grace of God alone that humanity's illness is diagnosed (sin) and a cure made available (grace).
For Augustine, humanity has no control over its sinfulness. It is something which contaminates life from birth and dominates life thereafter. It is a state over which humans have no decisive control. Augustine understands humanity to be born with an innately sinful disposition, with an inherent bias toward acts of sinning. Sin thus causes sins: the underlying state of sinfulness causes individual acts of sin. Augustine explored this point by using three analogies to illuminate the nature of original sin: disease, power, and guilt.
Pelagius, however, understood the notion of sin in a very different light. The idea of a human disposition toward sin had no place in Pelagius's thought, or that of his colleagues. For Pelagius, the human power of self-improvement was not compromised. It was always possible for humans to discharge their obligations toward God and their neighbors. Failure to do so could not be excused on any grounds. Sin was to be understood as an act committed willfully against God.
Pelagianism thus seems at times to amount to a rather rigid form of moral authoritarianism – an insistence that humanity is under obligation to be sinless, and an absolute rejection of any excuse for failure. Humanity is born sinless and sins only through deliberate actions. Pelagius insisted that many Old Testament figures actually remained sinless. Only those who were morally upright could therefore be allowed to enter the church. Augustine, with his concept of fallen human nature, considered the church as being like a hospital where fallen humanity could recover and grow gradually in holiness through grace (see pp. 358–60). There are thus important parallels between Pelagianism and Donatism, in that both have strongly optimistic views of human moral capacities.
The Nature of Grace
One of Augustine's favorite biblical texts was John 15: 5: “apart from me you can do nothing.” In Augustine's view, humanity is totally dependent upon God for salvation. Augustine drew a careful and pointed distinction between the natural human faculties – given to humanity as its natural endowment – and additional and special gifts of grace. Augustine held that human nature is frail, weak, and lost and needs divine assistance and care if it is to be restored and renewed. Grace, according to Augustine, is God's generous and quite unmerited attention to humanity, by which this process of healing may begin.
The general features of Augustine's position can be seen in the following passage taken from the important anti-Pelagian writing On Nature and Grace, dating from 415:
Human nature was certainly originally created blameless and without any fault; but the human nature by which each one of us is now born of Adam requires a physician, because it is not healthy. All the good things, which it has by its conception, life, senses, and mind, it has from God, its creator and maker. But the weakness which darkens and disables these good natural qualities, as a result of which that nature needs enlightenment and healing, did not come from the blameless maker but from original sin, which was committed by free will. [...] But God, who is rich in mercy, on account of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead through our sins, raised us up to life with Christ, by whose grace we are saved. But this grace of Christ, without which neither infants nor grown persons can be saved, is not bestowed as a reward for merits, but is given freely [gratis], which is why it is called grace [gratia].
Note in particular the link Augustine establishes between the Latin terms gratis (“freely” or “without cost”) and gratia (“grace”).
Pelagius also wrote of divine grace, but interpreted this notion in a rather different way. “Grace” can be understood in two ways. First, grace is to be understood as the natural human faculties, which were graciously given to humanity by God. For Pelagius, these are not corrupted or incapacitated or compromised in any way. When Pelagius affirmed that humanity could, through grace, choose to be sinless, what he meant was that the natural God-given human faculties of reason and will could and should enable humanity to choose to avoid sin. As Augustine was quick to point out, this was not what the New Testament seemed to understand by the term.
Second, Pelagius understood grace to be external enlightenment or instruction graciously provided for humanity by God. God does not just demand that human beings should be “perfect,” which is a vague term. Rather, God graciously provides specific guidance as to what form of perfection is required – such as keeping the Ten Commandments and becoming like Christ. Grace thus informs humanity about what its moral duties are (otherwise, it would not know what they were); it does not, however, assist humanity in performing them, because there is no need for such assistance. Humanity is able to avoid sin through following the teaching and example of Christ.
Augustine argued that Pelagius and his followers thus improperly located “the grace of God in the law and in teaching.” The New Testament, according to Augustine, envisaged grace as divine assistance to humanity, rather than just moral guidance. For Pelagius, grace was something external and passive; for Augustine, grace was the real and redeeming presence of God in Christ within the believer.
Pelagius held that God created humanity and provided information concerning what is right and what is wrong. After that, however, God left humanity to its own resources (which were, Pelagius argued, God-given). Individuals will finally be judged according to whether they have fulfilled all their moral obligations in their totality.
For Augustine, however, humanity was created good by God and then fell away from him – and God, in an act of grace, came to rescue fallen humanity from its predicament. God assists fallen humanity by healing, enlightening, strengthening, and continually working to restore and renew the human soul. For Pelagius, humanity merely needed to be shown what to do and could then be left to achieve it unaided; for Augustine, humanity needed to be shown what to do and then gently aided at every point, if this objective was even to be approached, let alone fulfilled.
The Basis of Salvation
For Augustine, humanity is justified as an act of grace: even human good works are the result of God working within fallen human nature. Everything leading up to salvation is the free and unmerited gift of God, given out of love for sinners. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Augustine argues, God gives humanity what it does not deserve (salvation) and withholds from it what it does deserve (condemnation).
Augustine's exposition of the parable of the laborers in the vineyard (Matthew 20: 1–16) is of considerable importance in this respect. Pelagius argued that God rewarded each individual strictly on the basis of merit. Augustine, however, pointed out that this parable indicates that the basis of the reward given to the individual is the promise made to that individual. Augustine emphasized that the laborers did not work for equal periods in the vineyard, yet the same wage (a denarius) was given to each. The owner of the vineyard had promised to pay each individual a denarius, providing he worked from the time when he was employed to sundown – even though this meant that some worked all day and others only for an hour.
Augustine thus drew the important conclusion that the basis of the justification of sinners is the divine promise of grace. God is faithful to that promise, and thus justifies sinners. Just as the laborers who began work in the vineyard so late in the day had no claim to a full day's wages, except through the generous promise of the owner, so sinners have no claim to justification and eternal life, except through the gracious promises of God, received through faith.
For Pelagius, however, humanity is justified on the basis of its merits. The human good works which secure salvation are the result of the exercise of the totally autonomous human free will, in fulfillment of an obligation laid down by God. A failure to meet this obligation opens the individual to the threat of eternal punishment. Jesus Christ is involved in salvation only to the extent that he reveals, by his actions and teaching, exactly what God requires of the individual. If Pelagius can speak of “salvation in Christ,” it is really only in the sense of “salvation through imitating the example of Christ.”
It will thus be clear that Pelagianism and Augustinianism represent two radically different outlooks, with sharply divergent understandings of the manner in which God and humanity relate to one another. Augustinianism would eventually gain the upper hand within the western theological tradition; nevertheless, Pelagianism continued to exercise influence over many Christian writers down the ages, not least those who felt that an emphasis upon the doctrine of grace could too easily lead to a devaluation of human freedom and moral responsibility.
The Pelagian controversy clearly raised the issue of the relation of grace and merit, which was discussed at some length in the Augustinian revival of the Middle Ages. In what follows, we shall examine some of the issues which arose.