{"id":245,"date":"2009-02-26T08:25:07","date_gmt":"2009-02-26T08:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html"},"modified":"2009-02-26T08:25:07","modified_gmt":"2009-02-26T08:25:07","slug":"comment-of-the-day-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html","title":{"rendered":"Comment of the Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian<\/a> does the unthinkable and defends Pelagius<\/i> (against Augustine<\/a>)!  Watch out, Brian, the NeoReformed stormtroopers went after Scot<\/a> McKnight<\/a> last week, and they’ll probably come after you here! <\/p>\n

\n

Pelagius brought up good points that are often ignored. First, he
\nargued that humanity has salvation through God’s “original grace.” This
\nprevenient grace is God’s free gift to humanity. Second, Pelagius
\nsugguested that humanity has a “grace of revelation” whereby God gives
\nus divine guidence to follow, if we so choose to follow it. Scripture
\nand Christ both point the way we are to follow. Third, he affirmed that
\nGod gives the “grace of pardon” to those who freely change their lives
\nand attempt to live faithfully. So we have a morally neutral human
\ncondition that is faced with the decision of choosing between faith and
\nsin, good and bad.<\/p>\n

For Pelagius, our human condition isn’t defined by original sin, yet
\nhe still understands that our lives are impacted by sin. He says, “By
\nforce of habit, sin attains a power akin to that of nature – sin
\nbecomes as it were ‘second nature’.” Therefore, he takes the reality of
\nsin seriously. But he also thinks that we have the power and
\nresponsibility to overcome this “force of habit” through God’s grace
\nand guidence. And that is where Augustine departs from Pelagius.
\nAugustine relinquishes human responsibility. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

\n

Pelagius wanted Christians to live according to the Gospel instead
\nof according to the Roman Empire. His theology demanded change. It
\nquestioned the status quo of the increasingly institutionalized Church
\nin Rome. It made those in power uneasy. It made the morally lax look responsible for changing their own lives. It made people realize they
\nwere wasting the gift of life, which God gave humanity, by choosing
\nsinful behaviors. It made this charge to every Christian: “You must
\navoid that broad path which is worn away by the thronging multitude on
\ntheir way to their death and continue to follow the rough track of that
\nnarrow path to eternal life which few find.”<\/p>\n

Pelagius’ theology was a realistic description of human responsibility and God’s graciousness. It wasn’t perversely optimistic
\nlike the Social Gospel movement and it wasn’t perversely pessimistic
\nlike Augustine. It was a “third way” between the two extremes. Pelagius
\nsays it well in his own words: “I did indeed say that a man can be
\nwithout sin and keep the commandments of God, if he wishes, for this
\nability has been given to him by God. However, I did not say that any
\nman can be found who has never sinned from his infancy up to his old
\nage, but that, having been converted from his sins, he can be without
\nsin by his own efforts and God’s grace, yet not even by this means is
\nhe incapable of change for the future.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brian does the unthinkable and defends Pelagius (against Augustine)!  Watch out, Brian, the NeoReformed stormtroopers went after Scot McKnight last week, and they’ll probably come after you here! Pelagius brought up good points that are often ignored. First, he argued that humanity has salvation through God’s “original grace.” This prevenient grace is God’s free gift…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment-of-the-day","category-theology"],"yoast_head":"\nComment of the Day - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Comment of the Day - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Brian does the unthinkable and defends Pelagius (against Augustine)!  Watch out, Brian, the NeoReformed stormtroopers went after Scot McKnight last week, and they’ll probably come after you here! Pelagius brought up good points that are often ignored. First, he argued that humanity has salvation through God’s “original grace.” This prevenient grace is God’s free gift…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-26T08:25:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","og_description":"Brian does the unthinkable and defends Pelagius (against Augustine)!  Watch out, Brian, the NeoReformed stormtroopers went after Scot McKnight last week, and they’ll probably come after you here! Pelagius brought up good points that are often ignored. First, he argued that humanity has salvation through God’s “original grace.” This prevenient grace is God’s free gift…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2009-02-26T08:25:07+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html","name":"Comment of the Day - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-02-26T08:25:07+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-26T08:25:07+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2009\/02\/comment-of-the-day-36.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Comment of the Day"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}