Uncovering the Heated Debate Over Augustine & Pelagian Theology: Here's What You Need to Know!

hello Saints and Scholars welcome back to theolife where today we're asking the tough question can Christians not sin [Music] this seems like maybe a bit of an obvious question or maybe a tough question but it's something John really thrusts into the center of his theology no one who is born of God will continue to sin because God's seed remains in them they cannot go on sinning because they have been born of God we know that we have come to know him if we keep his Commandments whoever says I know him but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth is not in that person throughout theological history this one has been a pretty intense conundrum for theologians because we are Christians and we do love God but yet most Christians would say that they do struggle with sin sinner in our last video we talked about some various theological interpretations of those verses to see if they can help us figure out how we deal with this conundrum it's very strange because John seems to propose that there is a possibility that Christians can live a life where they do not sin but I am a child of light a pure spirit I am no longer encumbered by the appetites of the flesh but because we do see so much sin in the world we kind of question you know why is there sin and why do Christians continue to sin so we create these cute theological terms like Fallen World or sinful nature or sinful world to explain the idea that people just seem to habitually want to sin the problem is none of these terms are actually found in scripture in fact they first appear in Pagan literature so the question has to be why do Christians believe them this is a really tough question and it's one that's kind of perplexed theologians for you know over a thousand years now this came to a head in the 5th Century with the augustinian pelagian controversy in the 5th Century Christianity was becoming quite popular and it had a lot of political power so more people were wanting to become Christian to kind of be part of the cool Club they wanted to be Christian but they didn't particularly want to act Christians so there was a lot of talk about did you have to be holy to be a Christian the other issue was there was a huge amount of new Believers at this time and in rates of extremely high infant mortality a lot of women were miscarrying or having stillborn babies now the church taught in order to go to heaven you had to be baptized and people started asked this really difficult painful question what happens to unbaptized babies when they die if they never lived long enough to be baptized or understand what it meant to be a Christian could they get to heaven and these theological questions launched two movements called the augustinian and pelagian movement on one side you had Augustine a brilliant writer retro Edition and theologian and he firmly believed that we as human beings all sinned when Adam sinned in the garden and that sin was so devastating upon Humanity that it left us all completely marred and covered in sin the sin was so huge that all human beings henceforth would be covered and guilty of Adam's sin and through the evil Act of sex that's sin that stain would be passed on from every single generation henceforth infecting all of humanity sin became a sexually transmitted disease and because of this sin all human beings are now fundamentally sinful we will always sin we always have to sin and our will and ability not to sin is irreparably broken so Augustine taught it is normative for Christians to continue to sin because they're fundamentally sinful and if a baby dies prior to baptism that baby will go to hell because it was fundamentally covered with Adam's sin on the next side you have pelagians pelagians did not believe human beings were fundamentally sinful by Nature pelagians believe God has given each of us enough spirits and enough Free Will and enough intelligence to be able to always choose to do the holy thing pelagians understand this is an incred incredibly painful difficult insane prospect that they didn't actually think many people had ever accomplished they believed rather it was technically possible but not practically possible pelagians took the Genesis account literally which states that the punishment for sin was mortality struggles in childbirth and the difficulties in farming and kind of issues in the world they note that nowhere does Genesis say human beings become fundamentally sinful because of what Adam did so they would take this statement in Genesis to be quite literal pelagians believed it was possible for you not to sin not because human beings were fundamentally amazing but because God will always help you he'll always give you enough logic reason and spiritual guidance to avoid sin and embrace Holiness let's discuss the Five Points of augustinianism and Five Points of pelagianism Point number one augustinians believe in a pulverized will Augustine believed that when Adam sinned it's so disrupt the natural human order that it completely pulverized the will of Adam Augustine taught that when God spoke of death in the garden he didn't speak of literal death but spoke of a spiritual death that had then come upon Adam this spiritual death so crushed Adam and Eve completely that they no longer had the capacity to choose to do good for themselves and we now as human beings bear the mark of that spiritual death and that sinful nature therefore we as human beings are always drawn towards sin and the only way to not sin is if God gives us particular Grace at that moment to do the right thing otherwise your will is so completely crushed that you do not have the capacity to do right pelagians argue for the morality of free will pelagians will argue that human beings are endowed with free will pelagians would note the Bible continually tells us to be holy and to choose to follow God and would argue if we don't have the capacity to do that it would be a very cruel and horrible joke that God was making pelagians would argue the only way to have a real moral universe that the Bible gives us would be if we had the capacity to choose whether or not we had to sin while they would say the sin of Adam had a negative effect upon himself and the rest of humanity it in no way diminished our capacity to do the right thing and to follow God they would argue that if human beings are fundamentally sinful and are fundamentally broken because of Adam and couldn't do anything but sin but yet God can still condemn them for that sin and expects him not to commit that sin it would be horrible and injust and God would be unfair and since God cannot be unfair therefore this concept of being fundamentally sinful is wrong Point number two augustinians believe in a particular salvific Grace augustinians argue that since our will is so completely corrupted we need to get particular salvific race for from God in order to be saved or do a holy thing because the will is pulverized the only way to be good is if God gives you the spiritual Grace and capacity at that moment to be good if you do not do a holy action or do not get saved at that moment it is because God has not given you the capacity to do so Point number two pelagians believe in Universal Grace pelagians will argue you always have the grace of God first off the fact that you're alive and a functional human being and you live in this wonderful world means you're surrounded by God's grace you have intelligence you have Community you have a beautiful world you have human will and all of these are unmerited Grace given to us by God they will argue God loves you and he is always going to give you what you need to live out his will for your life therefore in moments of Temptation God will always be there in moments where you need to come to the Lord he will always be there to help you in moments where you need to succeed in Ministry God God will always be there pelagians believe God will never leave you or forsake you and whatever you need to follow him in that exact moment he will always give to you point number three augustinians believe in corporate responsibility this would be a common idea in the world at that time if one member of the family or tribe sinned then the whole rest of the family became Guilty By Association because Adam stood as the corporate head for all of humanity in the garden when he sinned the guilt of that identity was passed on to all human beings in Adam all sinned therefore we get the corporate guilt from Adam because we bear corporate responsibility because when the head of the clan sins the rest of us are guilty whereas pelagians believe in individual responsibility pelagians argue that a Biblical understanding of guilt comes from personal responsibility not corporate responsibility they point to places like Ezekiel 18 which say it is immoral for a child to be guilty for the sins of the parent the one who sins is the one who will die the child will not share the guilt of the parent nor the parent share the guilt of the child the righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them they would say that is exactly what Adam's corporate responsibility would do to the rest of humanity we read in sections of Chronicles and kings that one king did evil in the sight of the Lord but yet their child did you know holy things in the sight of the lord we do not see that the child Bears the responsibility for the sins of the father rather their own consequences lay on their own head in modern terms we note that many of the Great genocidal movements throughout human history make people Guilty By Association a war or a racial Purge began because one group Once Upon a Time committed a sin against this other group that group therefore feels that they can punish this new generation of people even though they may have had nothing to do with it but because of what their parents or people from their race or religion believe pelagians argue that it is immoral to cause someone to be guilty for something that their ancestors did and in pelagian theology babies cannot be sinful as they have not committed any action that could be deemed sinful Point number four augustinians believe that nature is immutable augustinians believe that because our Nature has been so completely corrupted by sin we cannot really change that nature as David argues in Psalm 51 5 in sin did my mother conceive me showing that human beings were born fundamentally sinful because we're fundamentally sinful by our very nature that cannot really change no matter what we do the only way to change it is when God overrides it with his intentional safific race augustinians would note that there's so much rottenness and sinfulness that happens throughout human history that it seems we are destined and by Nature um caught up in this kind of sinful craziness which cannot be escaped pelagians believe in the principle of influence pelagians would argue that it is possible to not sin and that the more we can create a culture and a community that Fosters Holiness the easier it's going to become to not sin they say you cannot by Nature be something that you do not do a swimmer swims a singer sins and a sinner is someone who sins they say you cannot be a sinner by Nature because sin is a verb it's something you have to do in order to be but Pelagius says the closer we come to God the more we're part of a loving holy Christian Community the more we get into God's word and think holy thoughts and do holy Deeds the stronger our um Spirit becomes and the more we'll be able to resist sin let's re-examine David's words in Psalm 51. behold I was shaping iniquity I'm in sin did my mother conceive me pelicia note that in Psalm 51 David does not say that he was sinful from birth rather he says in sin did my mother conceive me they would point to the Jewish tradition that David was actually the result of an adulterous Affair and that the sin was his mother's if you were to say in drunkenness did my father beat me you wouldn't say that the child was drunk or beat himself because of that action so when it says in sin did my mother conceive me the sin was not actually David's and it doesn't argue that he is fundamentally sinful from birth David is not making the argument that he is fundamentally sinful but rather that he comes from an environment where sexual sin was practiced and possibly such an environment had an influence on him and his later struggles with sexual sin Pelagius would point to a child that's raised in a loving Christian spiritually mature environment and note that statistically that child is far more likely to have a happy holy healthy upbringing and become a happy holy healthy adult but if you take a child that's raised by parents with moral issues and mental health issues and substance abuse issues that child is far more likely to grow up to repeat the mistakes of their parents a pelagian would ask why if both children are fundamentally sinful by Nature why is one statistically more likely to grow up and do good holy things and one is statistically more likely to go up and do rotten things they would say it's because of the principle of influence a pelagian would note that Christians are changing the world where we bring God's gospel and humanitarian acts and good things we see communities change around us all the time this powerful principle of influence can be a great force for good in the world pelagians note that Romans does not say all human beings were condemned in Adam but many become condemned through Adam for just us through the Disobedience of one man the many were made Sinners so also Through The Obedience of one man the many will be made righteous pelagians would argue that if we were sinful by Nature then all human beings would have been made sinful through Adam yet the Bible only says many become sinful because of Adam they say that all would be spiritual condemnation for all people which would be what the augustinians argue but if all were made sinful through Adam then wouldn't all be made righteous through Jesus but when you say many since we're all the children of Adam how can it be many maybe it's not that many became Sinners by nature but many became Sinners through influence Point number five augustinians believe in monogism augustinians argue that all the positive things which happen by the spirit of God are exclusively the work of the spirit of God monergism comes from the Greek word where mono meaning one or singular and energio which is where we get our word energy the idea is that all Christian Works come from one energy and that one energy is gone augustinians argue that human beings are so spiritually dead that we cannot do anything good but by God's Spirits when you preach the gospel it's because the spirit is pouring through you and causing you to do so when you do a holy act this was because at that moment God gave you the grace you needed to do a holy act for those who never come to Christ or never do holy Deeds it's because God has not given them the grace they needed to do so therefore we have no role in choosing or being part of the good and holy Deeds that happen through our lives or through the lives of others in God's holy work augustinian theology is heavily focused on the grace of God augustinian-ism sees human beings as has irreparably broken and sinful and God as wonderful holy and glorious and the only way to bridge that Gap is not by human beings kind of reaching up for God's help and God reaching down and catching them in that moment it's by God sticking his hand into broken dirty rotten human beings and by his glorious will picking people for Holy things at certain moments they note that all the good and glorious wonderful things that happen in the world are solely by the grace and love of our God pelagians believe in synergistic missiology pelagians argue that human beings do have a role in our mission and the propagation of the Gospel the word synergism comes from the word sin meaning together and energio from the word energy they would say that we as the church work together with the spirit of God in order to bring about his gospel for we are co-workers in God's service you are God's field God's Building they point to verses like First Corinthians 3 9 which say we are co-laborers with the Holy Spirit in the propagation of the Gospel they would note that the word synergism does appear in the scriptures where the word monarchism does not a pelagian would say that God has done all the work we need in order to be saved and all we need to do is accept that whereas an augustinian might argue the very fact you're accepting it is a work in itself and if you're working in order to be saved that means you are basically getting your own salvation a Palladium would counteract under the Norms of language the idea of wanting to be saved wouldn't be part of the act of being saved if a fireman uh pulls a family out of a burning building and saves their life and that fireman is rewarded for their great deeds and everyone is so glad at that fireman and they go and give the firemen a medal the family that the firemen saved wouldn't argue that they you know should get half the medal well seriously none of us like you know punched you really hard when you were trying to save us in fact we all kind of want we you wanted to be saved I mean that whole wanting save was that was a lot of hard work so uh yeah I feel we should like you know split the metal here we're all heroes really no no no no no one would think like that so it wouldn't be reasonable to say that because we want God to save us and we want God to transform us that we fundamentally are saving ourselves a pelagian would ask why does the church do missions why do we preach the gospel why do we make major sacrifices why do you as missionaries have to give up so much of your life in desperation that people can know the salvation and love of our father they do it because they're co-laborers with the Holy Spirit working in accordance with the Will and Grace of God calling them to do what God has called them to do the augustinian and pelagian controversy is something that still rattles the church today we still struggle with this difficult fundamental question can we not sin in some ways we might be drawn to pelagianism because it gives us a possibility that we can live holy lives and it does seem to work with so much of what we read in scripture yet The Human Experience very much seems to fit the augustinian model while we try very hard to be closer to God and love him in so many ways we often find ourselves inexplicably and irresistibly draw drawn to things to which we should not be drawn if we look at the world around us we see so much good and so much Beauty and so many wonderful things yet at the same time we see rottenness and vileness in the most atrocious forms of human depravity alas there is no easy answer to this question can Christians not sin you decide let's close today with the review wrote the letter of First John the author gives the impression that to be a Christian is to live a life without sin how do we as Christians take these verses as part of our practical Christian Living this controversy became a massive theological debate in the fifth century between the August Indian and pelagian camps the augustinian belief felt that the sin of Adam had so pulverized the humans will that had left them without the capacity to choose to do good without the direct help of the holy spirit yet there were occasions when God's help was not forthcoming and the Christian or non-Christian would not have the capacity to do anything other than sin the pelagian camp on the other hand taught that God would always provide the spiritual Grace required for salvation or holy living therefore it was possible for Christians not to sin thank you for joining us on theol life may God be with you