Pelagianism

[Estro Felino]

That all humans are flawed is a pretty good starting point for a civilised society imo.

This is a good foundation for personal humility and forgiveness of others.

Surely.
But evil is avoidable.
Mercy is always divine. But better to do anything to avoid evil.

 

[Lain]

It is possible not to harm anyone. Never.
I do not know if this is sinlessness.
But a person who has never hurt anyone is holier than a person who has.

It is always true that someone who never hurt anyone (not fully sure what this means here) is holier than someone who has? Also what of salvation, can that be obtained through the will alone?

 

[Lain]

What is the benefit to humanity of the idea that we are unable to escape from our sinful nature?

In my opinion: we are able to escape from it through God's grace. The benefit is to explain why we fail to achieve what we desire and to direct us to the simple means to obtain it.

 

[Augustus]

What is the benefit to humanity of the idea that we are unable to escape from our sinful nature?

It's a bulwark against hubris and the kind of utopianism that killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.

I'd say that's pretty substantial

 

[Nakosis]

In my opinion: we are able to escape from it through God's grace. The benefit is to explain why we fail to achieve what we desire and to direct us to the simple means to obtain it.

To Pelagianism, God's grace is provided by the circumstances of life. IOW, as I understand it, grace is built into the design of the universe to lead one to the benefits of a sinless nature.
Maybe the problem is in what you desire.

 

[Estro Felino]

It's a bulwark against hubris and the kind of utopianism that killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.

I'd say that's pretty substantial

With all due respect, this has nothing to do with Pelagianism.
I just wanted to point out that we are all called to sainthood.
We cannot equate Saint Stephen to his murderers.
There is an abyss between victim and perpetrator.

 

[Augustus]

With all due respect, this has nothing to do with Pelagianism.

Not strictly, but it has to do with a belief in the perfectability of human nature.

Better to assert the fundamental flaws in human nature and start trying to be good from there.

 

[Estro Felino]

It is always true that someone who never hurt anyone (not fully sure what this means here) is holier than someone who has? Also what of salvation, can that be obtained through the will alone?

The parable of Lazarus and the rich man.

 

[Estro Felino]

Not strictly, but it has to do with a belief in the perfectability of human nature.

Better to assert the fundamental flaws in human nature and start trying to be good from there.

You do have a point.
Maybe Pelagius has been misunderstood. There is no obsession with flawlessness or with perfection within.
The parables told by Jesus, nevertheless do explain that sin is when we harm others.
Most people do not harm anyone.

 

[Nakosis]

It's a bulwark against hubris and the kind of utopianism that killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.

I'd say that's pretty substantial

Ok, but grace is also part of Pelagianism. IOW, it is not by man's will alone.
And to say man is flawed, how do you escape from saying God's design is flawed?

 

[Estro Felino]

Ok, but grace is also part of Pelagianism. IOW, it is not by man's will alone.
And to say man is flawed, how do you escape from saying God's design is flawed?

In sociology there is a name for that: self-fulfilling prophecy. It is clear that if you say that mankind is doomed to failure, it will fail.
Mathematical.

 

[blü 2]

Yes, I've never heard much about it either.
In all my interactions with Christianity no mention was ever made.
Supposedly he was from Briton.

Pelagius was a monk, from Britain or Ireland, who was in Rome in the time of Pope Anastasius (399-401 CE) and took exception to what Augustine of Hippo wrote in his Confessions in relation to "the gift of continence": (Lord), grant what you command, and command what you will (Da quod iubes et iube quod uis, x. 40). No, said Pelagius loudly, if you're not responsible for the morality of your deeds, that means you're not answerable when you sin.

In the resulting brawl, Augustine and Jerome attack his ideas, Pope Innocent excommunicates him 417 CE, and he disappears from history, though said to have died in Palestine. However some of his followers were still around, and were charged with asserting that
─ Adam would have died whether or not he'd 'sinned'
─ Adam's 'sin' injured only Adam, not the human race
─ children are born innocent
─ no one dies because Adam 'sinned', and no one will rise again because of Jesus' resurrection
─ each of the law and the gospels offer a way to heaven, and
─ there were humans without sin before Jesus' time,
all of which notions were pronounced heretical.

As a result, the writings of Pelagius are thin on the ground, though not entirely absent.

It's plain as day that Pelagius was right, but since when has that mattered in church politics?

 

[Estro Felino]

In my opinion: we are able to escape from it through God's grace. The benefit is to explain why we fail to achieve what we desire and to direct us to the simple means to obtain it.

Everything is relative.
Example. A rich entrepreneur needs to spend some extra-money on his yacht. He finds out he will get that money by laying off an employee.
It is December. He fires this employee, John.
On Christmas Eve, as a good Christian he goes to Mass and thanks the Lord for the beautiful Christmas he will pass on his yacht with his family.

God's grace will surely fill this entrepreneur's life.
In this life and in the other.

 

[Nakosis]

IMO, there is no need to see my fellow man as inherently sinful to feel either humility or forgiveness. For me it is only necessary to see them as human. Capable of both great good and great evil. I can see this in myself along with an ability to decide which to choose.

 

[Augustus]

Ok, but grace is also part of Pelagianism. IOW, it is not by man's will alone.

If perfectability can be achieved on Earth, the effect is the same.

And to say man is flawed, how do you escape from saying God's design is flawed?

I don't believe in God so it matters little to me, but absolute logical consistency shouldn't be that important when judging religions imo.

The tragic view of humanity is basically the standard pre-Christian view anyway.

 

[Augustus]

IMO, there is no need to see my fellow man as inherently sinful to feel either humility or forgiveness. For me it is only necessary to see them as human. Capable of both great good and great evil. I can see this in myself along with an ability to decide which to choose.

Trying to make a society that doesn't start with the acceptance that humans are fundamentally flawed is a terrible idea though.

And remembering our own limitations is a very good idea too.

 

[Nakosis]

Pelagius’s starting point was his response to what he regarded as an innovation by Saint Augustine. Sometime around AD 405, Pelagius heard someone quote the following from Augustine’s Confessions (then newly written): “Da quod iubes, et iube quod vis.” Augustine, addressing God in prayer, was saying: “Give what you command and command what you wish.”

Pelagius found this an unacceptably supine role for man in his relationship with God, and he disputed it. The argument broadened to include related questions of original sin, predestination and the significance of baptism, but seems initially to have been relatively amicable. Augustine recognised that Pelagius was a decent Christian and a serious thinker.

The central dispute was Augustine’s contention that a Christian could be saved only through God’s grace, unaffected either by good works or by the sins he or she had committed. Without grace, the sin of Adam in the Garden of Eden, eating from the tree of knowledge (original sin) condemned all mankind to hell. Pelagius retorted that through freedom of will, we could choose not to sin, if assisted by grace. For him, God’s creation was good, and he had made mankind good in his image. The idea of salvation by unearned grace alone, predestined before birth, was incompatible with the idea of a loving God.

Pelagius stood for free will; Augustine for original sin. As the controversy intensified, Pelagius was misrepresented and outmanoeuvred: his enemies alleged, inter alia, that he had said grace was not necessary for salvation at all. Augustine’s ally Saint Jerome abused Pelagius intemperately as a “huge, bloated Alpine dog, weighed down with Scottish oats”. In 418, after Emperor Honorius demanded action when people calling themselves Pelagians rioted in Rome, Pope Zosimus declared Pelagianism heretical. For those in power, a doctrine that persuaded the mass of ordinary Christians that they were unworthy, powerless supplicants, both temporally and spiritually, was useful. Augustine’s interpretation of original sin, closely associated with sexuality, also facilitated the misogyny of the medieval church.
How Pelagius’s philosophy of free will shaped European culture

 

[Nakosis]

Trying to make a society that doesn't start with the acceptance that humans are fundamentally flawed is a terrible idea though.

And remembering our own limitations is a very good idea too.

Then it would seem we are doomed since other than ourselves whom can we look to?

 

[Estro Felino]

Trying to make a society that doesn't start with the acceptance that humans are fundamentally flawed is a terrible idea though.

And remembering our own limitations is a very good idea too.

It is attitude that many Christians have.
For example, a very powerful banker (Catholic) who owns millions, decides to bribe some politicians to force them to undersell some public assets. He will gain millions from this operation.
The result will be that so many people will lose their job and go poor.

The very same banker will go to Mass and think of himself : well...my love for money is my weakness.
After all...all men have limitations.
Nobody is perfect. God loves me.

 

[Augustus]

Then it would seem we are doomed since other than ourselves whom can we look to?

Humans don't need to be perfect to make a workable society.

We have a much better chance if we start by accepting our limitations and designing a society that best mitigates our flaws rather than starts from the premise they can be 'fixed'.