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An Ancient Controversy

The main characters

Before getting to the heart of the matter, I would like to mention an episode from the distant past, because I hope it will help to clarify the present.

The story took place about 1,600 years ago, and the initial location of the action was Rome. During the fourth century, Christianity began to gain political power; at the beginning of the century, the Emperor Constantine was converted, and one of his successors, Theodosius, made Christianity the official religion of the empire and banned the pagan rites. Rome became a forum for debate between advocates of different interpretations of Christian dogma. Among them was a self-assured and persuasive preacher named Pelagius, from the British Isles. He must have been born around 350, and arrived in Rome around 380. In his sermons, he criticized the dissolute lifestyle of the wealthy Romans and asked them to take immediate action to ensure their salvation: they must obey Christian precepts, renounce the pleasures of the flesh and give their wealth to the poor. Their destiny was in their own hands, and they were responsible for each of their failings. His teaching impressed young men of good family, who formed around him a circle of disciples. They repented of their sinful past lives, and were drawn to sainthood.

Theological controversies were not the only concern of the Romans. For some time, tribes from the north had been attacking the empire with terrifying force; in 408, led by their leader Alaric, the Visigoths laid siege to the city. They were repulsed, but returned at the end of the following year. Between the two attacks, the Romans began to flee. Among them was Pelagius, accompanied by a few disciples: in 409, he embarked on a journey that would lead first to Carthage, a Roman province in North Africa, then to the nearby town of Hippo, where he asked to meet the Christian bishop, a certain Augustine.

Augustine was born in North Africa and was roughly the same age as Pelagius; and, like him, had gone to Italy, where he converted to Christianity. Augustine returned to his native land a few years later, became a priest, and then, in 395, bishop of Hippo. A prolific author, at home in both classical culture and the new theology, he was involved in numerous controversies with rival Christian thinkers. At the very end of the century, he wrote and published a deeply original book, the Confessions, which describes his life and his Christian faith. Pelagius had heard of Augustine in Rome, and he did not agree with all his ideas. He was particularly outraged to find that the bishop lacked confidence in his own strength and preferred to bow to the will of God. Augustine knew nothing of Pelagius' reservations, but perhaps he had heard of his doctrines, which in turn were not to his liking; at all events, he politely turned down the offer of an encounter: the two men never met.

After a year, Pelagius left North Africa and went to Palestine, where many other Roman refugees passion- ate about matters of faith had gathered. In and around Jerusalem, religious controversy was rife, and Pelagius and his disciples played an active part. A council condemned their interpretation of Christianity in 411, which did not prevent Pelagius publishing several letters and treatises in subsequent years. In 415, a synod cleared him of any accusation of heresy. Augustine was informed and decided to enter the fray. That same year, he wrote an anti-Pelagian treatise, entitled On Nature and Grace, and many other texts by him on the subject appeared in subsequent years. The Pelagian controversy would preoccupy him until his death in 430. It was one of the most important in the history of Christianity, and its repercussions are still with us. What was it all about?1

Pelagius: will and perfection

For Pelagius, human beings cannot have been given a completely evil nature. Pelagius was fully aware, of course, of what he could see all around him: the fact that the love of money is insatiable and the desire for honours never satisfied; but it would be foolish to reduce men to those evil tendencies. Man is not, or not only, a wolf to man. Moreover, if he were so bad, all hope of improvement would be vain: what could we rely on, how could we even ask for virtues that went against our nature? This initial assumption comes from the Bible: God created man in His image (Genesis 1:27) - and God is good. We also have empirical confirmation: when we perform vile acts, we are aware of doing wrong, we blush, we feel regret or shame. This awareness is common to all human beings, and it is on the side of good; it is a kind of moral tribunal sitting within us, and it does not depend on the doctrines we believe in, as pagans have it just as much as do Christians.

Among the positive dispositions with which men are endowed, one deserves to be distinguished. The God of the Bible enjoyed a freedom of will that enabled him to create the world and mankind out of nothing. If God made man in his image, man, in turn, has a free will. Pelagius finds support for his belief in a biblical text that was often quoted subsequently in similar contexts: we read in the Greek version of Ecclesiasticus (or Sirach) (15:14) that God 'created man and left him in the power of his own decision' (another translation of the original Hebrew says 'in the hand of his deliberation'). And, just as the divine will knows no limits, the human will can overcome all obstacles. It is because we have a will that we can direct our actions and distinguish good from evil. 'We do neither good nor evil without the exercise of our will and always have the freedom to do one of the two' (To Demetria, 8.12).2 A being entirely determined by his nature cannot be subject to moral judgement. The dignity of man comes from his ability to choose, and it is through this deliberative faculty that he is distinguished from the animals.

This undermines the very idea of original sin. If all members of the human race are sinners, whatever they do, simply because they are descended from Adam, this implies that a limit is set to their wills - and, indirectly, to God's will. Pelagius reasoned as follows: if the act we are asked to perform is not within our capabilities, its non-fulfilment cannot be called a sin. You cannot blame someone for not having run a hundred miles in an hour: it is more than a human being can possibly do. If we can describe an act as a sin, we must have been able to do differently, so the act lies within our will. If temptation is overcome, it will be by our own merit; if we fail, it will be through our own fault. 'Sin is due to a fault of will, not of nature' (To an older friend, 1.5). If we sin, it is not because we have inherited the sin of Adam, it is because we imitate the behaviour of our ancestor: this sin is not inborn but acquired.

Even if there were no dogmatic reasons to deny the existence of an insurmountable obstacle to our own improvement, the logic of education should force us to affirm the contrary: the best form of pedagogy lies in highlighting the good tendencies that are innate in us. If we know we are condemned in advance to sin, a great spur to action disappears: we abandon any effort, we accept our destiny, we resign ourselves to the evil we have done. This is precisely what Pelagius criticizes in the doctrine of Augustine, as he read it in the Confessions. A criminal could ask us to excuse his crime on the pretext that he has been pressured by original sin! However, if we know that there was nothing inevitable in our action and that we could have done otherwise, we will be encouraged to correct our behaviour.

Man can thus save himself. That does not render divine intervention completely superfluous, but it does lead us to define its place. Once an individual has come into being, he should not expect to receive God's grace to get out of a bad situation; he must rely on his own strength. Grace is essential, but it consists precisely in the fact that, right from the start, God endowed man with freedom. Augustine later summarized the reasoning of the Pelagians in these terms: 'No need, they say, for help from God to fulfil his commandments, because his grace gave us free will.'3 In short, God is useful before and after the earthly life of the individual: before, God grants us this precious viaticum, a conscience capable of distinguishing between good and evil, and a will enabling us to pursue the former and avoid the latter; after, at the Last Judgement, God distributes rewards and punishments. But, in the meantime, God withdraws and observes human struggles from afar, leaving us in sole command, subject to our own decisions.

Pelagius thought of himself as an orthodox Christian, but we might well ask if his doctrine can still be subsumed under the heading of religion rather than of a rule of conduct or an ethics. Since God has given his grace to all members of the human race, it is not really necessary to be a Christian for salvation: there are virtuous pagans who are saved, too. The first quality required of humans is not submission - to dogma or to the church - but self-control and strength of character; not humility, but taking your destiny into your hands, in other words autonomy. The god of Pelagius recalls Prometheus, the Greek Titan who brought fire to men, and therefore allowed them to control their own lives. From this point of view,...