Introduction

The centerpiece of Christian life, thought, and theology is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Cross is the universal symbol for Christianity, and many churches feature a depiction of the Crucifixion itself. For millions of Christians around the world, Christ’s death represents the ultimate sacrifice, and the redemption of the sins of the world. To those same believers, His subsequent resurrection fulfills the promise that His followers will enjoy eternal life in Heaven. But what, exactly, does that Redemption entail? From what are we redeemed? Who, exactly, gets to enjoy Eternal Life in Heaven?

These thorny questions have plagued Christian theology for centuries. However, there is a general consensus between the Roman Catholic and Protestant churches regarding how these questions should be answered. The foundation for this consensus–Original Sin and Salvation through Grace–were laid by St. Augustine of Hippo, primarily through his denunciation of the teachings of Pelagius, a British monk. Augustine’s theology of Salvation is also a complex metaphysical theology explaining the nature of the world and the role of evil in it. However, a great deal of his theology is drawn, not from the Christian traditions of the time, but rather from his experience with Neoplatonic thought and his own personal experience. In actuality, the Pelagian “heresy” is more consistent with early Christian thought, the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospel, and its consequences provide a more reasonable Christian worldview then does Augustinian theology.

Over the next few weeks, I will be working to support this idea by examining the Pelagian and Augustinian interpretations of Original Sin, examine their Salvation theologies, examine their metaphysics of God and evil, and finally examine the reasons why the orthodox Church accepted the ideas of St. Augustine.

Part One: Man, the Fall, and Original Sin

“The trouble with some of us is that we have been inoculated with small doses of Christianity which keep us from catching the real thing.” - Leslie Dixon Weatherhead

One of the central stories in the Bible is that of the Fall of Man. According to Genesis, when God created the Garden of Eden, He created a tree whose fruit was the Knowledge of Good and Evil. When He created Adam, he commanded him not to eat of that tree, or else he would die. Later on, a serpent in the garden “tricked” Eve into eating the fruit and giving it to Adam. As a result of this sin, Adam and Eve were endowed with moral knowledge and condemned to live outside of Eden as punishment for disobeying God. In traditional Christian theology, this event is known as the Original Sin.

Augustine’s Theology of the Fall

To Augustine, the story of Man’s Fall in Genesis was the literal truth, and his entire philosophy of salvation, grace, and evil stem from it. Moreover, Augustine’s ideas became the orthodox ideas of the Christian Church. As Lezek Kolakowski notes in his book God Owes Us Nothing: “Augustine not only codified the orthodox (since then) doctrine of original sin and divine grace, but to a large extent created it.” One of the central tenets of Augustine’s theology of Original Sin was that man was created to be immortal. Had the Fall not occurred, says Augustine, “[Adam] would not have been divested of his body, but would have been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that ‘mortality might have been swallowed up of life;’ that is, that he might have passed from the natural body into the spiritual body.”

Another postulate of Augustine’s theology was that Original Sin actually caused the corruption and evil in God’s creation. This postulate was developed because, to Augustine, a creature created to depart from the will of God would not be wicked–only a creature intended to abide by God’s will which then subsequently departed from it would create a wickedness. As Augustine explained in his treatise A Good Creation’s Capacity For Evil, the evil we see around us is a result of creatures acting contrary to their nature by sinning.

The final, and perhaps most important aspect of Augustine’s theology of Original Sin is its transmission According to Augustine, the Original Sin of Adam was transmitted through sexual intercourse to his descendents. Likewise, all of the descendents of Adam have Original Sin, with the exception of Christ, who was not conceived through sexual intercourse. The ultimate consequence of this idea, and one that Augustine did not shirk from, was that unbaptized infants are damned. This damnation occurs because even thought infants may have committed no actual sin, their Original Sin was not cleansed with Grace, and so they are doomed to Hell.

In Augustine’s view the world was made corrupt and imperfect by Adam and Eve’s sins. God, on the other hand, is unchanging, all-good, and perfect. Interestingly enough, Augustine did not think that this corruption made Creation evil. Instead, claims Augustine, God used his foreknowledge of his creation’s wickedness to create good out of the evil caused by creatures. This view of the world as imperfect compared to an unchanging, good God is similar to the ideas of the Neoplatonists. Neoplatonism was a religious and philosophic movement of the third and fourth centuries that taught that all “reality emanated from the One, its unknowable divine source,” as Chas Clifton describes in his Encyclopedia of Heretics and Heresies. As a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric in North Africa, Augustine was strongly influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy before his conversion to Christianity. Even after converting to Christianity, he adapted many Neoplatonic ideas to suit his new faith. We’ll see more of that as we explore Augustine’s theology.

Pelagian Theology of the Fall

Pelagius’ interpretation of Adam’s eating of the Fruit was distinctly separate from that of Augustine’s, and this difference helped to shape his moral philosophy. According to Pelagius, human beings were created mortal, and Adam would have died even if he had not Fallen. Thus, it was not Adam’s sin that caused death; rather, death is a natural part of the world that God created. Additionally, Pelagius taught that the Original Sin was simply Adam’s sin, and not the sin of all of humanity. Instead, Adam set an example of sinning that others followed. In Pelagius’ theology, infants are born without the need for baptism.

Another important difference between the theology of Augustine and Pelagius was that while Augustine blames the Fall for the existence of evil in the world, Pelagius believed that the Fall was a good thing. He writes in a letter to Demetrias, a Christian convert:

“But if God had simply instructed Adam and Eve to eat from the tree, and they had obeyed, they would have been acting like children. So he forbade them from eating the fruit; this meant that they themselves had to make a decision, whether to eat or not to eat. Just as a young person needs to defy his parents in order to grow to maturity, so Adam and Eve needed to defy God in order to share his knowledge of good and evil. By defying God, Adam and Eve grew to maturity in his image.”

Thus, in Pelagius’ view, Adam and Eve, by eating the fruit, gained maturity, and therefore freedom. This freedom meant that Adam and Eve (and by corollary, their descendents) became responsible to God for their actions. The world before the Fall was not yet totally good, because it lacked “one essential attribute, namely freedom” . Accordingly, Adam and Eve, through disobedience, became good. So according to Pelagius, the Fall was a good thing. Therefore, God’s creation was not corrupted by Man’s disobedience, as it was in Augustine’s view. Indeed, to Pelagius, “The presence of God’s spirit in all living things is what makes them beautiful.”

Scriptural Support for the Augustinian View of the Fall

Augustine’s interpretation of the Fall is based on a very literal reading of Genesis. While Pelagius chooses a more allegorical interpretation, Augustine views the account in Genesis as historical truth. This being the case, part of Augustine’s view of Original Sin can be derived from the curse that God puts upon Adam and Eve once they are thrown out of the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:16-24). Another measure of support for the notion of Original Sin comes from Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians. In this letter, Paul writes, “For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life” (15:22). This passage implies that the reason that Christ is necessary is because of Adam’s original sin.

Scriptural Support for the Pelagian View of the Fall

Upon examining Pelagius’ interpretation of Original Sin, it is apparent that this account is consistent with the words of Christ as recorded in the Gospels. For instance, in Matthew 19:14, Jesus states, “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Since Heaven is, presumably, for those who have been purified by God and are worthy of entrance, then children, too, must have this quality of innocence. By this statement, Christ could be said to believe in the innocence (i.e. sinlessness) of children. Although Christ never explicitly says what he means by this statement, it is certainly a valid interpretation given Pelagius’ premises.

Additionally, the idea that Original Sin is hereditary is contrary to other parts of the Bible. For instance, in Deuteronomy 24:16, it is written, “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children for their fathers; only for his own guilt shall a man be put to death.” This being the case, why would God allow the “transmission” of Original Sin, and therefore, death, from Adam to his descendants? Augustine argued that Original Sin caused the loss of Grace for Adam, and thus that Grace was not present in his descendants. However, this argument is still weak. If God is the ultimate Good, then any severance of humanity’s connection with God would be a punishment, since humans would no longer be exposed to the ultimate source of Good; thus, Adam’s descendants are punished because of Adam’s sin.

Christian Problems with the Augustinian Interpretation of the Fall

There are also problems with the idea that only the actions of creatures are responsible for Evil. If God is omnipotent, and he pronounced the world to be Good, then how can the act of one person undo that goodness? As David Ray Griffin points out, if, as Augustine claims, nothing happens other than what God wills to happen, then God must be the cause of Evil. Augustine attempts to work around this problem by stating that although creatures go against the Divine Will in one sense (i.e. violating the Commandments), they do not go against the eternal Divine Will, because God creates Good in the long run. Indeed, Augustine argues that the world is better off with Evil in it because of the Good it creates. However, this argument does not make sense. Either God wills for his creatures to follow His commandments or He doesn’t. How can God, who is perfect, will a contradiction? If violating a Commandment leads to a greater good than a world in which a creature followed them without free will, then why is it a sin to violate the Commandments? Augustine does not answer this question, and so his doctrine of humans causing evil is untenable.

Christian Problems with the Pelagian Interpretation of the Fall

One problem with Pelagius’ interpretation of the Fall, at least for Christians, is the fact that scripture does not support his positive view of the Fall. In the Christian tradition, the Fall is almost always seen as bad, since it separated humanity from continual communion with God. However, most modern Christian denominations see Genesis as being allegorical rather than literal, and Pelagius’ view, while unconventional, is a valid interpretation given his other theological premises. Another problem with his interpretation is that if infants are innocent and sinless, then any infant could be sacrificed in order to redeem the sins of the world, since both infants and Christ are sinless. If this is the case, then Christ’s death has far less meaning, since His perfection is no longer an issue. However, what this argument does not address is that to Christians, Jesus is the Incarnation of God, and thus is superior to human beings, no matter how sinless. Moreover, Christ was not only sinless, but also perfectly virtuous, because he committed good works and defied temptation, which infants do not have the chance to do. Thus, the idea that infants deserve eternal life does not negate Christ’s sacrifice, because infants have not had the opportunity to live a life of perfect virtue.

Next Week: Salvation!