PELAGIANISM, Sylvester Hassell As the remedy is determined by the disease, one’s whole system of theology is decided by his view of original sin. Pelagianism (so called from Pelagius, a British monk of the fifth century), which is a form, not of Christianity, but of Rationalism, asserts that Adam’s sin injured only himself; that men are born into the world in the same unfallen state in which Adam was created; that men may, and sometimes do, live without sin; that the law is as good a system of salvation as the gospel; that men have no need of divine assistance in order to be holy; and that Christianity has no essential superiority over heathenism or natural religion.” (Hassell’s History pg 51)
Sylvester Hassell Among the fine products of Catholic Monasticism and Alexandrian Platonic Philosophy were Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, against which unscriptural errors Augustine was, in the fifth century, the chief champion of the truth, and he is still regarded by many as the ablest advocate of the doctrine of grace since the days of the Apostles. His Confessions still extant, and written in his forty-sixth year, show that he had a deep Christian experience, a most remarkable Divine change from extraordinary sinfulness to extraordinary devotion, a translation from nature to grace, realized while in a passion of tears praying for deliverance from the bondage of his sins and opening the Bible at the passage, “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom. 13:13,14).
In his Retractations, written in his seventy-first year, he acknowledges his fallibility, and conscientiously seeks to withdraw every known error from his writings. Pelagius, a British monk and legal moralist, and Coelestius, a Scotch or Irish Lawyer, residing at Rome, converted by Pelagius to monasticism (neither of them having, it would seem, any Christian experience), were the founders of Pelagianism.
John Cassian, a Greek monk, either by birth or education, or both, a pupil of John Chrysostom (a convert to the Alexandrian Platonic anthropology), and a founder of convents for men and women at Massilia (or Marseilles) in Gaul, a Greek colony, was the founder of Semi-Pelagianism, or Cassianism, or Massilianism.
Both Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism are superficial, rationalistic, unchristian forms of self-righteousness, and they shade almost imperceptibly into each other; indeed, in their final analysis, they are really one. Pelagianism has been called human monergism—a system of salvation according to which man is represented as saving himself; Semi-Pelagianism has been called synergism—a system of salvation according to which divine grace and human free-will equally cooperate to effect man’s salvation; and Augustinianism has been called divine monergism—a system of salvation according to which God alone is represented as saving the sinner.
Pelagianism regards man as well and sound and strong, and able to do all he needs for himself; Semi-Pelagianism regards man as sick, but conscious and able to desire the help of a physician, and either accept or refuse such help when offered, and that, unless he cooperate with divine grace, he will be lost; Augustinianism regards man as dead in sin, and absolutely needing God to quicken and save him. Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism are one, in referring the actual cause of salvation to man; Augustinianism, on the contrary, refers the actual cause of salvation to God.
Pelagianism declares that Adam’s fall hurt himself alone, and not his posterity; that all men are born in a sinless condition, and can keep the law of God and thus insure their own salvation; and thus that there is no need either of the atonement of Christ or the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. As will be plainly seen, Pelagianism is paganism, being an utter denial of the Scriptures from beginning to end; although Pelagius and Coelestius invented ingenius and plausible arguments to prove that their positions were scriptural, and that there was really no difference between them and their opponents.
Semi-Pelagianism declares that men, though born in sin, are not born entirely sinful, but have some good still remaining in them, and that this good must form a joint partnership with God in order to insure the sinner’s salvation; that sometimes grace anticipates the human will, and draws it, though not irresistibly to God; but that usually the human will must take the initiative, and determine itself to conversion; that in no instance can divine grace operate independently of the free self-determination of man; that, as the husbandman must do his part, but all avails nothing without the divine blessing, so man must do his part, yet this profits nothing without divine grace, neither does divine grace profit anything without the work of man.
Semi-Pelagianism thus, in the same manner, if not to the same extent, as Pelagianism, depreciates the grace of God, the atonement of Christ, and the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, exalts the ability, pride and work of man not only to a level with, but, virtually, to a superiority over the work of God in salvation, since God does or offers to do the same for all men, and man himself does that which actually makes him to differ from the lost, and actually carries him to Heaven.
Thus Semi-Pelagianism strongly tends to Pelagianism, and ultimately and logically identifies itself with it, making man his own Savior. John Cassian, the author of this system, defends, in his Seventeenth “Conference of the Fathers,” occasional falsehood; and, in his Twentieth “Conference,” tries to show that there are “several ways of obtaining remission of sins besides through the death and intercession of Christ.”
Arminianism differs from Semi-Pelagianism chiefly in declaring that all men are born entirely corrupt, and must have divine grace operate upon them before they can think or will any good thing; but it also affirms that divine grace operates upon all men, and that each man’s salvation actually depends upon the use which his own free-will makes of that grace; so that Arminianism, like Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism, represents God as making salvation possible to all men but sure to none, and represents man as at last doing that which really saves him—makes man his own Savior. The great majority of the professedly Christian world are Arminians.” (Hassell’s History ppg 395-397)