scholarly journals AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS AS A CAMEO OF THE DILEMMA BETWEEN ORIGINAL SIN AND FREE WILL

Scriptura ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Henrietta Evans
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Original Sin

Pelagianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Kirwan
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Effort

Pelagius, a Christian layman, was active around ad 400. The thesis chiefly associated with his name is that (i) human beings have it in their own power to avoid sin and achieve righteousness. Critics objected that this derogates from human dependence on the grace of God. Pelagius did not deny that the power to avoid sin is itself a gift of God, an enabling grace; but he was understood to deny the need for cooperative grace, divine aid in using the power rightly, or at least to assert that (ii) such aid is a reward for human effort, and so not an act of grace. Later thinkers who held that God’s aid, though not a reward, goes only to those who do make an effort, were accused of believing that (iii) there is no need of prevenient grace in causing the effort in the first place. So Pelagianism is a tendency to magnify human powers: its defenders saw it as a (frightening) challenge to humans, its detractors as an insult to God. It was hard without Pelagianism to find a place for free will, or with it for original sin.

Socinianism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Free Will ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Church Authority ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Immortality Of The Soul ◽  
The Trinity

Socinianism was both the name for a sixteenth- and seventeenth-century theological movement which was a forerunner of modern unitarianism, and, much less precisely, a polemic term of abuse suggesting positions in common with that ‘heretical’ movement. Socinianism was explicitly undogmatic but centred on disbelief in the Trinity, original sin, the satisfaction, and the natural immortality of the soul. Some Socinians were materialists. Socinians focused on moralism and Christ’s prophetic role; the elevation of reason in interpreting Scripture against creeds, traditions and church authority; and support for religious toleration. The term was used polemically against many theorists, including Hugo Grotius, William Chillingworth, the Latitudinarians, and John Locke, who emphasized free will, moralism, the role and capacity of reason, and that Christianity included only a very few fundamental doctrines necessary for salvation.

scholarly journals Przebóstwienie człowieka w pismach Jana Kasjana

Vox Patrum ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 63 ◽  
pp. 185-197
Author(s):  
Arkadiusz Nocoń
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Image Of God ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Relationship With God ◽  
Resurrection Of The Dead ◽  
The Dead ◽  
John Cassian ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Image Of God

One of the principal ideas in oriental anthropology is that of the divinization of man. The author studies this idea in John Cassian and draws the conclusion that not only was it known to Cassian, but indeed it is the filter through which he views the question of grace. The author arrives at this conclusion, above all, by underlin­ing oriental monasticism as the original context of the theology of divinization. Cassian was trained as a theologian and monk in this very ambience. All of the elements of the concept of divinization are present in the writings of Cassian and the two biblical models for the qšwsij of man – its creation of man in the image and likeness of God (Gen 1: 26-27) and the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor (Mt 17: 1-8; Mc 9: 2-8; Lc 9: 28-36) – are widely commented on by Cassian and form the basis of his theological and ascetical teaching. Cassian’s doctrine on grace, which is deeply penetrated by the concept of divinization, propounds the idea that, after original sin, the likeness of God in man is destroyed, but the image of God in man – reason, free will, and conscience – remains. The grace of God, perceived through the prism of divinization, in Cassian implies not a “resurrection” of the dead nature of man, but a strengthening of his relationship with God, a passage from the condition of “slave” to that of “friend”. This teaching, characterized as it is by a salvific optimism which is typically oriental, according to the author, should no longer be regarded as a form of semipelagianism. Rather, but with due qualification, it should be regarded as a valid and interesting way of speaking on the perennially difficult quaestio of the relationship between grace and free will.

The Doctrine of Humanity

2019 ◽  
pp. 316-331
Author(s):  
Marguerite Shuster
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
North American ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Disadvantaged Groups ◽  
Moral Accountability ◽  
Historically Disadvantaged ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Bear Witness

This chapter elaborates the classic content and evolving emphases of the doctrine of humanity in North American Presbyterianism. It considers human dignity as given in God’s bestowal of the divine image, including the duties entailed by the image; human misery, resulting from original sin understood as leading to total or radical depravity; the nature and limits of free will, understood in an Augustinian sense; and the locus of hope in the efficacious, redemptive grace of God, sufficient to overcome humanity’s bondage to sin, and conjoined to the continuing function of the divine law. It discusses the impact of scientific progress on Christian self-understanding, cautioning against alleged determinisms that threaten human moral accountability. It also observes that later confessional documents increasingly emphasize the dignity of historically disadvantaged groups, as well as bear witness to social and political aspects of human sinfulness.

scholarly journals O problema da relação entre o livre-arbítrio humano e a graça/predestinação em Agostinho em diálogo com a Modernidade/Contemporaneidade

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 121-145
Author(s):  
Marcos Nunes Costa
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Religious Doctrine ◽  
God's Call ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First Nature

One of the most complex issues in St. Augustine's philosophical-religious doctrine is that of the relationship between human free will and divine grace / predestination. This problem has its main expression in the controversy with the Pelagians / semi-Pelagians, who, each in their own way, believed that there is an incompatibility between the two terms. They sought to annul one of the poles of the question, arguing that the human being is free. In addition, they state thatoriginal sin in no way damaged human free will, and that, consequently, the latter can achieve perfection / salvation by his own merits, without the help of divine grace. Augustine, on the contrary, says that with original sin the “first nature” of man was damaged. Thus, human beingneeds the help of divine grace to be able to perform good actions (merits), but Augustine claimed, there is no incompatibility there, conversely, for him, what the human being has lost was the full freedom he enjoyed before sin. Now human being has only free will thatgrace will restore, giving him back his full freedom. Likewise, he argues, predestination does not nullify free will, determining man's destiny. Thus, first, man is a being created by God for himself, with no determinants for evil,and, second, as much as damaged he may be, he is keeps something of his first condition, even the tiniest one. Thus, human being is capable of say no to God's call. These questions will reverberate in the philosophical-religious discourses about the problem in Modernity / Contemporaneity, mainly in Protestant circles, which have intertwined themselves, each in their own way, between the so-called incompatibilities and compatibilities. Both seeking to substantiate their positions, often in St. Augustine. Something that he would not always agree with. Here's what we'll look at in this paper.

Free Will and Original Sin

2011 ◽  
pp. 339-356
Author(s):  
Michael J. McClymond ◽  
Gerald R. McDermott
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Original Sin

scholarly journals Original Sin and Broad Free-Will Defense

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Paul Franks ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Original Sin ◽  
Free Will Defense
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