Pelagius truly exemplifies a strikingly modern spirit in ancient times, and if he were born in modernity, he probably would have been regarded as a leading theologian and philosopher. His confidence in human ability, emphasis on free will, and strongly contrarian spirit would make him fit perfectly with many during the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment periods.

Previously, in part one and part two, we explored the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and saw how it overlaps with our current Western worldview, especially in treating the inner/spiritual world as inherently good and the outer/physical world as inherently evil.

In this article, we are moving on to the heresy of Pelagianism. Here in part three specifically, I will be giving more background to the heresy of Pelagianism and the Pelagian worldview, and then I will examine how the ideas presented overlap with the modern Western worldview.

The Teachings of Pelagius

Let’s set the stage. It’s the early fifth century and, despite political turmoil and a weakened state, the Roman Empire was still a powerful entity. Christianity, at this point—unlike the second century, which we explored with Gnosticism—is a legal religion and has been so for nearly one hundred years.

This time period posed a strange situation for the church and its leaders, because despite Christianity being legal and popular, the Roman Empire was prolifically immoral, politically and sexually. One Christian leader at this time was a British monk named Pelagius, who was especially appalled by the moral state of Rome, so he sought to address this problem biblically and theologically. His teaching can be essentially summarized in three main ideas:

1. No Original Sin: Pelagius denied original sin and the sinful nature of humanity. He taught that Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit did not affect their state; consequently, the fall has no lasting effect on humanity. Therefore, all people have the same standing as Adam and Eve in the garden.
2. Free will: If there is no sin nature inclining humanity to sin, then this means that our wills are as “free” as they can be (The word free is in quotation marks for reasons I will address in the next article). Pelagius taught that God desired man to be totally free to choose between good and evil. This means that God’s grace is not necessary in helping guide the human will, because it would mean that the human will is relying on something other than itself (meaning it is not totally “free”). Therefore, to avoid sin, people must simply choose to stop sinning. This view of free will also led Pelagius to teach that sinless perfection is attainable and expected of us by God, and achievable without his grace.

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