Academic literature on the topic 'Semi-Pelagianism'

Various thinkers are concerned that the Orthodox view of Ancestral Sin does not avoid the age-old Augustinian concern of Pelagianism. After all, the doctrine of Ancestral Sin maintains that fallen human beings do not necessarily or inevitably commit actual sins. In contemporary literature, this claim could be articulated as a denial of the ‘inevitability thesis.’ A denial of the inevitability thesis, so contemporary thinkers maintain, seems to imply both that human beings can place themselves in right relation to God as well as the Pelagian denial that all require Christ's work to attain this right relation to God. This article demonstrates that the Ancestral Sin, along with a denial of the inevitability thesis, is neither Pelagian nor Semi-Pelagian. I show that the doctrine of Ancestral Sin denies (Semi-) Pelagianism in various ways. I show that, for Ancestral Sin to entail (Semi-) Pelagianism, one must commit to several assumptions, each of which is plausibly deniable and none of which Orthodox thinkers affirm.

Several recent incompatibilist accounts of divine grace and human free will have appealed to the notion of quiescence in an attempt to avoid semi-Pelagianism while retaining the fallen person’s control over coming to faith and thus the agent’s responsibility for failing to come to faith. In this essay I identify three distinct roles that quiescence has been employed to play in the recent literature. I outline how an account of divine grace and human free will may employ quiescence to play one role without playing either of the others. I also note that getting clear about these roles allows us to see that so-called sourcehood accounts of free will do not need to appeal to quiescence to avoid semi-Pelagianism. Far from being a benefit of sourcehood accounts, however, this highlights a serious defect in such accounts; I draw out this defect, developing it into a general argument against sourcehood accounts of free will.

Abstract: One of Martin Luther’s lasting achievements is his confrontation with Erasmus on the freedom of man’s will. After first absorbing the nominalistic semi-Pelagian synthesis consensus, Luther revolted against the intellectual and spiritual mediocrity of that prevailing system of thought by using Ockham’s logical razor and recovering biblical realism. The Bondage of the Will is the first confessional statement of the Reformation. Two opposing visions of reality emerge: Erasmsus’s skepticism and semi-Pelagianism versus Luther’s realism and the sovereign grace of God in salvation. However, there is a major breach in Luther’s magnificent dogmatic achievement: in his doctrine of the two kingdoms the order of creation is abandoned to the initiative of man’s thinking apart from the sovereign authority of Scripture.

Stump and Timpe have recently proposed Thomistic based solutions to the traditional problem in Christian theology of how to relate grace and free will. By taking a closer look at the notion of control, I subject Timpe’s account – itself an extension of Stump’s account – to extended critique. I argue that the centrepiece of Timpe’s solution, his reliance on Dowe’s notion of quasi-causation, is misguided and irrelevant to the problem. As a result, Timpe’s account fails to avoid Semi-Pelagianism. I canvass two alternatives, each of which adheres to the broad theological assumptions made by Stump and Timpe, including the positing of only one “unique” grace. I conclude that each of these proposals fails, although I argue that one comes as close as it is possible to get to a solution given the assumptions made.

The problem of the „beginning of faith” (initium fidei) was among those which vividly captured the attention of theologians at the beginning of the 5th century, particularly in the wider context of the controversy concerning the relationship be­tween free will and God’s grace in the work of salvation. Generally it is assumed that John Cassian, concerned, on the one hand, to show the Pelagians the neces­sity of grace and the radical Augustinians, on the other, the need for cooperation with the work of divine grace, failed to avoid errors which would subsequently be referred to as semi-pelagianism. With regard to the „beginning of faith”, his error is supposed to consist in the fact that the salvific initiative could derive from man. This view, however, derives from an over simplification of the thought of the Abbot of St. Victor: not only because most of his comments underline the neces­sity for grace in order for faith to begin in man (theological argument), but also because even in his rare „semipelagian” affirmations Cassian speaks of scintilla of good will in man, without however calling this the moment of faith strictly under­stood (philological argument). Above all, however, it is forgotten that for Cassian, who was educated in the spirit of oriental theology, salvation is simultaneously divine and human and lacks any form of „arithmetical” parity between God and man, which would make man an equal partner with God in the work of salvation. For Cassian, everything concerning the primacy of God in salvation is beyond question and human efforts are nothing other than the response expected by the Divine Pedagogue of His pupils as He leads them along the path of salvation, from the initium fidei to its end.

This article is divided into four sections. In the first, Fr. Arkadiusz Baron describes shortly the reception of Chrysostom’s writings in the ancient world in the East and in the West. It is surprising that the “Golden Mouth” and his homilies have triggered so many difficulties from the very beginning until the present. In the past, in the East, a growing conflict with the Severian of Gabbala and other bishops became the main obstacle to the reception of Chrysostom’s preaching. In 403, at the so-called council at the oak, Chrysostom was condemned and exiled. One of many false accusations charged him with being too merciful toward sinners who were recidivists.In the West, Anian of Celedo, Pelagius’ friend, translated Chrysostom’s homilies (especially on Matthew) into Latin. Pelagianism was condemned and Chrysostom was suspected to be semi-Pelagian. The oldest and most integral Latin version of Chrysostom’s homilies on record date back from the twelfth century. In the fifteenth century pope Nicholaus V asked for a new translation.Similarly in Poland, Chrysostom was not too lucky. In Polish, only about 15 per cent of his homilies are available. Among the translators are J. Wujek, A. Załęski and J. Krystyniacki from the eighteenth century, and T. Sinko, W. Kania, A. Baron and J. Iluk from the twentieth century. Some of them are historians and philologists, but not theologians. This is a problem of the existing Polish translations: we need a good theological, biblical and homiletical elaboration of Chrysostom’s homilies.Homilies on Matthew were preached in 390 in Antioch when Chrysostom was already well-known. Chrysostom’s homilies are the first and one of the best ancient commentaries to this Gospel. He is the only man who in the first millennium of Christianity explained the Acts of the Apostles, and he is the only one in Christianity to do this in the form of homilies.The centre of the Jesus’ Gospel according to Chrysostom is the person of Jesus. The prime purpose of Matthew’s Gospel is to reveal the unconditional love of God for each human being. Homilies on Matthew are completely apolitical. Chrysostom never even mentions governors or political situations. Similarly, he does not speak about ecclesiastical canons of councils of Antioch from the fourth century. He is only interested in how to explain the best way to all the listeners the Good News that Jesus has brought on earth.At the end, Fr. Baron gives some examples of Chrysostom’s exegesis: Mt 12: 33-37; 10: 32; 28: 1-3 and Homily on Matthew 85, 3-4.