What is Pelagianism?

You may or may not have heard the term “Pelagianism” in your spiritual journey and wondered what it was all about. Pelagianism was a heretical system of thought put forth by a British Monk whose name was Pelagius who lived around 400-430 AD. Hence the name Pelagianism. Pelagius did not believe that Adam’s sin was passed on to the rest of humanity (he did not believe in original sin), but believed that Adam only set a bad example for us and that people following after Adam were not held captive by their sin: they were not depraved. In other words Pelagius taught men were able apart from any influence from God’s grace to accept or reject the offer of salvation in Christ. Even in circa 400 AD this caused a stir, especially with Augustine who was the Bishop of Hippo and very influential in the early Church. In contrast to Pelagius, Augustine taught that sin is passed down from Adam to his progeny and all who are ever born are born with a fallen nature that leads them into sin. They are unable of their own will to come to Christ because their fallen nature doesn’t desire Christ. It is only the grace of God working to overcome the fallen nature that enables a person to come to Christ. After several council’s condemned Pelagianism, it was finally declared heresy at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Later, Semipelagianism tried to split hairs and credit man’s free will with the beginnings of faith, and only credit God for a later increase of faith. Semipelagianism was declared heresy at the Council of Orange in 529 AD. Now you know!

My paper on General and Special Revelation

You can find the paper that I just wrote for Systematic Theology here. Hope you find it interesting and even helpful. The hardest part was knowing exactly what they wanted and then keeping it to 5 pages. Must have been ok as I ended up getting an A.