Adolf Harnack · 10 of 20

3. The Pelagian Controversy. The Doctrine of Grace and Sin. · Part 2

1. God’s highest attributes are his goodness and justice, and, in fact, righteousness is the quality without which God cannot be thought of at all; indeed, it can even be said that there is a God, because there is righteousness. “Justice, as it is wont to be defined by the learned (s. Aristotle) and as we can understand, is (if the Stoics will allow us to prefer one to the other) the greatest of all virtues, discharging diligently the duty of restoring his own to each, without fraud, without favour.” Its genus is God; its species are the promulgation and administration of the laws; its difference consists in its being regulated by circumstances; its modus in its not requiring from anyone more than his powers permit, and in not excluding mercy; its quality in sweetness to pious souls. This notion of righteousness is so sure that it appears also to be ideally superior to Holy Scripture (see Op. imperf. II. 17): “Nothing can be proved by the sacred writings which righteousness cannot support.”

2. It follows, from the goodness and righteousness of God, that everything created by him is good—and that not only at the beginning—but what he now creates is likewise good. Accordingly, the creature is good, and so also are marriage, the law, free will, and the saints.

3. Nature, which was created good, is not convertible, “because the things of nature persist from the beginning of existence (substance) to its end.” “Natural properties are not converted by accident.” Accordingly, there can be no “natural sins” (peccata naturalia); for they could only have arisen if nature had become evil.

4. Human nature is thus indestructibly good, and can only be modified accidentally. To its constitution belongs—and that was very good—the will as free choice; for “willing is nothing but a movement of the mind without any compulsion.” This free choice, with which reason is implied, is the highest good in man’s constitution, “he who upholds grace praises human nature.” We know that Pelagius always began in his sermons by praising man’s glorious constitution, his nature which shows itself in free will and reason, and he never wearied of extolling our “condition of willing” (conditio voluntatis), as contrasted with the “condition of necessity” (conditio necessitatis) of irrational creatures. “Nature was created so good that it needs no help.” With reason as guide (duce ratione) man can and should do the good, i.e., righteousness (jus humanæ societatis). God desires a voluntary performer of righteousness (voluntarius executor justitiæ); it is his will that we be capable of both, and that we do one. According to Pelagius freedom of will is freedom to choose the good; according to Julian it is simply freedom of choice. The possibility of good as a natural faculty is from God, willing and action are our business; the possibility of both (possibilitas utriusque) is as a psychological faculty inevitable (a necessario); for this very reason a continual change is possible in it.

5. Evil, sin, is willing to do that which righteousness forbids, and from which we are free to abstain, accordingly what we can avoid. It is no element or body, no nature—in that case God would be its author; nor is it a perverted nature (natura conversa), but it is always a momentary self-determination of the will, which can never pass into nature so as to give the to an evil nature. But if this cannot happen, so much the less can evil be inherited; for that would do away with the goodness and righteousness of God, the notion of sin (as that which can be avoided), and the notion of redemption; a “natural” guilt could never be got rid of.

6. Pelagius deduced the actual existence of sin from the snares of the devil and sensuous lusts (gula and libido), and condemned concupiscence accordingly. It was necessary to overcome it by virginity and continence. It sprang not from the substance of the flesh (de substantia carnis), but from its works (ex operibus carnis), otherwise God would be its author. Pelagius took a serious view of this whole matter; but he was certain, on the other hand, that the body was subject to the soul, and that thus the relationship willed by God could be restored. But Julian felt that this was a vexed point. Whence came the evil desires of the flesh (desideria carnis mala) if the substance was good, and if it was yet manifest that they frequently did not spring from the will? The case of marriage, which is unthinkable without sexual desire, showed Julian that libido was permitted by God, and he attacked inexorably the artificial distinctions which Augustine sought and was compelled to make between nuptiæ and concupiscentia. Julian taught that concupiscence was in itself indifferent and innocent; for the actual creation was of all conceivable kinds the best; but this creation embraced sexual and all other desires. Libido was guilty non in genere suo, non in specie, non in modo, but only in excessu; genus and species were from God, the modus depended on an honest decision (arbitrium honestatis), excess followed from a fault of will (vitium voluntatis). If it were otherwise, then baptism would necessarily eradicate, and not merely regulate, concupiscence. Accordingly the latter, within limits (intra modum), was good; he who used it moderately, used a blessing rightly; he who indulged in it immoderately, used a blessing badly; but he who from love to virginity despised even moderate indulgence, did not thereby use a good thing better. The shame alluded to by Augustine, which is felt even at the lawful enjoyment of desire, was explained by Julian, following the Cynics, as mere convention and custom. Christ himself possessed concupiscence.

7. It follows from this teaching that there can always have been sinless men: Pelagius, indeed, argued further that since every man could resist sin (easily), he who sinned passed into hell at the Judgment; for every sin was really mortal, the sinner having acted against his ability to do better. Julian, moreover, taught that every excess was a mortal sin, since it was done absolutely without compulsion. In the end, it is said, God punishes the wicked and rewards the virtuous. But it remains wholly obscure how there can exist virtue (righteousness) and sin at all if, in practising them, a character can never be gained, if we are only concerned with fragmentary actions from which no deposit is left or sum-total formed.

In the foregoing the fundamental conceptions of the Pelagians are described. But they were also, of course, Catholic Christians; they were accordingly compelled to harmonise these doctrines of theirs with Holy Scripture and its historical contents, with Christ and the teaching of the Church. How they did so we have still briefly to discuss in what follows. It is apparent that the difficulties in showing this agreement were extraordinarily great, and, indeed, not only for them, but for everyone who would harmonise a coherent rational doctrine with Gen. I.-III., and with hundreds of passages in Scripture.

8. Adam was created with free will—according to Pelagiusalso with “what is called natural holiness” (naturalis quæ dicitur sanctitas), which consisted just in free will and reason. Julian considered this state to be morally very high and intellectually low. All are, however, agreed that Adam’s endowments were the peculiar and inalienable gift of divine grace (gratia).

9. Adam sinned through free will (Julian esteemed this sin of slight account); but by this sin his nature was not corrupted. Nor was natural death a consequence of it, for it is natural; but spiritual death, the condemnation of the soul on account of sin, was the result of sin.

10. Natural death was accordingly not inherited from Adam; moreover, spiritual death was only in so far as his descendants likewise sinned. If all men died through Adam’s death, then all would necessarily rise again through the resurrection of Christ.

11. Still much less was Adam’s sin or guilt transmitted. The doctrine of transmitted and original sin (tradux peccati and peccatum originis) is Manichæan and blasphemous; it is equally absurd whether viewed in relation to God, or man, or the notion of sin, or Christ, or Holy Scripture. In relation to God, for his righteousness is annulled by imputing the sins of others, and regarding as sinful a nature that has not yet sinned, just as much as it would be by ushering into the world, laden with sin, human beings born after Adam’s fall. In relation to man, for a vitiated nature is then equivalent to a bad nature; if a nature possesses evil, it is bad; but in that case the guilt falls upon God, for he is responsible for our nature; further, sin could only propagate itself, if we assumed a procreation of souls; but this assumption is absurd; finally, if sin is propagated through marriage, so that desire in marriage is and transmits sin, marriage is thereby condemned. In relation to the notion of sin, for sin is absolutely embraced by the will, so that it does not exist at all, where there is no free-will; further, even if it could propagate itself, it could not be transmitted by baptised parents; lastly, Augustine’s contention that sin is itself used by God as a punishment of sin, that there is a divine law of sin, etc., is absurd and immoral. In relation to Christ, for were nature bad, it could not be redeemed, or, were there an inherited sin which became natural to man, Christ also must have possessed it. In relation to Holy Scripture, as countless passages show that sin is a matter of the will, and that God punishes each for his own sins alone. Rom. V. 12, merely asserts that all die because they themselves sin like Adam, or something similar; in any case it contains nothing to support inherited sin.

12. Thus all men created by God are in the position in which Adam was before the fall. An unessential difference exists only in so far as Adam possessed at once the use of reason, while children do not; that Adam was still untaught, while children are born into a society in which the custom of evil prevails. Pelagius at least teaches this. The mere capacity city of either (mera capacitas utriusque) is the original innocence.

13. The habit of sinning, working by example, according to Pelagius, weakens the will (?). Yet nothing can be said as to how it really works; for otherwise the indifference of the will is destroyed. Probably the meaning was that the possibility of good remained wholly intact, but the habit of sinning darkened reason.

14. It is when we come to discuss grace that it is hardest to reproduce the view of the Pelagians; for it was here that they found it most necessary to accommodate their opinions. Very strong assertions occur in Pelagius and Julian—Cælestius was more reserved—as to the necessity of divine grace (adjutorium) for every good work. We also find statements to the effect that grace facilitated goodness. Finally, others occur which teach that grace is superfluous, nay, strictly speaking, in itself impossible. It is no injustice to the Pelagians to take the two latter positions, which, to a certain extent can be combined, as giving their true opinion; for it was assuredly the chief intention of Pelagius to deprive Christians of their indolent reliance on grace, and Julian’s main object was to show that the human constitution bore merit and salvation in its own lap. The proposition “homo libero arbitrio emancipatus a deo” really contains the protest against any grace.

15. By grace we have throughout to understand in the first place the grace of creation; it is so glorious that there have been perfect men even among heathens and Jews.

16. In the second place, it denotes the law (lex) of God; indeed, all grace, in so far as it is not nature, can at bottom have no other character than that of illumination and instruction (doctrina). This facilitates the doing of the good.

17. Thirdly, grace means the grace of God through Christ. This also is at bottom illuminatio et doctrina; Christ works by his example. Pelagius and Julian admit that the habit of sinning was so great that Christ’s appearance was necessary. Julian’s conception of this appearance was that Christ owed what he became to his free will. But it was necessary, over and above instruction (doctrina), to assume, in conformity with Church teaching and practice, an effective action through Christ on the part of God. The Pelagians did not deny that this was represented in baptism and the remissions granted by God; they taught the forgiveness of sins through baptism. But they could not show wherein this forgiveness consisted without coming into conflict with freedom. As regards infant baptism, they dared no longer dispute its necessity; indeed, they dared no longer flatly declare that it was not given for the remission of sins. They derived a certain consecration and sanctification from it, but they disputed the doctrine that children dying unbaptised were lost; these would only fail to enter the kingdom of heaven, the highest grade of felicity.

18. Finally, the Pelagians taught that this grace through Christ was compatible with the righteousness (justitia) of God, because the latter did not preclude an increase of benefits, but that grace was given secundum merita (according to the merits of the rational spirit) because in any other case God would have been unjust. The contention, however, that it was absolutely necessary was never seriously advocated by them, and was frequently denied, and in the thesis that the operation of the gospel is not different from that of the law, the former is in point of fact completely reduced to the level of the latter. But the law is itself nothing but a crutch not necessary to everyone. Man is to be sinless: this state we can attain by our will; but sinlessness (impeccantia) is rendered easy to the Christian; for by looking to Christ he can easily turn, and in baptism, the mysteries, dogmas, and the commandments, he from the first possesses nothing but means to promote virtue. All that Christ did and the Church does is considered not as action but as teaching.

The Pelagians deserve respect for their purity of motive, their horror of the Manichæan leaven and the opus operatum, their insistence on clearness, and their intention to defend the Deity. But we cannot but decide that their doctrine fails to recognise the misery of sin and evil, that in its deepest roots it is godless, that it knows, and seeks to know, nothing of redemption, and that it is dominated by an empty formalism (a notional mythology) which does justice at no single point to actual quantities, and on a closer examination consists of sheer contradictions. In the form in which this doctrine was expressed by Pelagius—and in part also by Julian—i.e., with all the accommodations to which he condescended, it was not a novelty. But in its fundamental thought it was; or, rather, it was an innovation because it abandoned, in spite of all accommodations in expression, the pole of the mystical doctrine of redemption, which the Church had steadfastly maintained side by side with the doctrine of freedom.

III. The fundamental notion of Pelagianism is nature embracing free will (liberum arbitrium); the fundamental notion of Augustinianism is grace, and in the Pelagian controversy the grace of God through Christ. In Pelagianism the doctrine of grace amounts to an “appendix” badly connected with the main subject; in Augustinianism the doctrine of nature is beset with contradictions, because it is impossible to give a rational account of nature and history from the standpoint of the grace of experience. For it is absolutely impossible to develop as a rational doctrine the conviction of the transforming grace of God who is also the creator; it must begin and end with the confession: “How incomprehensible are God’s judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” Augustine, sneered at as “Aristoteles Pœnorum” as “philosophaster Pœnorum” (Op. imperf. III. 198, V. 11), knew this also. But living in an age when it was held to be culpable ignorance and unbelief not to answer all possible questions, and penetrated by the vulgar conviction that Holy Scripture solved all problems, he, too, made the highest facts and the feelings of the inner life which he had gained in the gospel the starting-point of a description of “primitive history” and the history of mankind that could not but end in contradictions. At the same time, the pathological experiences of the course of his life are mirrored in this description. The stream of living water still bears in its depths traces of the gloomy banks past which it once had flowed, and into which it had almost sunk.

1. Mankind is, as experience shows, a “mass of sin” [massa peccati (perditionis)], waited on by death, and incapable of raising itself to the good; for having revolted from God, it could no more return to him than an empty vessel could refill itself. But in Christ the Redeemer—and in him alone—the grace of God manifested itself and entered on the work of man’s deliverance. Christ by his death removed the gulf between God and mankind—breaking the rule of the devil—so that the grace of God, which for that reason is gratia per (propter) Christum, could pursue its work. This free grace (gratia gratis data) working in the Church, is beginning, middle, and end. Its aim is the rescue from the massa perditionis, that as guilty falls justly a prey to eternal death, of a fixed number of elect (certus numerus electorum), who enter eternal life. They are saved because God, in virtue of his eternal decree of salvation, has predestinated, chosen, called, justified, sanctified, and preserved them. This is done through grace, which thus is (1) prevenient; for it must first create the good will (faith). (This prevenient grace can be combined with “the call” (vocatio); but we must even here remember that the call comes to some who are not “called according to the purpose.” In the strict sense the whole transactions of grace apply only to those who are predestinated; in the wider sense, grace operates as far as sanctification in a much greater circle, who, however, finally perish, because they have not received its last work.) Augustine has inserted his whole religious experience in the confession of free and prevenient grace. He nowhere speaks with greater conviction, more simply and grandly, than where he praises the grace that snatches man from his sinful condition. But grace (2) works co-operatively. This work evolves itself in a series of stages, since naturally it is only possible slowly and gradually to reach the goal whose attainment is desired, viz., the perseverance and complete and actual regeneration of man—re-creation into good men—accordingly his being rendered capable of doing good works of piety and possessing merit. The calling (vocatio) first results in faith as God’s gift. This faith is itself subject to growth, i.e., it begins as unquestioning acceptance based on the authority of the Church and Scripture; it presents itself further as obedience, then trust (fiducia) believing God, belief about God, belief on God (credere deum, credere de deo, credere in deum) and as such passes into love. Parallel with this goes the effective (visible) action of grace in the Church, which begins with the remission of sins. This is administered in baptism, and since the latter removes the guilt of original sin, and blots out sins previously committed, it is the “bath of regeneration.” But it is so only as an initiatory act; for the actual justification, which corresponds to co-operating grace, is not yet gained, where sin is no longer imputed, but only where the irreligious man has become just, where accordingly an actual renovation has taken place. This is effected through the infusion of love into the heart by the Holy Spirit, and this love substitutes good for evil desire (concupiscence). That is, the man now not only makes the joyful confession: “To me to cleave to God is a good thing,” and delights in God as the summum bonum, instead of in perishable possessions (the humility of faith, love and hope in place of pride of heart), but gains also the power to do good works. This new frame of mind and capacity, which grace begets through the gift of the Holy Spirit, is the experience of justification by faith (justificatio ex fide).

Justification is an act that takes place once for all, and is completed sub specie æternitatis, and with reference to the fact that everything can be comprised in faith. As an empirical experience, however, it is a process never completed in this world, because the being replenished with faith, which through love labours to effect the complete transformation of man, is itself subject to limitation in our present life. This operation of the spirit of love has its parallel in the effective (visible) dealings of grace in the Church, and that in the Lord’s Supper (the incorporation into the love and unity of Christ’s body) as well as in the Eucharistic sacrifice, penance, and Church works, so far as these are capable of blotting out sin. These works, however, possess still another value. Renunciation of worldly pleasure is only completed in asceticism, and since at the Judgment God will deal with us in accordance with our works, the completion of justification can only consist in the sanctification, in virtue of which particular possessions—marriage, property, etc.—are wholly abandoned. It is not, indeed, absolutely necessary for everyone to fulfil the counsels of the gospel (consilia evangelica); we can live in faith, hope, and love without them. God’s grace does not make everyone a saint, to be worshipped, and to be implored to intercede for us. But everybody who is to be crowned must ultimately possess merits in some degree; for, at the Judgment, merits will alone be crowned, these ever being, indeed, like all good, God’s gifts. But the perseverance of the elect in love through the whole course of their life until the Judgment is (3) the highest and last gift of grace, which now appears as irresistible. Perseverance to the end is the good, without which all that went before is nothing. Therefore, in a sense, it alone is grace; for only those are finally saved who have obtained this irresistible grace. The called who do not possess it are lost. But why only a few obtain this gift, though it is bestowed secundum merita, is God’s secret. Eternal life and eternal damnation are decreed by one and the same justice.

2. The doctrine of sin, the Fall, and the primitive state is sketched from the standpoint of free and prevenient grace. It follows from the doctrine of grace that sin characterises mankind as they now exist. Sin presents itself essentially as being without God (carentia dei), the voluntary diminution of strength of being. The failure to possess God (privatio boni), the non inhærere deo, constitutes sin, and, indeed, the two thoughts—the one metaphysical, that sin is defect of being, the other ethical, that it is defect of goodness—coincide as we reflect on them, just as in the examination of grace the metaphysical (the finding of being from not-being) and the ethico-religious elements always accord. This sin is a state: the wretched necessity of being unable to refrain from sinning (misera necessitas non posse non peccandi). Freedom in the sense of free choice is not destroyed; but the freedom still existing always leads to sin; and this state is all the more dreadful, as there exists a certain knowledge of the good, nay, even a powerless desire for it, which invariably succumbs. Positively, however, the sinful state presents itself as the rule of the devil over men, as pride and concupiscence. From that rule it follows that man must be redeemed from without before he can be helped. Pride in relation to God and concupiscence show that man is sinful in soul and body. Yet the emphasis falls on concupiscence; it is the lower desire, sensuous lust, which shows itself above all in the lust of the flesh. The motus genitalium, independent even of the will, teaches us that nature is corrupt; it has not become vice (vitium), but it is vitiated (natura vitiata). It therefore propagates sin. That it does so is attested by the evidence of the senses, the sensuous, and therefore sinful pleasure in the act of procreation, and by Holy Scripture (Rom. V. 12 f.). Thus mankind is a massa perditionis also in the sense that it procreates sin in itself from a corrupt nature. But since the soul in all probability is not procreated at the same time, it is in each case created by God, so the body, begotten in the lust of the flesh, is quite essentially the bearer of sin. That the latter thus descends is decreed by God; for sin is not always merely sin, but also, or often only, the punishment of sin (peccatum and malum combine in the sense of evil). The sin which descends in the massa perditionis (peccatum originis, tradux peccati) is at once sin and sin’s punishment. This has been ordained by him who decreed sins (the “ordinator peccatorum).” Every desire involves infatuation. It is the penalty of sin that we do the evil we would not. Every sin carries with it dissolution, the death of the sinner. It rends and dismembers him, it empties him and exhausts him, until he no longer exists. Thus death reigns in its various forms, till it reaches eternal death, in the massa perditionis. This humanity which is subject to the dreary necessity of not being able to refrain from sin (non posse non peccare) is therefore also and at the same time subject to the dreadful necessity of not being able to escape death (non posse non mori). No power of its own can rescue it. Its best deeds are all stained from the roots; therefore they are nothing but splendid vices. Its youngest offspring, even if they have done nothing sinful, must necessarily be lost; for since they possess original sin, i.e., are destitute of God, and are burdened with concupiscence, they pass justly into damnation. This is attested also by the Church when it baptises newly-born children.

How did this state arise—a state which could not have been due to God the creator? Scripture and the Church answer: through Adam’s Fall. The magnitude of this Fall had already been depicted in the Church; but from his standpoint Augustine had rightly to say that Adam’s sin, and therewith sin in general, had not yet been duly perceived—yet the Church, as its institutions prove, had, it was alleged, appreciated it truly; writers, however, had fallen short of this estimate. Adam’s Fall was inconceivably great. When, in the hope of becoming like God, he transgressed God’s command not to eat the apple, all conceivable sins were compressed into his sin: the revolt to the devil, pride of heart, envy, sensuous lust—all in all: self-love in place of love of God. And it was all the more dreadful, as it was easy for Adam to refrain from sin. Therefore also came the unspeakable misery, viz., the punishment of sin, with and in sin, working itself out in death. Adam lost the possession of God. This was followed by complete deprivation (defectio boni), which is represented as the death of the soul; for the latter without God is dead (spiritual death). The dead soul is now drawn downwards; it seeks its blessings in the mutable and perishable, and is no longer capable of commanding the body. The latter then asserted itself with all its wanton impulses, and thus corrupted the whole human nature.

The corruption is manifest in sexual lust, whose sinfulness is evidenced by compulsion and shame, and it must be inherited since the central seat of nature is disordered. It indeed still continues to be capable of redemption—it does not become an evil substance—but it is so corrupt that even grace can only blot out the guilt (reatus) of original sin; it cannot completely extirpate concupiscence itself in the elect, as is proved by the survival of the evil sexual lust. This inheriting of sin and of Adam’s death is, however, not merely a fact, but it is just, because Scripture says that we have all sinned in Adam, because all owe their life to sinful lust, and because—God is just.

Adam’s Fall presupposes that his previous constitution had been good. This is taught, too, by Scripture, and it follows likewise from the assurance that God is the creator, and the good creator, of all things. If Adam was created good, then he possessed not only everything that a rational creature needs (body and soul and their due relationship as servant and master, reason and free will), but, above all, grace ever supporting and preserving him, the adjutorium, that is the bond of union with the living God; for the virtuous man is not independent of God; he is only independent when completely dependent on God. Adam, accordingly, not only had a free will, but this will was influenced in the direction of God. For this very reason he was free (in God); but he was also free (able) to will evil; for evil springs from freedom. If Adam had not possessed a free will, he would have been unable to sin; but in that case he would not have been a rational creature. So he possessed the power not to sin, or die, or forsake the good (posse non peccare, —mori,—deserere bonum), but this through the adjutorium (auxiliary grace) went so far in the direction of inability to sin (non posse peccare) that it would have been easy for Adam to attain it. Had he attained it by means of free will (liberum arbitrium), he would have received perfect blessedness in return for the merit involved in his perseverance, he would have remained, and escaped death, in Paradise, and would have begotten children without sinful lust. We see that the primitive state was meant to be portrayed in accordance with the state of grace of the present; but an important difference prevailed, since in the former case, the adjutorium was only the condition, under which Adam could use his free will lastingly in being and doing good, while in the latter, it is the power, that, being irresistible, brings fallen man to perfection.