Adolf Harnack · 11 of 20

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

Contemporary criticism on this system may here be briefly summed up. Augustine contradicted himself in maintaining that all ability to attain goodness had been lost, and in yet admitting that freedom of choice—the decisive thing—remained. His notion of freedom was self-destructive, since he defined freedom as lasting dependence on God. His conception of original sin was self-contradictory, because he himself admitted that sin always springs from the will. He was compelled to teach Traducianism, which, however, is a heresy. And his Scriptural exegesis was arbitrary. In particular, God provokes sins, if he punishes sin with sin, and decrees the reign of sin; he is unjust if he imputes to men the sins of others, while forgiving them their own, and, further, if he accepts some, and not others, just as he pleases. This contention leads to despair. Above all, however, the doctrine of original sin leads to Manichæan dualism, which Augustine never surmounted, and is accordingly an impious and foolish dogma. For, turn as he will, Augustine affirms an evil nature, and therewith a diabolic creator of the world. His doctrine of concupiscence conduces to the same view. Besides, he depreciates the glorious gift of human freedom, nay, even divine grace in Christ, since he holds that original sin is never entirely removed. Finally, his doctrines of the exclusive efficacy of grace and predestination put an end not only to asceticism and the meritoriousness of good works, but also to all human doings. It is useless to exhort, intercede for, or blame sinners, etc. In the end, even the connection with the Church, which Augustine insisted on so energetically in the Donatist controversy, seemed to be superseded.

Truth and error exist side by side in these observations. Perhaps the following considerations will be more pertinent. (1) The impossibility of determining the fate of the whole body of mankind and of every separate individual from the stand-point of gratia gratis data, is shown in the thesis of the damnation of children who die unbaptised. Here Augustine impugns the thought of God’s righteousness. But this thought must become worthless altogether if everything is overruled by predestinating and irresistible grace. Thereby a grave injury is inflicted on piety. (2) The carrying out of the conception of predestinating grace, which should be no more than a sentiment, confined to himself, of the redeemed, leads to a determinism that conflicts with the gospel and imperils the vigour of our sense of freedom. Besides, the assumption of irresistible grace rests above all experience, even above that of the believer, and the doctrine of God’s twofold will (see de grat. et lib. arb. 45) makes everything affecting faith uncertain. (3) Augustine did not by any means hold so certainly that grace was grace through Christ, as that it proceeded from the secret operation of God. The acosmic Neoplatonic element in the doctrine of predestination imperilled not only the efficacy of the Word and Sacrament (vocatio and justificatio), but also redemption through Christ in general. (4) The religious tendency in the system, the belief that the decisive point was cleaving or not cleaving to God, received in the sequel a new version, and the moral attitude became rather the crucial question—the will, of course when freed, was an efficient cause of righteousness. For this reason the meaning of forgiveness, of the new fundamental relation to God, and of the assurance of faith, was misunderstood. The former became an act of initiation, the relation became temporary, and the assurance of faith, which even according to the doctrine of predestination need not arise, was lost in the conception of a process of sanctification never or almost never completed in this world, a process to which various grades of salvation, just as there were various degrees of damnation, corresponded in the world beyond. What a proof of moralism! Between the thesis of the ancient (Greek) Church: “Where the knowledge of God is, come also life and salvation,” and Luther’s principle: “Where we have forgiveness of sins, we have also life and salvation,” we find Augustine’s: “Where love is there also follows a salvation corresponding to the measure of love.” Augustine examined the equation remission of sins = grace through Christ, and expressly rejected it. This turn he gave his doctrine also explains the contention that God, in the end, crowns our merits, a view that conflicts with predestinating grace, and opens the door to a refined form of righteousness by works. (5) The Neoplatonic notion of God and the monastic tendency demand that all love should at the same time present itself in the form of asceticism. Thereby love drifts still further apart from faith (as fiducia), threatens the sovereignty of the latter, and gives free scope for all sorts of popular Catholic conceptions. (6) The conception—necessary in the system—of Adam’s Fall and original sin contains—apart from the mythology which here takes the place of history—a bundle of inconsistencies and extremely questionable ideas. The latter Augustine also perceived, and he tried, but without success, to guard against them. Absolutely Manichæan is the view that man sins because he was created from nothing, “nothing” being here treated as an evil principle. (The Neoplatonic doctrine also sees in this “nothing” the ground of sin; but to it sin is merely finitude. Augustine took a more profound view of sin, but he had also to conceive the nilhil as “more evil” in proportion, i.e., to convert it into the evil substance of Manichism.) Manichæan also is the opinion that sexual desire is sinful, and that inherited sin is explained simply from procreation as the propagation of a vitiated nature (natura vitiata). Absolutely contradictory are the positions that all sin springs from freedom (the will), and that children just born are in a state of sin. It is extremely suspicious to find that, when sin is more minutely dealt with, concupiscence is practically ranked above alienation from God (deo non adhærere), this also, indeed, resulting from uncertainty as to Traducianism. It again raises our doubts when we see original sin treated as if it were more serious than actual sin; for while the former can only be washed out by baptism, the latter can be atoned for by penance. The whole doctrinal conception at this point shows that the conviction of the redeemed, that without God he is lost and unfit to do any good work, is a verdict of the believer on himself, a verdict that marks a limit, but can never become a principle by which to consider the history of mankind. At this point, just because the contradictions were so enormous, the development of dogmatic with Augustine was on the verge of casting off the immense material in which it had been entangled, and of withdrawing from the interpretation of the world and history; but as Augustine would not abandon that material, so men will not, even at the present day, let it go, because they suppose that the Bible protects it, and because they will not learn the humility of faith, that shows itself in renunciation of the attempt to decide on God’s government of the world in history. (7) But apart from original sin, Augustine’s notion of sin raises doubts, because it is constructed at least as much on the thought of God as the supreme and true being (summum and verum esse) as on that of his goodness (bonum esse). Although the stamp of guilt is not wholly misunderstood, yet it is the thought of the misery produced by sin with its destructiveness and hideousness that comes to the front. Hence we understand why Augustine, passing over justifying faith, perceived the highest good in “infused love” (caritas infusa). (8) Finally the doctrine of the primitive state is beset by inconsistency, because Augustine could not avoid giving grace another meaning in that state from that it possessed in the process by which the redeemed is justified. With him grace is ultimately identical with irresistible grace—anything else is a semblance of it; but though Adam possessed grace, it was not irresistible.

But all these grave objections cannot obscure the greatness of the perception that God works in us “to will and to accomplish,” that we have nothing that we have not received, and that dependence on God is good, and is our possession. It is easy to show that in every single objectionable theory formulated by Augustine, there lurks a true phase of Christian self-criticism, which is only defective because it projects into history, or is made the foundation on which to construct a “history.” Is not the doctrine of predestination an expression of the confession: “He who would boast, let him boast in the Lord”? Is not the doctrine of original sin based on the thought that behind all separate sins there resides sin as want of love, joy, and divine peace? Does it not express the just view that we feel ourselves guilty of all evil, even where we are shown that we have no guilt?