{"id":10378,"date":"2011-09-07T13:23:57","date_gmt":"2011-09-07T13:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/09\/07\/whats-wrong-with-pelagianism\/"},"modified":"2011-09-07T13:23:57","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T13:23:57","slug":"whats-wrong-with-pelagianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2011\/09\/07\/whats-wrong-with-pelagianism\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Wrong with Pelagianism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

You will be forgiven (by me, anyway) for finding the doctrine of Original Sin (OS) in its Augustinian form  absurd.  For it seems to entail a logical contradiction.  The originality<\/em> of OS seems to conflict with its sinfulnness<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n

To start with the sinfulness part. If my having done (or having failed to do) X is a sin, then my having done (or having failed to do) X is something for which I am morally responsible.  But I am morally responsible for an act or omission only if I could have done otherwise.  But if I could have done otherwise, then it cannot be essential to me (part of my nature as a human being) that I sin (or be in a sinful condition, or be guilty).  Whatever guilt accrued to someone in the past (Adam or anyone else) in virtue of his misdeeds is his affair alone and is not chargeable to my moral bank account.<\/span><\/p>\n

To put it anachronistically, there was a Kantian follower of Pelagius by the name of Coelestius who maintained that man cannot be held responsible for keeping a law or achieving an ideal if he lacks the capacity to do so.  As Reinhold Niebuhr (The Nature and Destiny of Man<\/em>, 1941, p. 247) writes:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Thus the Kantian "I ought therefore I can"  is neatly anticipated in the argument of Coelestius:  "We have to inquire whether whether a man is commanded to be without sin; for either he is unable so to live and then there is no such commandment; or else if there be such a commandment he has the ability."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

On the other hand, if there is such a thing as original<\/em> sin, then sinfulness is essential to me, 'inscribed into my very essence' as a French writer might put it. For original sin is not the sin of Adam and Eve only, but the sin of all of us.  Adam is just as much Man as a man; Eve is just as much Woman as a woman.  We are all guilty of original sin.<\/span><\/p>\n

And so OS seems to entail that sinfulness both is and is not essential to me.  And that is a contradiction.<\/span><\/p>\n

We might essay a Pelagian escape route by modifying our understanding of the doctrine in the following way.  OS is not, strictly speaking, a sin <\/em>but refers to a sort of structural flaw or weakness, one to be found in each and every human being, which predisposes us to actual sin but is not itself a sin or a state of sinfulness for a postlapsarian man or woman. This predisposition might be ascribed to the hebetude of the flesh or the inertia of nature.  Whatever its source, it is not in our power.  Hence we are not responsible for it and not guilty in virtue of it.  It does not interfere with our free will or make impossible self-perfection.  There is no inherited guilt.  Perhaps the structural flaw under which we all labor is the result of someone's sin in the past; but if it is we are not morally responsible for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps Pelagianism has its own difficulties?<\/span> <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You will be forgiven (by me, anyway) for finding the doctrine of Original Sin (OS) in its Augustinian form  absurd.  For it seems to entail a logical contradiction.  The originality of OS seems to conflict with its sinfulnness.  To start with the sinfulness part. If my having done (or having failed to do) X is … Continue reading “What’s Wrong with Pelagianism?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,496],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-doctrine","category-original-sin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10378\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}