St. Augustine V.S. Pelagius: Back to The Fathers Episode 1

guys the live stream you are about to watch is a production from the remnant radio the faces on the show may be new to you it's not michael michael and i it's actually josh hoffert father ron and matthew esquivel for the past couple of years they have been helping us produce content here on remnant radio but we feel it's our responsibility to provide valuable resources when it comes to church history and i think the best way for us to do that is empower other creators to produce content on our platform so what we've been having in this discussion for years frankly and it's finally come to fruition so for the next 12 weeks they will be your host as we guide through the early church what did the early church fathers believe and practice and and did what they have to say then affect our lives today it's going to be an exciting series you guys it's going to be amazing i'm going to turn you over into the faithful hands of these men of god without further ado josh take it away hey welcome everybody to the remnant radio my name is josh hawford and this is the first time i've been able to say that um i'm with the remnant radio here instead of representing something else so this is this is really fun and hopefully that it's not too jarring of a transition from josh lewis to joshua hofford and so the uh the first time we're able to do this and welcome to the uh the back to the fathers is the series that we're starting and we're i'm super excited for this and we've been going through planning for this and we've been talking about this and and obviously if you've watched any of the episodes that we've been part of whether it's matthew esquivel myself or father ron um you know that our our we really resonate with the teachings of the early church and think it's very important to look at these things and so i'm going to turn it over in just a moment to matthew esquivel this is a man that i've learned so much from just listening to some of the episodes he's done earlier and matt why why tell us a little about yourself and then tell us why why is it important for us to look at the early fathers and and why are we doing something like this yeah no great question so my name is matthew esquivel or matt um all my family calls me matt and all my a lot of a lot of other folks call me matthew so either way um on this show um i am i'm working on my doctoral studies right now in the history of early christianity i've just really been drawn to the early church for a number of years now and really what drew me personally was that it just that i i found within the church fathers not only just a real richness and depth of theological reflection but but discussing issues that we see theological issues that we see today in the church what about the nature of christ his divinity his humanity grace and free will all those things there's a lot of theological questions at play that i think the fathers have a lot to offer us and what i really love about all the early church fathers is all of them were deeply involved in the pastoral ministry so these just weren't a bunch of academic armchair theologians these were men and women that were deeply involved in the works of ministry in pastoral affairs we're baptizing we're giving giving the lord supper administering the sacraments and they uh their theological insights they saw play out in the um in their own congregations and so i've just really been drawn to them i think that's a real reason that we want to look back to the fathers and that's that's why we called it this show and you know there's something real significant to me too as i as i began my masters and doctoral studies on studying the fathers what they believed about salvation the work of the holy spirit in the life of the church um i had a good friend of mine just as i was telling her about the pursuit of my studies she said matthew you're you're going back to the fathers and when she said that she was directly referencing uh um malachi and luke were that that before the lord returns elijah would come he would turn the hearts of the father to the children and the children to the fathers or as luke puts it turn the disobedient to the wisdom of the just and i think that there's some kind of call on this generation i really believe this in my heart that that he's turning the this generation the church back to the earlier generations as as a resource to look at their teachings look at their lives not that they got it all right but it's it's let's look back here and let's look for the wisdom of some of these men and women and really see how it can impact our lives and prepare us make ready a people for the lord's return yeah that's awesome matt i you know i've one of the things that i started studying a number of years ago were the lives of the desert fathers and that was so impactful to me especially the wisdom and the practicality that they approached the spiritual life through that i was left with a question of why wasn't i taught these things girl i was i grew up in a charismatic circle and the the earliest real church reference for if it wasn't luther there was barely anything before that but the earliest church reference tended to be the early 1900s with azusa street and the pentecostal revival of the early 20th century and that was kind of the extent of church history and um and so coming across these things have been so transformative for me and seeing that right hey there's there's i i actually feel like i'm part of something much greater than myself um and in a way i look at as i've as i've kind of bright broadened my you know my scope of friends and the people that i've um engaged in conversations with and and things of that nature having uh launched a podcast out my way up in canada with my friend who's an anglican priest up here um that i in a way i'm jealous of father ron uh because the anglican tradition of course has carried a love for the patristics and um and so i do i there's times where i look at that and um go man i just i just i wish i would have seen some of that stuff earlier in my christian walk and so um so father ron is an anglican priest and uh corey he's like basically uh the coolest thing that we have on the show so i don't know how you've got it's like how can you wear one shirt all the time and still be so cool i just don't understand how that and he rocks it look at him and he rocks it that's right yeah that's right uh i just can't explore anything else yeah there we go do you have different colored colors though right is that no all right oh wait there's not a there's not a black collar and a blue collar and no you know different levels of martial arts white collar right oh all my color yeah there are no no that's right as you're joining us on this journey with back to the fathers we're all just getting to know each other as well so i'm looking forward to the next 12 weeks as we get to know father ron uh and i get to know matt as well and so uh father ron tell us what what is is it part of the anglican tradition i know i know that you've had some charismatic influence in there but has it been part of the anglican tradition that introduced you to a love of the fathers what's been your background in that sense and then um i know you there's we have a couple really interesting shows coming up not just interesting but fascinating if you ask me um so maybe you could tell us a little bit about what we have uh up and coming and if you want to take a second like and subscribe that's what you're supposed to do when it comes to youtube shows and comment positive comments and comment yeah ask us questions ask questions yes that's right that's right well yeah i'm happy to talk about the anglican tradition as it relates to the fathers of course when you talk about the anglican tradition you could say there's lots of different strands of the anglican tradition it's it's hardly a monolithic or homogeneous tradition but the the strand in which i was raised and how i trained for the priesthood was very much uh kind of saturated with the study of the early church fathers and one could say that uh classical anglicanism if you want to call it that really has just sought to uh continue what the early church fathers have started how successful have we been well depends on where you go and it depends on on who you are but really i learned about the fathers at first without really learning about the fathers i sort of learned that all of the things that i was doing just as a regular matter of church and spiritual practice had their roots uh in the in the patristic era and things like the the weekly celebration of the eucharist and the manner in which we celebrated the eucharist uh the manner in which we set our daily prayers the different periods of fasting in the church all of those things i got to seminary started studying the early church fathers and realized oh okay this is what we've been doing all along so seminary was a great opportunity to kind of delve deeper into that and uh so i'm super excited to be a part of this uh like you both have said i'm excited to get to know joshua and matthew and learn from their experience and the things that they're learning from the early church fathers and we have a lot of great episodes uh lined up one of the things that we're going to be doing on this show are theological fight nights and basically we're going to be looking at some of the great controversies that have taken place in the history of the church there are a lot of doctrines that christians believe across the board today that we kind of take for granted and it may come as a surprise to some of us that those doctrines will really forge and articulated out of a period of great uh controversy and conflict we're going to do some other episodes that are just related to how did the fathers live the spiritual life one upcoming is going to be called fire in the fireplace which is to say how how did the fathers practice their relationship with god uh today there's a lot of tension between say spontaneity in the christian life and liturgy and form and structure in the christian life and the fathers uh seemed in most cases to uh live in in both of those realms where they had a vibrant vibrant spiritual life a very living connection with god uh and with jesus christ and with the holy spirit and yet they also lived within these emerging structures and forms of liturgy and spiritual habits and practices so we're going to be looking at uh at that as well we're also going to be looking at what can studying the fathers teach us about some of the modern practices and experiences that we have today so for instance prophecy prophecy is a big topic and a big practice particularly in the charismatic church today what did the early church fathers have to say about that how did they discern between good prophecies and false prophecies so it's really really exciting uh we hope that that you all enjoy what we're going to be talking about and that you're enriched in your spiritual life through it so josh what are we going to be talking about today well today's episode is um a very pertinent episode and it's uh it's a topic that people talk about people are talking about um and that is essentially the debate between the free will of man and the sovereignty of god and so one of the one of the reasons why we again we say it's so important to get back to the fathers is because this is not a new debate this isn't a debate that's uh just happening today though it is happening today particularly some well-known theologians are going back and forth on these types of topics um people are picking apart what augustine said what calvin said um and then what pelagius has said what arminius has said and and so it's not it's not as if we are unearthing an argument or another thing a topic that is uh ancient in the sense that we've never heard about it anymore or it's something that's been buried and we're just going hey let's look at this archaic thing and uh there's no pertinence to it today it's it's actually something that's been a theological debate throughout church history and so these are these are incredibly pertinent things and today we're looking at the debate that happened between augustine and pelagius uh two early figures and um it's it's gonna be it's it's our first theological fight night the fight between augustine on one hand and the sovereignty of god and how the grace of god impacts humanity and then pelagius on the other hand uh does man have the free will to turn his heart to god and so um so if you have questions please comment in the chat we'll be uh taking a look at that and doing what we can to answer those questions uh we look forward to that and um and comment and let uh father ron know how much you love his shirt so um [Laughter] he'll be the his he might be the poster boy for the back to the father he looks more like a father so you know he's got a couple years on both of us yeah so so matt why don't you tell us a little bit about augustine and pelagius what who were these i mean most people have probably heard of augustine uh augustine of hippo i had uh one particular friend of mine asked me if he was a wrestler in the wwf he was he was joking this is a pastor friend he was joking it was pretty funny comment um augustine augustine of hippo and uh and most people have heard of augustine the greater saint augustine but but maybe less people have heard of pelagius and who pelagius is so why don't you give us an overview of those and then we'll just dive into the what was the actual debate what what are why are we talking about this and why is it important okay awesome awesome well augustine augustine augustine um sorry you know that's okay both are my comments my informal training both are both are super common so i i'm used to augustine but uh if you say augustine that's uh they're i think there's an equal number of people that say augustine so i just i blame i blame uh first or second grade english on putting the e at the end of the of the name so that's all right that's right so uh so augustin of hippo he was a church leader a bishop actually had oversight over a a congregation in a region called um hippo in in the roman province of north africa during the fourth century so during the fourth century north africa kind of modern day that just the all those northern countries of of north africa in the present day um algeria liberia and so forth that just stretch across that that northern border of africa in the fourth century that was ruled by by the empire of rome and so it was very roman cultured but also had a lot of local african cultures ingrained with it as well um so augustine he um he he was he converted to christianity in his adult years and um he writes about it in his famous book the confessions which i highly encourage everybody to read if you're kind of like what what good books from the early church should i read confessions i believe should be at the top of your list it's really our first ancient autobiography that we have and it's written as a prayer to god about his whole journey in life and god's involvement in his life and his conversion so he's famous for writing books like the confessions the city of god book on the trinity um and his writings on the grace of god and he's he's also famous for being right in the thick of a number of theological controversies during his day particularly uh uh debates with uh a gnostic sect during his time called the manikins augustine was a part their sect at one time and then when he met the the the leader of the sect he was not impressed at all and that uh he talked more about that in confessions and he spent a good number of writings refuting manichaean arguments and just the gnosticism and mythology um and heresies that were involved in that sect he was also known for the for playing a center piece in this what was called the donatus controversy there was a huge church schism and split that happened in north africa in the early fourth century but really wasn't resolved until um until uh early to mid 5th century and so in augustine did a lot of writings um against this uh this schismatic sect of christians in north africa he's known of course what we'll talk more about today is for his deep involvement in the pelagian controversy on and his doctrine of grace of freedom and human nature and so we'll uh we'll hit on all that today and then of course he's he has a number of writings against the pagans you know he's he's in a culture where the pagan culture is still um is still practiced and he's witnesses witnesses the fall of rome and a number of pagans crying out saying rome fell because we turned to this christian god and we forsook the gods of our ancestors and that's what he spends 22 books in the city of god refuting that claim um so he's known as the doctor of grace and so a lot of his teachings on grace were were very from very early on adopted within western christianity and played a very important role in the reformation a number of the reformers when it came to their theological arguments augustine besides the bible um was um was was the most referenced church father in these theological debates on justification the grace of god on the sacraments and on the nature of the church so that's augustine pelagius he is so chose a british monk go ahead just to clarify by the way because i'm reading some of the comments that we have here this is pelagius p-e-l-a-g-i-u-s not darth plagueis from star wars just not making sure that i don't know they could be and and we appreciate the star wars fans for sure as theological nerds those things seem to go hand in hand but pelagius was definitely not in a galaxy far far away at least he was not a sith lord either but he did have some questionable theology that's for sure so um he's he's a british monk fifth century he was preaching a theology of moral renewal this appealed to a lot of aristocrats um but he was preaching moral renewal in such a way that brought a lot of concerns to augustine because pelagius talked about human nature in a way that that humanity has a capacity granted by god to be able to choose evil or choose good and we'll get more into that in a few moments but what augustine was really worried about his teaching is saying pelagius you're you're basing our salvation on human works which the scriptures teach very vehemently against and so um and so augustine again writes a number of treatises over the course of years they were in a heated theological debate from about 411 to 418 a.d in 418 there's a church council in carthage it was the main ecclesial center of north africa the primary church um oversight region of all of the all of rome and north africa and in this council in carthage pelagius is teaching are they're condemned and many of augustine's teachings uh are affirmed later councils especially the second council of orange we'd say orange um it's probably more pronounced or something like that but um i won't try to impress you with my french because you won't be impressed at all but that was that was in 529 and this council the second council of orange it would reinforce many of these condemnations of pelagian teaching and what would later be known as semi-pelagian teachings so kind of diet pelagius teaching you know they wanted to get rid of that as well um and it would again affirm many of augustine's teachings all these councils would however is interesting to note which hopefully we'll get to talk to talk about more at the end is that they would be hesitant to affirm some of augustine's later views on predestination and the efficacy of grace um when the grace of god is granted to a human soul does it always 100 of a time move that human being to conversion and salvation or can the human being receive the grace of god and say no thank you um those are some issues that will come up so matthew if i could hop in here for a minute just ask a question okay augustine left behind voluminous writings that we still have access to today right right we're still getting more translated actually now there are recently discovered sermons even the past 20 or so years 20 30 years they're still getting so what access do we have to pelagius views from his own hand or do we right right we do have pelagius's famous letter to demetrius a woman that was joining a convent and that's really what sparked a lot of the controversy there and um he did that's really the only writing i know of that we have from his own hand everything else we really know from augustine's writings or from or from the councils that have condemned pelagian teaching um there was he did do augustine will refer to different works that he did on grace and free will um that we don't unfortunately don't have today but um augustine uh you know if we trust augustine he's put it he's put it pretty much verbatim yeah augustine was uh no um not afraid to fully quote long passages of his opponents and then refute them with even longer passage so that's really what we have today yeah and some look at that and say oh that's one-sided we don't really have a lot of what pelagian's plagia says but you we look at that letter to demetrius that we do have um i don't have the book in front of me now but oh actually yeah dude you can find it here if you want to get this volume on theological anthropology um sources of early christian thought um you're welcome sources of early christian thought for the free plug here but um but you'll find the letter uh a translation of play just letter to demetrius there and it is very telling it you could see why augustine is concerned in my opinion just from that one short letter it it seems to me matt that when you look at most of the most of the councils um i don't think i'm saying anything um uh thought-provoking here is that the arguments tended to be over the nature of god or the nature of man um and uh you know largely the nature of god and um flowing from there how does that impact our humanity which is uh seems very much so what augustine and pelagius were going on so with with pelagia pelagian you mentioned semi-pelagianism and which is of uh particular interest to me because of um the the some of the influence of john cassian and evagrius in the desert father tradition which would be right right you know if there's there's definitely some of that thought there um what can you define those things what did pelagius teach and then what did later people take his teaching and kind of water it down and teach right right no that's a good question um you know if it's okay i'm gonna i'm gonna interject just a quick prayer here because i know this is this is a we're a theology podcast we want to pray for the holy spirit to bring understanding here but uh this is this is a this is something a lot of us wrestle with and i just want to pray the holy spirit just help us as we talk about this so um so father in jesus name i thank you for the holy spirit who leads us into all truth and father i i ask for the spirit of wisdom revelation to come to us now a spirit of understanding that lord our heart is to know what jesus and the apostles taught on these matters and we're so thankful that we get to talk about folks like augustine and pelagius and lord i pray you help us for especially those of us that are new to this help us understand what's going on here what's at stake in this and lord um that we would really learn from whatever wisdom that uh that fathers like augustine have to offer on this subject and lord um that it would draw us into deeper relationship and dialogue with jesus in a searching of the scriptures in jesus name we pray amen amen amen amen all right so um so pelagius just a little bit too just to kind of back up a bit what what they're basically what augustine and pelagius are basically arguing about is um grace freedom and human nature what has god granted as part of human nature in terms of choosing good and evil what did god endow humanity with in genesis 1 when it turned when it comes to choosing good and evil and what's deficient in human nature um especially since the fall that would require the grace of god to help him so something that's beyond our nature part of something that's beyond what god gave us as far as our capacity as a human being that we would need a divine assistance to divine help of some kind to do to attain and can basically can humanity choose good or evil on their own and so um what we'll notice about pelagius and augustine is they um they'll all affirm both of them will affirm the need for the grace of god they'll affirm the freedom of humanity and they'll um uh but they'll have different definitions of both different definition of grace different definition of freedom and perhaps even more so a disagreement on the state of human nature after the fall so let's uh let's jump into what pelagia says pardon me is that i'm not used to these in-ears here if it looks like i'm you know wearing these giant you know what you call them hearing aids they kind of aren't hearing aids but anyway i i probably have them in backwards they usually say r and l on them but i can't find it on these things i just thought i thought they were uh plugs like uh you had so uh you had widened your uh the earlobe so much with uh earpieces oh my goodness no i do have some handy earplugs that blue earplugs that i use for worship you know charismatic churches like to really blare that music and drown out all those of us who maybe don't sing on key all the time but anyway there you go but uh praise god for ample amplified sound so let's get back to pelagius what did pelagius think about these things about grace about freedom about human nature uh basically pelagius would teach that god has granted humanity these great gifts in his goodness and we ought to be thankful for him first of all pelagius would say god has granted us our created nature genesis 1 says that god created these things and he looked at them and said it was good and so um so our created nature pelagius would say is basically good because god made it um secondly as part of that nature which has been given to us created by god um part of that nature is that we have free will we're and and to pelagius free will means we have the ability to choose between good and evil freedom means i can choose if i want to sin or obey god and that is a basic definition of freedom for pelagius augustine will conceive of this quite differently thirdly god has given us pelagius would say specific instructions to help us obey him he's given us the mosaic law that he gave to ancient israel his commandments were given and in pelagius's um understanding is that that the the obedience to the mosaic law was attainable our human nature like by just by the fact that we are created with a good nature by god that we are and we have a free will that we that the israelites were able um to obey the mosaic law he he will affirm however that that specific instruction about how to what to believe and how to live our lives so that was completed and perfected by jesus christ and so he still wants to elevate the teachings of jesus above the teachings of moses in the mosaic law um but he still will say that humanity is part of our human nature we can choose that good or evil um basically pelagius is saying god's given us all that we need to live a holy life so get to it you know be holy for i am holy says the lord um and uh and and i think it's helpful too to talk about how pele just understood sin he talked his sin frequently as as corrupt habits um you know we do something bad and we um keep doing it we uh we are uh we've developed a corrupt habit a bad habit um name any sin of any time um murder lust fear um any kind of disobedience to god uh and um but this this hole or this this pit of bad habits we've gotten ourselves into um god has given our nature god has endowed us with such a nature that we can get ourselves out of it and it's especially helpful that god's given us specific instruction through the mosaic law and through the teaching and example of christ so even though we might become addicted to sin and climbing out may not be easy the more corrupt our habits are and though it may require some help from some wise and experienced leaders unlike moses or like jesus or like pelagius um we can overcome them you know he's writing in this letter to demetrius you know this woman seems to have lived a pretty holy and upright life and he's basically telling her in this letter stick to it because if you go down the bad path you can come out but it's it's gonna be a lot of pain a lot of heartache and so you don't want to go there so keep your slate clear as best as possible um he uh you know he read um he read romans three galatians two you know talks about we're justified by faith not by the works of the law he wants to say this is these these are to be taken in respect to jewish observances this is not to be taken pelagius would say in respect to um to it to make a claim that faith without works of righteousness is saving pelagius works of righteousness was very important it was not enough to just believe in god it's just that your life had to demonstrate um the commandments of god um or else you were not saved and actually augustine will in his own way agree with this um but also talk about it quite differently um on other points so um pelagius uh comes across augustine's confessions again i highly recommend you're going to read a work of an early church father get augustine's confessions um you can you can this is a recent translation but you can you can get this thing for like five to ten bucks um it's uh been widely published but uh in confessions augustine talks about his own conversion experience and his own struggle with sin specifically sexual sin augustine was a he was a womanizer he slept around with a lot of women and and later in life as he starts getting introduced to other christians um he is uh starts hearing this preaching and teaching of the famous bishop ambrose in in italy and even just the his encounters with his very devout mother and her prayers he is starting to turn the tide and wanting to be free of the sexual sin but the way he casts it in in confessions is that even when he was wanting to be free of it he wasn't he was struggling with all these conflicting impulses i i want to but but i don't i don't want to be free i don't i and and and i want to but i i can't be free i feel these other impulses just taking over me um and then he he describes his convergent experience in a way that's just the grace of god moves on his heart god's um um he hears a child um in the garden saying uh i'm saying pick it up and read it and he happens to have the book of romans in front of him and he picks up and opens to romans 13 to put on the lord jesus christ and do not gratify the desires of the flesh put them off and so and he says in that moment says there was such a turning and such a conversion that happened in that moment and and and again the ways to summarize ways casket in confessions is that um sin had so powerfully dominated him that it took an act of the grace of god and for augustine that meant some movement of the holy spirit in the human soul that effectively turns the will from evil to good and and that that so that we need that kind of grace we need that kind of action of the holy spirit effectively moving when i say effectively moving i mean when the holy spirit moves in the heart it will move in that direction there is no resistance um and um and and he's casting that not only in terms of conversion but also in terms of uh uh just our our our our life of holiness so pelagius reads this and he's like augustine's understanding of grace it's just like it's all up to god on how holy i become and it it discourages any attempt to for moral reform or to embrace this ascetic lifestyle this monk lifestyle the fasting of prayer of waking up at midnight not eating for four days and praying for two hours and then going back to sleep and praying for two or three more and so forth so he's just saying this is this theology of grace that augustine's proposing is producing lazy and media mediocre christians we need to get up we need to apply ourselves we need to start fasting and praying and get into the business of being holy because god has given us a nature that's capable of doing so so he's got a legitimate concern for moral degradation i mean the scriptures say without holiness no one will see the lord but um so he wants people to get to it get again he is holy be holy god's given you this nature you've got all you need so do it that's pelagius's view in a nutshell with so with with um what you were saying i'm wondering what obviously not having a lot of what pelagius wrote uh of course that's true of many of the uh looking at the the debate between um uh was it i don't know not not important um right anybody it's true yeah not a lot of i know it's true of many of those yeah exactly it's true of many of those so what is there could you nail down what pelagius thought about why jesus had to die on the cross right that is very difficult to account for in his letter to demetrius he makes reference to the blood of christ and how that's in some way helped us it's not to uh here's things that are not clear about pelagius one is how the fall of of adam and eve of humanity how that affected human nature did it have any effect at all um did is is the consequence of the fall merely physical death or did it in some way make it harder for us to obey god um in any way shape or form so you don't really see much account for that in the writings that we have from pelagius and even in augustine's refutations uh pelagius um what we also don't see is a lot of account for the the mediation of christ jesus christ the one mediator between god and humanity what that did for us did the blood of christ atone for sin did the indwelling spirit in some way empower us in a greater way to obey um to obey god and walk out his commandments now pelagius will say that again that jesus christ that his teaching and his example provide the best kind of instruction we could possibly have so you open up the four gospels there and all the new testament teachings about christ and and his teachings handed down from the apostles that's that is the best thing that we have to really reform our lives it's not really clear again on anything inward that occurred from the death and resurrection the ascension of christ and the outpouring of the holy spirit into our hearts and this is these are the very things that will concern augustine about his teaching so basically for for pelagius then sin is something that uh is kind of embedded into our moral character through repetition rather than something that flows out of an interior corruption that's what he seems to be saying okay um now he will go on and say uh he was he was condemned at the council of carthage in 418. um his his teachings a number just line by line if anyone says this if anyone says and i mean that's that's just basically saying pelagius pelagians did do a public recanting um saying things like you know without the grace of god we cannot be saved um and he would he would condemn anyone that argues otherwise and so you actually had some attempts of reconciliation you know he had some friends of pelagius who knew augustine that were you know saying hey augustine pelagius is he seems to be recanting here can we kind of you know can you dial down on all your like extensive anti-pelagian writings you know and reconcile a little bit because he said you know without the grace of god you know salvation is impossible and i condemn anyone who says otherwise something of that effect but augustine says you know what i don't buy it he's saying this publicly but here's a letter he just published even after his condemnation and here how here's how he's defining grace here's how he's he's he's he's saying he's still saying even after his public apology that grace is is not something apart from human nature he's saying that human nature that in creation god granted humanity the ability um to um to as to faith and good works to ascent to faith and to do good works apart from this help of the holy spirit working on the inside of the human soul so augustine's still unsatisfied saying look sin is just how you put it father wrong sin sin is is is something that you're just embedded in you by repetition there's no real account in pelagius for how the fall which romans 5 romans chapter 5 will talk about very extensively how that affected human nature at all and for augustine he reads romans 5 and says look when adam's sin olsened the death spread to all men and pelagius has no account for this the uh at one point augustine says i think i think you were saying in he wrote the treatise on the letter the spirit let the treatise on the letter and the spirit was a response to pelagian and i know he says in rome i think it's in his comment on romans 2 is it romans 2 where uh it says that some people become a law under themselves because they do the thing according to the law without knowing the law um you know paul says something along those lines in romans 2 and augustine essentially says this is only owing to the fact that we are created in the image of god and so there's some there's some vestiges of that image left after the fall he says something to that that effect we can't we can't accredit it to the goodness of humanity uh of doing that we can accredit it to the fact that we're made in his image and sometimes we stumble into it um yeah and so just just how how did augustine what were his points against pelagius i mean you've laid out very clearly what pelagius seemed to have taught of course we can't say for certain some of the things because we don't have we can you can't speak from silence you know it's hard to speak from silence but but what was his response and then uh and then maybe how did that response influence uh was that response incredibly influential on calvin and calvin's view of um you know we got down to the argument that we come today which is basically people that are just reformed or frustrated with reformed theology seem to want to proof text things but uh maybe we'll get into that right where we're right now those are there's a lot to talk about there you might have to interject you know that's like what you you like jumping to calvin you know i'm sure a lot of listeners are interested there well yeah that's kind of where the debate actually falls for most people moderately is calvin yeah cal and i think it is basically people are frustrated with reformed theology yeah that's my in my opinion and so they're right they're making arguments that might not actually be there so how did augustine respond to pelagius and how might that even uh um influence the reformers right we're right so um augustine's basic argument against pelagius is that salvation is by grace alone sola grazia it's a gift of god from beginning to end for for augustine pelagius's view allows for pride pelagius of view on augustine's reading says i did it i gained my salvation i exerted my human effort and strength to obey god to believe god to do works of righteousness it would be pleasing to god and this would grant me salvation as as a reward for this faith and works that i have done on my own apart from god um so that's that's prideful for augustine um and and augustine um again how he he's saying it's by grace alone but it's also how he understands grace and how that's different from pledges again for pelagius grace means you know god put within our human nature a basic goodness and the ability to choose between good and evil for augustine grace is primarily an interior work of god in the human soul it's transformative um it's he does affirm that grace is god's outward disposition towards us that of favor of unmerited favor but augustine's primary description of grace is the interior act of divine assistance for the human being and you'll see this in augustine's writings he'll use the words divine assistance or divine help or help from god is synonymous with grace and what he what he means by that again is something very deeply internal that the holy spirit is inside the human soul moving it to do to choose the good um that's um that's grace for augusta grace is what's above nature you know since for augustine after the fall um the will of humanity um became such that it could never choose the good without this interior act of grace from god in the human being that the fall had so broken and corrupted humanity that it is not possible within our own nature apart from this grace of god apart from this interior divine assistance moving our will to will the good um that it's not possible without that um you know in later works of augustine his later writings um within the next you know five to ten years from the from uh in the in the 420s for uh early mid-four twenties um he'll talk about this interior work of grace as it's always efficacious that it does the job every time the holy spirit moves in matthew's heart to um to say yes to god to believe in god that it will happen that there is nothing in matthew that can resist that movement matthew will not say no to that movement if the holy spirit moves if grace moves in matthew's heart he will say yes 100 of the time that's how powerful the grace of god is um and you know there are some concerns that rise with that you know um pelagius you know he's well you know god gives us commands you know to do if he's if he's commanding us to do something but they're impossible to do without this interior divine assistance that augustine is talking about um i mean what what's up with that like why would god command the impossible um are we responsible for sin pelagius would ask if we can't choose god without him effectively moving us to choose the good um and then in a sense if that's the case augustine why even try why even exert any effort why fast why pray some some monks you know some that uh were sent augustine some letters you know later on saying you know augustine you're teaching on grace is making me worry if i should even be a monk you know or if i should even rebuke a monk you know because if i if i'm rebuking an unruly monk you know it's not going to do anything unless this interior divine assistance is moving in their heart so maybe i should just step back and pray for them and let them run amok and whatever issue is going on um and augustine says no no you've totally misunderstood me augustine will say you know god he does use these into his exterior actions he does use the preaching of the word he uses the sacraments he uses a praying mother he he uses um the uh stumbling across the writing from uh from the biography of anthony the great the great um father of monasticism um and uh he uses these external things um but he will simon simultaneously um provide an interior act of grace as that exterior action is happening um to move somebody so he's saying no monks you can still rebuke each other and we should still pray in fact what's what's so amazing about how augustine talks about grace is that uh uh and this this is a problem some people have with reformation theology it's if god is so sovereign in this sense why pray why why do anything why not just sit back and let god do whatever he wants and just kind of sit along for the ride i mean that's basic there's there's a lot of issues with that argument right there that any good calvinist could respond to i'm sure but um augustine is what's so clear in his writings is saying no the fact that we need the grace of god should cause us to pray for the grace of god it should say god if we're struggling in an area of sin we should say god give me grace give me help move my will strengthen my will to will this good because it's imperfect and it's weak right now and so it's just so interesting to read augustine and how much his theology of grace actually moves him to greater prayer and devotion instead of away from it um so um and he uses a number of scriptural arguments he uses the liturgy the the practice of the church and he uses his own experience to defend it i'm just going to shoot a few scriptures here he he refers to repeatedly in a lot of his works against the pelagians first corinthians 1 31 let him who boasts boasts into the lord boasts unto the lord boast in the lord excuse me um nothing about our salvation should be something that we can say i did it so it has for augustine it says it ha all the credit has to go to god proverbs 8 35 says that god shapes the human will um and he looks at proverbs 8 35 and says because god shapes the human will we should pray to god to shape our will to his will and there's a number of verses in the psalms um you know psalm 119 inclined my heart to obey your law augustine's saying if if if it were um if it were possible for human for human beings in their own nature to obey god then why is this why are the scriptures full of prayers asking for divine assistance and in augustine we go even further to say that desire to even pray for grace is evidence of an act of grace the holy spirit's already moving and working in matthew's heart when he says god i'm weak i'm broken i really want to obey you in this area but i'm struggling help me grace is already operating and the fact that i'm asking for grace is evidence that i need grace in order to obey the lord um sorry question yeah matthew if i could just hop in for a second uh so the debate between augustine and pelagius uh you mentioned a number of councils that dealt with this question and those were all local councils so is this controversy something that's just confined uh to the west and the reason i ask is because saint augustine is something that a lot of eastern orthodox christians they don't really know what to do with they either just hate him outright or or they they ignore him he is still a canonized saint on their calendar and yet they don't have a lot of use for his writings on grace and predestination and and things like that is this a western kind of controversy uh was this even a thing or a problem uh in the east it definitely started as local councils at the council of carthage um the council of orange but you also had um [Music] other you had uh the bishop of rome uh uh what's the word i'm looking for um affirm these teachings and so that was huge for the west um in in the fifth century you had an increasing theology and practice of the supremacy of the bishop of rome um namely coming from rome itself um but um but he had he he already had a lot of influence in the early church um in the early centuries the bishop of rome was frequently appealed to to adjudicate in matters but in the fifth century you start getting this move um especially with um uh under um under popplio which is another discussion but um that for for this primacy of rome as as um as ahead of all bishops and so um again that's a whole other issue between the east and west there but my point is that the bishop of rome by the 5th century held a very large amount of influence and so if he affirmed something as as truth as true teaching even if it was a local council it it went on the map um overnight so um is this a problem in the east um you know i do focus most of my study on western theology it is it is an issue and there is that whole what do we do with augustine and some would really favor augustine and start integrating his the eastern theologians would integrate his theology um but there does the east was definitely a lot more hesitant to assert especially augustine's later teachings on um on the efficacy of grace when the grace of god moves in the human heart is it going to move it 100 of the time or does the human being have some is is the human being able to reject that grace in some way if it moves in his or her heart um and um so so the the east would hesitate to affirm that teaching and the teachings on on predestination i'm from augustine and in the east even with calvin i mean the the eastern orthodox church of that time found calvin's teachings on on double predation predestination completely abominable um so it is um but it the the the west was seemed to seem to be extremely concerned about this um up to the present and so i wouldn't say it's insignificant in the east but it is definitely um you get a lot more writings on it in the western church gosh we're already coming to a close here i know we're getting close to that just a couple more minutes um this scene it seems to me that this i mean i could think of some i'm just thinking of a book i read a while back um by william law of a priest in the church of england um and he was concerned about not augustine was solo gratia right that's the that's the term for him and then the sola fide was the reformers right um but the same kind of uh the same kind of concerns seem to come up again and again that pastoral concern of right if we affirm this uh and i think i mean today we have uh the the the hyper grace we talk about or the free grace movement where i i well grace is freely given and so i don't i don't actually need uh there's no need for any kind of change in my behavior if god is freely given he'll freely forgive me so it seems to me that these kind of thought process aren't just relegated to augustine and pelagius and both of them approached it from a very pastoral perspective right what are we of what not just so much what i mean yes it's what are we affirming about the nature of grace but in what way is this going to impact the people that we're leading and teaching um and and so i wonder if you can comment just on in our last couple of minutes just on the the present how this helps us in the present day to understand you know what what aspect i think i think both or i think augustine would definitely affirm the free will of a person to choose to pray to grace and that to pray for grace as you said in that sense but just how does that intersect with our with our everyday today and how do those pastoral concerns play out today right we're right i mean i think i think there's got to be an intimate connection between theology and and and practice how does this um what are we saying about god what are we saying about what the fault did and what we need to overcome sin i think in a in a very again i think that's where pelagius is deficient there he's um you hear pelagius and you see this in the modern day in a lot of holiness movements we see a strong emphasis on um on us being holy as god is holy which the scriptures teach without holiness no one can see the lord be holy as he is holy um these are these are not unscriptural teachings but the way it's taught can often be in a term that is um in my opinion could be very legalistic very burdensome that really puts the um the the weight of someone's ability to overcome sin completely on them and it's in it and as a pastor i've seen just a lot of people that really are truly genuinely desiring to overcome some particular sin area of their life pornography is a big one i mean there's so much guilt and shame and condemnation accompanies um accompanies pornography masturbation and things like that now i'm saying like some some pretty uh edgy terms here but this is a real issue with a number of people in the church men and women and if our approach is get with it do better and god's given it god's given you everything you need um to do this why can't you just do better and get with it i mean it it really psychologically can destroy a person um now on the other hand if there is a strong if there's a preaching and understanding of grace in a way it's just that doesn't call for any type of reform of life and gives no hope to that individual and i think that's equally damaging and um and it's uh so and and i i've seen this with people i've seen this in different accountability settings where it's it's a confession of sin um but a no real challenging to say hey you know if you struggle with looking at porn on your phone why do you sleep with your phone next to you at night i mean come on right we got to remove that um and that's uh we gotta we gotta as paul talks about don't present the members of your body as instruments of unrighteousness don't put yourself in situations that are tempting but am i in the end am i am i relying on my own efforts or am i really crying out for god to help me here um and and something that i think is important about augustine the way he conceives of grace again is this should be something that motivates us to pray god give me grace to overcome the sin it should be something that motivates us to seek out help seek out pastoral counseling go receive the lord's supper to strengthen your innermost being um against this sin um and and and search the scriptures let your heart let ask god as you read the scriptures to enlighten your understanding and to help you overcome the sin and i i think that's that's where augustine is is really helpful and we're pelagius i think it's not in this sense um he wants to how do we think about a biblical grace message that doesn't put all of the efforts on man but that also does not just leave us hopeless and completely passive in our christian walk i think we can have a grace message that says the grace of god it's his favor towards us but we need his power working in us and there is hope to overcome sin not because we're strong in ourselves but because of the grace of god working in us so you just in summing up and i'll turn it over to uh father ron for maybe some final thoughts and then have um matthew pray over us um but it seems that the deficiency of pelagius is not considering the ramifications of the fall and the deficiency of augustine was in over emphasizing the the the strength of predestination um you know if you're if you're to kind of characterize it easily would you agree with that matt um kind of i would say how does i don't think i would cast it quite like that i think i would say for augustine um you have to his his theology of predestination is since the since the fall god um in his mercy he chose some and elected some and will move them with this efficacious grace to choose god and to persevere till the end and he passes over the rest he um and that's his judgment and who are we to answer back to god um i'm i just i struggle with how does that account for um other passages that really seem to where god is very grieved and angry not only over adam's sin but under over the actual sins that people are committing um jesus is is mourning saying along to gather you then gathers her chicks but you were unwilling you know i i think there's for me it it just doesn't answer things like that it's it's right i'm i would affirm that we need the grace of god from beginning to end we need the grace of god to even say yes to god but i i would say there's just a number of scriptures that that would to me in my reading suggest that humanity can even with an interior act of grace still harden his or her heart towards god and that that when we stand before the judgment seat of christ we will be accountable for that not god yeah very good very good i think yeah i think um there's not really anything that i can add to that but i think that what i what i would say is that um we're dealing with tremendous mysteries here and one of the temptations that's what the eastern skies keep saying that's what that's what the anglicans co-opted from the easterns well but i think there's something to be said for that in that way we're not really doing mathematics here uh we're not always going to solve for x um right and without you know what you have all said about grace and augustine and all that is is tremendous i can't add anything to that but what i will say is that so much of augustine's writings and so much of his theology sings and what i mean by that is that it's worshipful and it's prayerful and kind of like matthew you were talking about how you know augustine's view of grace ought to you know motivate us to pray to god for grace so much of augustine's writings reflect this majestic view of the greatness of god and so one would be hard-pressed i think to read saint augustine and not only be drawn into the deep questions he's asking but also to be drawn into deep prayer and worship before the mystery of god and his tremendous goodness towards us that's great yeah uh maybe matt could you just as a close pray over us and offer some words of encouragement that we'd find that grace as well yeah absolutely let's pray well father in heaven i thank you we thank you for the grace of god through your son jesus christ and lord thank you for that it says this is a gift and lord i pray that as we think and we reflect on the grace of god that it would produce such um deep gratitude in our hearts for the salvation that we have through your son and i pray lord that that as we it reflecting and thinking and searching the scriptures and thinking about what the what um fathers like augustine have said on it would cause our appreciation for you to increase our gratitude to increase and it would cause us to to pray for for grace to move our hearts that you would incline our hearts to do your will to fear your name to walk in your statutes lord i pray ezekiel 36 that promise of god for the new covenant that you would put your spirit within us you would write your laws on our hearts and our minds and you would cause us to walk in your statutes lord i just pray for everyone in here that wants an increase that once that that is is crying out god let that grace of god stir my heart and move my heart to choose to walk in your ways with your freedom which are life which are joy and peace and lord i just pray for a spirit of peace and a bond of unity to be over the body of christ there's been so much the enemy has tried to do to cause division in the body of christ over the subject but lord i ask and i pray jesus's prayer that you would make us one and you would unite us lord you would give your church wisdom and understanding on this subject and that the grace of god would empower us lord to walk in the greater unity of the faith at ephesians chapter 4 unity of the faith that you're bringing us all into father we thank you lord and bless you in jesus name amen amen thank you everybody for joining this episode of the remnant radio and uh this is your co-hosts for the first time joshua hofford matthew esquivel and father ronald drummond signing off and we will see you next week and tune in when we talk about uh evaluating prophecy and prophetic figures through the lens of early church fathers and so so happy that you guys joined us and god bless

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Length: 66min 40sec (4000 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 07 2021