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Dialogue on the Necessity of Grace

 

Is Catholic theology Semi-Pelagian? And 

what is Semi-Pelagianism?

 

Gary Hoge

 

Of course, this discussion will quickly branch off into the radical differences between Rome’s anthropology and soteriology and that of the Reformers (Rome is semi-Pelagian; the Reformers are Augustinian).

 

You claimed that “Rome is semi-Pelagian.” That is emphatically not true. It was Rome, you will recall, that condemned both Pelagianism, and semi-Pelagianism, at the Council of Orange in A.D. 529. I assume you know what semi-Pelagianism is, so I won’t explain it here. I’ll just quote the following canons from the Council of Orange to prove that the Catholic Church is not semi-Pelagian:

 

CANON 3. If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred as a result of human prayer, but that it is not grace itself which makes us pray to God, he contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle who says the same thing, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me” (Rom 10:20, quoting Isa. 65:1).

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CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, “The will is prepared by the Lord” (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

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CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism -- if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, “And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). And again, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.

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CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).

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CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

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CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him “unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).

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CANON 16. No man shall be honored by his seeming attainment, as though it were not a gift, or suppose that he has received it because a missive from without stated it in writing or in speech. For the Apostle speaks thus, “For if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose” (Gal. 2:21); and “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (Eph. 4:8, quoting Ps. 68:18). It is from this source that any man has what he does; but whoever denies that he has it from this source either does not truly have it, or else “even what he has will be taken away” (Matt. 25:29).

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CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.

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CANON 19. That a man can be saved only when God shows mercy. Human nature, even though it remained in that sound state in which it was created, could be no means save itself, without the assistance of the Creator; hence since man cannot safe-guard his salvation without the grace of God, which is a gift, how will he be able to restore what he has lost without the grace of God?

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CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

 

Regarding my statement that Rome is semi-Pelagian in its anthropology and soteriology, you responded with a number of quotations from the Council of Orange. That is well and good, and some of the Protestant sources I have consulted confirm that Orange condemned semi-Pelagianism as well as outright Pelagianism.

 

Well, that’s good. If you can’t trust Protestant sources to give an accurate account of Catholic theology, who can you trust? :-)

 

However, it remains true that if the essence of semi-Pelagianism is the idea that even though all will to do good comes from God’s grace, such grace is still rejectable by the individual, then Rome is semi-Pelagian.

 

Well, if that were the correct definition of semi-Pelagianism, then you would be right. But the essence of semi-Pelagianism is not that God’s grace can be resisted, the essence of semi-Pelagianism is that God’s grace is not needed.

 

That is the essential difference between Catholicism and semi-Pelagianism: Catholicism affirms the absolute necessity of God’s grace in all things, a necessity which Pelagianism denied outright, and which semi-Pelagianism denied in part. Since you acknowledge that the Council of Orange condemned semi-Pelagianism, can you show me where that council asserted the idea that God’s grace cannot be resisted, or where it condemned the opposite opinion as heresy? Surely it must have done so, if that were the “essence of semi-Pelagianism.” However, the council asserted no such thing. On the contrary, it used such phrases as “the assistance of grace” (canon 6¹), and “with the aid and cooperation of Christ” (conclusion²), to describe the relationship between man’s will and grace.

 

So what was semi-Pelagianism? There were essentially two tenets that characterized it, neither having anything directly to do with whether God’s grace could be resisted:

 

1) The semi-Pelagians maintained that there is a difference between the beginning of faith (initium fidei) and the increase of faith (augmentum fidei). They believed that the increase of faith depended upon God’s grace, but that the beginning of faith was within the grasp of man’s natural free will. In other words, the beginning of salvation depended upon man’s asking for it. The semi-Pelagians believed that by asking, seeking, knocking, man could, apart from the grace of God, prepare himself for grace.

 

2) The semi-Pelagians also maintained that final perseverance could be achieved by a justified man based on the grace he had already received, rather than as a special additional gift of grace from God, one not necessarily given to all who are regenerated and justified.

 

Let me address the second tenet first. The Catholic Church rejected the second tenet of semi-Pelagianism at the Council of Orange, in canon 10³, and again at the Council of Trent, in canon 22⁴ on Justification. There was no conflict between the two councils on this point, but I’m sure you already realize that. I really don’t think our doctrine of final perseverance is what makes you think we are semi-Pelagian.

 

The first tenet of semi-Pelagianism was also rejected by the Catholic Church at the Council of Orange, in canons 3-8, and again at the Council of Trent, in chapter 5 of the Decree on Justification, and in canons 1 and 3 on Justification⁵. There was no conflict between the two councils on this point. Trent did say that man disposes himself toward grace, but not by his own natural abilities, which is what the semi-Pelagians believed. The Council declared, “The beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing grace of God [this is an explicit rejection of the first tenet of semi-Pelagianism] … without any merits on their part … that they … may be disposed through His quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace.” In other words, Trent affirmed that even our cooperation with grace is itself dependent upon “His quickening and helping grace.”

 

Apart from His grace, we cannot freely assent to and cooperate with His grace. That is the very antithesis of semi-Pelagianism, which affirmed that such assent was within the reach of our natural free will, apart from grace.

 

Note how this teaching of Trent is consistent with that of Orange. In canon 7, Orange declared:

 

If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel, through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

 

Isn’t that just another way of saying what Trent said? Notice that both councils spoke of man’s “assent” to the gospel, and both attributed that assent to the grace of God. Where is the conflict between these two councils? Did Orange contradict Trent by denying that man “freely assents to and cooperates with grace”? No, it simply denied that such assent and cooperation comes from our natural powers. Orange said that it is God who “makes all men gladly assent to and believe the truth.” Did Trent contradict Orange by saying that our assent and cooperation are “through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit”? No, in fact it explicitly affirmed the very opposite: “The beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing grace of God.” Clearly, both councils said exactly the same thing, so I don’t see where you perceive a conflict between them.

 

The teaching of Orange and Trent regarding man’s assent to and cooperation with grace is also in line with that of Augustine, who wrote,

 

Let the objector, however, attentively observe that this will [by which we believe] is to be ascribed to the divine gift, not merely because it arises from our free will, which was created naturally with us; but also because God acts upon us by the incentives of our perceptions, to will and to believe, either externally by evangelical exhortations, where even the commands of the law also do something, if they so far admonish a man of his infirmity that he betakes himself to the grace that justifies by believing; or internally, where no man has in his own control what shall enter into his thoughts, although it appertains to his own will to consent or to dissent. … To yield our consent, indeed, to God’s summons, or to withhold it, is (as I have said) the function of our own will. And this not only does not invalidate what is said, “For what hast thou that thou didst not receive?” but it really confirms it. For the soul cannot receive and possess these gifts, which are here referred to, except by yielding its consent. And thus whatever it possesses, and whatever it receives, is from God; and yet the act of receiving and having belongs, of course, to the receiver and possessor. (Augustine, A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter, 60, [A.D. 412]).

 

I quote from the Council of Trent’s Sixth Session, Chapter Five: “It is furthermore declared that in adults the beginning of that justification must proceed from the predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits on their part, they are called; that they who by sin had been cut off from God, may be disposed through His quickening and helping grace to convert themselves to their own justification by freely assenting to and cooperating with that grace; so that, while God touches the heart of man through the illumination of the Holy Ghost, man himself neither does absolutely nothing while receiving that inspiration, since he can also reject it, nor yet is he able by his own free will and without the grace of God to move himself to justice in His sight.”

 

Of this passage, Protestant scholar R.C. Sproul states, “Here Rome makes it clear that fallen man cannot convert himself or even move himself to justice in God’s sight without the aid of grace. Again, Pelagianism is repudiated. This predisposing grace, however, is rejectable. it is not in itself effectual. Its effectiveness depends on the fallen person’s assent and cooperation. This sounds very much like semi-Pelagianism, which had been condemned at Orange...” (Faith Alone, pg. 140).

 

What Dr. Sproul seems to have missed in this equation is the fact that even the “fallen person’s assent and cooperation” is itself a work of grace. Thus, if this grace is effectual in itself, it is not because it can’t be resisted, but because God knows infallibly that it won’t be resisted. He knows exactly what type of grace will be effective for the conversion of any soul, and when he decides to convert someone, he gives them the right type and amount of grace to affect their conversion. We are not converted against our will, rather, God changes our will. As Augustine wrote, His grace “goes before the unwilling to make him willing; it follows the willing to make his will effectual.” (Augustine, Enchiridion, 32, [ca. A.D. 420]).

 

That is how God converts a soul. Think of your own conversion, think of all of the interior and exterior helps that God gave you: the thoughts that went through your mind, the circumstances you encountered that motivated you in God’s direction. Was there ever any doubt in God’s mind that His grace to you would be effective for your conversion? There is no one whom God cannot convert if he chooses to do so. That is how we can say that conversion is solely the work of God, yet not apart from the will of man. Again, it’s not that man can’t resist, it’s that God knows infallibly how much grace to give a man so that he won’t resist.

 

Thus, God’s sovereignty, election, and predestination are preserved, and also man’s free will is preserved. It seems to me that any theology that destroys the balance between grace and free will, especially if it denies one or the other, is prima facie defective. As Augustine wrote, “Even reason itself . . . sharply restrains every one of us in our investigations so as that we may not so defend grace as to seem to take away free will, or, on the other hand, so assert free will as to be judged ungrateful to the grace of God, in our arrogant impiety.” (Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants, 2:28, A.D. 412).

 

Sproul goes on to quote G.C. Berkouwer to the effect that, “Between Orange and Trent lies a long process of development, namely, scholasticism, with its elaboration of the doctrine of the meritoriousness of good works, and the Roman system of penitence....Hence the situation became much more complicated for Rome in Trent than when, in 529, semi-Pelagianism had to be condemned for its ‘weakening’ of grace.....Trent had to ward off the Reformers’ attack without derogating from the decrees of Orange....The gratia praeveniens had to be taught without relapsing into the sola fide of the Reformers....At Trent there is no concern with the threat to grace as there was at Orange. But Trent is concerned with the natural freedom of the will. The latter, it is true, has been weakened by sin (Orange, Valence, Trent) but not at all extinguished.” (Faith Alone, pg 141).

 

Trent did defend free will, as did Augustine, but it also denied that man is “able by his own free will and without the grace of God to move himself to justice in His sight.” Nevertheless, just because man’s will has been so weakened by sin that it cannot turn to God on its own, that doesn’t mean that it has been completely extinguished. If it were, we humans would be nothing but fancy marionettes, merely responding to the tugs on our strings, whether for good or evil, and unable to make any choices whatsoever. As Augustine wrote, without free will “there is no living ill or well” (A Treatise on the Spirit and the Letter, 7, A.D. 412). You’ve said that Calvin derived his ideas about the total extinguishment of free will from Augustine, but Augustine wrote,

 

What is the import of the fact that in so many passages God requires all His commandments to be kept and fulfilled? How does He make this requisition, if there is no free will? … [Augustine then quotes 27 passages of Scripture] … Now wherever it is said, “Do not do this,” and “Do not do that,” and wherever there is any requirement in the divine admonitions for the work of the will to do anything, or to refrain from doing anything, there is at once a sufficient proof of free will. (Augustine, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 4, A.D. 426).

 

However, both Augustine and the Catholic Church, are adamant that the fall of man made it impossible for man’s free will, crippled as it was by sin, to obey righteousness without the grace of God:

 

There first occurs then in the will of man a certain desire of its own power, to become disobedient through pride. If it were not for this desire, indeed, there would be nothing difficult; and whenever man willed it, he might refuse without difficulty. There ensued, however, out of the penalty which was justly due such a defect, that henceforth it became difficult to be obedient unto righteousness; and unless this defect were overcome by assisting grace, no one would turn to holiness; nor unless it were healed by efficient grace would any one enjoy the peace of righteousness. (Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants, 33, A.D. 412).

 

Furthermore, the new Catholic Catechism teaches that, “God’s free initiative demands man’s free response, for God has created man in his image by conferring on him, along with freedom, the power to know him and love him.” (par. 2002).

 

Take a look at the context of this paragraph. The immediately preceding paragraph states,

 

The preparation of man for the reception of grace is already a work of grace. This latter is needed to arouse and sustain our collaboration in justification through faith, and in sanctification through charity. God brings to completion in us what he has begun, “since he who completes his work by cooperating with our will began by working so that we might will it:” [Note that this is a direct quote from Augustine, Treatise on Grace and Free Will, XVII, A.D. 427]. Indeed we also work, but we are only collaborating with God who works, for his mercy has gone before us. “It has gone before us so that we may be healed, and follows us so that once healed, we may be given life; it goes before us so that we may be called, and follows us so that we may be glorified; it goes before us so that we may live devoutly, and follows us so that we may always live with God: for without him we can do nothing.” [This too is a direct quote from Augustine, in this case from his Treatise on Nature and Grace, XXXI, A.D. 415]. (Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), 2001).

 

This is, once again, an explicit denial of the first tenet of semi-Pelagianism. Likewise, in the very paragraph you quoted, it says, “God immediately touches and directly moves the heart of man.” (CCC, 2002). Again, a denial of the semi-Pelagian doctrine that man can approach God by his own natural free will.

 

Also, [the Catechism states] “As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil, and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.” (par. 1732).

 

Paragraph 1732, and its immediate context, does indeed discuss free will, but it never says that this freedom exists apart from the grace of God, nor does it deny the necessity of grace, which is elsewhere explicitly affirmed. In fact, if you skip down seven paragraphs, you’ll read:

 

Man’s freedom is limited and fallible. In fact, man failed. He freely sinned. By refusing God’s plan of love, he deceived himself and became a slave to sin. This first alienation engendered a multitude of others. From its outset, human history attests the wretchedness and oppression born of the human heart in consequence of the abuse of freedom. … By his glorious Cross Christ has won salvation for all men. He redeemed them from the sin that held them in bondage. “For freedom Christ has set us free.” In him we have communion with the “truth that makes us free.” The Holy Spirit has been given to us and, as the Apostle teaches, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Already we glory in the “liberty of the children of God.” (CCC, 1739, 1741).

 

Where is semi-Pelagianism in that? Instead there is the affirmation, along with Augustine, that our human free will, while real, is nevertheless limited, and enslaved to sin, until Christ sets it free!

 

How different these conceptions are from those of Augustine! For example, in the Enchiridion, he wrote, “… it was by the evil use of his free-will that man destroyed both it and himself. For, as a man who kills himself must, of course, be alive when he kills himself, but after he has killed himself ceases to live and cannot restore himself to life; so, when man by his own free-will sinned, then sin being victorious over him, the freedom of his will was lost.”

 

Note that, whereas the Catechism states that free will exists and is the cause of merit (it can definitively bind itself to God or not), Augustine believed that free will was destroyed in the fall.

 

I think you’ve misunderstood what Augustine meant by that. But if you think he meant it literally, i.e., that free will was completely obliterated in the fall, then consider that he just as plainly stated that man himself was completely obliterated in the fall. But in what sense was man “destroyed” in the fall? Did he cease to exist? Obviously not. In fact, he continued to live and breathe and go about his business. But his nature was changed. The same is true of his free will. It continued to exist, but its nature was changed. Before the fall, man could freely choose to obey God with ease, but afterwards he could no longer do so at all without the grace of God. That this was Augustine’s view should be clear from the passage I quoted above from his Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins, and on the Baptism of Infants. By using the word “destroyed,” Augustine did not mean that man no longer had a free choice in anything, he meant that fallen man’s appetites were now so disordered that he would invariably choose to sin.

 

In the same paragraph from which you quoted, Augustine wrote, “What kind of liberty, I ask, can the bond-slave possess, except when it pleases him to sin? For he is freely in bondage who does with pleasure the will of his master. Accordingly, he who is the servant of sin is free to sin.” However, Augustine always upheld the role of free will and assent in our salvation, but he pointed out, as the Council of Trent also did later, that our good will is itself prepared by God. In the very same Enchiridion in which Augustine wrote that our free will had been “destroyed,” he also wrote,

 

Now as, undoubtedly, if a man is of the age to use his reason, he cannot believe, hope, love, unless he will to do so, nor obtain the prize of the high calling of God unless he voluntarily run for it; in what sense is it “not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” except that, as it is written, “the preparation of the heart is from the Lord?” … it follows that the true interpretation of the saying, “it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,” is that the whole work belongs to God, who both makes the will of man righteous, and thus prepares it for assistance, and assists it when it is prepared. For the man’s righteousness of will precedes many of God’s gifts, but not all; and it must itself be included among those which it does not precede. We read in Holy Scripture, both that God’s mercy “shall meet me,” and that His mercy “shall follow me.” It goes before the unwilling to make him willing; it follows the willing to make his will effectual. (Augustine, Enchiridion, 32, [ca. A.D. 420]).

 

Calvin quotes Augustine to the effect that, “Were man left to his own will to remain under the help of God if he chooses, while God does not make him willing among temptations so numerous and so great, the will would succumb from its own weakness. Succour, therefore, has been brought to the weakness of the human will by divine grace acting irresistibly and inseparably, that thus the will however weak might not fail.” And again, “… the motion of the Holy Spirit is so efficacious that it always begets faith.” And still again, “The will being vanquished by the depravity into which it has fallen, nature is without freedom.”

 

Calvin was quite right that if God does not make man willing, he will not be willing. That is what Augustine taught, and that is what we believe. But where did Augustine teach that God’s grace is irresistible? Where did he teach that the motion of the Holy Spirit always begets faith? I would like to see these quotations substantiated, and their context explored. Augustine did teach that God’s grace was necessary for a man to remain in righteousness, but he also taught that man, by his own will, could reject it:

 

Man, therefore, was thus made upright that, though unable to remain in his uprightness without divine help, he could of his own mere will depart from it. (Augustine, Enchiridion, 107, ca. A.D. 420).

 

Augustine also taught, contrary to Calvin, that we must cooperate with God’s grace in the process of our salvation:

 

And yet this is not a question about prayers alone, as if the energy of our will also should not be strenuously added. God is said to be “our Helper;” but nobody can be helped who does not make some effort of his own accord. For God does not work our salvation in us as if He were working in insensate stones, or in creatures in whom nature has placed neither reason nor will. (Augustine, A Treatise on the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and on the Baptism of Infants, 6, A.D. 412).

 

Rome does not believe that grace always begets faith or that the will has no freedom to reject previenient grace; hence, it has departed from Augustine and embraced semi-Pelagianism in its anthropology and soteriology.

 

Not at all. First of all, where does the Bible say that grace always begets faith? Did not Paul say, “As God’s fellow workers, we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain” (2 Cor. 6:1)? How can one receive God’s grace in vain if it is irresistible? Commenting on this verse, Augustine, from whom we have allegedly departed, asked the very same question:

 

This free will of man he [Paul] appeals to in the case of others also, as when he says to them, “We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” Now, how could he so enjoin them, if they received God’s grace in such a manner as to lose their own will? (Augustine, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 12, A.D. 426).

 

Did not Jesus himself say, “Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers [surely an act of grace, yet it does not produce faith because … ]. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.” (Matt. 23:34)? Did not Jesus also say, “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” (Luke 10:13)? Jesus’s miracles were acts of grace that would have been sufficient to cause Tyre and Sidon to repent, yet they did not produce faith in Korazin and Bethsaida. Remember also the parable of the sower. The same word produces different effects in different people. Some don’t believe; others believe for a while, then fall away; and others believe and persevere.

 

It seems clear to me that the Bible affirms that man must cooperate with God’s grace, and may in fact resist it. Consider, for example, the following Scriptures, among many others that could be cited:

 

“‘If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the best from the land; but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.’ For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:19-20).

 

“All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people, who walk in ways not good, pursuing their own imaginations.” (Isaiah 65:2).

 

“Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?’” (Ezekiel 33:11).

 

“But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. If my people would but listen to me, if Israel would follow my ways, how quickly would I subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes!” (Psalm 81:11-14).

 

“The Israelites are stubborn, like a stubborn heifer. How then can the LORD pasture them like lambs in a meadow?” (Hosea 4:16).

 

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Luke 13:34).

 

“You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Acts 7:51).

 

At the very least, we can say that the Bible is written as if man had a real free will. Also, it seems to me that it is Calvin who departed from Augustine by denying that man must cooperate with God’s grace. Listen to what Augustine said about man’s cooperation with grace:

 

Now there was, no doubt, a decided merit in the Apostle Paul, but it was an evil one, while he persecuted the Church, and he says of it: “I am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God.” And it was while he had this evil merit that a good one was rendered to him instead of the evil; and, therefore, he went on at once to say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.” Then, in order to exhibit also his free will, he added in the next clause, “And His grace within me was not in vain, but I have labored more abundantly than they all.” This free will of man he appeals to in the case of others also, as when he says to them, “We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain.” Now, how could he so enjoin them, if they received God’s grace in such a manner as to lose their own will? Nevertheless, lest the will itself should be deemed capable of doing any good thing without the grace of God, after saying, “His grace within me was not in vain, but I have labored more abundantly than they all,” he immediately added the qualifying clause, “Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” In other words, Not I alone, but the grace of God with me. And thus, neither was it the grace of God alone, nor was it he himself alone, but it was the grace of God with him. For his call, however, from heaven and his conversion by that great and most effectual call, God’s grace was alone, because his merits, though great, were evil. Then, to quote one passage more, he says to Timothy: “But be thou a co-laborer with the gospel, according to the power of God, who saveth us and calleth us with His holy calling,—not according to our works but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus.” (Augustine, A Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 12, A.D. 426).

 

I offer one final quote, a summary of the views of the “original” semi-Pelagian, John Cassian. I would ask you to compare what is said of Cassian’s views with what the Roman Catholic Catechism teaches above. “The idea of Cassian is, that the human will has indeed been crippled by sin, but that a certain freedom has yet remained to it. By virtue of this, it is able to turn to God, and, just as though God had first turned to it, it is able, with the assistance of divine grace, setting before it the law and infusing the needed power, to will and to do that which is good. …”

 

Most heresies are a mixture of truth and error, so let me rephrase the above summary in a way that reflects orthodox Christian theology, so you can see exactly where Cassian erred:

 

The truth is, that the human will has indeed been crippled by sin, but that a certain freedom has yet remained to it. It does what it wants, but being crippled by sin, it wants only to sin. Thus, it is a slave to unrighteousness, and it does with pleasure the will of its master. What freedom the human will retains is insufficient to be able to turn to God, so God first turns to it, and with the assistance of divine grace, setting before it the law and infusing the needed power, He makes it able to will and to do that which is good.

 

I hope that from the many quotations of Augustine that I provided above, you can see that this does indeed reflect his theology. Cassian, on the other hand, believed that man could turn to God without the assistance of grace, and that was his error.

 

… “Hence, the sinner is not dead, but wounded. Grace comes to view, not as operans, but as cooperans; to it is to be attributed not alone-activity, but synergy. …”

 

Regarding the concept of synergy, which I know is anathema to Calvinists, I can only quote Augustine again:

 

And who was it that had begun to give [Peter] his love, however small, but He who prepares the will, and perfects by His co-operation what He initiates by His operation? Forasmuch as in beginning He works in us that we may have the will, and in perfecting works with us when we have the will. On which account the apostle says, “I am confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” He operates, therefore, without us, in order that we may will; but when we will, and so will that we may act, He co-operates with us. We can, however, ourselves do nothing to effect good works of piety without Him either working that we may will, or co-working when we will. Now, concerning His working that we may will, it is said: “It is God which worketh in you, even to will.” While of His co-working with us, when we will and act by willing, the apostle says, “We know that in all things there is co-working for good to them that love God.” [Romans 8:28]. (Augustine, Treatise on Grace and Free Will, 33, A.D. 427).

 

Regarding this verse from Romans, Protestant theologian Dale Moody wrote,

 

The Greek word for ‘work with’ is synergei, and from this word synergism was formed. It is strange indeed to hear people declaring they believe in the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, yet at the same time they denounce this verb! They seem to find an increase in zeal as they butt their heads in an obstinate way against the very language of the Bible. What really do they mean when they speak of the inspiration and authority of Scripture, if the words of the Bible are forbidden? (Moody, The Word of Truth, 342).

 

Elsewhere, commenting on this same verse, Moody writes, “The . . . Calvinistic tradition will insert its ideas even if the very word of the text must be rejected!” (Moody, Commentary on Romans, 221).

 

“… It [semi-Pelagianism] was an instructive attempt to preserve the personal and spiritual relationship from man to God. But the attempt of necessity surrendered that which was best in Augustine--the sola gratia.” (Reihhold Seeberg, Textbook of the History of Doctrines, vol. 1).

 

Yes, that was the essence of the semi-Pelagian error, the denial of sola gratia, which Catholicism affirms. Cassian and the other semi-Pelagians believed that man could desire salvation, and assent to it, without the grace of God. Augustine affirmed the absolute necessity of grace, which “goes before the unwilling to make him willing; [and] follows the willing to make his will effectual.” (Augustine, Enchiridion, chapter 32, [ca. A.D. 420]). Obviously, Augustine did not deny that man must assent to grace, he simply insisted that the will and the ability to assent are themselves gifts of grace, contrary to the views of the semi-Pelagians.

 

Given all of this, I believe I have made my case that Roman Catholic theology is semi-Pelagian. What do you think?

 

Well, it was a good try, but I don’t think you did. Your sole basis for this accusation appears to be a misconception of the definition of semi-Pelagianism, which you erroneously defined as the belief that man can resist God’s grace. But semi-Pelagianism is the belief that man retains the natural freedom to turn to God without grace. Catholicism rejects this, and affirms the absolute necessity of God’s predisposing grace.

 

I hope that in the course of this long post I have been able to lay the semi-Pelagian charge to rest. Catholicism is neither Pelagian, nor semi-Pelagian. Instead, by affirming both the freedom of the will to assent to God’s grace, and the absolute necessity of grace both to free the will in the first place, and to secure its assent in the second place, it faithfully follows the tradition of Augustine, which Calvinists have abandoned in favor of an unbiblical and unhistorical “irresistible grace” that destroys the biblical balance between free will and the sovereignty of God.

 

I’m sure you don’t think that Augustine was a semi-Pelagian, yet I hope I have shown that he taught that man must cooperate with God’s grace, and can resist it, indeed that he can turn away from God “of his own mere will.” But “of his own mere will” man is powerless to turn to God, to follow God, to persevere in the faith, or in fact, to do any good thing. For all of this, man requires the grace of God, which the semi-Pelagians denied, but Catholicism affirms.