Leighton Flowers is Defending Pelagius???

[Baptist Renegade]

So desperate to disprove Calvinism that he is now defending the indefensible???

OK, I thought everything about we knew about Pelagius was well documented and historically factual. Are we missing something? Was he intentionally mischaracterized by Augustine as they are trying to say here?

 

[FSSL]

Leighton Flowers says that this is all of strawman. And then he goes on to build up a strawman. "Pelagian says that we do not need God." And this author parks on that strawman.

What is missing is a good discussion on Adams sin and its effects on man. They skip over that entirely.

They are focused on the idea that Pelagius didnt come up with his theology on his own. Okay. Sure. I wouldnt dent that.

They just say Augustine came up with his ideas on this own.

It's a shallow video and sadly lacking in content. I expected some quotes from Pelagius' works, not some "Pelagius didn't believe that" dialogue.

Pelagius believed... a denial of original sin and man's free will (cooperating with God): "Only the flesh of man, not the immortal soul, comes from Adam, and even the “substance of man’s flesh” comes from God and is, therefore, good" (Schaff-Herzog)

 

[Ransom]

OK, I thought everything about we knew about Pelagius was well documented and historically factual. Are we missing something? Was he intentionally mischaracterized by Augustine as they are trying to say here?

It was long believed that Pelagius had no extant works, and all we knew of him--as is the case with many ancient heretics--came from his detractors. In the era of the early church, heretical works had a tendency to get themselves destroyed.

Apparently there is a handful of Pelagius's works that have survived. I don't know if these are the ones Augustine interacts with, as I've never read his anti-Pelagian writings.

Well, so what if Pelagius didn't believe in "Pelagianism." What the term represents today is an existing train of thought in the modern era. Charles Finney was a Pelagian. (The same is true of Nestorianism: we're not entirely sure what Nestorius himself believed, but what we call "Nestorianism" today is, in fact, still believed, even by many so-called "fundamentalists" who are perfectly happy to say Mary was a man-bearer or the Christ-bearer, but will recoil at the assertion that she bore God in her womb.)

And, asserting that Augustine was making a straw-man argument--true or not--doesn't address the positive doctrine that Augustine taught about original sin. It's a distraction.

 

[Baptist Renegade]

And, asserting that Augustine was making a straw-man argument--true or not--doesn't address the positive doctrine that Augustine taught about original sin. It's a distraction.

The underlying question is whether Augustine was right regarding the doctrine of original sin. This is where honest dialogue needs to remain IMO.

There may be discussion regarding to what extent we would agree with the Augustinian view. Augustine taught Seminalism which means that one is culpable for the sin of Adam from the womb and based upon this, the Catholic Church builds their doctrine that infant baptism is necessary to wash away this "original sin." Lutherans also hold to this view and their view of baptismal regeneration for infants becomes rather convoluted IMNSHO. I don't think we have too many Catlicks or Lutrans here so probably not many representing the seminalist view.

I believe that most here would agree to the basic tenants of the "Federalist" view where those in Adam (the federal head) receive the consequences for sin, are therefore dead in sin, but not held accountable for such until they are confronted with and understanding of the things which are "clearly seen" (AKA the "Age of Accountability" as some call it).

And FWIW, I arrived at my position on man's total depravity (original sin) through study of the scripture, not from the writings of Augustine, Luther, or Calvin. It's too bad that Flowers does not rely upon the authority and sufficiency of the scriptures in order to formulate his argument either for or against.

 

[Ekklesian]

I, for one, would consider Augustine, a contemporary of Pelagius, a better authority on what Pelagius taught than some presumptuous chick 1600 years removed from the controversy with access to only two of his extant works.

Her entire argument rests on aspertions cast upon Augustine's character, themselves based on the arbitrary presupposition that Christian doctrine evolved by villifying received doctrines to validate new ones.

 

[Ekklesian]

I believe that most here would agree to the basic tenants of the "Federalist" view...

From my point of view, the federalist view is weak. We were all "in Adam" in the beginning. Not merely in a representative or legal sense, but really in Adam.

I think the federalist view is a fruit of the notion that God is still in the act of creation. That each conception is somehow a new act of creation, and not the fruit of God's labor on the Sixth Day.

 

[Baptist Renegade]

From my point of view, the federalist view is weak. We were all "in Adam" in the beginning. Not merely in a representative or legal sense, but really in Adam.

I think the federalist view is a fruit of the notion that God is still in the act of creation. That each conception is somehow a new act of creation, and not the fruit of God's labor on the Sixth Day.

I do not fully understand everything regarding Federalism or Seminalism (even though I have studied and written about it). Both are "positions" that men came up with based upon their understanding of the scriptures. All I know is that I reject the rigid seminal view that one who dies in infancy would stand condemned before God of Adam's sin. This is the Roman Catholic and Lutheran view and such a view necessitates infant baptism with the belief that such washes away their "original sin" and such also contributes to a warped view of total depravity especially among Roman Catholics who are pretty much "Augustinian" up to the baptism of a newborn infant and are Pelagian from there on out with their sacramentalism.

The Federalist view is held by most Calvinists and covenant theologians and most Baptists (whether calvie or arminy) would agree with respect to the so-called "age of accountability."