Previously in part 1 and part 2 we explored the ancient heresy Gnosticism and saw how it overlaps with our current Western worldview, especially in treating the inner/spiritual world as inherently good and the outer/physical world as inherently evil. In this article, we are moving on to the heresy of Pelagianism. Here in Part 3 specifically, I will be giving more background to the heresy of Pelagianism and the Pelagian worldview, and then I will move to see how the ideas presented overlap with the modern Western worldview.

Let’s set the stage. It’s the early 5th century and, despite political turmoil and a weakened state, the Roman Empire was still a powerful entity. Christianity, at this point—unlike the 2nd century which we explored with Gnosticism—is a legal religion and has been so for nearly 100 years. This time period posed a strange situation for the church and its leaders, because despite Christianity being legal and popular, the Roman Empire was prolifically immoral, politically and sexually. One Christian leader at this time was a British monk named Pelagius who was especially appalled by the moral state of Rome, so he sought to address this problem biblically and theologically. His teaching can be essentially summarized in three main ideas:

1. No Original Sin: Pelagius denied original sin and the sinful nature of humanity. He taught that Adam and Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit did not affect their state; consequently, the fall has no lasting effect on humanity. Therefore, all people have the same standing as Adam and Eve in the garden.
   
   
2. Free will: If there is no sin nature inclining humanity to sin, then this means that our wills are as “free” as they can be (The word free is in quotation marks for reasons I will address in Part 4). Pelagius taught that God desired man to be totally free to choose between good and evil. This means that God’s grace is not necessary in helping guide the human will, because it would mean that the human will is relying on something other than itself (meaning it is not totally “free”). Therefore, to avoid sin, people must simply choose to stop sinning. This view of free will also led Pelagius to teach that sinless perfection is attainable and expected of us by God, and achievable without his grace.
3. Sin is Outside: For Pelagius, if sin is not an internal reality, then it was instead an external one. Adam’s sin makes him a bad example, but Adam’s children followed his example which made much of the world’s cultures and habits inherently sinful. Sin then, is following the evil patterns of the world which Adam and his descendants helped create. To escape these sinful patterns, humanity must simply use their free will to stop sinning and follow the example of Jesus.