Rey's A Point

Will You or Will You Not?

I heard some theologian guys saying that Pelagianism is the natural belief system of men. No, I’m not talking about copying someone elses thoughts. Pelagius (not a Sith Lord either) believed that Jesus was a good example (whereas Adam was a bad example) to humanity and therefore humans have a responsibility to save themselves by doing good (which is carrying out God’s commandments). God could help people but really thought Pelagius, men and women have the free will and moral capacity to do it on their own.

Thing is, I can see people saying “we have the ability to choose” and I can see people saying “Adam was a bad example and Jesus was a good example” but I can’t see many people, without reading the stuff, saying they had the will and moral capacity to keep the commandments of any god (Go hold the heavens on your shoulder) and especially the Judeo-Christian God as clarified by Jesus.

For instance, Jesus explained one of the commandments that spoke about committing adultery and said that if a man looks at a woman with lust, then he has committed adultery already. I don’t think anyone would naturally believe that they had the free will and moral ability to stop the lust in the mind (or elsewhere for that matter). Jesus furthered his point by pointing out one of the commandments that spoke about murder and then stated that if a man is angry at his brother, he’s committed murder already.

In other words, the fact that Jesus is showing that our actions are just as messed up as our thought process seems to me that a person can’t automatically be a natural Pelagian (gessuhnteit) but rather have to be a circumstantial moralist which has nothing to do with God or Jesus’ example at all, but everything to do with ethics

Rey

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4 responses to “Will You or Will You Not?”

  1. Pelagian, eh? I’ve heard a few rumors about the existence of this creature myself. But believe me, it’s no myth. They actually do exist…

    The traditional Church of Christ that I grew up in was functionally Pelagian – although they would never use that term and have probably never even heard of it. We believed that anyone(Christian or not) was capable of reading the Bible and understanding it. We also believed that everyone had the moral wherewithal to be capable of keeping the commands found in scripture.

    So, the issue was never so much ability as it was accurate knowledge. If you could know the right thing to do then you could(and should) do it. Now, that’s not to say we thought we could be perfect. We did believe in forgiveness and frequently asked God to forgive us of any sin that we knowingly – and unknowingly – committed. This was to cover all the bases, so to speak.

    We were very interested in patterns and were convinced that we alone knew God’s approved pattern for New Testament worship. This kind of stuff was important because we needed accurate knowledge. Once we had the knowledge the doing was up to us in order to keep our salvation. And once you stopped doing the right things(e.g. going to church with the piano-loving Baptists down the way) then your salvation was in question.

    I could go on but maybe this helps paint the picture. You might be interested in this web site :

    http://www.cofcdilemma.org/

  2. So they’re saying “We can read it, We understand it, We should be able to do it but We don’t because, you know: no one is perfect.” Then they seem to ask forgiveness whereas others might say “At least we tried and that has to count for something.”

    But that’s where I get confused because a functional Pelagian sounds a whole lot like a person dealing with ethics (I know stealing is wrong, I understand the law but I don’t do it when it’s tax time because, you know: no one is perfect.) Pelagianism seems to allow an ultimate salvation with or without help from a god–and I’m not sure anyone would go there.

    But I gotta’ read your link to see if it addresses all this anyway.

  3. Ah, Okay, I just read through that site and see that the CoC looks at the Bible more as an instruction book. Read it, get it, do it and you’ll be all right.