The Historical Tracings of the Doctrines of Grace | Part 3

Key Scriptures

• Romans 3:10–12 – “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”
• Ephesians 2:1–5 – “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world… But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved.”
• John 6:63 – “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.”
• Romans 9:16 – “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”

The first major battle for grace in church history did not happen during the Reformation—it happened a thousand years earlier. Long before Calvin or Luther, the early church faced the same question that still divides the visible church today: Is man born free to choose God, or is he bound by sin and dependent entirely upon grace?

This battle was fought between two men—Pelagius, a British monk, and Augustine, the bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Their conflict in the early fifth century was not a minor debate about semantics. It was a fight over the very nature of salvation, the will of man, and the sovereignty of God.

The Rise of Pelagius
Pelagius was a moralist. He lived during a time when Roman society was collapsing under the weight of corruption, luxury, and moral decay. When he heard Christians quoting Augustine’s prayer—“Command what You will, and grant what You command”—Pelagius was appalled. To him, such a statement sounded like an excuse for sin. He believed that if God commanded something, man must already have the natural ability to obey it.

Pelagius denied that Adam’s sin affected human nature. He taught that every person is born as morally neutral as Adam was before the fall—that sin is a matter of imitation, not inheritance. In his system, man’s will is unfallen and free. Therefore, salvation is the result of moral effort aided by divine instruction.

In short, Pelagius taught that grace helps, but is not essential. It makes salvation easier, not possible. Man can—and must—initiate his own obedience.

This is why Pelagianism is not merely wrong; it is blasphemous. It dethrones God and enthrones man. It turns the gospel of grace into a gospel of willpower. It makes the cross unnecessary and grace optional.

Augustine’s Defense of Grace
Augustine responded with holy fire. Having himself been rescued from a life of immorality and self-righteousness, he knew firsthand that man cannot turn to God apart from divine mercy. His theology was not born in speculation but in conversion.

In his writings—especially On Nature and Grace and The Spirit and the Letter—Augustine argued from Scripture that Adam’s fall plunged all humanity into spiritual death. We are born sinners, not merely by imitation but by nature. “By one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners,” he wrote, echoing Romans 5:19.

Augustine insisted that grace is not a supplement to human effort but the sole cause of salvation. “Give what You command,” he prayed to God, “and command what You will.” He believed that God’s commands reveal our inability and drive us to depend upon His power. Only sovereign grace can awaken a dead soul.

In Ephesians 2:1–5, Paul writes, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins… But God… made us alive together with Christ.” Augustine built his doctrine of grace on that phrase, “But God.” Salvation begins when God interrupts death with life.

He also emphasized predestination. God’s choice of His people, he argued, is not based on foreseen merit but on sheer mercy. “So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Romans 9:16).

Augustine saw clearly that if salvation depended on man’s will, then grace would cease to be grace. If man can choose God without God first changing his heart, then the cross becomes unnecessary and the Spirit becomes redundant.

The Church’s Response
The controversy spread rapidly through the church. Councils were called to examine Pelagius’s teaching. In 418 AD, the Council of Carthage formally condemned Pelagianism as heresy. The bishops declared that death and sin entered the world through Adam, that grace is necessary for every good work, and that infants require baptism precisely because they are born guilty in Adam.

A century later, the Council of Orange (529 AD) reaffirmed Augustine’s teaching, though with less emphasis on predestination, and again condemned both Pelagianism and its softer form—semi-Pelagianism, which taught that man takes the first step toward God and grace meets him halfway.

From that point forward, Augustine’s theology of grace shaped the Western church. Even those who did not understand all its implications were forced to admit the central truth: salvation is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.

The Lasting Legacy
Augustine’s stand laid the foundation for the Reformation a thousand years later. Luther called himself “an Augustinian monk,” and his greatest work, The Bondage of the Will, is essentially Augustine’s argument reborn in the language of Scripture. Calvin later referred to Augustine as “the best and most faithful witness of all antiquity.”

The battle between Augustine and Pelagius was not merely a historical footnote—it was the first great defense of the doctrines of grace. Every future controversy—from Rome’s sacramental system to Arminianism’s free will—would echo this same argument.

Augustine’s theology was not perfect, but his conviction was biblical: man is dead, grace is sovereign, and God alone saves.

The Reformation would pick up that same torch and carry it forward, but the flame began to burn here—in the heart of a man who knew that apart from the sovereign mercy of God, he would still be a slave to sin.

Grace is not God’s response to human effort; it is God’s victory over human inability.