Pelagiansim - An Egotistical Heresy
Created | Updated Mar 19, 2003
The only significant ancient Christian heresy to have come from Britain was invented by a monk Pelagius. He asked the question: If Christ could be perfect by choice, could any person be just as perfect by choice? Fair enough question, especially if you are trying to reject the heresy of Determinism. However, he answered the question with an unqualified "yes" and thus was declared a heretic. He should have been more cautious.
Claiming that anyone can be perfect without the power of God and the Holy Spirit is very attractive. It especially permits spiritual self-sufficiency. This, it turns out, is the contradiction. Christianity is an outward looking religion, it is about integration, and one cannot integrate oneself only with oneself. It is an ineffective action and leads only to oneself, cutting oneself of from God, each other and creation. One is certainly not loving God with all one's heart, soul and strength, nor is one loving one's neighbour as one's self if one ever denies a need for the outside world in anything one does.
So any desire by a Christian for isolation from God or from each other is bad. This is not the same thing as asking for quiet and solitude - quiet can be used to connect to God and the world in a way that we cannot do in a busy place.
Yet more is required than our reaching out. Grace from God through the Holy Spirit is also needed. We are sinful because we live in a sinful situation. Reaching out to those around us is good but will never allow us to transcend the human condition. Reaching out to God, to God as man in Christ, allows us the freedom to participate in a broader world than the one which is around us.
The incarnation of God made the perfection of God real in this world. Joining with God in Christ allows us to reach for God in perfection.
The upshot is that you can't go it alone.
Claiming that anyone can be perfect without the power of God and the Holy Spirit is very attractive. It especially permits spiritual self-sufficiency. This, it turns out, is the contradiction. Christianity is an outward looking religion, it is about integration, and one cannot integrate oneself only with oneself. It is an ineffective action and leads only to oneself, cutting oneself of from God, each other and creation. One is certainly not loving God with all one's heart, soul and strength, nor is one loving one's neighbour as one's self if one ever denies a need for the outside world in anything one does.
So any desire by a Christian for isolation from God or from each other is bad. This is not the same thing as asking for quiet and solitude - quiet can be used to connect to God and the world in a way that we cannot do in a busy place.
Yet more is required than our reaching out. Grace from God through the Holy Spirit is also needed. We are sinful because we live in a sinful situation. Reaching out to those around us is good but will never allow us to transcend the human condition. Reaching out to God, to God as man in Christ, allows us the freedom to participate in a broader world than the one which is around us.
The incarnation of God made the perfection of God real in this world. Joining with God in Christ allows us to reach for God in perfection.
The upshot is that you can't go it alone.
