New piece at Catholic Answers Magazine on the resurgence of Pelagianism, and why that’s bad. A taste:
Butler Bass’s own writings reveal the dangerous consequences of Pelagian thinking. She is the author of Freeing Jesus, which Fr. James Martin has praised as “an inviting, accessible, provocative, challenging and always inspiring look” at the “heart of Christianity” from “one of our great Christian writers,” and which Butler Bass describes as being interwoven with her Pelagian theology. As she explains in the book’s introduction, the title comes from her belief that an icon of Jesus in the National Cathedral spoke to her and said, “Get me out of here.” The book is largely about “liberating” Jesus from our traditional view of him. For instance, instead of the cross, Butler Bass says that “the circle best illustrates my experience of Jesus,” and she presents an image of what her idea of what it means to believe in “the welcoming and inclusive Jesus, the Jesus of the circle and in the circle” (p. 261). It is, in short, a vision of Jesus as a visionary, but nothing more.
Someone should send Ms. Butler Bass a copy of Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy.” He addresses the “circle” versus the Cross in typically eloquent Chestertonian fashion.
Has nothing to do with Pelagianism. Other than that people label thing Pelagian that are not Pelagian. Pelagianism is basically a monastic or just strict moral attitude. Its not this liberal nonsense that everyone is good. Pelagius never even said everyone is good. He literally wrote about how the common herd love the notion that there is no free will because they can then excuae their sins. That’s not your liberal foppish idea that everyone is good especially when sinning.
I mean this Butler lady who is claiming to be a Pelagian is basically tying it to liberal politics, but Pelagius for sure would not be a liberal, becauae liberalism says you can’t avoid sin so just go ahead and sin, while Pelagius says you can avoid it. So Pelagius would oppose homosexuality and abortion; its the foppish Augustinian who says “I have to kill my baby; it is predestined by my fallenness; human perfectibility is a lie and so I cannot perfect myself even to the point of loving my offspring.” Calvinists in fact vote for the Left and brag about it on their blogs. Who taughg the gays the “I was born that way” excuse? Augustine and Calvin. Pelagius’ first encounter with Augustinianism was in fact hearing someone pray in Rome “Lord give me the grace to live a chaste life—but not yet” and he immediately asked where they learned such a crazy prayer and they said “Augustine.” That was the beginning of the “controversy” between the two, because Augustine with an abortionist homo libtard! Augustine taught (in essence) “Lord give me the grace to not abort my child—but wait till #5.” Or Augustine in essence taught to pray “Lord give me the grace to stop being a homo—but wait till I’ve reached 100 partners.” So this crazy woman on twitter has the two men confused.
You are confused about the bible and predestination as it gives no liberty to sin. Don’t get people started on what some Catholics boast about in Leftland.
Pelagius’ Pelagianism again I say is a monastic or a strict moral attitude. It is of necessiry conservative, morally focused, and precisely the kind of Christianity that Pope Francis always rails against, because it doesn’t say “who am I to judge?” but “that’s a sin; stop doing it”; it doesn’t make “pastoral” excuses for sin but says “cut it out.” It doesn’t say (in Catholic terms) “no big deal, everyone fornicates now days” but “make sure you go to confessional before communion because you’re in a state of mortal sin.” If Pope Francis really denies Biden communion this week for his support of abortion (as I read a rumor he will), then Francis will join the Pelagians briefly in being one who is somebody who can judge, and perhaps will even say “who am I not to judge?”
By the way (looking at the article you linked to), the saying quoted there “When Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden they were like small children…” is from an imaginative paraphrase of Pelagius’ Letter to Demetrius in a book called “The Letters of Pelagius: Celtic Soul Friend (Little Gidding Books)” (I have a copy, in storage right now but I recognize this is where its from as I encountered this nonsense before) and is not found in the actual academic translation (“Pelagius: Life and Letters”, Rees) nor the Latin text. There is no account of the story of Adam and Eve in there actually, and the place where the paraphraser of “Celtic Soul Friend” put his reverse-psychology story where God told Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit because he wanted them to eat it and thus mature by rebelling–where the paraphraser has placed this story, Pelagius actually is talking about “Job that athlete of God” in the authentic text and how job maintined his integrity.
“The hallmark of Pelagianism is a denial of original sin and a belief in human perfectibility, seemingly apart from divine grace.”
That “seemingly” only “seems” because Augustine lied on him so bad. Reading Pelagius’ commentary on Romans, one finds things like this, in Romans 6:2, “‘For how shall we who have died to sin still live in it?’ He wants one who has been baptized to be as steadfast and as perfect [as possible].” He wants one who has been “baptized” to be so, i.e. there is grace operative there.
Romans 6:4 “‘For we were buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ arose from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.’ He shows that we were baptized in this manner so that through the mystery we are buried with Christ, dying to our offenses and renouncing our former life, so that just as the Father is glorified in the resurrection of the Son, so too on account of the newness of our way of life he is glorified by all, provided that not even the signs of the old self are recognizable in us (cf. Rom. 6:6). For we ought not to want or desire anything that those who are not yet baptized, and all those who are still entangled in the errors of the old life, want or desire.”
Does it match with the lying “seemingly without grace”? Or do Catholics now days deny that there is any grace received in baptism? Truly modern Catholics seem confused on this point, compared to Pelagius!
From the article: “Pelagius described the human condition by saying that ‘day by day, hour by hour, we have to reach decisions; and in each decision, we can choose good or evil.'”
I’m not sure how accurate the quotation is because he probably took it from “Celtic Soul Friend” but it seems at least a reaonsable paraphrase to my memory of Rees’ accurate translation.
So…..How is that false? See, its merely that evil Augustine who never fully left Manicheanism, acted as if Pelagius was speaking to a pagan in saying this, when in reality he was writing in To Demetrius, a letter to a 14 year old girl who was a Christian already and had decided to become a nun. So again, the grace of baptism is operative in the person he is speaking to, so he is not denying grace by telling the would-be nun that she will have to make decisions about good vs evil every hour!
Pelagius also talks in To Demetrius about how one who takes on extra rules (i.e. becoming a nun, so living celibate) cannot then slack on the basic requirements of Christianity. You can’t say “well, I’m living celibate, so I’m better than everyone else, so now I can get drunk, or covet, etc.” Taking on extra stuff doesn’t relieve you of the common requirements for all. This is very different than Ms. Butler who thinks her liberal fake compassion relieves her of the commandment against supporting abortion.
From the article you link “But there’s a problem with achieving perfection. Pelagius admitted as much, saying that ‘people cannot grow in virtue on their own.’ Here, you might expect that he would say that what we need is Christ, or divine mercy, or grace. Instead, he says: ‘We each need companions to guide and direct us on the way of righteousness.’ That is, instead of turning toward God and grace, the Pelagian impulse is to encourage one another to a perfection that (if we’re just careful enough) we can achieve ourselves. It is here that Pelagianism goes dangerously astray.”
Again, I think he is quoting from “Celtic Soul Friend” so the form of the words is probably not exactly the way Pelagius worded it, but the paraphrase here is probably ok. Recall again, he is writing to a young woman who is about to become a nun, and is it not the case that monastics, monks and nuns, look to superiors, to abbots or mother superiors as examples of virtue? This seems to me to be what he is saying. In any case, having read the whole thing in Rees’ proper translation before (can’t pull it out right now as its in storage along as well) I recall that he does go through a litany of Biblical examples of righteousness, including Christ, but also as I already mentioned of Job, and many others, as example to be looked up to. He also mentions explicitely in that treatise receiving grace in baptism that enables one to live a righteous life.
But crazy Butler lady undoubtedly read some lying summary that said “Pelagius said everyone is going to heaven, whether they believe in Christ or not” and she liked that idea, so started claiming Pelagius as her hero. But he never said that; just false propaganda from Augustinian Calvinists. Pelagius was no heretic, just a monk in an age of anti-monasticism; remember Augustine had a bunch of bastards out of wedlock before “returning” from Manicheanism, and after he return (he returned because his mother arranged a marriage to an OLD and WEALTHY Catholic widow) he did begin to write about not engaging in concupicence within marriage (lol, but it was only because he married and old bag and needed an excuse not to sleep with her!). Augustine was an anti-monastic sex-nut, as the prayer that Pelagius disapproved of from Augustine (“Lord give me the grace to live a chaste life—but not yet”) proves. Poor crazy Butler lady, valorizing the wrong hero; she would like Augustine much better, if only she got to know him.
Jorgen b: Funny, I thought that the idea of self-professed Pelagians was simply an exaggeration levelled against Catholics by Protestants, but you have proven me wrong! Here we have someone who will cheerfully defend a thinker who was condemned by both the West and the East for 1500 years, and will misrepresent a Doctor of the Church to do so! Wonders never cease.
It seems Jorgen B. has attempted to explain better what Pelagianism is, and the problems he sees with it and ‘Augustinianism’. I found it his comments most interesting, and not unamusing.
And the only response is a reflexive reference to the perpetual bête noir of “Protestantism” and the equally reflexive defence of “a Doctor of the Church”?
Doesn’t sound like the search for truth and understanding to me.