Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 66:4 (Dec 2023)
Article: Augustine And Pelagius On Holiness And The Christian Life
Author: Han-luen Kantzer Komline

JETS 65:4 (December 2023) p. 617

Augustine And Pelagius On Holiness And The Christian Life

Han-luen Kantzer Komline*

^* Han-luen Kantzer Komline is Marvin and Jerene DeWitt Professor of Theology and Church History at Western Theological Seminary, 101 E. 13th St., Holland, MI 49423. She may be contacted at han-luen.kantzerkomline@westernsem.edu.

Abstract: Recent scholarship has revived the ancient argument that Augustine’s theology was not so far from Pelagius as he wanted his readers to think. This article compares the two thinkers on the issue of holiness. Drawing only on completely extant works intended for sympathetic audiences—rather than on works that were primarily polemical—this essay characterizes the views of both thinkers on three questions: First, what does holiness look like? Second, what is God’s role in our holiness? Lastly, to what extent is progress in holiness possible? This comparison displays areas of overlap in their perspectives that challenge conventional stereotypes but also helps pinpoint the crux of the contrast between their articulations of the preconditions and possibilities for holiness in the Christian life.

Key words: Augustine, Pelagius, holiness, grace, Pelagian controversy, Christ, progress, nature, Demetrias, sermons

If ever there were a prime candidate for expressing the polar opposite of Augustine’s perspective on holiness, it would be Pelagius, the charismatic monk who, in the early fifth century, became the center of a dispute about nature, grace, and the human potential to do good, a dispute now known as the Pelagian Controversy. If Arius is the archetypal Christological heretic, Pelagius is known for his problematic theological anthropology—as an extreme advocate of free will, human potential for good, and the human ability to make moral progress aided only by knowledge in the form of legal guidance and good examples.

But it has become hard to know what Pelagius actually said, the extent to which he actually disagreed with Augustine, and whether there was in fact a problem with his views at all. Recent scholarship on the Pelagian controversy has questioned the practice of admitting Augustine’s quotations of Pelagius as reliable sources for discerning Pelagius’s views; it has emphasized the theological commonalities between Augustine and Pelagius; and it has endeavored to vindicate Pelagius from both historic and current criticism by arguing that his theology aligned with mainstream currents of his day represented by such luminaries as Athanasius and Augustine himself.1

JETS 65:4 (December 2023) p. 618

This article gives an account of Pelagius’s pers...