The objection Pelagius had against Augustine was "How could God command us to do anything if we were unable to do what he commands?" Pelagius responded by saying: "God does not command us to do anything that we cannot do….If I ought, then I can." This problem hinges around his understanding of Original Sin. Original Sin is stated, "Adam is created mortal and would have died even if he had never sinned." Augustine said, "Adam was created good and upright, he was happy and in communion with God…Adam would not have died if he had not sinned but that he was on trial, and when he failed his depravity was communicated to his offspring throughout history so that the Old and New Testaments speak of man's depravity from Genesis to Revelation." (Genesis 6; Psalm 51; Jer. 17:9; John 6:44; Matt. 15; Eph.1; Romans 3:11-23).

 

"Adam fell into a state of total and hopeless ruin, of which the proper ending is eternal death." -Augustine

Augustine argued to Pelagius that Adam was "posse peccare," "posse non peccare." He had the ability to sin and the ability to not sin, but since the fall in his disobedience, death came through Adam in his sin (Gen.3; Romans 5:12-21). Adam was on trial and chosen by God to represent the human race, therefore because of his failure and disobedience to God, Adam's offspring are born in sin (Ps. 51), with the inability to not sin. Man still has freewill (liberium arbitrium), but his will is in bondage to the sinful nature and he cannot do what is godly, only that which fallen man desires, which is never focused godward (Romans 8:9; 1 Cor. 2; John 6:44). Augustine wrote, "Adam fell into a state of total and hopeless ruin, of which the proper ending is eternal death." Many Church theologians will agree with this doctrine, and these Augustinian doctrines will be repeated in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, Luther's Bondage of the Will, and John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Original sin, according to Augustine was not the first sin committed by Adam in the garden but the consequence of his disobedience, or the lack of good, the condition of sinfulness that is common to mankind since the fall- an inherent, inherited sinful corruption and condition that makes it impossible for man to not sin. It was the loss of libertas, which was the loss of true moral liberty as defined by Augustine.

 

"How could God command us to do anything if we were unable to do what he commands?" - Pelagius

Pelagius argued with Augustine that God would not command us in the Law to live a particular way if he did not also give us this ability. He wrote to Augustine that Adam represented Adam only and that man cannot be placed on trial because of someone else. "Adam's sin merely set an ill example, which [man] has been quick to follow. Hence they almost all need to be set right…but after baptism, man has full power and duty to keep the divine law." This belief logically brings Pelagius to the conclusion that justification in vicarious atonement cannot be true either, because another man cannot represent the punishment of someone else's sins. Man is responsible for the keeping of the law and his resistance to sin by himself. The obvious sinfulness in man in the fallen creation must have an ability to not sin, it is only that they tend to sin because we are born in a society where evil prevails. Men are born innocent, but the society that is evil seems to prevail upon them causing them to be bad. Augustine asked him, "How can society be evil when made up of men that are not fallen, because society should not be evil, but good if men are born good."

Pelagius was much like Socrates in his teaching of education and knowledge being the foundation of righteousness. Moral problems can be solved and evil can be done away with through education, Pelagius would say. Augustine responded that we would only end with sophisticated, educated crooks and that man is by nature sinful and fallen and only God's Grace can make the evil heart of man good. Augustine defined evil, rather than ignorance, as the absence of the good, the godly. Pelagius said that Christ came to educate man and bring him knowledge of God and his condition. His death was only an example of the evil-ness of sin, rather than a vicarious atonement where Christ's righteousness is applied to His people.

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