The 'Pelagian' Boogeyman: Why Calvinists Use This Label

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:00]that doesn't get us anywhere. We don't have a good discussion. Where where's the Bible in that discussion?

[00:00:09]It's one of the nasty things that people say about you and about me and really anybody that's not firmly in that Calvinist camp that talks about doctrines of salvation is they call you a Pelagian. And I think a lot of people don't quite understand what that means.

[00:00:23]Um who who was Pelagius? What is Pelagianism? And how is our position as non-Calvinists different from what is described as palagianism or semiplagianism?

[00:00:34]>> That's been something I've learned along the way as well. Um because I've always even after coming out of Calvinism, I still thought of Pelagianism and Pelagius as just this really bad heretic that, you know, uh debated with Augustine. Um, and I even said, you know, I I I consider myself more of a semi Augustinian than than anything even as a non-Calvinist because I believed a lot of what Augustine taught after his conversion until eventually, you know, he he kind of shifted to more of his Gnostic roots in my estimation. But um but in my in my studies over this, we've had Dr. Bonner on Alli Bonner who is an expert on this subject because she's written um her her doctoral dissertation and and and a book on the subject um talking about the myth of plagiarianism and and what she uncovers and and Ken Wilson Oxford theologian who's also written on the histo history history of Augustinian development and those kinds of things. Both of these scholars have been on and they have revealed to me um just that the history has kind of been rewritten over the course of history that Pelagius was actually representing what was pretty much the norm of the church's understanding of theology for the most part. Um there were certain things that he he wrote or said that I I wouldn't agree with just like with any other uh early church writer or anybody.

[00:02:02]You're always going to take issue with this or that or the other. And there's issues that I have with plagi obviously, but um he was accused there was I can't remember 14 different points of plagiarianism that Augustine leveled against him. And it's shown in the writings that he only actually affirmed one of those one half of one of those 14 points and the rest of them he blatantly denied even holding to >> and and he was actually excommunicated um abstentia, meaning he wasn't even there to defend himself when it happened. Um, and so he's got kind of got a raw raw deal uh from what I'm looking at throughout history. But regardless of that, what has become known as Pelagianism is this gross idea that everyone's just born um just good and deserving of heaven and we're all you we all really don't need a savior because we're all really just, you know, we're we're all, you know, burned perfect and no problem.

[00:03:00]We don't have corruption. We don't have issues. we're not, you know, and um we can earn our own way to heaven if we just do good deeds and if we're good enough. These kinds of things. Pain just never taught anything like that. And so, but that's what it's kind of become known as is this this idea that um that men are basically just really good people and you know these kinds of things. And the truth is is that that Pelagius just was the debate was really with Augustine over over baptism and infant baptism and the concept of original guilt and original sin and what that what that does to the human soul and um the the the result of the fall and those kinds of things. Whereas Augustine would would basically argue that men are bu guilty um under Adam and and they're born in this corrupt state so much so that they can't respond positively to the the profered grace of the gospel. And and I've shown on the broadcast there are even Calvinists who admit Augustine is the first in Christian history, you know, that that we know from the earliest church writings that actually taught that doctrine. Now, there were some other contemporaries that agreed with Augustine and things like that that were at that time, but Augustine is the first one known as being the popularizer of this concept of original guilt um with a Latin misreading of of Romans chapter 5, which we go over in more detail in our broadcast. But what Plagius has become and plagiarianism has become is kind of this overarching boogeyman label. And what I mean by that is kind of like in political world, Hitler is a boogeyman label. It's a it's a what a what a boogeyman tactic is is that if I can associate you with a known bad character, I don't really have to deal with you anymore.

[00:04:43]>> I've put the Hitler label on you. So now I don't have to actually answer your arguments or deal with you. You're Ari the heretic. You're you're a horrible bad person because you're associated with this boogeyman. Well, Pelagius has become this boogeyman.

[00:04:57]A boogeyman that never existed if you look at history of it, but nevertheless a boogeyman. And anyone and everyone who's to the right or left of you, wherever direction you're going, you know, if you're less deterministic, less Calvinistic than I am, you're going to be labeled as a Pelagian. What's funny about that is Adam Harwood had pointed out that even Martin Luther called Uric Zwingley a palagian because he did not affirm the concept of original guilt. He had more of a the concept of of inherited or I mean um uh imputed guilt just like you're imputed with the righteousness of Christ when you believe you're imputed with the guilt of Adam when you sin which does seem a lot more congruent with the flow of of Romans chapter 5 when you read it. Even though Uricwingley was a very well-known quote unquote Calvinistic reformer um who held to Calvinistic sociology he was still labeled the plagian. Why? because he did not fall lock step with Augustinian's view on that particular point.

[00:05:56]>> Um, and so it has been used as a boogeyman label since probably Basa and that that range there in the 1500s where people would really just want to throw somebody else under the theological bus to say, well, this council agreed with us. And when what's so ironic about when you go back and actually study the councils, five-point Calvinism and a lot of what Cal Calvinists teach was actually condemned in those councils too when you really read all of the details of it. And so it's it's it's interesting to me that people who hold up to solo scriptor saying scripture alone is our authority will often appeal to ancient councils, Catholic councils no less >> as their authority to say this is the boogeyman heresy and and laten because you hold to a similar thing that this known heretic held to therefore you are that. Um, and and the way I've tried to help Calvinists understand this is, okay, if I just dismissed your arguments by calling you a semi-nostic, because, by the way, gnostics were the known determinists of that first century during that debate with Pelagius and Augustine, and Augustine was a former gnostic. Um, I can call you a semi-nostic and just dismiss you as the boogeyman ofnosticism if you want me to because that's what you're doing to me.

[00:07:13]That doesn't get us anywhere. We don't have a good discussion. where where's the Bible in that discussion? It's not there. You're just throwing out ancient labels that have nothing to do really with brotherly discussion and the scriptures. And so that's that's one of I think the lazy men approaches to this discussion is just to label and dismiss.

[00:07:31]He's a Pelagian. He's a Hitlerite. He's a Nazi. I don't have to talk to him anymore. I don't have to deal with him anymore. I don't have to deal with his arguments anymore because the boogeyman label has taken care of that for me.

[00:07:44]>> Yeah. So rather than just calling names, we want to actually talk about the act the issues and see what the scriptures have to say about those things.