All Articles For Augustine and the Pelagian Heresy

Rev. Terpstra is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. Introduction Continuing our look at some of the Christian church’s great defenders and developers of the truth, we want to focus next on Augustine (A.D. 354-430). In considering this church father we are dealing with one of the true giants of the church, one who is in fact generally considered the greatest of the church fathers. Even though the life and work of Augustine takes us back to the 4th and 5th centuries, he is still held in high regard through his writings by nearly all churches,...

Rev. Terpstra is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. In our last segment we ended by considering briefly the heresy of the British monk Pelagius. We noted that the heart of his error was the denial of man’s need for the sovereign work of Gods grace in saving him. According to Pelagius natural man has God’s gift of free-will and that was all he needed. By directing his will in the right way the natural man could make himself good in the eyes of God and do the good God required of him. He was not...

Rev. Terpstra is pastor of the Protestant Reformed Church of South Holland, Illinois. Our readers will recall that in these articles on the great church father Augustine we are focusing on his defense and development of the doctrines of grace over against the heresy of Pelagianism. In our last segment we saw how the Spirit of truth specially prepared Augustine for this, and how Augustine began his work by confronting this error of Pelagius with the biblical teaching concerning the sinfulness of natural man. He overthrew the Pelagian figment of salvation by man’s freewill and posited instead the utter helplessness...