Major Christian Church Councils. Part 4. Augustine & Pelagius. The Conflict.

September 9, 2026

People gathered in a large, ornate church hall.

March 2026.

Now consider the conflict between these two Christians (Augustine and Pelagius). Two regional church councils are important in this history.

🔹 African Councils (Carthage & Milevis, 416–418)

1. Council of Carthage

2. Council of Milevis

According to ChatGPT, these two councils were heavily influenced by Augustine.

That sounds reasonable enough until the story is told, at which point it might appear somewhat Machiavellian on Augustine’s part and very different than how ChatGPT depicts it in this outline.

What they condemned (Pelagian positions, supposedly):

❌ Adam’s sin did not affect all humanity
❌ Humans can live sinless lives without grace
❌ Grace is merely external (law, teaching)
❌ Infants are born innocent (no original sin)

What do you think about these ideas that were condemned at these two church councils? At the risk of being condemned as Pelagius was, I will give my position on all of these ‘heretical’ ideas, starting from the last. I am commenting on the ideas, not on whether Pelagius actually believed them.

The heresy that infants are born innocent

Pelagius did not accept Augustine’s dogma of Original Sin or the view that we are born sinners who can do no good. The early church fathers did not accept it either.I do not believe that the Bible teaches what Augustine claimed regarding total inability, Original Sin, and guilt. We are not born guilty sinners. We are born innocent.

All humans suffer some of the consequences of Adam’s Original Sin (See Genesis 3), but no one but Adam is guilty for his sin, and that is what Augustine brought into the Christian Church. However, all of Adam’s descendants come into a world full of sinners and exceedingly great temptations to sin. We come into a world of sinners who sinned by choice, not by necessity or the decree of God or from Adam.

The heresy that grace is merely external (law, teaching).

Read Titus chapter 2 because it offers the best definition of grace in all the Bible.

“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.” KJV, Titus 2:11-12, and then in verse 14 we read, “Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

Augustine and his followers teach the opposite. They teach that no Christian stops sinning daily in this life and that Jesus and His grace don’t redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people. To them, grace is God overlooking our continued sinful rebellion against Him and not condemning us for it. Could Satan think of a better redefinition of grace than that?

Titus claims that the grace of God appears to all men, teaching us to die to sin and live to righteousness. Grace purifies us and redeems us from all iniquity according to Titus. That implicitly means God’s teachings are never merely external, as Augustine claimed.

The heresy that humans can live sinless lives without grace.

These Christian men also condemned this at these councils. Let us get back to the basics. Sin must be voluntary. Everything involuntary is not a moral issue and can’t be called sin, or sin has no meaning whatsoever. Sin is blameworthy. Involuntary action is never blameworthy. If we can’t agree on this, we can’t possibly communicate with each other.

Augustine wanted to make God the sole cause of our salvation so that no man might steal God’s glory in saving us. Human pride is indeed something to guard against, but to make us unable to obey God takes away our culpability and makes us blameless because “sin” becomes involuntary.

If humanity can’t live without sinning, it must be because we are unable to do so. That clears humanity of guilt and makes sin meaningless. God created Adam and Eve and told them not to eat of a certain tree in the garden. God did not tell them they could obey Him (it is implicit in the command), for He would never command them to do or not do what was impossible for them. God never told them they needed some special grace to obey Him, either. They were created able to do whatever God commanded.

Therefore, it must be true that we, too, are created able to obey God without special grace to do so. Ability is not, by itself, virtuous. What we do with this ability or freedom determines the merit or demerit of the act or choice. We are born able to do as God requires without any special grace. That makes us guilty and blameworthy when we violate God’s commands.

Arminians believe we inherit a bent toward sin, but God gives us prevenient grace so that we can obey and respond to God in faith. Prevenient grace is only necessary because of their belief in Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin. Calvinists, like Augustine, believe we are all born sinners who can do nothing but sin. Humanity is born totally depraved and totally unable, yet they claim that we are blameworthy for Adam’s sin and our own involuntary sin. I regard that as moral confusion.

Here is where true grace enters the picture. We can do what God requires, but we are unwilling because we are voluntarily selfish and refuse to do it. We are rebels by choice. God, in His patient grace, works with us and persuades us to get right and stay right with Him. This is the grace of God as defined by Titus.

ChatGPT responds to what I wrote.

You’ve laid out your position clearly, and I’ll respond the same way—point by point, carefully, and without caricature. I’ll show where your conclusions are strong, where they’re debatable, and where (in my judgment) they run into tension with Scripture and the early church.

1) “Infants are born innocent (no original sin).”

Where your arguments are strong.

You are right to emphasize:

Personal guilt is tied to personal sin (e.g., Ezekiel 18:20 — “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father”)
Adam alone committed Adam’s sin
Scripture often treats judgment as tied to actual deeds

This is a legitimate biblical concern, and many early writers before Augustine leaned in this direction (though not as sharply as you do, writes ChatGPT).

Where your conclusion runs into difficulty

There are several passages that push beyond your framework:

Romans 5:12-19

“By one man sin entered… and death passed upon all men.”

My response. I don’t think this passage teaches anything close to Calvinism or Original Sin. It is also written in Romans 5:18, “that by the sin of Adam judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one (Jesus) the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.” Adam did not automatically make us all sinners any more than Jesus automatically makes us all righteous. Is that not true?

ChatGPT continues; Paul ties:

Adam’s act → universal death
and something more than imitation is implied.

My response. I don’t see it, and I don’t agree. ChatGPT seems bent on including some form or some degree of depravity and inability in what Adam passed on to humanity. See Genesis 3 for what God stated the consequences of Adam’s sin are.

Psalm 51:5

“In sin did my mother conceive me.”

My comment. David said that his mother conceived him in sin. Elsewhere in Scripture, David calls God his Lord from the womb. This passage doesn’t teach that David thought he was born a sinner. Am I wrong? See my other articles on this passage under the Augustinian Calvinism and Sin Nature/Original Sin.

Ephesians 2:3

“by nature children of wrath.”

These don’t cleanly fit a pure-innocence-at-birth model, says ChatGPT.

My comments. I do not agree that this passage, used by Calvinists, suggests that we are all born sinners. Isn’t the word ‘nature’ used to describe practice or habit, not how we are actually born? Are babies born children of wrath? Scripture says babies are innocent; is that not right?

The very idea that a moral agent can be born a sinner is not only repulsive, but it is morally incoherent. Sin is a voluntary violation of the law when keeping the law is a real possibility. Are we to believe that we are guilty when we sin involuntarily? Involuntary sin is a nonsensical idea. If we are born sinners, then there is no real sin and no guilt.

Where Augustine likely goes too far, according to ChatGPT

You are correct to push back on this:

Augustine of Hippo taught:
- inherited guilt
- infants under condemnation apart from grace

That goes beyond what many earlier fathers taught.

ChatGPT offers this more balanced early church position

Many pre-Augustinian writers held something like:

We inherit:
- mortality
- corruption
But not necessarily:
- full legal guilt

My comment. But what does that mean? Are we born with partial but not full legal guilt? And what does that look like? The early church fathers did not say we are born sinners as Augustine taught. Augustine knew that the early church disagreed with him on critical doctrines. That did not stop him from changing Christian Orthodoxy.

ChatGPT continues. Your instinct is partly aligned with early Christianity—but your complete denial of any inward corruption is stronger than most of them.

My response. If we are born partially handicapped/depraved against obedience, then what about Jesus? Hebrews 2 says Jesus was born like us and shared our nature. How can that be true if we are born partially depraved and Jesus is not?

What is the inward corruption that we are supposedly born with? Is it total depravity and total inability? Or is it a bent toward sin? Did Jesus have this bent toward sin? What do we do with the passage that says God will not allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to resist, but with every temptation God provides a way of escape? Total depravity clearly contradicts that passage, and partial depravity (whatever that is) comes very close to a direct contradiction. Is that not true?

And what about Adam and Eve? They had no partial or total depravity and no bent toward sin, yet they sinned. How is that to be explained? This is why I completely reject the idea that we are born totally depraved. I also reject the idea that we are partially morally depraved and that we inherit a bent toward sin for the same reason. And lastly, Jesus took on our nature and was tempted in all points as we are. Was Jesus born a sinner? Was he born with a bent toward sin like us?

2) “Grace is merely external (law, teaching).”

ChatGPT responds with: You are right to appeal to:

Titus 2:11-14

This is one of the clearest passages showing:

Grace teaches
grace leads to holy living

You are correct, according to ChatGPT. You are absolutely right to reject a false view of grace as: “God overlooking ongoing rebellion”

That is not biblical, ChatGPT states.

My response. ChatGPT agrees but seems to fail to rebuke Augustine’s false teachings on grace, which deny all this.

Matthew 1:21

“save his people from their sins” (not in their sins)

1 John 3:6-9

strong emphasis on actual righteousness

So, your critique of modern evangelical distortion is largely justified, according to ChatGPT.

Where your conclusion goes too far, according to ChatGPT

You reduce grace to: persuasion, teaching, and external influence

My response. Until the external is internalized, it will produce no change, transformation, or holiness. I am not limiting it to external influence, because that has no meaning. Only when the mind and heart are turned is there actually any influence at all. Where am I wrong? I did not and do not reduce grace to external influence.

ChatGPT continues. Scripture also describes internal transformation:

Ezekiel 36:26-27

“A new heart… I will cause you to walk in my statutes.”

My response to ChatGPT’s criticism. Yes and Amen. God also commands us to make a new heart for ourselves. See Ezekiel 18:31.

“Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel?”

Notice that Ezekiel tells them to repent as if they had the natural ability to do so without any special grace of God to enable them to do what God commands. Moreover, God commands his people to make a new heart and a new spirit for themselves. Would God really command them and us to do something that was morally and naturally impossible to do? No possible way.

There is no hint of innate total or partial depravity in this passage. Israel’s depravity is a result of their ongoing rebellion against God and His laws.

God is the procuring, moving cause of salvation, but we must meet the conditions, and that is our role. Both God and mankind have a role in salvation.)

Philippians 2:13

“God which worketh in you both to will and to do”

My comment. Agree, but is that an irresistible work? If it is, then it is not virtuous.

Hebrews 8:10, law written on the heart. These go beyond mere external instruction.

My comment. Agreed, and I never claimed it to be limited to mere external instruction. It is the truth that sets us free from the slavery of our selfishness, and that is clearly an internal transformation.

Per ChatGPT, the key issue

You argue: If grace is internal, it removes responsibility.

My comments. If grace is involuntary and irresistible, it is not grace, and we are not responsible. Apparently, ChatGPT did not understand my comment.

Per ChatGPT, Scripture presents both simultaneously:

God works inwardly
man remains responsible

This is a tension—but it is biblical tension, not necessarily contradiction.

My response. God works internally through the truth. But it is all voluntary on our part, or it is not virtuous. This is the only way I can see that man remains responsible. Tell me what is unreasonable and unbiblical about that?

3) “Humans can obey God without special grace.”

ChatGPT continues. This is the core of your disagreement with Augustine—and here is where the strongest conflict appears.

Your strongest argument

You rightly insist:

Commands imply ability
Sin must be voluntary to be blameworthy

These are philosophically strong and morally intuitive arguments.

My comment. Even so, very few Christians will admit it and be governed by it.

Per ChatGPT, Scripture challenges your conclusion in:

John 15:5. “Without me ye can do nothing.”

My response. This is not about our inability to obey God. If this were literally true, it would suggest that God initiates all our actions, both good and bad. This is about bearing fruit unto God. Jesus was speaking to his disciples about bearing fruit to God, not about their initial faith in Christ. We can’t accomplish anything without abiding in Christ.

But note this as well. In another communication with ChatGPT, it says, “The focus of John 15 is fruit-bearing, not the mechanics of conversion.” In other words, it doesn’t address the question of inability at all. How strange that ChatGPT uses this verse to claim that Scripture cites John 15:5 as evidence of inability, then turns right around (days later) and says what you just read, which refutes its prior position.

This verse doesn’t challenge my conclusion, contrary to what ChatGPT indicated.

Romans 8:7-8

“They that are in the flesh cannot please God.”

My Comment. The word ‘flesh’ is about the unlawful gratification of the desires of our human nature. Those bent on unlawfully gratifying the desires and lusts of the flesh by their own choice can not please God. It is not saying we are born sinners and can’t please God because our nature is sinful at birth. That position is very close to saying that sin is a substance.

1 Corinthians 2:14

“The natural man… cannot know”

These are not merely saying:

“man does not.”

but:

“man cannot” (apart from grace)

My response. Where in Scripture does it say we can’t know God apart from grace? It says that the natural man, who lives by gratifying his unlawful passions, can not receive the things of God, for they are foolishness to him, not because he is unable to do so, but because the natural man is unwilling by choice to do so. Is that not correct?

Your key logical claim, according to ChatGPT

If man cannot obey, then sin is involuntary → not blameworthy

This is a philosophical argument, not explicitly stated in Scripture, according to ChatGPT.

My response. I believe it is implicit throughout the Bible, just as ability is, which is most often not explicitly stated but assumed and inferred. ChatGPT calls it a philosophical argument and not a rational moral argument. Why does ChatGPT do this? Elsewhere, ChatGPT has said my argument is very strong, but now it implies it is merely a philosophical argument. The implication being that it is not a strong argument but a weak one.

ChatGPT continues. The Bible instead affirms:

man is unable

My response. I do not believe it. The passages above do not convince me. How about you? What am I missing? There are passages in Scripture that explicitly state that none of God’s laws are out of our reach and that we are unable to do them, as Augustinian Calvinists and many evangelicals teach. This next example comes from Deuteronomy 30::11-14. It states the truth explicitly: we can do as God commands. Let God correct ChatGPT, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and all others who continue to teach the lie of inability.

“For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it and do it? But the word is very high unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.”

If this is not a direct and explicit rebuttal of total depravity and total inability, then I do not understand plain English. But that will stop the Calvinist from offering creative explanations that circumvent the plain meaning. I call that theological sophistry at its worst.

Man is still guilty, according to ChatGPT. (My comment. To assert that man is unable and that man is nonetheless still guilty is impossible to reconcile with the justice of God, as far as I am concerned.)

Per ChatGPT, that tension is uncomfortable—but it is present in the text. My comment. No, it is not in the text, only in a misreading or redefining of the text.

ChatGPT continues. Where Augustine overreaches

You are right again to push back here:

Augustine of Hippo later taught:

inability rooted in inherited corruption
grace as necessary for even the will to turn

But he sometimes moves toward:

determinism (especially in later interpretations of his thought)

Your concern about making God the sole cause is a legitimate historical criticism.

4) Your definition of grace (persuasion, not compulsion)

You wrote: “God… persuades us to get right and stay right with Him.”

This aligns with Scripture:

God calls
warns
invites

But Scripture also adds:

new birth (John 3). (My response. Remember the passage in Ezekiel where God tells us to make a new heart and a new spirit, which is our part.)
heart change
indwelling Spirit

ChatGPT states, So the biblical picture seems to be:

not mere external persuasion (My comment. See what I wrote above. An external persuasion is not persuasion at all until it becomes internalized. This criticism is bogus.)
Not irresistible coercion, but something like: Inward enabling that does not eliminate responsibility

My response. But what does that mean? How does it work? Can it be anything other than persuasion, based on the truth, that is internalized? See Part 5 on the meaning of Ability and Inability.

5) Was Augustine “Machiavellian”?

Per ChatGPT, this is where I would push back on your conclusion.

What is true:

Augustine strongly influenced the African councils
He argued forcefully against Pelagianism

My response. Dr. Bonner makes a great case that Augustine deliberately exaggerated and distorted what Pelagius actually taught. Why did he do that? To change Christian Orthodoxy, according to Dr. Bonner. It sounds like pride may have been his motive for setting aside the clear teaching of the early church. If not pride, then what motive did Augustine have? To protect grace? In protecting it, he distorted it.

His theology shaped Western Christianity.

My response. I agree that Augustine’s theology shaped Western Christianity. If his ideas were clearly biblical, why didn’t the Eastern Church readily adopt them then and now? Just because Augustine was very influential doesn’t mean he was correct in what he did. This point by ChatGPT has no merit.

What is not well supported historically, and there is no solid evidence that:

he manipulated councils in a deceptive or political sense

My comments. Not sure that is the case based on my understanding of Dr. Bonner’s book. I think I read or heard that Pelagius was not in attendance at one or more of the council meetings to defend himself before the council, and that was a violation of canon law. If true, what man of God would do such a thing?

In addition, the story I read said that Augustine tried, with one Pope, to get Pelagius excommunicated or worse, and that Pelagius’s teachings were condemned. The Pope refused, but died not long after. Then Augustine went to the civil, secular authorities and had the emperor convince the new pope, who then condemned Pelagius’s supposed teachings. If all this is true, is that not the worst kind of political manipulation?

I grant that history has been kind to Augustine, but not every theologian agreed with his radical views. Let us remember that those with power write history. And often history is not totally accurate.

he acted with calculated bad faith

According to ChatGPT, Augustine genuinely believed:

Pelagian teaching undermined grace
and threatened the gospel

So:

influence? Yes, that is true of Augustine
theological bias? Yes, that is true of Augustine
Machiavellian scheming? Unlikely, according to ChatGPT.

My comment. I hear what ChatGPT is saying, but it is easy to infer this position from the findings of Dr. Bonner and Dr. Wilson. I will soften it. God knows the truth, but if Dr. Bonner and Dr. Wilson are accurate in what they have written, there is room to wonder about his motives, in my opinion. But I leave final judgment to God in this and all cases. What troubles me the most is why Augustine would attempt to correct (rewrite) the historic Christian doctrines of the Church? Did God call him to this task in direct contradiction to His word that no one alter anything, even to the smallest letter?

6) Where is your position strongest overall, according to ChatGPT

You are right to emphasize:

Sin is voluntary and blameworthy
Grace leads to actual righteousness
Christianity that tolerates ongoing sin is false
Some Augustinian and modern teachings go too far in tolerating sin

My response. As usual, ChatGPT understates the damage this false teaching causes. ChatGPT states that some Augustinian and modern teaching goes too far in tolerating sin, which is a gross understatement. Most (nearly all) modern teaching does this, not just some of it. And you can think of anything more important than protecting the truth of the gospel of salvation?

7) ChatGPT states this: Your position is weakest:

Your system struggles to account for:

Passages describing human inability

My comment: I do not think that is true. See Part 5 of this series. Also, see my book, When Lies Become Truth, chapters 1 and 2 on ability and free will. The bible repeatedly emphasizes that we have the ability to do as God commands. Their proof texts do not support their interpretation of inability as they claim.

The internal work of grace

My Comment: I do not think so. Persuasion, which is the work of grace, is that which results in a new heart and a new mind that is a servant of righteousness and not sin. The idea that grace is merely an external work is a bogus claim, for I most definitely do not teach that. Others may have, but not me.

The universality of sin in a way deeper than imitation

My response. Why is that necessary? Adam was not born a sinner or born inclined to sin, yet he sinned. Satan and other angels were not born/created sinners, yet they sinned. How do we account for that? How about lust and temptation as described in James? Is that not how all of us sin? We do not need total or partial depravity to explain how all of us follow Adam into sin.

Augustinian Calvinists think something more than imitation is needed to explain our sin, such as total inability or a bent toward sin. But that is not what the Bible actually teaches, in my humble opinion. James says that we are tempted by our own lusts to gratify these passions unlawfully. That is how Adam fell. That is how we fall.

Final Summary

ChatGPT states, “You are not ‘Pelagian’ in a simplistic sense—you are:

defending moral responsibility
resisting antinomian grace
emphasizing real obedience

But your conclusions:

minimize inward corruption, according to ChatGPT

My response. That is true in that I utterly reject the doctrine of total depravity and total inability. And I have a difficult time reconciling a wounded will, a bent toward sin, and other descriptions that weaken our ability to do as God commands. As I said before, did Jesus have any of these liabilities? If not, then he doesn’t know what it is like to be tempted as we are.

And all of these ideas encourage Christians and all humanity to make excuses for ongoing sin.

reduce the grace to external persuasion

My response. Not at all, for until persuasion is internalized, it is insufficient and not saving.

and conflict with key biblical texts on inability and regeneration

My response: I do not believe it. What has been presented thus far in defense of Augustinian Calvinism can be interpreted differently, honestly and correctly. And the overall tenor of the Bible is against Augustinian Calvinism.

In addition, Augustinian Calvinism is antinomian to the core. It makes Christ a minister of sin in direct and explicit contradiction to the word of God. See my article with this title: Is Christ A Minister Of Sin?

I sent my responsive comments to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT responds. Yes. Here is where I think your conclusions are strong, where they are partly right, and where I think they go too far.

First: on the councils themselves

You are not wrong that the African councils of Carthage and Milevis (416), and then Carthage (418), were strongly shaped by Augustine’s anti-Pelagian campaign. Standard reference works say Augustine strongly opposed the African condemnations of Pelagius and Celestius, and that the later council at Carthage in 418 issued canons against Pelagian positions, which Pope Zosimus then confirmed.

Where I would slow down is the word “Machiavellian.” Augustine was certainly influential, vigorous, and politically effective, but the historical record more securely shows a determined theological campaign than a deceptive plot. He believed Pelagian teaching endangered grace and salvation, and he pressed that case hard. That is clear. The stronger claim—that he was cynically manipulating the process in bad faith—is much harder to prove from the historical evidence, according to ChatGPT.

My comments. Refer to the works by Dr. Bonner and Dr. Wilson. I do not think it is unreasonable to consider that Augustine may have acted in bad faith in changing his mind about Orthodoxy and in his treatment of Pelagius. Augustine may have been motivated by concern about the meaning of grace, but his doctrines only compound that concern by making grace antinomian.

So, on that point I would say:

“Augustine dominated the anti-Pelagian push” — fair.
“Augustine’s influence helped determine the outcome” — fair.
“Therefore, Augustine acted Machiavellianly” — not established.

My comment. That term may be too strong, but it still seems reasonable to question how Augustine thought the historic church before him held many of its essential doctrines to be wrong, and that he was called to correct them and change Christian Orthodoxy. At the very least, that seems like pride on his part. Does it not also appear to rewrite the Word of God, like a new revelation?

1) “Infants are born innocent; no one bears Adam’s guilt.”

This is where I think your criticism of Augustine is at its strongest, says ChatGPT.

This is where you are right, according to ChatGPT.

You are right that Augustine’s mature (mature meaning later in his life, not meaning wiser and more reasonable or Biblically sound) doctrine goes beyond saying merely that Adam’s fall brought mortality, corruption, and a damaged world. He argued that Adam’s sin somehow implicates all his descendants, and that even infants need baptism because they are under original sin. That is indeed a stronger doctrine than simply saying we inherit a fallen condition.

You are also right that this is not the clean, obvious teaching of a verse that says in so many words, “every infant is born guilty of Adam’s own sin.” Augustine’s formulation is a theological synthesis, not a bare and explicit quotation of Scripture.

Where I think your conclusion needs tightening, according to ChatGPT

I do not think the best correction to Augustine is to say there is, therefore, no inherited fallenness at all. The historic anti-Pelagian concern was not only “infants are guilty,” but also that Pelagianism appeared to deny that Adam’s sin had brought humanity into a universally ruined condition needing grace. The councils condemned the idea that Adam’s transgression harmed only himself and not the race, and opposed the view that grace is unnecessary for salvation and righteousness.

So the better distinction is this:

Augustine may go too far if he makes all people bear Adam’s personal guilt in the same sense Adam did.
But Pelagius goes too far if Adam’s fall becomes little more than a bad example.

That is where I think your position needs care. You are probably right against Augustine’s strongest version of inherited guilt. But you should not flatten humanity into morally neutral individuals who merely enter a bad environment. The church’s anti-Pelagian insistence was that Adam’s fall brought a real catastrophe to the race, not just bad social conditions.

My judgment per ChatGPT;

Your statement, “all humans suffer consequences of Adam’s sin, but no one but Adam is guilty for his sin,” is a much better position than Augustine’s harshest version of inherited guilt. But it still has to explain why the church so strongly linked Adam’s fall to the universal need of grace and redemption. That part of the anti-Pelagian case was not invented out of thin air, according to ChatGPT.

My response. Adam’s sin brought immediate spiritual and eventual physical death to the world. His sin is not just a bad example. His example is a huge problem, and ChatGPT seems to minimize it by saying, “But Pelagius goes too far if Adam’s fall becomes little more than a bad example.”

What was the catastrophe that Adam brought to the human race? Augustine and Calvin say it is total depravity and total inability. Only strict Calvinists believe that. And if that is true, then God alone saves and damns. Everything is determined by God, both good and evil.

It appears that all other Christians, for the most part, believe the effects of Adam’s sin on humanity were something like a wounded will, a bent toward sin, an inclination to sin, or some form of depravity, but not total depravity, and so on.

But what does that mean? And more importantly, did Jesus Christ have this nature, for the word says He took on this nature to redeem it? Some say Jesus took on the sinless nature of Adam before the fall, but Adam fell and did not have an inclination or a bent toward sin. None of this makes sense to me as of yet.

Jesus became a man with our nature after the fall, not before it. Was Jesus born with a bent toward sin? If not, He doesn’t know what it is like to be tempted like we are. I don’t understand why this isn’t obvious to everyone. Maybe someone can explain it to me. See the appendix for more on this subject. See also my other articles on Original Sin, especially my discussion of Genesis 3, where God declares the consequences of Adam’s sin on all humanity explicitly. It nowhere states that Adam’s children inherit a totally depraved nature or simply a bent toward sin as a result of his fall.

2) “Grace is merely external (law, teaching).”

ChatGPT says the following. Here, I agree with you in part, but not completely.

This is where you are right, according to ChatGPT.

Your use of Titus 2:11-14 is strong. Grace is not mere acquittal when a person remains unchanged in character. Grace teaches, disciplines, and aims at a holy people zealous for good works. Your criticism of a cheap-grace version of Protestantism is justified. A view of grace that boils down to “God ignores my continuing rebellion” is plainly not what the New Testament means by grace.

On that point, your objection is not only fair but needed, says ChatGPT.

Where I think you go too far, according to ChatGPT

The councils were not just denying that grace is an external message. They were denying the idea that grace is only external instruction. The anti-Pelagian tradition insisted that grace is not merely law, doctrine, command, warning, and example, but also God’s help at work within the person. (My comment. I agree with all this.)

That was Augustine’s point, though he often developed it in ways many later readers find too strong. The older anti-Pelagian sources describe Pelagianism as denying “Christian grace” or reducing it to external aids rather than the divine help needed for righteousness.

My response. But what kind of help are we talking about? Is it irresistible help? No. We are perfectly able to obey all of God’s laws, and that makes us responsible when we don’t. But we also very often become so enslaved to sinful living that we need God’s help, not because we are unable, but because we are weak and feeble and in bondage to our sinful habits. This is grace on God’s part. If we were unable to obey God, there would be no grace; only justice (not grace) when God enables us to obey. Augustine thought he was safeguarding grace, but he actually did the opposite. He destroyed the idea of grace, in my opinion.

Per ChatGPT. So, this is where I would say you are partly wrong:

If you mean grace includes God’s teaching, warning, promises, Christ’s example, and patient calls to repentance — yes.
If you mean grace is nothing more than those external things, I think that is too narrow.

My comments. I mean that the truth will set us free from the bondage of sin and release us from errors and deception. As we internalize the truth, we are made new by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. We are cleansed in the heart and mind. God offers help as needed and requested, but He will not do for us what He demands that we do or initiate. That is not grace. It is a license to sin with impunity.

The New Testament picture is bigger than bare outward instruction. Grace is not coercion, but it is more than information.

My comment. I agree and never meant or said that grace was just information.

My judgment, according to ChatGPT

You are right against false Protestant grace. You are not right if you make grace merely external persuasion. (My response. I never did. I just refused to say grace was needed to enable us to do what God commanded us to do. I maintain that grace helps us by persuasion and the truth to begin to obey God.)

3) “Humans can live sinless lives without grace.”

This needs careful distinction, because there are really two questions hidden in one.

Question A: Is sin voluntary and blameworthy?

On this point, you are making an important moral truth. Sin is not morally meaningful unless it involves the will. Your insistence that involuntary things, strictly speaking, are not sin in the proper moral sense is, according to ChatGPT, a serious and important point.

Question B: Can a human being, apart from grace, actually live righteously before God?

Here is where I think your conclusion goes wrong, says ChatGPT.

The councils were not condemning the statement that people are not machines. They were condemning the claim that human beings can attain righteousness and salvation by native power, without the grace of Christ. That is indeed what Pelagianism was accused of, and that is why the controversy became so sharp.

You say that because God commands obedience, man must be able to obey without special grace. That sounds attractive, but it does not necessarily follow. Historically, Augustine argued that the command shows what ought to be done, while grace is needed for fallen people actually to do it. That is the core anti-Pelagian logic.

My response. Of course, the command of God reveals what ought to be done. But to say we ought to do something but are unable to do it makes no moral sense. Does God command impossibilities on pain of eternal death? To suggest that God commands us to do impossible things and, at the same time, insist that we are unable to do those things is morally incoherent in my mind. God is not like that. He is not a tyrant.

We all know non-Christians who obey some of the laws of God, even those that seem very hard. I am sure that all of us know people who have stopped drinking to excess, ceased taking drugs, and who have either never started stealing or have stopped it. All of them have done it on their own, without God’s help. If non-Christians can obey the laws of God, isn’t it ridiculous to believe that Christians, who have been born-again by the Holy Ghost, can’t?

All of these attempts to nullify or downgrade our natural ability to obey God’s laws come at a cost. The cost is that all these attempts imply an inability of sorts, which makes law-breaking all the more inevitable. They all produce antinomianism while professing to save the doctrine of grace, which they fail to do.

I repeat myself and close with this. Inability, whether it is total or partial, is the best excuse for our sin that Satan ever devised. This explains why the nominal Christian church is worldly, and Christians are living in sin.

ChatGPT continues. Now, I think Augustine presses that logic so far that later Western theology often weakens the reality of moral responsibility. That is your best criticism. But I do not think the answer is to say people can live righteously without grace. Once you say that, you move very close to what the church was trying to reject.

My comments. If we are unable to live righteously without God’s special grace, how can we be blameworthy for not living righteously? Why is this so shocking? The truth is that we can and are able to obey God, but don’t, and that is the problem. The problem is not God withholding special grace from us. We can obey God, but refuse to do it, not because we are unable, but because we are unwilling to stop our rebellion against God. We are unwilling because we are selfish, and that is a voluntary state of being, not an ontological fact. The grace of God, which appears to all men (Titus 2), persuades us and helps us do as He commands, but we are able to obey God in a strict sense. That is the only way to safeguard our true moral responsibility and blameworthiness. Otherwise, it appears God is the problem, not us.

Where does grace come in? Grace enters into the picture because we sin voluntarily, not involuntarily, as a result of total or partial depravity, which would mitigate our blameworthiness and implicate God. Grace comes into play in that we can obey God but refuse to do so; we are unwilling. Not obeying God because we are born unable to obey Him makes God unjust in demanding our obedience and releases us from sin and blame.

God’s grace makes us willing to obey God by using the truth to persuade us to give up our sins. Grace is God’s help, but it is not irresistible as many Christians believe.

Where your argument is strongest, according to ChatGPT

You are right to reject any account in which:

God commands what is literally impossible in every meaningful sense,
then punishes people for unavoidable behavior,
while calling that justice.

That concern is serious and should not be dismissed.

This is where your argument is weakest, according to ChatGPT.

You move from:

“humans remain responsible.”

“Therefore, humans can obey without special grace.”

That second step does not necessarily follow. It is possible to say:

humans remain willing agents and blameworthy,
yet also need divine help, illumination, conviction, mercy, and inward renewal.

My comments. I agree that we need divine help, illumination, conviction, mercy, and inward renewal, and that we receive them from God’s truth. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

But ability is not, and can’t be, dependent on special grace that God gives to some but not all. If God gives everyone this prevenient grace, like in Arminianism, then what are we left with? We are born totally depraved and guilty, as in Augustinian Calvinism’s Original Sin, and God gives all humanity special grace to be able to obey Him in light of God’s injustice in condemning us for Adam’s sin and making us sinners at birth. Is that really necessary and helpful?

And all this is deemed necessary so that we can say that God’s grace is necessary and that we can’t save ourselves? Yet only the 5-point Calvinist actually believes there are no conditions for salvation. All other Christians believe there are conditions that we must meet to be saved. And in that sense, we do save ourselves even if we are not the procuring cause of our salvation.

According to ChatGPT, that middle position is much closer to the broad Christian tradition than either full Pelagianism or hard Augustinian determinism.

ChatGPT closes with this. My judgment:

Your rejection of a deterministic Augustine is understandable. But your positive alternative is too strong if it says fallen man needs no inward grace beyond outward persuasion.

My response. That is not what I said or meant. We need grace because we are sinners by choice and not by nature. We are not born unable to obey God. And only an inward persuasion is transformative, as I have repeatedly indicated.

4) “Augustine taught that Christians necessarily sin every day, so his doctrine corrupts grace.”

This is one of your most important objections, and it has real force, says ChatGPT.

Augustine did teach that, even in this life, the saints are not free from sin in a perfect sense. (My comment: daily sinning is far from perfection.) And his anti-Pelagian writings repeatedly oppose the idea that believers attain total sinlessness here and now.

My comment. I never indicated that Christians do, in fact, attain total sinlessness once they are born again. What I do maintain is that Christians do not need to sin and can choose not to. Also, I believe Scripture clearly states that sin is the rare exception in their lives, not the rule; see 1 John. That is contrary to Calvinism and, most of all, evangelicalism.

According to ChatGPT, “you are right that this became foundational in the West and deeply shaped later theology. The Stanford Encyclopedia notes Augustine’s enormous influence on later Western views of sin, grace, and freedom.

According to ChatGPT, where I would differ from you is here:

Augustine was wrong if he normalized ongoing sin so much that victory over sin is muted. (My comment. What can sinning daily mean other than normalizing ongoing sin?)
But he was not saying grace is simply permission to rebel. (My response. He may not have gone that far, but many believers in eternal security and perseverance do. And they base it on Augustine’s false doctrines.)
He thought grace was absolutely necessary for any genuine righteousness at all. (My response, but what does that mean? If non-Christians can stop sinning and do it, what then does it mean that the grace of God is absolutely necessary for genuine righteousness?)

So, his doctrine is, in my judgment, seriously unbalanced but not satanic in intent, says ChatGPT. ChatGPT says it is better described as a theological overreaction against Pelagius.

My response. But if, as Dr. Bonner suggests, Augustine was attempting to change Christian Orthodoxy and exaggerated the claims of Pelagius, what are we to make of that? And the apostle Peter wrote about damnable heresies, such as what Augustine brought into Christianity. What are we to make of that? See my articles on Damnable Heresies and judge for yourself.

The following is an excerpt from my first article, titled “Damnable Heresy,” taken from 2 Peter.

(”What exactly is a ‘damnable heresy’?” It is used a lot by Christians and is one of those words that can stop a conversation dead. That phrase has carried a lot of theological freight over the centuries, and different traditions really do think of it differently. Let’s start by anchoring the verse, then examining various Christian traditions and how they understand the phrase “damnable heresies.”

“But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.” 2 Peter 2:1 (KJV, emphasis added)

The Greek phrase (according to ChatGPT) is haireseis apōleias — sects/teachings of destruction. The key interpretive clue is the participle that follows: “even denying the Lord that bought them.” That line governs how the early Church Fathers and later traditions define which heresies are “damnable.”

Early Church Fathers (2^nd-5th centuries)

For the early Fathers, damnable heresies are teachings that destroy salvation by corrupting the identity and work of Christ and thus break communion with the Church. They are not mere mistakes or immature beliefs. They are Christological and soteriological ruptures or false teachings. That is important.

Typical examples cited by the Fathers:

Denial of the Incarnation of Christ
- Docetism (Christ only seemed human but wasn’t really human)
- Gnosticism (salvation by secret knowledge, not the Cross)
Denial of Christ’s Lordship
- Adoptionism (Jesus becomes the Son later)
- Arianism (Christ is a created being, like the rest of us)
- What about the no-Lordship salvation taught by some well-known evangelical leaders in our day? Do they qualify as damnable heresy? See Part 2.
Denial of redemption itself
- Saying Christ did not truly “buy/redeem” us by His blood
- Replacing repentance with elitist knowledge or moral license to sin with eternal impunity. Does this not include perseverance, imputed obedience, and eternal security? See Part 3.

How they read “denying the Lord that bought them.”

Christ objectively redeemed them
They destroy themselves by rejecting that redemption
Heresy is not just wrong belief; it is spiritual suicide

Irenaeus, Tertullian, Athanasius, and Cyril of Jerusalem all treat heresy as a severing from the life-giving truth, not a harmless intellectual error or mistake, according to ChatGPT.

This is what ChatGPT wrote, and you just read it. “So, his (Augustine’s) doctrine is, in my judgment, seriously unbalanced, but not satanic in intent. ChatGPT describes it as a theological overreaction against Pelagius.

The details about the early church and damnable heresies come directly from ChatGPT. Is it not obvious that Augustine’s teachings were damnable and heretical as defined by the Early Church Fathers? But ChatGPT states that Augustine’s doctrine is “seriously unbalanced, but not satanic in intent, and is better described as a theological overreaction against Pelagius”. Is a damnable heresy nothing but an “overreaction” or a “seriously unbalanced” teaching? I think Peter thought differently about the matter and would not have had a problem with calling his doctrine satanic. What do you think?) End of excerpt.

5) Did Pelagius deserve condemnation? The following is from ChatGPT.

If we separate Pelagius from every exaggeration made about him and ask only whether the church had reason to worry, I think the answer is yes. Why?

Because the broad anti-Pelagian concern was that Pelagius and especially Celestius seemed to minimize:

the depth of Adam’s fall (My comment. I am still trying to understand what is claimed by the partial Calvinist. How deep is the depravity according to them?)
the universal need of grace,
the necessity of Christ’s saving work for more than moral instruction. (My comment. And what does that mean specifically? See previous comments.)

That concern was not imaginary. Even sympathetic summaries describe Pelagianism as denying original sin and as making human righteousness overly achievable by unaided effort.

My response. This makes no sense to me. What is the problem with making righteousness “too achievable by unaided effort”? (Remember that even non-Christians can and do obey some of God’s laws). If it is not achievable, then God made it so, but why would God do that and give us a ready-made excuse for not obeying Him?

ChatGPT continues: That said, many later presentations of Pelagius are probably too simple (uninformed and wrong?). The controversy was messy, and Pelagius sometimes used language about grace and infant baptism that sounded more orthodox than the usual shorthand summary suggests.

So, I would say:

The church had real reason to condemn Pelagian tendencies.
Augustine’s solution went beyond what Scripture requires.

My comments. Yet we condemn Pelagian tendencies but not Augustinian tendencies? Explain that to me: ChatGPT says Pelagius was closer to the teaching of the early church fathers than Augustine was. Something is terribly wrong.

According to ChatGPT, both things can be true.

6) Where I think you are right, and where I think you are wrong, according to ChatGPT.

You are right that:

Augustine strongly influenced the African anti-Pelagian councils.
Augustine’s doctrine of inherited guilt goes beyond what is plainly stated in Scripture.
Grace in the New Testament is morally transformative, not merely forensic indulgence.
Much later, Western theology softened the New Testament’s language about real holiness.
Your moral concern about blame, freedom, and responsibility is serious and should not be brushed aside.

ChatGPT continues: I think you are wrong, or at least overstated, in saying:

Augustine was shown to be “Machiavellian.” (My response. See my previous comments.)
Infants are therefore simply unaffected inwardly by Adam except by environment. (My Comment. But what exactly does that mean in practical terms? Does that mean infants are born craving sin? Was Jesus born craving sin?)
Grace is basically external teaching and persuasion. (My Comment. That is not what I am teaching, as I have said repeatedly.)
Humans can live righteously before God without inward grace.

My response. If humans can’t live righteously before God without inward grace, then how is God just in requiring of us something we can’t do unless He gives us special grace? And why can’t we just claim that God never gave us this special grace, since we never stopped our rebellion against Him? This makes no sense to me.

Per ChatGPT, my bottom-line conclusion

I think your best correction of Augustine is this: Adam’s descendants inherit a fallen condition, mortality, corruption, and a world bent toward sin, but not Adam’s personal guilt in the crude Augustinian sense.

I think your weakest move is this: Because sin must be voluntary, therefore man can obey God without inward grace. That does not follow. A better conclusion would be: Man remains morally responsible because he sins willingly, not by external compulsion; yet because humanity is truly fallen, grace must be more than law and instruction—it must also be God’s living help and renewal.

My response. I agree with some of that, but my position still holds true. Needing help is not the same as being unable to do what God demands. And ChatGPT’s use of internal compulsion reminds me of the Augustinian Calvinist redefinition of free will when they say we are totally depraved and totally unable, but still possess free will. The distinction is that humans are not directed or determined by external forces. They neglect to state that after Adam’s fall, we are directed by internal forces: a totally bad free will.

That, to me, avoids both errors:

Augustine’s overreach
and Pelagius’s underestimation of the fall

My comment. His underestimation remains unclear and, to me, unsubstantiated. Many Christians claim that because of Adam we inherit a corrupted nature, a bent toward sin, an inclination to sin, a craving to sin, and so on. But what do they mean by that, and did Jesus also inherit a corrupted nature, as the Bible claims he took on our nature?

I am not talking about the Augustinian Calvinist who claims that we are born sinners with a totally depraved/corrupted nature and a total inability to obey God and do good. I am referring to those Christians, such as the Eastern Orthodox, who claim we inherit from Adam a wounded will, a bent or inclination toward sin, but at the same time we are still able to obey God. We are still fully responsible for our disobedience. Is this not simply an appeasement to Augustine’s view of the fall of man?

I sent in my comments to ChatGPT for a response. It follows.

Per ChatGPT, you are making several strong points, and on the main historical issue, I think your pushback against Augustine is often stronger than the standard Augustinian reading. Where I think you are least persuasive is not on Augustine’s excesses, but on a few places where you press your correction too far.

1) Romans 5 does not teach automatic Calvinism

On this, I think you are basically right, says ChatGPT.

Your point is good: if Romans 5:18 says that through Christ “the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life,” and yet not all are in fact justified, then the phrase “upon all men” cannot mean automatic, unconditional application in the same way Augustine or later Calvinists often want “condemnation upon all men” to work automatically and identically. That is a real pressure point in the Augustinian reading.

So, I do not think Romans 5, by itself, proves:

inherited personal guilt in Augustine’s strongest sense, or
Calvinist inability in the later Western sense.

ChatGPT says, where I would differ from you is narrower:

Romans 5 still seems to teach more than a bad example. Adam is presented as a public fountainhead of death and ruin, while Christ is presented as the public fountainhead of life and righteousness. That does not require inherited guilt in Augustine’s strongest form, but it does seem to mean Adam’s sin had a race-wide effect deeper than “he set a poor example.”

My response. Adam had a race-wide effect that went beyond a simple bad example, according to ChatGPT. Adam introduced sin and death into the world, greatly increasing the force of temptation and inflaming the passions of humanity. If it is more than that, then what exactly is it? Calvin believed it is a sinful nature depriving and depraving our minds, body, and spirit, making us totally unable to understand the things of God and to do anything good. All we can do is sin. Therefore, if we are not totally unable and totally depraved, are we 50% (pick a number) thus? Was Jesus also 50% depraved and corrupted? If not, he doesn’t know what it is like to be tempted as we are.

ChatGPT: “So, I would put it this way:

You are right about automatic inherited guilt.
You are less convincing if you reduce Romans 5 to mere imitation.

According to ChatGPT, that middle ground is, in its judgment, the best reading.

My response. I do not see this as a reasonable or logical middle ground. How about you? And it contradicts what the Bible teaches about the human nature of Christ.

2) Psalm 51:5 does not settle the question the way Calvinists think

Here again, I think your objection is fair, according to ChatGPT.

“In sin did my mother conceive me” is poetic and can be read in multiple ways. It is not a clean doctrinal proof-text for “David believed every baby is born morally guilty.” I do not think that verse can bear all the weight later theology puts on it.

So no, I do not think you are wrong to reject Psalm 51:5 as a decisive proof of Augustinian original guilt.

At the same time, I would avoid saying it proves the opposite. It is better to say:

It is consistent with deep human fallenness,
but it does not clearly prove inherited guilt at conception.

That is a safer conclusion, according to ChatGPT.

My response. ChatGPT did not respond to my comment about another Psalm that teaches the opposite and declares that David made God his Lord very early in life. That is accurate, so why did ChatGPT caution me to make sure I state that this Psalm of David “is consistent with deep human fallenness”? I ask again: in his incarnation, when Jesus took on our human nature, was he in “deep human fallenness” like us? I do not believe it.)

3) Ephesians 2:3 and “by nature.”

Your reply here is one of the more important ones, according to ChatGPT.

You asked whether “nature” can describe practice or habit rather than birth. In ordinary Greek usage and in Paul’s style, “nature” can refer to what is characteristic, ingrained, or ordinarily true of a condition, not necessarily a philosophical claim about a baby at the first instant of existence. So, I do think your objection has force.

But I would be careful not to flatten the verse too much. Paul is not merely saying, “people picked up bad habits.” He is describing humanity in a deeply disordered state under wrath. So, I would not use Ephesians 2:3 as proof that newborn infants are personally guilty in the same sense as willful sinners. But I also would not reduce it to “mere custom.” Paul is describing a condition of mankind in alienation from God.

My Comment. It is not just a simple mistake or people picking up bad habits; it is not an accident, as ChatGPT seems to suggest. Read the passage, for the wicked are contrasted with the righteous. Paul is speaking about those who plant themselves in rebellion against God’s claims. It is open and continuous rebellion against the light and against God. And it actually says nothing about being born a sinner or so inclined to sin that sin becomes inevitable. Children of wrath are those who live in disobedience.

Per Chat, “So here is where I land:

I do not think Ephesians 2:3 proves babies are born morally guilty of personal sin.
I do think it describes fallen humanity as really and universally disordered.

My comment. ChatGPT falls back to this standard explanation, which is unsatisfactory to me. How are we disordered, and was Jesus likewise disordered like we are? Is sin still 100% voluntary, or are we now looking at sin as 70% voluntary and 30% involuntary? How is this to be understood where sin remains voluntary and doesn’t become irresistible?

4) “Partial legal guilt” is poor language

You asked a very good question: what would “not full legal guilt” even mean?

ChatGPT says, I agree with you that this language can become muddy fast. I would avoid “partial legal guilt.” That is not a helpful way to speak.

According to ChatGPT, a better distinction is:

guilt, properly speaking, belongs to personal sin,
while fallenness/corruption/mortality can be inherited without saying the infant has personally committed blameworthy sin.

That is much clearer.

So, if someone says infants inherit “partial guilt,” I think your objection is justified. But if they say infants inherit a mortal, weakened, fallen condition without saying they are personally blameworthy for Adam’s act, that is a more coherent position.

My response. Jesus died physically, just like the rest of us, save two people in the Bible who did not die physically. What exactly does it mean that infants inherit a weakened, fallen condition? And did Jesus inherit that weakened and fallen condition? Do you see the problem?

All these explanations that imply that we are born somewhat sinful or partially sinful provide an excuse for our sin, do they not? They communicate that we are somewhat unable to comply with God’s commands, not fully unable, as in Calvinism, but partially unable because we inherit a fallen and weakened condition. Why is this necessary?

Adam, Eve, Satan, and the fallen angels did not have the fallen and weakened condition; yet they all sinned. Explain that.

5) What is “inward corruption,” and what about Jesus?

This is one of your strongest challenges, according to ChatGPT.

You asked: If inward corruption means a bent toward sin, then did Jesus share that? Hebrews 2 says he partook of our nature.

That objection has real force against crude versions of inherited corruption. If “our nature” means “a built-in sinful bent that makes disobedience normal,” then Christ’s true humanity becomes very difficult to explain.

This is one reason I think Augustine and later Western theology often spoke too strongly.

The more careful position is:

Christ assumed true human nature as created good,
but not moral corruption as personal depravity,
while we are born into a world of mortality, temptation, weakness, and disordered desire.

Per ChatGPT, “that still leaves hard questions, but it is better than saying human nature itself, as such, is sin”.

My response. ChatGPT doesn’t actually explain it. What is this fallen and weakened condition that Jesus and we have? Jesus came into being with our nature, not Adam’s pre-fall nature, as ChatGPT and others seem to imply. That is nothing but a wishful assumption.

ChatGPT continues. And your appeal to 1 Corinthians 10:13 matters here: Scripture does not portray temptation as irresistible. That weighs against any doctrine that makes sinning necessary in the strict sense.

My comment. Full and partial Calvinists and most evangelicals believe sin is inevitable, which is a direct contradiction to this passage of Scripture that says no temptation shall overtake us.

ChatGPT continues. “So here I would say you are right to resist:

“You sin because your nature makes obedience impossible.”

That does not fit well with the biblical moral world”.

My comment. It doesn’t fit well with God’s justice or common sense either.

6) On grace, where I think you are mostly right, says ChatGPT.

Your clarification helps a lot.

When you say external truth must be internalized, or it changes nothing, I think that is substantially right. In that form, your view is much stronger than the earlier summary suggested. You are not saying grace is a mere sound hitting the ear. You are saying God works through truth, conviction, persuasion, warning, promise, and inward reception.

That is a much better statement, according to ChatGPT.

Where I would still press you is this: Scripture speaks of God doing more than simply presenting information. It speaks of:

giving a new heart,

(My comment: We are also told to make for ourselves a new heart and a new spirit.)

writing the law on the heart,
working in us to will and to do.

My response. That phrase doesn’t stipulate that God’s work forces us to will and do what God wants. So, what is it if it is not teaching, persuasion, warning, promise, conviction, and truth?

ChatGPT continues: Now you asked whether God’s work must be irresistible. No, I do not think it must mean irresistible compulsion. In fact, according to ChatGPT, your instinct is right: virtue cannot be reduced to involuntary programming.

So, I think the best formulation is:

Grace is not mere external information,
Grace is not irresistible coercion,
Grace is God’s real working through truth, conviction, illumination, and inward renewal in a way that still leaves man morally responsible (to receive or reject the truth)

That is very close to what you are trying to say, according to ChatGPT.

7) John 15:5, Romans 8:7–8, and 1 Corinthians 2:14

ChatGPT responds. Here is where I think you are partly right and partly not.

John 15:5

You said this is not about obeying God. I would not go that far (My comment: I agree; I went too far in that comment, for it is indeed about abiding in Christ through our faithful obedience and bearing fruit for God as a consequence. I stand corrected).

In context, it is about abiding in Christ and bearing fruit, which certainly includes obedience. But you are right that it does not mean every human act, good or bad, is directly initiated by God. So, the verse must be read in covenantal and spiritual context, not as metaphysical total causation. (My comment. Exactly right.)

Romans 8:7–8

ChatGPT continues: your reading here is plausible in part. “Flesh” in Paul is not the mere fact of being embodied or created human. It is humanity as ruled by sinful desire and rebellion. So yes, this is not proof that being born human is itself sinful. On that point, you are right, according to ChatGPT.

Where I think you overstate it is when you treat “cannot” as meaning only “will not.” Paul’s language is stronger than that. It is not merely a neutral capacity plus bad choices in isolation. He is describing a real bondage of the person turned against God.

Still, I agree with you that this bondage is moral and voluntary, not mechanical.

My response. I am not sure ChatGPT addresses the distinction between “will not” and “can not.” And that distinction makes all the difference between virtue and vice. If we literally “can not” do as God commands, then it is impossible, and we are not blameworthy for our noncompliance. There is no sin and no guilt. But if we ‘will not’ do as God commands, then there is real culpability, blame, and sin. That is the point. ChatGPT suggests that the line between “can’t” and “won’t” can be blurred morally. I do not agree. A good tree bears good fruit, not good and bad fruit.

1 Corinthians 2:14

ChatGPT continues. You asked where it says we can’t know God apart from grace. Fair question. The verse itself says the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to him. That certainly includes unwillingness. I do not think it proves a Calvinist doctrine of total inability in the later sense. But neither would I reduce it to bare neutral freedom. Paul describes a person whose whole orientation is wrong.

My response. Was Jesus born with this totally wrong orientation, like we are? If not, then how did he know what it was like to be tempted as a man? Something is very wrong in all these explanations by ChatGPT and most other Christians.

According to ChatGPT, my conclusion on these verses is:

they do not prove later deterministic Augustinianism,
but they do describe more than mere isolated bad decisions.

My response. No one suggests that unsaved mankind occasionally makes bad decisions (isolated bad decisions). Unsaved mankind makes bad choices voluntarily and habitually. That makes them willful sinners and enemies of God. Genuine repentance and faith will restore a sinner to God’s favor.

8) “If man cannot obey, then sin is not blameworthy.”

This is still your most powerful philosophical point, according to ChatGPT.

I understand why some people dismiss it as “just philosophy,” but it is not trivial at all. It is a moral argument about God’s justice. And yes, much of Scripture assumes moral accountability is meaningful, not theatrical.

According to ChatGPT, I think where your opponents go wrong is when they turn inability into something like:

a created defect,
an unavoidable compulsion,
or a divine withholding that makes obedience impossible in the strict sense.

My response. Have you noticed that ChatGPT has made obedience impossible without this supposed special grace of God? Is that not precisely what ChatGPT claims here, where my opponents go wrong?

According to ChatGPT, that threatens God’s justice.

Where I would still qualify your statement is this: there is a difference between:

being externally forced, and
being self-enslaved through one’s own corrupt loves.

The second can still be blameworthy. So not every “cannot” removes responsibility. Sometimes “cannot” means “cannot because one has become the kind of person who hates the good.” That still leaves guilt intact.

That is the strongest answer to your argument, in my view. Not all inability is innocent inability.

My response. I agree. And let me add this. If we are so enslaved to a particular sin that it is physically impossible to stop that sin without help, we are now culpable for not getting the help, but not for our enslavement and bondage per se. I agree with that. But help is available from God and other people. But most of the time, we are not so enslaved to our sins that we can’t stop. Our problem is that we are not willing to stop and do what it takes to win. We do not want to give up our sins. Remember that even non-Christians obey many of God’s laws without asking for help from God.

9) Adam, Satan, and the angels all sinned without a sinful nature or an inclination to sin

ChatGPT writes, this is one of your best replies. You are right that:

Adam was not created sinful, yet he sinned.
Satan and angels were not created sinful, yet they fell.

That proves sin does not require a sinful nature in order to arise. So, any theology that says people sin because they were born with a sinful nature, as though that were the only adequate explanation, is weak. Your point is good, says ChatGPT.

The biblical pattern shows that free, rational creatures can sin through pride, lust, deception, and wrongful desire without needing to be born morally defective first, according to ChatGPT.

That does not by itself solve every question about universal human sin after Adam, but it does undercut the claim that inherited depravity is the only explanation. (Or the only acceptable explanation for our sin)

My response. It is important to understand that any explanation that excuses sin in a believer’s life is a problem. Any theological systems that make sin inevitable eliminate our culpability and blame and put it all on God. We are victims, not criminals.

Any theological system that suggests that we are born inclined to sin or bent toward sinning does make an excuse for our sin. And excuses always encourage more of the same sinful conduct. How can it be otherwise?

10) On Augustine and the councils historically

You said you would soften “Machiavellian.” I think that is wise, per ChatGPT.

The historical baseline is:

Augustine was a central anti-Pelagian force.
African councils in 416 and 418 condemned Pelagian positions.
The 418 Council of Carthage rejected the idea that grace is merely the revelation of commands and insisted that grace also helps believers do what God commands.

The broader scholarly picture is also that Pelagianism was condemned for denying original sin and reducing grace too far, while Augustine’s thought became enormously influential in the Latin West.

I did not find solid evidence in the sources I checked that Augustine had schemed deceptively in a “Machiavellian” sense. The safer historical statement is that he was forceful, influential, and successful.

My response. Refer to my earlier comments about Dr. Bonner and Dr. Wilson. No one suggested that this was proven, but it seems clear that Augustine’s approach could have been more Christ-like at the very least. Moreover, why would Augustine think he knew better than the earliest church fathers? And how could he actually believe some of the pagan ideas he brought into Christianity and still be thought of as a man of God?

Bottom line: where I think you are right and where I think you still overstate, according to ChatGPT.

I think you are right that:

Augustine’s doctrine of inherited guilt goes too far.
Romans 5 does not teach automatic Calvinism.
Psalm 51:5 is not a clean proof-text for babies being born personally guilty.
Grace is transformative, not permission to remain in sin.

My response.That is precisely what most evangelical Christians seem to suggest because they rely so heavily on eternal security as a safety net, because they, like full Calvinists, believe Christians never stop sinning in this life. That tacitly permits sin without eternal consequences.

Human responsibility and voluntary sin are central biblical realities.
Adam and the angels show that sin does not require being created sinful.

My Comment. ChatGPT understates this. These examples of Adam, Satan, and angels do more than suggest “that sin doesn’t require being created sinful”. It conclusively demonstrates that sin must be voluntary, or it is not sin. Therefore, being created sinful makes sinning impossible.

ChatGPT continues, I think you overstate when you say:

Adam’s fall affected us only by environment and example.

My comment. Again, I repeat myself. See my comments on Genesis 3, where God tells us precisely what the consequences for mankind are when Adam sinned. It nowhere states or implies that we are now born sinners unable to stop sinning or that we are now born with a craving for sin. So how did the fall of Adam affect us? And did it affect Jesus as well? That is the central issue?

Paul’s “cannot” language always reduces to a completely undamaged moral ability.

My response. I agree, not always or 100% of the time, but most of the time it does, in my estimation. Again, we are not careful here; this will also excuse sin in believers and place blame on God.

Grace can be explained only as persuasion in a minimal sense.

My comment. But that is not my position. Without the grace of God, none of us would get right with God. It is not because we are unable to do so, but because we are unwilling. Grace makes us willing to do what God demands, but not by forcing us, compelling us, or by any involuntary means. God convinces us to change our minds and hearts toward Him using the Holy Ghost and the truth, not force.

ChatGPT responds. My own view is closer to this:

We are not born personally guilty of Adam’s act in the strongest Augustinian sense.
But Adam’s fall brought humanity into a genuinely fallen condition deeper than example alone.

My response. But what exactly is that, and did Jesus also inherit that condition because he took on our nature? ChatGPT fails to explain this satisfactorily.

Grace is not an irresistible compulsion, but neither is it only outward instruction.

My comment. Grace is Titus 2, and it appears to all men, including the unsaved, teaching us to deny ungodliness and live righteously and soberly in this present evil age. To say that grace is needed is to affirm that God has already provided it and that we need no other special grace, as is often discussed. And if it is not persuasion, teaching, help, conviction, warning, and so on, then what is it?

Human beings sin voluntarily and are blameworthy, yet sin also becomes an enslaving moral condition.

My response. But we do not need to stay enslaved in sin. God’s help is available, but we must avail ourselves of it through repentance and faith. Remember that non-Christians often stop sinning against God because they see the harm in it, and that is sufficient motivation to stop. They do not call on or need God’s grace to stop. Only in extreme situations like drug addiction can sin be thought of as enslaving physically. Yet that is no excuse for our situation, for we could stop at any time but refuse to. We might need help in stopping, and help is available, but no one can force us to do what we are unwilling to do.

Your criticism of Augustine is often strong. The place I would still challenge you is not on his excesses, but on whether your alternative leaves enough room for the Bible’s language about bondage, inward disorder, and the need for more than bare instruction.

My response. ChatGPT still hasn’t defined what these things are, or whether Jesus also inherited all this bondage and inward disorder. And as for Augustine, the more I read about his work, especially later in his life, the more I question everything about him. In my mind, he is far from a hero of the faith in Jesus Christ.

Next step in this analysis.

Here is a comparison, focused on the four issues you raised most directly, according to ChatGPT.

1) Adam’s sin and infants

Your view

Adam alone is guilty for Adam’s sin.
Infants are born innocent.
We inherit consequences like mortality, temptation, and a bad world, but not guilt.
Romans 5 teaches universal death through Adam, but not automatic guilt any more than it teaches automatic justification through Christ.

Pre-Augustinian fathers

The earlier fathers are not uniform, but many of them sound much closer to your instinct than to later Augustinianism on personal guilt, according to ChatGPT.

My response. I take that as a validation and a compliment. I would much rather be closer to the thinking of the early church fathers than the thinking of Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and most of evangelical Christianity today.

Cyril of Jerusalem explicitly says the soul comes into the world having committed no sin before, and that “we now sin of our free will.”

That does not settle every question about inherited corruption, but it does show that an important pre-Augustinian voice did not frame the matter as “you are born already blameworthy for Adam’s act.”

Augustine

Augustine moved beyond “Adam brought death and corruption” to the much stronger claim that the race is implicated in Adam’s sin in a way that leaves even infants needing cleansing from original sin. The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that in the Pelagian controversy, Augustine hardened his doctrine of humanity’s radical dependence on grace, and that by this stage, he held the will to be so damaged by original sin that it is “free only to sin.”

This is the point where your objection has real force, according to ChatGPT. Augustine’s position is not merely “the world is damaged”; it is a much heavier doctrine of inherited ruin and guilt.

Eastern Orthodox

Orthodox teaching typically distinguishes ancestral sin from Augustine’s original guilt. The Orthodox source I checked says Adam’s descendants inherit mortality and the consequences of the fall, but not Adam’s guilt, and that “each person bears the guilt of his or her own sins.”

ChatGPT’s judgment

On this first issue, your position is closer to pre-Augustinian and Eastern Orthodox instincts than Augustine’s mature (late in life) doctrine is. Where I would still qualify you is this: I do think the fathers and Orthodoxy usually speak of more than a merely bad environment. They also speak of mortality, corruption, and a wounded condition.

My response. But what do they mean by that? What is a wounded condition? What is a bent toward sin? Or an inclination to sin? See these other articles on my website titled “How Free Is Our Will.” And Titus, parts 1 through 4.)

So, the strongest formulation is not:

“We inherit nothing inwardly at all,”

but:

“We do not inherit Adam’s personal guilt, though we do inherit the tragic consequences of the fall.”

That is, in my judgment, the most defensible middle position.

My comment. I agree with that, but not with adding the baggage that ChatGPT and others add to it, like a wounded will, bent toward sin, and so on.

2) Grace: external teaching only, or something more?

Your view

You have clarified this well:

grace is not a bare outward sound,
it works through truth, persuasion, warning, promise, conviction, and inward reception,
but it must remain voluntary, or virtue disappears.

That is stronger than a crude “grace is just information” claim.

My response. Grace is the truth’s internal, transformative work. It has never just been information. The truth is information, but useless if it is not internalized and transformative. James said, ‘You show me your faith without the works, and I will show you my faith by my works.

Pre-Augustinian fathers

The earlier fathers (before Augustine) regularly stress both:

the reality of free will,
and the necessity of divine aid.

Justin Martyr argues that unless human beings have the power to avoid evil and choose good freely, they are not accountable for their actions. That strongly supports your insistence that moral responsibility presupposes real freedom.

My comment. And how could it be otherwise and still be morally coherent?

Augustine

Augustine insisted that grace is not merely external law or instruction. He argued that grace is necessary not only to teach but to heal, move, and enable the will itself. The anti-Pelagian struggle pushed him to make grace increasingly operative inwardly, not merely advisory from the outside.

My response. But Augustine also believed that even with this inward grace, Christians still sin daily. What kind of weak and feckless grace is that? It seems to me that is the “grace” of antinomianism, not the grace of God or of the Bible.

African councils

This is where the councils matter. The Carthage anti-Pelagian canons were directed against Pelagius and Celestius and were framed to reject the view that grace is only external.

My comment. But the grace Augustine promotes is an inward grace that changes very little, since Christians continue to sin daily. So which view is actually the worse view of grace?

The Catholic Encyclopedia summary says that Carthage (418) maintained that Christian grace is absolutely necessary for right knowledge and for doing good.

My comment. But non-Christians often live more righteously than do professing Christians even today. Moreover, this inward grace of Augustine and Calvin is woefully deficient compared with the grace of God in Titus 2, which produces righteousness and godliness in us.

Eastern Orthodox

Orthodox writers also reject “grace as mere legal pardon,” but they usually do not follow Augustine into irresistible inward causation. The Orthodox source I checked emphasizes healing, reorientation, and participation in divine life rather than inherited guilt and legal satisfaction.

ChatGPT’s judgment

I think your corrected formulation is strong:

God works through truth;
truth must be inwardly received;
virtue must remain voluntary.

Where I would still differ with you is this: Scripture and the church’s mainstream anti-Pelagian response seem to require more than saying grace is just truth becoming internalized. The church was trying to say that grace is God’s living help, not just the availability of information.

My response. But Jesus is the truth, the way, and the life. Truth is not just information; it is the person and work of Jesus Christ renewing us in the image and likeness of God. ChatGPT, like most Christians, appears to want to give Christians an excuse for disobedience. That excuse is in the use of such terms as corruption, bent toward sin, wounded will, craving for sin, disordered passions, and so on. They claim that this is all about protecting the grace of God, but I think it does the opposite. It mistakes grace for actual justice.

ChatGPT continues: I would put it like this:

You are right against cheap grace.
You are right against irresistible coercion.
But I would not reduce grace to persuasion alone, even sophisticated inward persuasion.

I think a better phrase is: God works through truth, by the Spirit, in a way that enlightens, convicts, strengthens, and heals without canceling responsibility.

My comment. I do agree with that in principle, but note that ChatGPT doesn’t tell us what grace actually does beyond “sophisticated inward persuasion.” That is the entire problem in coming to an agreement on this issue. To suggest that grace enables us is to suggest that before grace we are unable to do what God requires. Again, the problem. If grace is needed to enable us, then why doesn’t God give it to everyone? He does, but many Christians refuse to believe it.

3) Human ability, free will, and “cannot.”

Your view

Commands imply ability.
Sin must be voluntary to be blameworthy.
A doctrine of inability that makes obedience impossible destroys justice.
Adam and the angels prove that sin does not require being created sinful.

Pre-Augustinian fathers

Here, the fathers often sound strikingly close to you, according to ChatGPT.

Justin Martyr says plainly that unless humans have the power to avoid evil and choose good, they are not accountable.

Cyril of Jerusalem says we sin of our free will.

Those are not side comments. They show that the early church strongly linked guilt with real freedom.

Augustine

Augustine increasingly argued that fallen man cannot turn rightly without grace, and in his later anti-Pelagian phase, he described the will as radically dependent on grace and, in one summary, “free only to sin.” This is why your criticism keeps landing more forcefully on Augustine than on the earlier fathers.

Eastern Orthodox

Orthodox theology generally preserves both:

serious fallenness

My comment. But what does that actually mean? What in heaven’s name is “serious fallenness?

and meaningful freedom.

The Orthodox source above presents desire and other powers of the soul as natural and neutral in themselves, capable of being used for good or ill, while the fall introduces mortality, weakness, and disorder.

My response. What does that actually mean? I can’t get a straight answer, or I am too stupid to understand.

That is much less deterministic than Augustine’s late-in-life account, according to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT’s judgment

I think this is one of your strongest arguments. You are right that Adam, Satan, and the angels undercut (and refute) the claim that sin needs to be explained by a created sinful nature. Sin can (and does) arise through pride, deception, lust, and wrongful desire without a prior doctrine of inherited guilt. That is a valid theological point.

What I would still qualify you for is with Paul’s “cannot” language. I don’t think those texts prove Calvinism, but I also don’t think they mean a neutral will makes isolated bad choices. They describe a person morally disordered and in bondage to wrong loves. That bondage is still voluntary, but it is deeper than mere bad example. That is the strongest counterpoint to your reading.

My comment. I do not see it. Sin is always will not and never can not, in the strict sense. Inability makes void the law and excuses all sin.

ChatGPT’s final position is:

your anti-determinist critique is strong,
but I would still leave room for a real moral bondage that is self-incurred and race-wide, not merely environmental.

My response. Am I still not a believer in a wounded will, bent toward sin, and so on, because I do not know what they actually mean, and I do not understand how it can be said that Jesus Christ took on our human nature? Was Jesus born with a wounded will, or a bent toward sin? And how can we understand the passage that states that God will never allow us to be tempted beyond what we are able to say no to?

I can understand how we might become, as a race, more susceptible to sin as a result of Adam’s fall and still be held accountable not to sin. In theory, I can understand that concept. But what I can’t agree with is that Jesus knows what it is like to be tempted as we are and, at the same time, deny that Jesus was not born susceptible to sin like we are. It is contradictory and unnecessarily confusing.

We all agree that we need God’s grace to be saved. I say we need it not to make us able to obey but to make us willing to obey God. And the difference between “can not” and “will not” is infinite. “Will not” equals guilt, blameworthiness, and sin. “Can not” equals innocence, without blame and sinless.

Augustine demands that we understand grace as God irresistibly giving us the ability to obey him, even as this so-called grace leaves us all in daily disobedience, according to Augustine and those who follow him. Is this not incoherent?

4) How each framework reads Romans 5, according to ChatGPT

This is really the hinge text.

Your reading

Adam’s act brought death and condemnation into the human story.
Christ’s act brought justification and life.
Neither operates mechanically and involuntarily on every individual.
Therefore, Romans 5 does not prove inherited guilt or an inherited sinful nature, which is only capable of sinning.

Augustine’s reading

Augustine took Romans 5 as teaching a real solidarity in Adam that grounds both universal condemnation and the necessity of grace from the beginning. That became a pillar of Western original-sin theology.

My comment. And that is exactly what I disagree with because I do not think it is morally defensible, nor do I think it is the doctrine of God.

Eastern Orthodox reading

The Orthodox source explicitly says the church does not read Romans 5:12 as “we sinned in Adam” in Augustine’s sense; instead, Adam’s sin made us mortal and therefore vulnerable to sin and death.

My response. I agree with them.

ChatGPT’s judgment

Here, I think your objection is serious and not easily dismissed:

If Romans 5:18 says Christ’s righteous act comes “upon all men unto justification of life,” and yet not all are actually justified without faith and perseverance, then the Adam side also cannot simply be read as automatic legal imputation in the crudest sense. That is a real exegetical pressure point.

So I think you are right that Romans 5 does not force Augustine’s strongest view.

What I would still resist is the move from there to “therefore, Adam only gave us a bad example.”

My response. Adam gave us a world full of sin and sinners, as well as aggravated temptations, not just his bad example. Adam did not give us irresistible temptations, as many Christians actually believe.

Paul still seems to say that Adam’s act changed the human condition universally in a way that goes beyond imitation. The Orthodox “ancestral sin” model handles that better than either a strictly Augustinian view of guilt or a strictly Pelagian view of moral neutrality.

My comment. I’ve already gone over this, and I am still unwilling to concede because it makes little sense to me. See my previous comments.

5) Where I think you are strongest against Augustine, according to ChatGPT

I would state your strongest points this way:

On guilt: personal guilt belongs properly to personal sin.
On justice: moral blame requires real voluntariness.
On grace: grace must produce actual holiness, not merely legal cover.
On anthropology: Adam and the angels show that sin does not require being created depraved and sinful.
On history: Augustine’s mature (late in life, not necessarily mature wisdom) doctrine is stronger and harsher than much pre-Augustinian and Orthodox teaching.

My comment. That seems like an understatement based on what I have read about the early church.

ChatGPT continues, that is a substantial case you have made.

6) Where I still think your view needs guarding, according to ChatGPT

Three cautions.

First, I would not say the fall affected us only by the external environment. The historic church, including Orthodoxy, usually says more than that: mortality, corruption, weakness, and disorder are inherited consequences.

My comment. But what does all this actually mean?

Second, I would not define grace so narrowly that it becomes only persuasion. The anti-Pelagian tradition sought to defend the truth that grace is God’s real help, not merely instruction.

My comment. I agree that grace is God’s help, but how does God give us this help? Is it an irresistible help? If it is not Spirit-empowered and informed persuasion, then what is it? Is it a new faculty of the mind, body, or spirit?

Third, I would not dismiss all Pauline “cannot” language as if it simply means nothing but ordinary unwillingness. Paul does describe a deeper bondage, though I agree it need not be interpreted in an Augustinian-determinist way.

My comment. If ‘cannot’ literally means ‘inability,’ then it is neither biblically sound nor moral. Our self-inflicted bondage to and slavery in sin can be very hard to overcome without God’s help. But how does He help us? If it is not Spirit-empowered persuasion, then what exactly is it? Is it God’s irresistible grace?

Bottom line, according to ChatGPT

If I had to locate the four positions in one sentence each, I would say:

Your view:
Humans are born innocent; Adam gave us death, temptation, and a damaged world; grace works through truth and persuasion; sin is voluntary and therefore blameworthy.

Pre-Augustinian fathers:
Strongly affirm free will and personal responsibility; often sound closer to innocence/free choice than Augustine does, but usually still speak of humanity as damaged by Adam in more than a merely social sense.

Augustine:
Adam’s sin implicates the race deeply; the will is radically dependent on grace; grace must inwardly heal and move the will; infants are caught in original sin apart from grace.

Eastern Orthodox:
Reject inherited guilt; affirm ancestral sin as mortality/corruption/consequence; preserve synergy and responsibility; speak of salvation as healing and participation, not merely legal acquittal.

ChatGPT’s honest conclusion is that my case against Augustine’s excesses is often strong.

ChatGPT continues. The position closest to your main concerns, while still preserving a broader doctrine of the fall, is not Pelagianism in its starkest form but something closer to the Eastern Orthodox / many pre-Augustinian emphases: no inherited personal guilt, but real inherited consequences and a real need for grace.

My final comments

Even as ChatGPT wraps up its response, I can see its built-in bias to bring everything together without ruffling feathers. This tendency to compromise can be dangerous, especially when it comes to critical Christian doctrine. Much of the Christian church today shows a similar tendency. These final comments regarding Augustine and Pelagius, provided by ChatGPT, reveal that in spades. I will attempt to summarize this for you.

Later in his life, in the 5th century, Augustine changed his view of Christian Orthodoxy as taught by the early church fathers and tried to persuade Christians to adopt his new views. Pelagius and others, then and now, rejected many of his redefinitions of Christian terms and doctrines.

Augustine went from humanity having free will to a non-free will. He redefined free will so he could keep talking about it even though it was no longer free. Early Christians defined free will as the good choice to serve God or the evil choice not to serve God. Augustine redefined free will to mean that humanity can’t choose good, but is free to choose only evil. Augustine went from the ability to obey God to an inherited inability to obey God. And with a straight face, he continued to argue, as many Calvinists today do, that man still possesses free will. But this free will is not free; it is a slave to sin.
He went from humanity being born innocent to being born guilty as a result of Adam’s Original Sin.
He went from a God-given natural ability to obey God to an inherited inability to obey God and to do anything good without an influx of irresistible grace. And even then, this irresistible grace will not make us holy in practice; we will continue to sin daily.
And from there it is not a long walk to a fictional imputed righteousness and imputed obedience being credited to us and our sin being imputed to Christ.
He went from a synergistic view (God and man play a part and cooperate in salvation) to a monergistic view of salvation, where God alone does all the saving based on a decree of God alone.
He went from mankind needing to persevere in faith to be saved, to a guaranteed perseverance by God’s decree of the elect only. The non-elect can never be saved. Salvation is by decree, which excludes human choice.

In the 16th Century, Calvin expanded and systematized these doctrines, based on the idea that Adam’s Original Sin, including a sinful nature, was imputed to all humanity. This also included Adam’s guilt. That is how we come by the designation TULIP.

T = Total depravity and total inability
U = Unconditional election
L = Limited atonement
I = Irresistible grace
P = Perseverance

As far as we know, Pelagius rejected the most important of these false ideas: total inability. He believed that God’s commands require our ability to obey them. Pelagius supposedly taught that we did not need additional special grace from God to obey Him. He did not believe that Adam’s Original Sin meant that we are born sinners who can only sin, as Augustine did. For this and other supposed false teachings, he was driven out of the Christian church.

This doesn’t mean Pelagius thought we didn’t need God’s grace and help for salvation. It means we can do as God commands, or God would never command it. The ability to obey is not the same as actual obedience. Virtue and vice hinge on that very point, and it presupposes ability.

Critics might say, but if we can obey God on our own, then why did Jesus need to die for us? But that question implies that if we could, we would obey God. But that is certainly not the case in Adam or in us. Neither Adam, Eve, the serpent, nor the angels were created with a depraved, sinful nature unable to obey God, yet they all sinned. We sin in exactly the same way. We sin because we are unwilling to obey God when we could have chosen otherwise. That makes it sinful. Being unable makes it impossible to sin. Inability makes us innocent and God guilty.

God never issues commands that his children cannot obey. Ability is actually not the issue. Willingness and unwillingness are the issue, and have always been. We do not obey God because we are voluntarily wicked, selfish people by choice and not by birth.

Why do we sin?

For Augustine, Calvin, and many others, we sin because, from Adam, we inherit a totally depraved and sinful nature that is not capable of anything but sin. If this is true, then we are not guilty of sin, for sin must be voluntary. Neither are we moral agents, because moral agents must be able to choose between sin and holiness. Lastly, if this is true, humanity is not guilty or blameworthy. But God becomes unjust and tyrannical.

For Pelagius and other Christians, the answer to the question is that we sin because we are set on self-gratification at all costs, because we are selfish. We love ourselves too much and certainly more than we love God or our neighbor. If this is true, and it is, then we are responsible moral agents and are guilty and blameworthy when we commit crimes against God.

What about the grace of God?

There is no grace (unmerited or undeserved favor) in what Augustine and Calvin taught. What they claim is grace is nothing but basic justice, but for the elect only. Augustinian Calvinism contains no grace. For if God creates us sinners, then, in justice, He must unconditionally save us. But He only elects and saves a few, not all, and that is injustice.

For the elect, grace = justice and not grace

For the non-elect = there is no grace and no justice

For those who believe that we are created able to do as God commands but are unwilling to stop our rebellion against God, the grace of God shows forth in His patience and longsuffering as He continues to draw us to Himself in truth, repentance, and faith. This grace makes moral and rational sense and is biblically accurate.

What about Jesus Christ, the God-man?

Hebrews 2:14-18 tells us that Jesus Christ took on our nature, not Adam’s pre-fall nature, as some would have us believe.

Hebrews 4:15 tells us that Jesus was tempted in every point like us, yet without sin.

I am aware of what the early church taught, which I find unconvincing and problematic. See Part 6 (What did the early church believe?) for more details. The early church is an important witness, and it should be considered. But their writings and beliefs are not the final word, as is Scripture.

See also my article titled “How Free Is Our Will.” Part One, A Wounded Will, for more information.

This is my objection. If we are born with a fully or partially depraved human nature and totally or partially unable to obey God because our will is wounded, we inherit a bent toward sin, and so on, then Jesus Christ does not fit either of these descriptions, no matter how many great swelling words of vanity are used. See 2 Peter 2:18.

God’s promises?

We are told that no temptation shall overcome us, and that is not common to all men. God will provide a way of escape so that we can endure all temptation. Clearly, Paul is telling us that we can obey God (1 Corinthians 10:13). We can overcome temptation. God promised it.

There are many other promises where God tells us that we can overcome temptation to sin, yet Christians refuse to believe them. A familiar promise is this one. We can do all things through Christ, who gives us strength. Few Christians believe it. How many Christians do you know who believe that we can cease from sinning? Most Christians believe that they will continue to sin, more or less, for their entire lives despite this and other such promises from God.

Augustinian Calvinism and most evangelicalism deny this, no matter how clever and convincing the sophistry sounds.

Sinners or Saints?

The gospel according to Augustine, Calvin, and many evangelicals is salvation in sin, not from sin (Matthew 1:21). All of these teach that Christians never stop sinning in this life. They may not even sin less, but rest assured, Christians never have the victory over sin, the flesh, and the devil except by fictitious imputation. Saints are unrepentant sinners in the minds of many of these individuals.

1 John tells us that genuine Christians live in righteousness and not sin, for those who sin are born of the devil and not of God. Sinners cease their life of sin and become new creations in Christ who have ceased from sin. Sinners become saints who walk in righteousness and have no unrepentant sin.

The true gospel of Jesus Christ is that we have the victory over sin, the flesh, and the devil. The gospel turns sinners into saints. See 1 Corinthians 6, Galatians 5, and Ephesians 5, which tell us that the unrighteous (including sinful Christians) will not inherit the kingdom of Christ and God.

That doesn’t mean we can’t sin or, from time to time, do sin. It means that our lives are characterized by righteousness and holiness, where sin is the rare exception rather than the general rule.

Victory or defeat?

My last objection is that Augustinian Calvinism and most of evangelicalism teach a form of inability to stop sinning, which is actually an encouragement to remain in sinful rebellion against God. If Christian leaders constantly teach us that we are born sinners with a sin nature that not even the grace of God can overcome, it is inevitable that we will not stop sinning, believing it is impossible.

When we are repeatedly told the lie that the great apostle Paul, for example in Romans 7, constantly fell short and sinned, we will not even consider that we might do better than Paul. Only an arrogant and proud person would even think such a thing.

These doctrines are antinomian at their core and, according to Peter and the early church, constitute damnable heresies. Inability is the best excuse for sin ever devised by Satan, and that is why so many professing Christians love it so much.

In Part 5, we will dig deep into the terms “ability” and “inability” and their theological importance.

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Major Christian Church Councils. Part 4. Augustine & Pelagius. The Conflict.

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