The following is a non-exhaustive (yet possibly exhausting) list of various systematic theologies that I tracked down (not always successfully) in an effort to obtain the raw material from which to distill the meaning of "Semi-Pelagian" in systematic theology, particularly among the Reformed. Not all of the sources cited are Reformed, and some are more reformed than others, amongst the reformed.
A first observation from my study is that the capitalization and punctuation varies from author to author. Some use "Semipelagian," others "Semi-Pelagian," and still others "semi-Pelagian." These potentially reflect an underlying notion of what Semi-Pelagianism is. The first most strongly suggests a standalone view, the last suggests it is merely a variation on a Pelagian theme. The middle view is susceptible of either connotation.
Another observation is that the range of views attributed to Semi-Pelagianism vary. Some authors ascribe to Semi-Pelagianism views that might better be associated with Pelagianism itself. Some authors carefully distinguish between Arminian and Semi-Pelagian positions, others consider Arminians to be one kind of Semi-Pelagian.
A further observation is that not all systematic theologies felt the need to use the label. Calvin's presumably predates the use of the term, but others after the term's introduction do not use it. Some find another way to describe the same thing, while others seem content to describe the truth positively, with less reference to error. Some use the term, but offer other terms like "Cassianism" or "Semi-Augustinianism."
Many of the systematic theologies declined to define (or limit) the term in a fifth century historical context, in terms of Cassian or the like. "Grotius, Limborch, Locke, Whitby, John Taylor, Wahl, and Bretschneider" are identified by Shedd as modern semi-pelagians, while the original Francis Turretin identifies Sebastian Castellio as "the leader of modern semi-Pelagians."
I acknowledge that this is the result of the more functionally focused systematicians, rather than the more observational historians. That said, the survey yielded a reasonable target of positions from a functional viewpoint, whether or not these positions accurately represent Cassian or others.
Broadly speaking, the views associated with Semi-Pelagianism seem to touch on the following topics:
1) Original Sin including
- whether it leaves man "sick" rather than "dead"
- whether it leaves man guilty even apart from voluntary sins
2) Grace
- whether it is necessary for grace to come before faith (or other good human acts)
- whether human beings can choose good apart from a special grace
3) Man's Will
- whether man's will is Libertarian Free
- whether God requires a "middle knowledge" to know man's free choices beforehand
4) Predestination
- whether it is based on foreseen faith
- whether based on man's use of his will
5) Atonement
- whether any perish for whom Christ died
6) Merit in Salvation
- the increase of justification and final justification depend on meritorious human cooperation
- salvation can be merited congruently
- merit serves as basis of election
7) Sanctification - Perfection
- perfect obedience is possible in this life
Abstract of Systematic Theology, James P. Boyce (1887) does not appear to mention Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism.
Biblical Doctrines, B.B. Warfield, (1929) does not appear to use the term, "Semi-Pelagian" or "Semi-Pelagianism," but mentions "more or less modified or attenuated forms" of Pelagianism in contrast to "pure Pelagianism" (p. 460).
A Body of Divinity, Archbishop James Ussher briefly mentions Pelagians, but does not refer to Semi-Pelagianism.
A Body of Doctrinal and Practical Divinity, John Gill, does not seem to mention Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism by name.
A Brief Compendium of Bible Truth, Archibald Alexander, makes no mention of Pelagianism or Semipelagianism.
Concise Theology, J.I. Packer (1993) does not appear to mention Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism.
Concise Reformed Dogmatics, J. van Genderan and W. H. Velema (2008) seldom refers to Pelagianism and does not appear to refer to Semi-Pelagianism. At page 405, it refers to "an intermediate position between that of Pelagius (sinning by imitation) and the positions presented above." It does not, however, label this position as "Semi-Pelagian" or the like.
The Christian Faith: a Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way, Michael Horton (2010) does not list Semi-Pelagianism in the subject matter index. Nevertheless, there are a few references to it.
In chapter 9: The Decree: Trinity and Predestination (p. 313):
Historically, debates over predestination have revealed massive cleavages between theological systems at their heart, encompassing the God-world relation and the doctrine of salvation. Pelagianism (named after the British monk Pelagius [354-420], an opponent of Augustine) maintains that election is based on God’s foreknowledge of those who would merit their salvation, even apart from gracious assistance. A milder version, known as Semi-Pelagianism, held that although the beginning of salvation was due to human free will, growth and final salvation required divine grace. This view was also condemned at the Second Council of Orange (529).
There is also a footnote on the same page:
6. See Thomas Bradwardine, “The Cause of God against the Pelagians,” in Forerunners of the Reformation: The Shape of Late Medieval Thought (ed. Heiko Oberman; New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1966), 151—64. The strong affirmation of original sin and of the necessity of God’s prevenient grace at the Council of Trent at first challenges the legitimacy of the Reformed and Lutheran charges of Semi-Pelagianism. Nevertheless, prevenient grace appears by itself (sola gratia) only at the beginning of conversion with the infusion of justifying (i.e., regenerating) grace in baptism. From that point on, the increase of justification and final justification depend on meritorious human cooperation. From an Augustinian perspective, this can only constitute a Semi-Pelagian position.
At p. 315, in providing a contrast to the Arminian (Remonstrant) system:
The Counter-Reformation offered yet another perspective on the divine decree. In between the classic Thomistic-Augustinian position defended by the Dominicans and the more Semi-Pelagian position adopted by the later Franciscans, the so-called Molinists, after Luis de Molina, who with Francisco Suarez defended a position identified as “middle knowledge” (scientia media). For a contemporary defense of this view, see William Lane Craig, “The Middle Knowledge View,” in Divine Foreknowledge: Four Views (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2001).
In Chapter 17: Called to be Saints: Christ's Presence in the Spirit (p. 561):
According to Pelagius and his disciples, every human being is born in the same state as Adam before the fall, free to choose good and gain eternal life or sin and eternal death. Led especially by Augustine, the church condemned Pelagianism in no uncertain terms. From a common Augustinian heritage, many Roman Catholic as well as Protestant theologians have affirmed that God’s grace precedes all human decision and effort. In fact, the fifth-century Second Council of Orange in 529 condemned the Semi-Pelagian view that God gives his grace in response to human decision and effort. However, especially in its subtler (Semi-Pelagian) form, this type of teaching remained intractable throughout church history, proving the adage that Pelagianism is the natural religion of humanity. According to Semi-Pelagianism, human beings are affected by sin but can still choose the good and, in the common formulation of the late medieval period, “God will not deny his grace to those who do what lies within them” (repeated substantially in Benjamin Franklin’s famous adage, “God helps those who help themselves”).
In Chapter 20: The Way Forward in Grace: Sanctification and Perseverance (p. 664):
A more common error (associated with Semi-Pelagianism) relaxes the law’s demands and, consequently, lowers also its conception of grace. According to the late medieval nominalists, “God will not deny his grace to those who do what lies within them” (facientibus quod in se est deus non denegat gratiam). No one will be saved by strict justice (condign merit), but one can be saved by God’s decision to accept our good effort as adequate (congruent merit). This view lowers the demands of God’s righteousness expressed in his law while falsely assuming that doing “what lies within” us can merit salvation even congruently. It was this error that the Apology of the Augsburg Confession targets: “But when a conscience is properly aware of its sin and misery, all joking, all playful thoughts vanish and the situation becomes one of utmost gravity.... But such terrified consciences surely feel that nothing can be merited either by condignity or of congruity, and so they quickly sink into fear and despair.”
P. 666, at footnote 45, quotes from Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology, already provided here.
Turning to the issue of Perseverance (p. 668):
Challenges to this doctrine usually appear in two broad forms. The first form is synergism, meaning “working together”: the view that salvation is attained through a cooperative process between God and human beings. Representatives of this perspective are, therefore, neither fully Pelagian nor Augustinian but range somewhere between these positions. Though with their own distinct emphases, Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, and Arminianism are synergistic, teaching that the believer's security depends at least to some extent on his or her own cooperation with God’s grace and that this grace may be finally lost.
Finally, in the Glossary, at p. 1001:
Semi-Pelagianism: term coined in the sixteenth century for the teaching that human beings are affected by sin but can still choose the good and, in the common formulation of the late medieval period, “God will not deny his grace to those who do what lies within them.” Salvation is attained by human cooperation with grace.
The Christian's Reasonable Service, Wilhelmus à Brakel does not include Pelagius or Cassian in the name index, and neither Pelagianism nor Semi-Pelagianism in the subject matter index.
Christian Theology, Benedict Pictet (1696) does not appear to use the term "Semi-Pelagian."
Dogmatic Theology, William G.T. Shedd,
A fifth method is that of the ancient Semipelagian and the modern Arminian: The doctrine of original sin is received as a truth of revelation, and an explanation is attempted by the theory of representative union. Adam acted as an individual for the individuals of his posterity. The latter are not guilty of his first sin, either in the sense of culpability or of obligation to punishment, but are exposed on account of it to certain nonpenal evils—principally physical suffering and death. They do not either deserve or incur spiritual and eternal death on account of it. This results only from actual transgression, not from Adam's sin.
(pp. 436-7)
Second, the separation of punishment from culpability is a characteristic of the Semipelagian and Arminian anthropology and when adopted introduces a Semipelagian and Arminian tendency into Augustinianism and Calvinism. Chrysostom and the Greek fathers generally make this separation. They explain hēmarton in Rom. 5:12 to mean not "sinned" but "regarded as a sinner," not culpability (culpa) but liability to suffer what is due to culpability (poena). They denied that the posterity of Adam participated by natural union in the first sin and are culpable and damnable for it. Adam, they contended, only represented his posterity in their nonexistence and absence, and consequently the statement of the apostle that "death passed upon all men for that all have sinned" means that all men are liable by the sovereign appointment of God to suffer certain evils on account of Adam's sin but are not really guilty of it in his sight. This same interpretation reappears in the modern Arminianism. Grotius, Limborch, Locke, Whitby, John Taylor, Wahl, and Bretschneider explain hēmarton in Rom. 5:12 to mean "to be exposed to suffering and death," "to be regarded as sinners," "to endure the punishment of sin" (Grotius), "to bear the culpability for sin" (Wahl, Clavis in voce). And the reason for giving such an uncommon signification to an active verb which nowhere else in Scripture has such a sense was the opinion that "all men sinned" representatively, not really.
(pp. 457-8)
Concreated holiness is one of the distinguishing tenets of Augustinianism. Pelagianism denies that holiness is concreated. It asserts that the will of man by creation and in its first condition is characterless. Its first act is to originate either holiness or sin. Non pleni nascimur: we are not born full of character. Adam's posterity are born, as he was created, without holiness and without sin (Pelagius, quoted by Augustine, Concerning Original Sin 13). Semipelagianism holds the same opinion excepting that it concedes a transmission of a vitiated physical nature, which Pelagianism denies. So far as the rational and voluntary nature of man is concerned, the Semipelagian asserts that holiness like sin must be self-originated by each individual. Tridentine anthropology is a mixture of Pelagianism and Augustinianism. God created man in puris naturalibus, without either holiness or sin. This creative act, which left man characterless, God followed with another act by which he endowed man with holiness. Holiness was something supernatural and not contained in the first creative act. Creation is, thus, imperfect and is improved by an afterthought. In the modern church, Calvinists and early Lutherans adopted the Augustinian view. Arminians and some later Lutherans reject the doctrine of concreated holiness.
(pp. 494-5)
The trial of man upon the Pelagian and Semipelagian theories was very disadvantageous compared with his trial upon the Augustinian and Calvinistic. An indifferent and undecided will is extremely liable to succumb to temptation. A will positively inclined to holiness can very readily resist temptation. It is, therefore, a defect in Müller's theory (Sin 2.70) and also in Howe's that the human will at the instant of its creation is regarded as "created without any determination to good; it was made in that state of liberty as to be in a certain sort of equipoise, according as things should be truly or falsely represented to it by the mind or understanding" (Howe, Oracles 2.22). If this was the original condition of Adam when subjected to temptation and probation, he was unfavorably placed by his Creator.
(p. 543)
The passive signification given to hēmarton is twofold: (a) to be sinful (Calvin) and (b) to be reckoned as having sinned (Chrysostom). The first has never had much currency. The last has been extensively adopted by Semipelagian and Arminian theologians and also by many later Calvinists.
(p. 559)
The reply to this is that upon any theory, no individual man is self-conscious of and remembers the first act of sin. Neither Pelagianism nor Semipelagianism, neither Socinianism nor Arminianism, has any advantage in this respect over Augustinianism and Calvinism. Neither does creationism have any advantage over traducianism. Upon any theory that recognizes the fact of sin in man, the first act of sin is not observed by self-consciousness at the time of its occurrence. No man remembers the time when he was innocent and the particular first act by which he became guilty before God.
(p. 562)
Semipelagian, papal, and Arminian anthropologies differ from the Augustinian and Reformed by denying that corruption of nature is guilt. It is a physical and mental disorder leading to sin, but is not sin itself.
(p.568)
The radical difference between the Augustino-Calvinistic definition of freedom and moral agency on the one side and the Semipelagian and Arminian on the other must ever be kept in mind when Edwards and other Calvinists deny "freedom and moral agency" to the fallen will. His intention is to deny that the sinful will can reverse its inclination and become holy by its own energy, but not that the sinful inclination itself is the unforced agency and movement of the will, for which the sinner is responsible. Both Augustine and the elder Calvinists, however, were more careful than Edwards was to avoid such seeming denials of free moral agency to the sinner, because they did not, even for the sake of argument, temporarily adopt their opponents' idea of the will and moral agency, but rigorously stuck to their own idea and definition of it as simple self-determination without power to the contrary. The self-determination in sin enabled them to affirm liberty and responsibility in sin; and the want of power to the contrary enabled them to affirm bondage and inability in sin.
(p. 608, right column)
Van Mastricht tends to the Semipelagian anthropology in asserting that the virgin's seed was cleansed from physical not from moral corruption.
(p. 637)
[quoting Calvin] The proposition of Paul, "It is not of him that wills nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy," is not to be understood in the sense of those who divide saving power between the grace of God and the will and exertion of man; who indeed say that human desires and endeavors have no efficacy of themselves unless they are rendered successful by the grace of God, but also maintain that with the assistance of his blessing these things have their share in procuring salvation. To refute their views, I prefer Augustine's words to my own: "If the apostle only meant that it is not of him that wills or of him that runs, without the assistance of the merciful Lord, we may retort the converse proposition, that it is not of mercy alone without the assistance of willing and running. But it is certain that the apostle ascribes everything to the Lord's mercy and leaves nothing to our wills or exertions."
(p. 745)
Upon the Semipelagian, the Tridentine, and the Arminian theory of depravity, there may be cooperation, but not upon the Augustinian and Calvinistic. According to the former theories, there are slight remainders of holiness in the natural man which, though feeble, yet afford a point of contact and an element of force in his regeneration. Calvin (3.24.13) attributes synergism to Chrysostom and also to Bernard and Lombard (2.2.6):
Lombard, in order to establish the position that the human will performs its part in regeneration, informs us that two sorts of grace are necessary. One he calls operative, by which we efficaciously will what is good; the other cooperative, which attends as auxiliary to a goodwill. This division I dislike, because, while he attributes an efficacious desire of what is good to the grace of God, he insinuates that man has of his own nature antecedent though ineffectual desires after what is good; as Bernard asserts that a goodwill is the work of God, but yet allows that man is self-impelled to desire such a goodwill. But this is very remote from the meaning of Augustine, from whom, however, Lombard claims to have borrowed this distinction.
(p.768)
The term preparative as used by the Augustinian and Calvinist is very different from its use by the Semipelagian and Arminian. The former means by it conviction of sin, guilt, and helplessness. The latter employs it in the sense of a preparative disposition or a favoring state of heart. This is referred to in Westminster Confession 9.3: "A natural man is not able to convert himself or prepare himself thereto." The tenth of the Thirty-nine Articles also excludes the Semipelagian "preparatives" to regeneration: "We have no power to do good works acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a goodwill and working with us when we have that goodwill." In Semipelagian use, a "preparative" denotes some faint desires and beginnings of holiness in the natural man upon which the Holy Spirit, according to the synergistic theory of regeneration, joins. Having this sense of the term in view, Witsius (Covenants 3.6.27) says: "Let none think it absurd that we now speak of means of regeneration, when but a little before (3.6.10, 12) we rejected all preparatives for it." Owen, on the other hand, denies "means" and asserts "preparatives" of regeneration. Yet Owen and Witsius agree in doctrine. In the Calvinistic system, a "preparative" to regeneration or a "means" of it is anything that demonstrates man's total lack of holy desire and his need of regeneration. It is consequently not a part of regeneration, but something prior and antecedent to it. There is a work performed in the soul previous to the instantaneous act of regeneration, as there is a work performed in the body previous to the instantaneous act of death. A man loses physical life in an instant, but he has been some time in coming to this instant. So man gains spiritual life in an instant, though he may have had days and months of a foregoing experience of conviction and sense of spiritual death. This is the ordinary divine method, except in the case of infants.
(p. 773)
Owen fortifies his positions by extracts from Augustine's antipelagian writings, in which this same distinction is made in opposition to the views of Coelestius and Pelagius, who resolved the whole work of the Spirit into moral suasion. He also cites from the Semipelagian fathers and Schoolmen, who indeed ascribed more to the inward operation of the Spirit than did the Pelagians, but when it came to the question whether the determination of the will to holiness in conversion is wholly or only partly the effect of divine grace, affirmed the latter.
(p. 785, Left column)
Evangelical Theology: Lectures on Doctrine, A.A. Hodge, in the chapter on Predestination (p. 121-22):
As between the man who believes in Christ and the man who finally rejects him, the source of the difference is put by the Pelagian entirely in the inalienable, unassisted power of the human will. All that can be said in the case is that the one man has accepted Christ because he chose to do so, and the other man has rejected Christ because he chose to do so. Each has acted as he has done in the unfettered and unfetterable exercise of the human will. But Pelagianism makes no room for original sin nor for the necessity of divine grace. It is diametrically opposed to the Scriptures, to the religious experience of all Christians, and it has been rejected as anti-Christian by the unanimous consent of the whole historic Church.
The semi-Pelagian, admitting that man is morally sick, holds that every sinner must make the first movement Godward spontaneously in his own strength, after which, if his effort is sincere, however ineffectual, God will co-operate by his grace with him and make his effort successful. The Arminian on the other hand, admitting that all men, being dead in trespasses and sins, are absolutely incapable of spontaneously originating any good desire or effort, yet holds that God gives the same sufficient grace to all men; and he makes the difference between the believer and the unbeliever to lie in the fact that the former co-operates, and thus renders the grace in his case effectual, and the other fails to co-operate with it, and thus renders it ineffectual. The Lutheran, who maintains that men are in such sense dead in sin that they are utterly unable to co-operate with grace before they have been themselves quickened to life by grace, yet makes the difference between the believer and unbeliever to consist in the fact, that while no man can co-operate with grace previous to regeneration, every man is free to resist it. With the Lutherans, therefore, the believer is the non-resistant, the unbeliever is the resistant, subject of a common universal grace.
The Economy of the Covenants between God and Man, Herman Witsius, Vol. 1, p. 361:
The Semi-pelagians therefore of Marseilles were mistaken, who insisted, that a man comes to the grace whereby we are regenerated in Christ by a natural faculty ; as by asking, seeking, knocking; and that, in some at least, before they are born again, there is a kind of repentance going before, together with a sorrow for sin, and a change of the life for the better, and a beginning of faith, and an initial love of God, and a desire of grace; it is true they did not look on these endeavors to be of such importance as that it could be said, we were thereby rendered worthy of the grace of the Holy Spirit; as Pelagius and Julian professed; but yet they imagined, they were an occasion by which God was moved to bestow his grace; for they said, that the mercy of God is such that he recompences this very small beginning of good with this illustrious reward; as Vossius hist. pelag. lib. iv. p. 1. Thess. 1. has refined this their opinion. The Remonstrants are likewise mistaken, in Collatione Hagiensi, editionis Brandianæ, p 302, when they write, "some work of man therefore goes before his vivification; namely, to acknowledge and bewail his death, to will and desire deliverance from it; to hunger, thirst, and seek after life; all which, and a great deal besides, is required by Christ in those whom he will make alive." But there is little accuracy in the reasonings of these men.
Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (1559?). The term "Semi-Pelagian" does not appear to have been used by John Calvin.
Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Francis Turretin (1679-85), in the subject matter index, lists 1:xxxv,213, 342, 350, 398, 659, 668; 2:593 [on perseverance], 3:119 [on errors with which Rome agrees] And additionally lists:
- on the certainty of God's decrees, 1:319-22
- on election and foresight of faith, 1:355-64
- on the extent of the atonement, 2:455-82
- on regeneration, 2:542-46
- on sufficient grace, 2:510, 513
Volume 1
(p. xxxv) Turretin's Dedication
At one time, this was attempted by the fanatical rabble of the Anabaptists, who in the year 1536, immediately after the commencement of the Reformation, made a disturbance here. Afterwards it was the deceitful arts (more changeable than Proteus) and most iniquitous calamities of Peter Caroli, the impudent Sophist. Then again the destructive corruptions of the word of God and orthodox doctrine by Sebastian Castellio, the leader of modern semi-Pelagians; by the most base contrivances of Gruet, a turbulent man, throwing together into the same hodgepodge of errors Samosatenianism with Manichaeism. After that, in the year 1551, by the impiety of Jerome Bolsec who labored to corrupt the sacred doctrine of predestination and saving grace with Pelagian poison. At length, it was attempted by the horrible blasphemies of Michael Servetus, not a man, but a monster of all wickedness, in reference to the adorable mystery of the holy Trinity. This most abandoned man, although often warned, did not cease disgorging the most pestiferous poison among the common people, which he had already scattered for many years in the celebrated places of Europe. At length being thrown into prison and persevering in his diabolical obstinacy, he suffered the most just punishment of execrable impiety in the year 1553. Still Satan (so often vanquished) did not cease to renew the strife and to excite new masters of impiety afterwards: such as Valentine Gentilis, Paul Alciatus and other disciples of the same fraternity with the most impure Servetus. In the year 1558, these joined together the error of the Tritheists with Samosatenianism and Arianism (i.e., monsters with monsters). These the authority of your predecessors firmly restrained and happily put to flight, so that always with great praise, they approved themselves to be “strenuous and hearty defenders of the cause of piety,” the honorable utterance which that most distinguished man of God, Calvin, formerly used concerning them.
(p. 213) Third Topic, Question 13, Section 3
The design of the Jesuits was to defend the semi-Pelagian heresy of foreseen faith and good works in election, and to support the figment of free will in order the more easily to free themselves from the arguments of the Dominicans who rejected such a foresight (principally for this reason—that since there is no knowledge in God [unless either natural—of things possible—or free—of things future] all foreknowledge of faith and of the good use of free will ought to depend upon, not to precede the decree). This argument they supposed could be escaped in no other way than by inventing this middle knowledge. There is no need to take account of the disturbances this question executed among the Jesuits and Dominicans. The pope, in the meantime, to whose tribunal the whole matter was frequently referred for his infallible judgment, in an affair of so great moment, slept and did not dare to determine anything. It suffices to make this observation—that what the Jesuits contended for as their Helen was fiercely assailed as most false by the Dominicans (among whom were the eminent Cumel, Ripa, Alvarez, Nugno and others with whom the Jansenists of this day agree).
(p. 319) Fourth Topic, Question 4, Section 1
FOURTH QUESTIONDoes the decree necessitate future things? We affirm.I. The question is agitated between us and the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians (old and new) who, to establish the more easily the idol of free will, deny the necessity of things from the decree and foreknowledge (which the orthodox constantly maintain).
(p. 342) Fourth Topic, Question 9, Section 4
At the outset, we must take notice that whatever the disagreement of theologians may be on this subject, yet the foundation of faith remains secure on both sides and that they are equally opposed to the deadly error of Pelagians and semi-Pelagians. Both they who ascend higher in this matter and include the creation or the fall of man in the decree of predestination, and they who suppose both all agree in this: that men were considered by God as equal (not unequal) and such that their choice depended upon God alone (from which foundation all heretics depart).
(p. 350) Fourth Topic, Question 9, Section 31
Besides these two opinions about the object of predestination, there is a third held by those who maintain that not only man as fallen and corrupted by sin, but men also as redeemed by Christ (and either believing or disbelieving in him) was considered by God predestinating. This was the opinion of the semi-Pelagians and is now held by the Arminians and all those who maintain that Christ is the foundation of election, and foreseen faith its cause (or, at least, the preceding condition). But because this question is involved in that which will come up hereafter (concerning the foundation and impulsive cause of election), we add nothing about it now. For if it can once be proved that neither Christ nor faith precede election, but are included in it as a means and effects, by that very thing it will be demonstrated that man as redeemed and, as believing or unbelieving, cannot be the object of predestination.
(p. 350) Fourth Topic, Question 10, Section 1
TENTH QUESTION: THE CAUSE OF ELECTIONIs Christ the cause and foundation of election? We deny against the Arminians and Lutherans.I. The first controversy concerning election (upon which all the others depend) refers to its cause: whether besides the mere good pleasure of God another impulsive cause out of himself can be granted, by which he was influenced to form the decree of election. The orthodox maintain that the good pleasure (eudokian) alone has place and think that no other cause can either be given or rightly sought. But the adversaries (who cherish Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism) suppose that others also can come in order: for instance, either Christ and his merit, or the foresight of faith and works. Hence a tripartite question arises concerning Christ, faith and works. Was election made on account of Christ and in consideration of his merit; or from the foresight of faith; or from foreseen works? The first we treat now.
(p. 355) Fourth Topic, Question 11, Section 1
ELEVENTH QUESTIONIs election made from the foresight of faith, or works; or from the grace of God alone? The former we deny; the latter we affirmI. This is the principal hinge of the Pelagian controversy. On this, as a common rock, all in our day who have renewed Pelagianism or semi-Pelagianism have struck.
(pp. 355-6) Fourth Topic, Question 11, Section 5
The papists differ from each other on this point. Without mentioning the opinions of the more ancient Scholastics (who are found to be very discordant and many of whom, openly turning to Pelagianism, suspend predestination upon the foresight of merit and the good use of free will), it is certain that the popish theologians in the Council of Trent were divided. Some asserted with Augustine the gratuitous election of God; others, on the contrary, with Pelagians and semi-Pelagians, suspended it upon the foreseen merit of men and the good use of free will. This contention continued and was afterwards fiercely agitated among the Dominicans and Franciscans. Now it still glows between the Jansenists and Jesuits. The former contend for the gratuitous predestination of God; the latter, on the other hand, for the foresight of works. Still it must be confessed that the Jesuits themselves are not evidently agreed. Some hold that men were elected gratuitously to the first grace indeed; but to glory, not gratuitously but on account of foreseen and future merit (as Stapleton, “Antidota Apostolica in Epistolam ad Romanos Cap. IX,” Opera [1620], 3:650; Becanus, Summa Theologicae Scholasticae 4.4.8 [1651], p. 88; Dionysius Carthusianus/Petavius, Opus de Theologicis Dogmatibus 10.2 [1700], 1:394-96 and many more of that society). Others, however, maintain that men were elected together gratuitously, not only to grace, but also to glory. Bellarmine above all others follows out this whole argument fully and more nearly to our mind (“De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio,” 2.6, 7, 10, 11 in Opera [1858], 4:304—8, 312-15) where he asserts that “no reason on our part of the divine predestination can be assigned” (ibid., 2.9, p. 311). “We say,” says he “no reason can be assigned, in order to exclude, not only merit properly so called, but also if it is not said to be merit except of congruity, and even if it is not called the true cause, but only the condition without which they would not be predestinated who are predestinated” (ibid.). He maintains “that this ought not to be called the opinion only of some doctors, but the belief of the Catholic church” (ibid., 2.11, p. 315), which he sustains by various arguments (ibid., 2.10—12, pp. 312—19). Thus he seems to be wholly on our side here (although elsewhere he may advocate opinions concerning free will, sufficient grace, the uncertainty of salvation and the merit of works incompatible [asystata] with this doctrine). However, whatever his opinion (and that of others who here follow Augustine and stand on the side of truth), the more common opinion among both the Jesuits and many papists is undoubtedly that of those who suspend predestination to life or election upon the foresight of works and the good use of free will. Against these, we here dispute.
(pp. 356-7) Fourth Topic, Question 11, Section 7
The Arminians (who bring popery and Pelagianism in by the back door) have struck against the same rock. For although they endeavor with great labor to prove that they do not make faith the cause of election (in order to shun the odium of semi-Pelagianism deservedly charged upon them), still they do not deny that it is the cause sine qua non or the prerequisite condition necessary in those to be elected. Yea, not obscurely can we gather that they proceed further and attribute a certain causality to faith, so that God is moved by its foresight to choose this rather than that one. Otherwise why would they say so often that election is founded on the foresight of faith unless they meant that the consideration of faith influenced the election of one before another? Hence the Hague subscribers say, “It is absurd to place the absolute will of God in the decree of election as the first cause, going before the remaining causes, to wit, Christ, faith, and all the other” (Collatio scriptio habita Hagae Comitis [1615], p. 127). Corvinus leaves it doubtful “whether faith ought to be called the cause, or condition” (Petri Molinaei novi anatomici [1632], p. 351). Moreover, they make a twofold decree of election: the first general, of saving believers; the second special, of saving individuals by name whom God foresaw would believe. They hold that no other cause of the first can be given than the pure will of God, but as to the second (although it also is founded upon the divine will), they hold it supposes the consideration and regard of faith, so that God is moved by it to elect one rather than another. But here we do not treat of the first decree (whose futility will be demonstrated elsewhere), but of the second.
(p. 398) Fourth Topic, Question 17, Section 12
Meanwhile, whatever discrepancy of opinion may here be perceived among our men, the foundation of faith thus far remains safe on both sides through the grace of God, while each asserts: (1) the universal corruption of each and every man, and the universal and invincible inability to emerge from it (of whatever kind it may be) without the efficacious grace of God; (2) the particular election from that misery unto salvation, and the immovable preterition of many whom God (who might have left all) willed to leave in their misery by a most free, but yet by a most just judgment; (3) efficacious grace, which alone can produce that faith and without which it cannot be held as a particular gift destined from eternity by God to the elect alone, granted also to them alone in time and without which no one can obtain salvation; (4) the gospel alone as the ministry of the Spirit and the sole instrument of ingenerating (ingenerandae) faith in Christ (all other revelations being wholly insufficient for salvation, if not objectively, at least subjectively, on account of the innate corruption of man). These are the capital doctrines of faith which we all constantly defend against the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.
(pp. 659-60) Tenth Topic, Question 1, Section 1
The greatness of the corruption brought upon the human race by sin we have already shown. We have seen the source of evil in original sin and the muddy streams thence flowing into actual sins. Now more properly the miserable state of man and the most degrading servitude of free will under sin must be considered. I confess it is a sad spectacle, but still most useful and highly necessary, in order that we may fully know the greatness of our misery and the more certainly understand and the more earnestly seek the necessity of medicinal grace. For this reason, the argument is the more diligently to be pursued because the weightiest controversies have been set on foot about it by various adversaries almost from the very beginning and are even now in our day urged (in the discussion of which great talents have been and are now employed). And not to mention here the most futile errors of heathen philosophers who (ignorant of the corruption of nature) contended that man could be the builder and architect of his own fortune and by making men free made them sacrilegious. Who is ignorant of the gigantic attempts of the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians on this subject! They deny either wholly the impurity of nature or extenuate it most astonishingly to extol the strength of free will. Neither the authority of various councils, nor the labor and industry of the brightest lights of the church (Jerome, Augustine, Prosper, Hilary, Fulgentius and others) broke so much as to prevent their renewing and causing to sprout again the very same things in succeeding ages; so that you would say these enemies had been triumphed over rather than entirely conquered by the fathers. Nor do the Jesuits, the Socinians and Remonstrants of our day labor for anything else than on this subject (as also in various others) to bring back (either openly or secretly and by burrowing) Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism and to place the idol of free will in the citadel. This is the Helen whom they so ardently love and for whom they do not hesitate to fight as for their altars and firesides. It is of great importance, therefore, that the disciples of true and genuine grace should oppose themselves strenuously to these deadly errors and so build up the misery of man and the necessity of grace that the entire cause of destruction should be ascribed to man and the whole glory of salvation to God alone. Here belongs the doctrine of free will, concerning which we now dispute.
(p. 668) Tenth Topic, Question 4, Section 1
In the preceding question, we treated free will absolutely (as to nature, in the genus of being). Now we treat of the same relatively (as to the state of sin and its powers in the genus of morals). There we saw what it is; now we are to see what it can do in reference to good. This is the primary controversy on this head of doctrine between us and the Pelagians and semi-Pelagians.
Volume 2
(p. 456) Fourteenth Topic, Question 14, Section 3
The same controversy was afterwards renewed among the Romanists, some of whom defended the universality of redemption (with the Semipelagians), others its particularity (with Augustine and his genuine disciples). This controversy lay principally between the Jesuits and Jansenists, of whom the former (an offshoot of the Pelagians) warmly contend for the universality of Christ’s death, while the latter with great firmness defend its particularity, following their founder, Jansen, who has argued this subject very largely and with great solidity in his Augustinus (“De Gratia Christi Salvatoris,’ 3.20 [1640/1964], pp. 369-80), his Apologia Jansenii published in 1644, Art. 17, 19, 20+ and in Catechismo de Gratia, c. 7, de Predesti. q. 65+.
(p. 513) Fifteenth Topic, Question 3, Section 16
(5) Not a few of our opponents reject this dogma, as the entire school of Jansen, when he proves sufficient grace to be monstrous: “As explained by the more modern, it is a distinct kind of help from others which from the first fall of man until the day of judgment never had, nor will have any effect upon the human will” (cf. “De Gratia Christi Salvatoris,” 3.3 Augustinus [1660/1964], p. 258). He shows from the nature of grace that sufficient grace according to the more recent sense is granted to none (ibid., 3.4, pp. 262-67). He proves that innumerable persons are destitute of that sufficient grace and that it was devised by Semipelagians (ibid., 3.10-12, pp. 300—23). In the following chapters, he refutes the arguments of the Jesuits for sufficient grace. Alvarez had already asserted this (De Auxiliis divinae gratiae et humani 8.71 [1610], pp. 497-505). It is also evident that this dogma was disapproved of by many others, such as Bennius, Osorius and Delphinus.
(p. 542) Fifteenth Topic, Question 5, Section 1
This question lies between us and the Romanists, Socinians, Remonstrants and other offshoots of the Pelagians and Semipelagians who, not to injure or remove the free will of man in calling, maintain that it has a certain cooperation (synergeian) and concourse with the grace of God. Hence they are called Synergists.
(pp. 593-4) Fifteenth Topic, Question 16, Section 2
The question concerning perseverance is agitated by us with the old and new Pelagians and Semipelagians, who agree in opposing and denying it. Such are the Romanists, Socinians, Anabaptists and Remonstrants, who, on this point (as in the others concerning grace), depart from the orthodox doctrine and were condemned by the Synod of Dort in Article 5 (Acta Synodi Nationalis ... Dordrechti [1619-20], 1:311-17).
Volume 3:
(pp. 118-9) Eighteenth Topic, Question 13, Section 56
So far is Rome from being able to prove her agreement with the ancient purer church (which from a comparison of the doctrine received by each in faith as well as in worship, it is easy to demonstrate, as has often been done by our divines) that it is easy to prove rather her harmony and consent with various heretics formerly condemned. With the Angelics, Collyridians and Staurolatri, in the worship of angels, of the virgin and of the cross; with Montanists, Manichaeans, Encratites and Tatianists, in the choice of food, stated fasts and the law of celibacy; with Pelagians and Semi-pelagians, in the doctrine of free will, the merit of works and the perfection of righteousness; with Marcionites and Pepusians, in the baptism of women; with Manichaeans, in the prohibition of the cup and communion under one species; with the Essenes, in the use of a foreign tongue in sacred things; with the Euchetians, Nudipedalians and Apostolics, in the vows of monks; with the Sampseans, in the worship of relics; with the Basilidians, Carpocratians and Gnosimachians, in the prohibition of the Scriptures; with the Eutychians, Marcosians and Elkesaitians, in transubstantiation; with the Heracleonites, in extreme unction; and with all heretics in the necessity of traditions and the accusation of the Scriptures, as has been proved at length by Rivet (“Prooemium,” Catholicus orthodoxus [1641], pp. 1-31), Molinaeus, Downame and others.
Manual of Theology, J.L. Dagg (1859) does not appear to mention Pelagianism or Semi-Pelagianism.
The Marrow of Modern Divinity, by Edward Fisher makes no mention of Pelagianism or Semipelagianism.
The Marrow of Theology, William Ames does not mention "Semi-Pelagianism" but the introduction refers to a statement by Ames that "the Remonstrant view on the role of the will is pushed too far, it does become a heresy -- 'a Pelagian heresy, because it denies the effectual operation of internal grace to be necessary for the effecting of conversion and faith'." (p. 8) The introduction is by John Dykstra Eusden, and the material quoted is from Conscience: Its Law or Cases, Five Books, IV, iv, 10.
A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, Dr. Robert L. Reymond, p. 469:
It should also be noted that Pelagianism did not die with its conciliar condemnation in A.D. 418, men and women being born as they are with Pelagian hearts, but rather it only went underground, "meanwhile vexing the Church with modified forms of itself, modified just enough to escape the letter of the Church's condemnation."[FN14 Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, 36.] For example, it reappeared at once in the semi-Pelagian denial of the necessity of prevenient grace for salvation. This was opposed by the Second Council of Orange in A.D. 529.[FN15 Alister E. McGrath notes that the earlier pronouncements pronouncements of the Sixteenth Council of Carthage were, "vague at several points which were to prove of significance, and these were revised at what is generally regarded as being the most important council of the early church to deal with the doctrine of justification-- the Second Council of Orange, convened in 529." [a large block quotation that follows is omitted by TurretinFan]] But while the Council saved the church from semi-Pelagianism, that same council betrayed the church into the semi-semi-Pelagian denial of the irresistibility of that prevenient grace by human free will, which theological vision, in spite of the recurring protests through the centuries of such men as Gottschalk, Bradwardine, Wycliffe, and Hus, eventually an Aquinas was to systemize and the Council of Trent (1545) was to declare the official position of those churches in communion with Counter-Reformation Rome. The Reformers of the sixteenth century, as we just noted, rejected the synergistic stance of Roman Catholic soteriology [FN16] and returned to the earlier best insights of the later Augustine and to the inspired insights of Paul in his letters to the Romans and the Galatians.
This is the only section identified on the topic of Semi-Pelagianism in the subject matter index. There are several other references to Semi-Pelagianism throughout the work, however. One such example is (pp. 472-3):
To preserve the universalist premise, the evangelical universalist relaxes the original supernaturalistic premise and thus reintroduces at the decisive point the Pelagian or autosoteric principle, the outcome being a "semi-Pelagian" (partly God, partly man), "cooperative" salvation (the reason it should be called "semi-Pelagianism" and not "semi-Augustinianism" is because at the decisive point it is man's part that actually determines who is saved and who is not):
The upshot of the whole matter is that the attempt to construe the gracious operations of God looking to salvation universally, inevitably leads by one path or another to the wreck of ... the supernaturalistic principle, on the basis of which all Christian Churches professedly unite. Whether this universalism takes a sacerdotal form or a form which frees itself from all entanglements with earthly transactions, it ends always and everywhere by transferring the really decisive factor in salvation from God to man [Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, 84].
Outlines of Theology, A.A. Hodge (1878) mentions Semipelagianism several times. The editor helpfully categorized two of the mentions respectively under "Doctrine of Inability" (p. 338) and "Of Effectual Calling" (p. 447) Better than that, Chapter VI, beginning at page 94, is a "Comparison of Systems," which compares "the three rival systems of Pelagianism, Semipelagianism, and Augustinianism." Describing the state of the churches in the 3rd century, Hodge asserts that "As a general fact it may be stated, that, as a result of the great influence of Origen, the Fathers of the Greek church pretty unanimously settled down upon a loose Semipelagianism, denying the guilt of original sin, and maintaining the ability of the sinner to predispose himself for, and to cooperate with divine grace. And this has continued the character of the Greek anthropology to the present day." (p. 94)
By contrast, Hodge asserts: "The same attributes characterized the speculation of the Western Church also, but during the third and fourth centuries there appeared a marked tendency among the Latin Fathers to those more correct views afterwards triumphantly vindicated by the great Augustine. This tendency may be traced most clearly in the writings of Tertullian of Carthage, who died circum. 220, and Hilary of Poitiers (†368) and Ambrose of Milan (†397)." (p.94)
Hodge identifies four "main distinguishing positions of the Augustinian and Pelagian systems." (p. 97)
1. At pp. 97-98, Hodge provides a lengthy block quotation from "Historical Presentation of Augustinianism and Pelagianism," by G. F. Siggers, D.D., Translated by Rev. Ralph Emerson, pp. 268-79.
1st. As to Original Sin.Augustinianism. By the sin of Adam, in whom all men together sinned, sin and all the other positive punishments of Adam's sin came into the world. By it human nature has been both physically and morally corrupted. Every man brings into the world with him a nature already so corrupt, that it can do nothing but sin. The propagation of this quality of his nature is by concupiscence.Pelagianism. By his transgression, Adam injured only himself, not his posterity. In respect to his moral nature, every man is born in precisely the same condition in which Adam was created. There is therefore no original sin.2d. As to Free will.Augustinianism. By Adam's transgression the freedom of the human will has been entirely lost. In his present corrupt state man can will and do only evil.Pelagianism. Man's will is free. Every man has the power to will and to do good as well as the opposite. Hence it depends upon himself whether he be good or evil.3d. As to Grace.Augustinianism. If nevertheless man in his present state, wills and does good, it is merely the work of grace. It is an inward, secret, and wonderful operation of God upon man. It is a preceding as well as an accompanying work. By preceding grace, man attains faith, by which he comes to an insight of good, and by which power is given him to will the good. He needs co-operating grace for the performance of every individual good act. As man can do nothing without grace, so he can do nothing against it. It is irresistible. And as man by nature has no merit at all, no respect at all can be had to man's moral disposition, in imparting grace, but God acts according to his own free will.Pelagianism. Although by free will, which is a gift of God, man has the capacity of willing and doing good without God's special aid, yet for the easier performance of it, God revealed the law; for the easier performance, the instruction and example of Christ aid him; and for the easier performance, even the supernatural operations of grace are imparted to him. Grace, in the most limited sense (gracious influence) is given to those only who deserve it by the faithful employment of their own powers. But man can resist it.4th. As to Predestination and Redemption.Augustinianism. From eternity, God made a free and unconditional decree to save a few [Hodge or the editor adds a note to say: The doctrine of Augustine does not by any means involve the conclusion that the elect are "few" or "a small number."] from the mass that was corrupted and subjected to damnation. To those whom he predestinated to this salvation, he gives the requisite means for the purpose. But on the rest, who do not belong to this small [same note as at "few" above] number of the elect, the merited ruin falls. Christ came into the world and died for the elect only.Pelagianism. God's decree of election and reprobation is founded on prescience. Those of whom God foresaw that they would keep his commands, he predestinated to salvation; the others to damnation. Christ's redemption is general. But those only need his atoning death who have actually sinned. All, however, by his instruction and example, may be led to higher perfection and virtue."
This leads to two further sections that may be of interest (pp. 98-99):
6. What was the origin of the Middle or Semipelagian system?In the mean time, while the Pelagian controversy was at its height, John Cassian, of Syrian extraction and educated in the Eastern Church, having removed to Marseilles, in France, for the purpose of advancing the interests of monkery in that region, began to give publicity to a scheme of doctrine occupying a middle position between the systems of Augustine and Pelagius. This system, whose advocates were called Massilians from the residence of their chief, and afterward Semipelagians by the Schoolmen, is in its essential principles one with that system which is now denominated Arminianism, a statement of which will be given in a subsequent part of this chapter. Faustus, bishop of Riez, in France, from A.D. 427 to A.D. 480,was one of the most distinguished and successful advocates of this doctrine, which was permanently accepted by the Eastern Church, and for a time was widely disseminated throughout the western also, until it was condemned by the Synods of Orange and Valence, A.D. 529.7. What is the relation of Augustinianism to Calvinism and of Semipelagianism to Arminianism?After this time Augustinianism became the recognized orthodoxy of the Western Church, and the name of no other uninspired man exerts such universal influence among Papists and Protestants alike. If any human name ought to be used to designate a system of divinely revealed truth, the phraseAugustinianism as opposed to Pelagianism properly designates all those elements of faith which the whole world of Evangelical Christians hold in common. On the other hand Augustinianism as opposed to Semipelagianism properly designates that system commonly called Calvinism—while Cassianism would be the proper historical designation of that Middle or Semipelagian Scheme now commonly styled Arminianism.
At pages 334-5, the topic of Original Sin is discussed:
25. What are the main positions involved in the Semipelagian doctrine [of original sin] ?According to the critical estimate of Wiggers in his "Hist. Present, of Augustinianism and Pelagianism," Pelagianism regards man as morally and spiritually well. Semipelagianism regards him as sick. Augustinianism regards him as dead.The current positions of Semipelagianism during the middle ages were—1st. Denial of the imputation of the guilt of Adam's sin. 2d. Acknowledgment of a morbid condition of man's moral nature from birth by inheritance from Adam. 3d. Which morbid condition is not itself sin but the certain cause of sin. 4th. It involves the moral powers of the soul to such an extent that no man can fulfil the requirements either of the law or of the gospel without divine assistance. Man, however, has the power to begin to act aright, when God seeing his effort, and knowing that otherwise it would be fruitless, gives him the gracious help he needs.The doctrine of the Arminians, and the "Synergism" of Melanchthon amount practically to very much the same thing with the statements just made. The main difference is that the Semipelagians held that man can and must begin the work of repentance and obedience when God instantly co-operates with him. While the Arminians and Synergists held that man is so far depraved that he needs grace to dispose and enable him to begin as well as to continue and to succeed in the work, but that all men as a matter of fact have the same common grace acting upon them, which grace effects nothing until the man voluntarily co-operates with it, when it becomes efficacious through that co-operation.The Greek Church, which occupies the same general position as to original sin and grace, holds—1st. Original sin is not voluntary and therefore not true sin. 2d. The influence of Adam extends only to the sensuous, and not to the rational nor moral nature of his descendants, and hence it extends to their will only through the sensuous nature. 3d. Infants are guiltless because they possess only a physical propagated nature. 4th. The human will takes the initiative in regeneration but needs divine assistance. This is Semipelagianism. While the corresponding Arminian position is that grace takes the initiative in regeneration but depends for its effect upon human co-operation.
At Chapter XX, discussing inability, Hodge again makes a tripartite distinction of views:
2. What three great types of doctrine on the subject of human ability to fulfil the law of God have always coexisted in the church?1st. Pelagian.—(a.) Moral character can be predicated only of volitions, (b.) Ability is always the measure of responsibility, (c.) Hence every man has always plenary power to do all that it is his duty to do. (d.) Hence the human will alone, to the exclusion of the interference of any internal influence from God, must decide human character and destiny. The only divine influence needed by man or consistent with his character as a self-determined agent is an external, providential, and educational one.2d. Semipelagian. —(a.) Man's nature has been so far weakened by the fall that it can not act aright in spiritual matters without divine assistance, (b.) This weakened moral state which infants inherit from their parents is the cause of sin, but not itself sin in the sense of deserving the wrath of God. (c.) Man must strive to do his whole duty, when God meets him with co-operative grace, and renders his efforts successful.(d.) Man is not responsible for the sins he commits until after he has enjoyed and abused the influences of grace.3d. Augustinian.—Which was adopted by all the original Protestant Churches, Lutheran and Reformed, (a.) Man is by nature so entirely depraved in his moral nature as to be totally unable to do any thing spiritually good, or in any degree to begin or to dispose himself thereto, (b.) That even under the exciting and suasory influences of divine grace the will of man is totally unable to act aright in co-operation with grace, until after the will itself is by the energy of grace radically and permanently renewed, (c.) Even after the renewal of the will it ever continues dependent upon divine grace, to prompt, direct, and enable it in the performance of every good work.
Finally, we see an example of a distinction between Semipelagian and Arminian views when it comes to the topic of the inward call:
6. What is the Pelagian view of the internal call?Pelagians deny original sin, and maintain that right and wrong are qualities attaching only to executive acts of the will. They therefore assert—1st. The full ability of the free- will of man as much to cease from sin at any time as to continue in its practice. 2d. That the Holy Spirit produces no in- ward change in the heart of the subject, except as he is the author of the Scriptures, and as the Scriptures present moral truths and motives, which of their own nature exert a moral influence upon the soul. They deny "grace" altogether in the Scriptural sense.7. What is the Semipelagian view?These maintain that grace is necessary to enable a man successfully to return unto God and live. Yet that from the very nature of the human will man must first of himself desire to be free from sin, and to choose God as his chief good, when he may expect God's aid in carrying his desires into effect. They deny prevenient grace, but admit co-operative grace.8. What is the Arminian view?The Arminians admit the doctrine of man's total depravity, and that in consequence thereof man is utterly unable to do any thing aright in the unaided exercise of his natural faculties. Nevertheless, as Christ died equally for every man, sufficient grace, enabling its subject to do all that is required of him, is granted to all. Which sufficient grace becomes efficient only when it is co-operated with and improved by the sinner. "Apol. Conf. Remonstr.," p. 162, b.; Limborch, "Theo. Christ.," 4, 12, 8.
Reformed Dogmatics, Herman Bavinck (1906-11)
(p. 140)
In this struggle the Synod of Orange (529) took some decisions favoring Augustine but did not prevent the spread of semi-Pelagian ideas. It accepted prevenient grace but did not decisively adopt irresistible grace and particular predestination. In the years following, not much Augustinianism was left intact.
(p. 258)
Other scholars therefore defined religion as moral conduct and located its seat in the human will. Pelagianism in its various forms—semi-Pelagianism, Socinianism, Remonstrantism, deism, rationalism, etc.—has paved the way for this view insofar as faith, in this approach, is supplemented by or even solely exists in a “new obedience.”
(p. 198)
With a view to squaring God’s omniscience with human freedom, following the semi-Pelagian line, they introduced the so-called middle knowledge (media scientia) between God’s “necessary” and his “free” knowledge. By this “middle” knowledge they meant a divine knowledge of contingent events that is logically antecedent to his decrees. The object of this knowledge is not the merely possible that will never be realized, nor that which by virtue of a divine decree is certain to hap- pen, but the possibilities that depend for their realization on one condition or another.
(p. 340)
Finally, Pelagianisms notion of ‘predestination to glory,” a third decree granting salvation to those who persevere (as God foresaw) makes God’s decree completely conditional. There is no real decree; only a wish whose fulfillment is uncertain. God does not know his own. Even where churches hold the doctrine of predestination impurely, with semi-Pelagian admixtures, they still confess it. Essentially and materially, predestination is a dogma accepted throughout Christianity.
(p. 351-2)
Furthermore, not a word is said about absolute predestination, irresistible grace, and the particularity of grace. This indecisiveness had a harmful effect, as became clear in the predestinarian controversy surrounding Gottschalk. By that time the semi-Pelagian or Pelagian position had already been adopted by many, such as Hincmar, Rabanus, Erigena, whose positions gained a victory at the Synod of Quierzy (853).
(p. 363)
Roman Catholic theologians sometimes paint a different picture. They accuse the predestinationists of the fifth century—as well as Gottschalk, Bradwardine, Wycliffe, and especially the Reformers of the sixteenth century—of teaching a “predestination to sins” and of making God the author of sin. But the sole motive for doing this is to maintain their own semi-Pelagian position and to align it with the teaching of Augustine and Thomas.
(p. 382)
Pure and consistent Pelagianism is the total subversion of Christianity and religion. That, too, is the reason why not a single Christian church has accepted it. However much the doctrine of predestination has been rendered impure by semi-Pelagian admixtures in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, it is still confessed by them all.
(p. 75)
Even Roman Catholic thought sounds a semi- Pelagian note in its supernaturalist anthropology, where only the superadded gift of grace is lost in the fall and nature remains unblemished.
(p. 76)
Pelagianism was condemned by the Christian church. Nonetheless, a semi- Pelagianism that taught a weakened but not totally corrupt will gained much headway in the church. This view holds that while Adam’ fall had consequences also for his descendants, our moral condition is only sick and weak, prone to the desires of the flesh. The Council of Trent taught that the wills freedom had not been destroyed and that concupiscence as such was not sin. Anabaptists, Remonstrants, and many modern theologians agree. Adam’s sin affects us all but only weakens our will and does not plunge us into the total corruption of original sin. This semi-Pelagianism ignores the character and seriousness of sin as willful lawlessness, separates sin and guilt, and fails to resolve the question of human freedom. An intact but weakened will is no real improvement on a will bound by original sin. While imitation is a superficial explanation for the universality of sin, the semi-Pelagian rejection of imitation leaves it with no explanation at all.
(p. 90)
Pelagianism was condemned by the Christian church. From the outset the church fathers assumed a certain connection between Adam’s sin and that of his descendants. Although this connection was not yet examined in detail, Adams trespass did bring about a great moral upheaval in his own life and that of his descendants. The nature of that moral change, however, was viewed in very diverse ways. According to semi-Pelagianism, the consequences of Adam's fall consisted for him and his descendants, aside from death, primarily in the weakening of moral strength. Though there is actually no real original sin in the sense of guilt, there is a hereditary malady: as a result of Adam’s fall, humanity has become morally sick; the human will has been weakened and is inclined to evil. There has originated in humans a conflict between “flesh” and: “spirit” that makes it impossible for a person to live without sin; but humans can will the good, and when they do, grace comes to their assistance in accomplishing it. This is the position adopted by the Greek church;” and although in the West Augustine exerted strong influence, the | Western] church increasingly strayed toward semi- Pelagianism. The Council of Trent taught that though the freedom of the will had diminished, it had not been destroyed, and that concupiscence as such is not a sin.”
(p. 91-92)
This semi-Pelagian view of original sin, however, is basically not much better than that of Pelagius and is open to the same objections. (1) It denies the character and seriousness of sin. Sin, after all, is lawlessness (vou). The state in which humans are born either corresponds to God’s law or deviates from it; it is good or evil, sinful or not sinful. There is no third category. That that state is good and agrees in all parts with God’s law, semi-Pelagians dare not assert either. Yet they do not call it sinful in the true sense of the word. So they create an intermediate state and speak of original sin as a disease, a deficiency, an illness that is not a real sin but can only be an occasion for sin. Or they separate sin and guilt and say, like Rothe and Kaftan, that though original sin is sin, it is not guilt. (2) This is impossible both ways. Sin and guilt are inseparable (Gal. 3:10; James 2:10; 1 John 5:17).
(p. 92)
The semi-Pelagian theory not only does not solve the problem present here, but it does not even begin to touch it and even deliberately shuts its eyes to it.
(p. 93)
The universality of sin is a fact that also semi-Pelagians acknowledge. They reject its explanation in terms of imitation. They accept that an impure, effective, sick, sinful (though nonculpable and nonpunishable) state is anterior to sinful acts. They acknowledge that that impure, sick state, in the lives of all without distinction, leads to culpable, punishable deeds, so that the weakened free will actually means very little. Now then, how must we explain that appalling phenomenon? How can it be squared with God’s justice that, aside now from the covenant of grace, he permits all humans to be born in such a state, a state that, in any case, for children dying in infancy entails death and exclusion from his fellowship, and for all others eternal ruin? The semi-Pelagian theory fails totally to enter into the problem and contents itself with a superficial and inconsequential doctrine of free will.
(p. 457-8)
Although before long semi-Pelagianism gained the upper hand, many people continued to stick with Augustine also on this point. With an appeal to 1 Timothy 2:4, the semi-Pelagians claimed that God embraces all people alike with the same love and bestows on all an equal measure of grace. To this Prosper answered by saying: “God has concern for all and there is not a single person who is not ad- dressed either by the preaching of the gospel or the testimony of the law or even by nature itself. However, we confess the faith of humans to be a gift of God without which grace no person runs to grace.” And as it concerns the particularity of salvation, Christ was indeed “crucified for the redemption of the whole world, on account of his true assumption of human nature and on account of the ruin of all in the first man; it can nevertheless be said that he was crucified only for those who were benefited by his death.” However moderate this language may be, all followers of Augustine, Prosper, Lucid, Fulgentius, and others are agreed that, though God cares for all people and bestows all sorts of benefits on them, he does not desire the salvation of all in the same way; that he does not grant to all the same measure of grace; and that Christ, though in a sense he died for all, yet he efficaciously died only for those whom his death actually benefits. But the Synod of Arles (475) forced Lucid to revoke his teaching that Christ died only for those who were really saved. And the Synod of Orange (529) declared only that “all those who are baptized” can fulfill what is necessary for salvation.” In the ninth century, when the question arose anew, Gottschalk taught that, though Christ “by the sacrament of baptism washes (the reprobate), he did not undergo the cross, neither suffer death, nor shed his blood for them.” Lupus said that Christ did not die for all humans, but he did die for all believers, also for those who again lose their faith. Remigius made a similar distinction. And the Synod of Valence (855) spoke along the same lines when it rejected that Christ had shed his blood “even for all the ungodly who from the beginning of the world right up to the passion of Christ had died in their ungodliness and were punished with eternal damnation” and confessed that that price was paid only for those “concerning whom our Lord himself says: just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have eternal life.
(p. 459)
But as semi-Pelagianism gained ground in the Catholic Church and theology, the view that gained the upper hand was that God by an antecedent will desires the salvation of all and had Christ make satisfaction for all but that in his consequent will, he took account of the good or evil use that people made of their freedom and the grace offered [to them].
(p. 486)
Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism are also condemned by official Roman Catholic teaching and by the great Roman theologians such as Aquinas and Bonaventure. However, it is fair to ask whether, in a roundabout way, Rome has not smuggled semi-Pelagianism back in again. Trent taught that it is possible to assent to or to reject prevenient grace. Faith here too is not seen as central to justifying faith; it is only assent to the truth of Christianity. Taken by itself it does not justify; it is only preparatory to the infusion of sacramental grace. By the merit of condignity, this grace enables human beings to do good and to merit heavenly beatitude. By grace the Roman Catholic Church does not, at least not primarily, mean the free favor of God by which he forgives sins. Rather, grace is a quality or supernatural power infused in human beings, lifting them into a supernatural order and enabling them to do good works and to merit heavenly blessedness by the merit of condignity.
(p. 509)
Semi-Pelagianism moderated this system. It taught that though humanity was not spiritually dead as a result of Adam’s sin, it was ill; that its freedom of the will had not been lost but was weakened; and that humans therefore—to do the good and to obtain salvation—needed the assistance of divine grace. However, the grace that illumines the mind and supports the will may never be detached from but must always be viewed in connection with the freedom of will still remaining in humans. Grace and will work together and do so in such a way that in God’s intent grace is universal and meant for all but in fact only profits those who make the proper use of their freedom of will. It is ours to will [the good], God’s to carry it to its conclusion (Nostrum est velle, Dei perficere). Sometimes, as in Paul, grace may be antecedent; yet, as a rule, the will is first. The beginning of faith and persevering in it is a matter of the will; grace is needed only for the increase of faith. God helps those who help themselves. An efficacious or irresistible grace does not exist, and even prevenient grace is usually denied.
(p. 511-12)
Pelagianism was condemned at the Synod of Carthage (418), whose canons were endorsed by Pope Zosimus and later by Celestine I, and again at the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Synod of Orange (529). This last synod also rejected semi-Pelagianism, and its canons were confirmed by Boniface II. Consequently, it became official church doctrine that as a result of Adam’s sin, the whole person is corrupted, and that both the beginning and the increase of faith is owing, not to ourselves or our natural powers, but to the grace of God. That grace of God not only teaches us what we must do and not do but also enables us “to know what ought to be done, even to love and to be able to do it.” It is due to the infusion, operation, inspiration, and illumination of the Holy Spirit in us, which precedes and prepares our will, reforms (corrigens) our will from infidelity to faith, and causes us to will and to work. Since then, the necessity of internal and prevenient grace has been taught by all. Also the Synod of Quiercy (853), which condemned Gottschalk, confessed: “We have free will for good, preceded and aided by grace ... freed by grace and by grace healed from corruption,’ just as Rabanus said that God “by his Holy Spirit rules within and comforts without by spiritual zeal.”
(p. 512)
Rome, therefore, definitely teaches the necessity of prevenient (actual, stimulating, or arousing) grace and hence rejects the Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism that attributed the beginning and increase of faith to the powers of [unregenerate] human nature.
(p. 514)
But with that Rome’s rejection of semi-Pelagianism was over: in any case, in a roundabout way it was again smuggled back in. For, in the first place, Rome taught that the freedom of the will, though weakened by sin, is not lost;”! even without grace humans can perform many naturally and civilly good works, which are absolutely not sinful. They can know and love God as creator and lead a decent life. And even though in the long run it is difficult to observe the whole law and to resist all temptations, as such this is not impossible. The “natural man” as such is a complete human.” Second, Rome departs from Augustine in that it views “prevenient grace” asa grace that confers the capacity to believe but not the act of believing itself. On the contrary, prevenient (actual) grace is granted to all adults within hearing of the gospel, but it lies in their power to accept or reject it. “According to the Catholic faith, said the Council of Orange II, “we believe this also, that after grace has been received through baptism, all the baptized with the help and cooperation of Christ can and ought to fulfill what pertains to the salvation of the soul, if they will labor faithfully.””* And Trent declared that humans can consent to prevenient grace and cooperate with it but also reject it.““ Among theologians, however, there was much disagreement on this point. The Augustinians, among whom Berti is the most notable, teach that prevenient (actual, sufficient) grace confers the capacity (posse) but not the will (velle) to believe. Needed—in order that people may be not only capable but also desirous of believing and may actually believe, and that sufficient grace may in fact become efficacious—is a “victorious delight” (delectatio victrix) that overcomes “carnal delight” (delectatio carnalis), which is its opposite, and which transforms “being able” into “being willing.” Hence the will must be transformed by “victorious delight,’ which is stronger than desire (concupiscentia). Thomists, [such as] Báñez, Gonet, Lemos, Billuart, and others, similarly say that sufficient grace confers the capacity but not the will to believe; to produce the latter must be augmented by a "physical action of God," that is, a "physical advancement" or "predetermination."
(p. 516)
After Trent, however, theologians usually construed the expression a bit differently. It is true that over against Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism, Rome tried to retain the absolute unmeritability of the first grace (gratia prima). The grace of God is not granted according to our merit, neither according to a merit of condignity nor according to a merit of congruity, as (since Eck) merit was usually differentiated (J. Pohle, Dogmatik, II, 401). This is why today the expression “facere quod in se est” is generally interpreted by saying that the person who makes the proper use of his or her natural powers prepares himself or herself negatively for grace, in the sense that he or she does not pose an obstacle to grace. And some, like Vazquez, Glossner, and others, even reject this negative preparation. Cf. J. Pohle, Dogmatik, 11, 400-412; C. Pesch, Prael. dogm., V, 105-20; J. B. Heinrich and C. Gutberlet, Dogmatische Theologie, VII, 264-74; C. Manzoni, Compendium theologiae dogmaticae, U1, 242; P. Mannens, Theologiae dogmaticae institutiones, U1, 84-89, etc.
(p. 575)
Absolutely necessary to humans for the performance of saving works is actual grace (sometimes also called prevenient, antecedent, arousing, and even working grace), so that on this point Rome decisively rejects Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism. By actual grace, Catholic theology means not merely the external call of the gospel with its moral influence on the human intellect and will, but thinks in this connection of an illumination of the intellect and inspiration of the will that communicates to humans not only moral but even natural (physical) powers.
Reformed Dogmatics, Louis Berkhof (1932) mentions Semi-Pelagianism a few times. At p. 74, it describes the Commonitorium of Vincent of Lerins as having a "Semi-Pelagian flavor." At p. 83, it describes Jansen's defense of Augustinianism as being in opposition to the Semi-Pelagian doctrine of the Jesuits, and notes that Jansen was condemned by the pope in 1713. It also describes Semi-Pelagianism as a type of Pelagianism: "The way for this view [of religion as moral action with its seat in the will] was paved by Pelagianism in its various forms (Semi-Pelagianism, Arminianism, Socinianism, Deism, Rationalism), all of which emphasize the fact that faith is a new obedience." (p. 112)
Reformed Dogmatics, Geerhardus Vos (in English as of 2012-14). I have not had the opportunity to incorporate this work into my survey, but would like to do so in the future.
Reformed Systematic Theology (Joel Beeke), based on the Google Book previous contains some mentions of Semi-Pelagianism at pp. 103, 300, 748, 1005, 1009, and 10012 (vol. 1 index) and "Arminius, at this point, moved toward semi-Pelagianism, thereby stepping away from Reformed theology." (p. 56 of Vol. 2) with additional vol. 2 mentions at pp. CXXVIII, CXXXIII, 51-53, and 83, as well as mentions at pp. 311-14, 376, and 571 (vol. 3 index) and possibly also at pp. 194-6, 210, 380, 392, and 402 (based on Google preview). It might be good to incorporate this more fully in a future revision of this survey.
Systematic Theology, Louis Berkhof (1938)(1941) helpfully provides a list of the topics relevant to Semi-Pelagianism: on predestination, on sin, and on calling.
At p. 110, on Predestination:
Augustine’s view found a great deal of opposition, particularly in France, where the semi-Pelagians, while admitting the need of divine grace unto salvation, reasserted the doctrine of a predestination based on foreknowledge. And they who took up the defense of Augustine felt constrained to yield on some important points. They failed to do justice to the doctrine of a double predestination. Only Gottschalk and a few of his friends maintained this, but his voice was soon silenced, and Semi-Pelagianism gained the upper hand at least among the leaders of the Church. Toward the end of the Middle Ages it became quite apparent that the Roman Catholic Church would allow a great deal of latitude in the doctrine of predestination. As long as its teachers maintained that God willed the salvation of all men, and not merely of the elect, they could with Thomas Aquinas move in the direction of Augustinianism in the doctrine of predestination, or with Molina follow the course of Semi-Pelagianism, as they thought best. This means that even in the case of those who, like Thomas Aquinas, believed in an absolute and double predestination, this doctrine could not be carried through consistently, and could not be made determinative of the rest of their theology.
At p. 220, on the Origin of Sin:
Semi-Pelagianism admitted the Adamic connection, but held that it accounted only for the pollution of sin. During the Middle Ages the connection was generally recognized. It was sometimes interpreted in an Augustinian, but more often in a Semi-Pelagian manner. The Reformers shared the views of Augustine, and the Socinians those of Pelagius, while the Arminians moved in the direction of Semi-Pelagianism.
At p. 241, on the Transmission of Sin:
b. Semi-Pelagians and the earlier Arminians teach that man inherited a natural inability from Adam, but is not responsible for this inability, so that no guilt attaches to it, and it may even be said that God is somewhat under obligation to provide a cure for it. The Wesleyan Arminians admit that this inborn corruption also involves guilt.
At p. 245, on Sin in the Life of the Human Race
Semi-Pelagianism reacted against the absoluteness of the Augustinian view. It admitted that the whole human race is involved in the fall of Adam, that human nature is tainted with hereditary sin, and that all men are by nature inclined to evil and not able, apart from the grace of God, to complete any good work; but denied the total depravity of man, the guilt of original sin, and the loss of the freedom of the will. This became the prevalent view during the Middle Ages, though there were some prominent Scholastics who were on the whole Augustinian in their conception of original sin. Anselm’s view of original sin was altogether in harmony with that of Augustine. It represents original sin as consisting of the guilt of nature (the nature of the entire human race), contracted by a single act of Adam, and the resulting inherent corruption of human nature, handed down to posterity and manifesting itself in a tendency to sin. This sin also involves the loss of the power of self-determination in the direction of holiness (material freedom of the will), and renders man a slave of sin. The prevailing opinion among the Scholastics was that original sin is not something positive, but rather the absence of something that ought to be present, particularly the privation of original righteousness, though some would add a positive element, namely, an inclination to evil. Thomas Aquinas held that original sin, considered in its material element, is concupiscence, but considered in its formal element, is the privation of original justice. There is a dissolution of the harmony in which original justice consisted, and in this sense original sin can be called a languor of nature. Speaking generally, the Reformers were in agreement with Augustine, though Calvin differed from him especially on two points, by stressing the fact that original sin is not something purely negative, and is not limited to the sensuous nature of man. At the time of the Reformation the Socinians followed the Pelagians in the denial of original sin, and in the seventeenth century the Arminians broke with the Reformed faith, and accepted the Semi-Pelagian view of original sin. Since that time various shades of opinion were advocated in the Protestant Churches both in Europe and in America.
At p. 458, on Calling General and External Calling:
Semi-Pelagianism sought to mediate between the two and to avoid both the Augustinian denial of free will and the Pelagian depreciation of divine grace. It assumed the presence of the seeds of virtue in man, which of themselves tended to bear good fruit, but held that these needed the fructifying influence of divine grace for their development. The grace necessary for this is given to all men gratuitously, so that they are with the aid of it able to accept the gospel call unto salvation. The call will therefore be effective provided man, aided by divine grace, accepts it. This became the prevailing doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. Some later Roman Catholics, of whom Bellarmin was one of the most important, brought in the doctrine of congruism, in which the acceptance of the gospel call is made dependent on the circumstances in which it comes to man. If these are congruous, that is, fit or favorable, he will accept it, but if not, he will reject it. The character of the circumstances will, of course, largely depend on the operation of prevenient grace.
At p. 459, also on Calling General and External Calling:
According to Calvin the gospel call is not in itself effective, but is made efficacious by the operation of the Holy Spirit, when He savingly applies the Word to the heart of man; and it is so applied only in the hearts and lives of the elect. Thus the salvation of man remains the work of God from the very beginning. God by His saving grace, not only enables, but causes man to heed the gospel call unto salvation. The Arminians were not satisfied with this position, but virtually turned back to the Semi-Pelagianism of the Roman Catholic Church. According to them the universal proclamation of the gospel is accompanied by a universal sufficient grace, — “gracious assistance actually and universally bestowed, sufficient to enable all men, if they choose, to attain to the full possession of spiritual blessings, and ultimately to salvation.”! The work of salvation is once more made dependent on man. This marked the beginning of a rationalistic return to the Pelagian position, which entirely denies the necessity of an internal operation of the Holy Spirit unto salvation.
Systematic Theology, R.L. Dabney, includes Pelagianism in the subject matter index, but not Semi-Pelagianism. Nevertheless, there are numerous references to semi-Pelagianism. Lecture XI, "Free Agency and the Will," includes section 2, which is identified by the heading "Freedom and necessity defined. Semi-Pelagianism and Calvinists." The text argues that a libertarian free will position is Semi-Pelagian (pp. 121-2):
What constitutes man a free agent? One party claims the self-determining power of the will, and another claims that the self-determining power of the soul makes man a free agent. The first party tends to view the will as influenced by external criteria; the second party tends the view the will as influenced by the motives of one's own soul. The one asserts that our acts of volition are uncaused phenomena, that the will remains in equilibrio, after all the preliminary conditions of judgment in the understanding, and emotion of the native dispositions are fulfilled, and that the act of choice is self-determined by the will, and not by the preliminary states of soul tending thereto; so that volitions are in every case, more or less contingent. The other party repudiates, indeed, the old sensational creed, of a physical tie between the external objects which are the occasions of our judgments and feelings; and attributes all action of will to the soul's own spontaneity as its efficient source. But it asserts that this spontaneity, like all other forces in the universe, acts according to law; that this law is the connection between the soul's own states and its own choices, the former being as much of its own spontaneity as the latter; that therefore volitions are not uncaused, but always follow the actual state of judgment and feeling (single or complex), at the time being; and that this connection is not contingent, but efficient and certain. And this certainty is all that they mean by moral necessity.
In the same lecture, at section 3, Dabney similarly identifies middle knowledge as a "Semi-Pelagian" theory that is useless in view of the grounding problem. (p. 123) Shortly after, in a section titled "Freedom What ?" Dabney describes as a "semi-Pelagian absurdity" the idea that "not only the man, but the separate faculty of the will, is self-determined." (p. 131) In the same vein, Dabney identifies the that the "volitions are uncaused results in the mental world" as something the semi-Pelagians say. I note that the capitalization is inconsistent as to the initial "s". Usually, though, it seems to be a lower-case "s", which tends to emphasize the underlying reference to Pelagius.
Continuing to the next lecture, Dabney asserts: "Pelagians and semi-Pelagians say, that since responsibility cannot be more extended than freedom of the will, no praise or blame can be attached to dispositions, which they hold to be involuntary" (p. 133) Similar comments can be found again and again. Under "Common Sufficient Grace" (p. 581) Dabney writes:
So here we have, by a different track, the old conclusion of the semi-Pelagian. Man, then, decides the whole remaining difference, as to believing or not believing, by his use of this precedent grace, according to his own free will. God's purpose to produce different results in different men is wholly conditioned on the use which, He foresees, they will make of their common grace. To those who improve it, God stands pledged to give the crowning graces of regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification. To the heathen, even, who use their light aright (unfavorable circumstances may make such instances rare), Christ will give gospel light and redeeming grace, in some inscrutable way.
As mentioned above, Dabney criticizes middle knowledge as Semi-Pelagian, presumably because he connects it to a Semi-Pelagian understanding of the role of the will in salvation:
This leads us to the often asked question: Whether acts contingent, and especially those of rational free agents, are objects of God's scientia visionis, or of a scientia media. This is said to have been first invented by the Jesuit Molina, in order to sustain their semi-Pelagian doctrine of a self-determining will, and of conditional election. By mediate foreknowledge, they mean a kind intermediate between God's knowledge of the possible (for these acts are possessed of futurition), and the scientia visionis: for they suppose the futurition and foreknowledge of it is not the result of God's will, but of the contingent second cause. It is called mediate again: because they suppose God arrives at it, not directly by knowing His own purpose to effect it, but indirectly; by His infinite insight into the manner in which the contingent second cause will act, under given outward circumstances, foreseen or produced by God.
(p. 156) Likewise, Dabney alleges that the motivation of semi-Pelagians is to make election conditioned on foresight of human conduct (p. 157) and that they wish that foreknowledge is antecedent of God's preordination (p. 159). Dabney goes on to say that semi-Pelagians think God's foreknowledge of what a man would do because God understands causation is not a valid ground because volitions are uncaused (p. 159).
Dabney adds a category of Pelagian that I had not previously seen, the "New England Pelagian":
There are two grades of Pelagian view, as to the nature and agency of regeneration. Both regard it as only a change of purpose in the sinner's mind, whereas Calvinism regards it as a revolution of the moral dispositions which determine the purpose of the mind; accompanied with an enlightening of the understanding in spiritual things. The ancient, thorough Pelagian taught a regeneration produced, in the baldest sense, by mere moral suasion—i. e., by the mere force of moral inducements, operating according to the laws of mind. In his mouth, converting grace meant nothing more than God's goodness in revealing the moral inducements of the Scriptures; in endowing man with reason and conscience, and in providentially bringing those revealed encouragements into contact with his sane understanding. See Histories of Doctrines. But the New England Pelagian attributes to the Holy Spirit some indirect agency in presenting moral truths with increased energy to the soul. Still, he denies a proper supernatural agency therein; teaches that the office of the Holy Spirit is only suasive through the truth, and not renovating, and makes His work the same generically, only vastly stronger in degree, with that of the minister who holds forth the gospel to his fellow men. It was said, for instance, that Dr. Duffield said, "The only reason I cannot convert a sinner with gospel truth, like the Holy Spirit, is that I am not as eloquent as He is."!
(pp. 560-1)
Dabney similarly describes the semi-Pelagian view of the operation of the Spirit (p. 569):
There is a sense in which the Holy Spirit is said to operate regeneration only mediately, through the truth, which is held not by Pelagians, but by Calvinists. But that we may do no injustice, let us distinguish. Among those who explain depravity and regeneration by Gospel light, there appear to be four grades of opinion. The lowest is that of the Pelagian, who denies all evil habitue of will, regards regeneration as a mere self determination to a new purpose of living, and holds that it is wrought simply by the moral suasion of the truth. This virtually leaves out the Holy Spirit. The second is that of the semi-Pelagian, who holds that the will is not indeed dead in sin, but that it is greatly corrupted by evil desires, cares of this world, bad example, and evil habits (consuetudines not habitus). Hence, Gospel truth never engages the soul's attention strongly enough to exert an efficacious moral suasion, until the Holy Spirit calms and fixes the mind upon it by His gracious, suasive influence. The truth, thus gaining access to the soul, regenerates it.
Dabney actually goes on to describe several more classes of views that are not semi-Pelagian.
Dabney identifies the Wesleyan as impliedly relying on two Pelagian principles: "that man is not responsible for his volitions unless they are free not only from co-action, but from certainty; and that moral quality resides only in acts of choice; so that a volition which is prevalently good is wholly good." (p. 667)
On man's original state, Dabney describes the "Intermediate Romish ground" (p. 297) as semi-Pelagian: "In order to gain a semi-Pelagian position, without avowing the above odious principles, they teach that the first man was holy, ab initio; but that original righteousness was not a natural habitus of his own will, but a supernatural grace, communicated to him temporarily by God."
Dabney describes the Wesleyan view on the fall as reaching a "semi-Pelagian result." (p. 316)
On the doctrine of the atonement, Dabney similarly identifies a semi-Pelagian position (p. 514):
In fine, the Father's grace on our scheme is infinitely higher than on Socinian or semi-Pelagian. According to them, redemption only opens the door for the sinner to work out his own salvation. He may thank God and Christ somewhat, for being so kind as to open the door, and himself more for doing the work! But on our scheme, God, moved a priori by His own infinite mercy, gives us Christ, to reconcile vicariously the divine attributes with our pardon, and gives us in Him, a complete justification, new heart, sanctification, perseverance, resurrection, and eternal life.
In more detail (p. 519):
The theory of the Semi Pelagian denies any proper imputation of any one's sins to Christ makes His suffering a mere general exhibition of God's wrath against sin, having no relation to one person's sin in particular, and of course it consistently makes the atonement perfectly general and indefinite.The refutation of this view is found in the facts already argued; that there was a substitution, a vicarious suffering of penalty, and a purchasing of the gracious gifts for the redeemed which make up the application of redemption.
I hate to have to point it out, but citing Dabney's comments on this topic should not be taken as a defense of his indefensible views (discussed here).
Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem, does not seem to mention Semi-Pelagianism. There is a very brief mention of Pelagius.
Systematic Theology, Charles Hodge (1871-73) seems to seldom mention Semi-Pelagianism as such. The first reference is this:
All that is insisted upon is that the whole Church, through what Romanists recognize as its official organs, gave its sanction to Augustine’s peculiar doctrines; and that so far as the Latin Church is concerned this assent was not only for the time general but cordial. It is no less certain that the Council of Trent, while it condemned Pelagianism, and even the peculiar doctrine of semi-Pelagians, who said that man began the work of conversion, thus denying the necessity of preventing grace (gratia preveniens), nevertheless repudiated the distinguishing doctrines of Augustine and anathematized all who held them.
(Vol. 1, Introduction, chapter V, section 7)
The only other place I found was this:
This doctrine of a threefold constitution of man being adopted by Plato, was introduced partially into the early Church, but soon came to be regarded as dangerous, if not heretical. It being held by the Gnostics that the πνεῦμα in man was a part of the divine essence, and incapable of sin; and by the Apollinarians that Christ had only a human σῶμα and ψυχή, but not a human πνεῦμα, the Church rejected the doctrine that the ψυχή and πνεῦμα were distinct substances, since upon it those heresies were founded. In later times the Semi-Pelagians taught that the soul and body, but not the spirit in man were the subjects of original sin. All Protestants, Lutheran and Reformed, were, therefore, the more zealous in maintaining that the soul and spirit, ψυχή and πνεῦμα, are one and the same substance and essence. And this, as before remarked, has been the common doctrine of the Church.
Systematic Theology, Douglas Kelly (2008) - I have not checked this work, but would love to do so at some point, for the sake of completeness.
Systematic Theology, Robert Letham (2019) lists references to Semi-Pelagianism at pp. 412, 414-15, 614, and 652. I only have a limited preview of this book through Amazon and Google Books, so I can offer the following truncated bits:
(p. 412) "Aquinas. During the Middle Ages, semi-Pelagianism gained ground. It held that sin had merely weakened fallen humans, such that they retained the ability to take the first steps in response to the gospel, God's grace then assisting them. Election was generally reduced to God's foreknowledge of those who believe."(p. 414) "From the time of the Reformation to present, Rome has not followed Augustine. It has sought to accommodate a range of views within what is basically a semi-Pelagian context. Predestination and election feature little. The catechism has effectively nothing to say other than that God predestines no one to hell."(p. 415?) "... At the risk of an anachronism, it is perhaps closer to a form of semi-Pelagianism."(p. 614) "Faith, justification, and adoption all occur at the start of the Christian life. Faith, as a gift of God, is a consequence of regeneration. This counter to Arminianism and semi-Pelagianism, which hold that fallen humans retain the ability to believe the gospel, with assistance from divine grace, after taking the first step."(p. 652?) "This is in contrast to semi-Pelagianism, which assumes that the unregenerate can take the first small step, God then providing the rest."(Glossary? 1041?) semi-Pelagianism. The belief that God gives his grace to sinners contingent on their taking the ...
Systematic Theology: an Introduction to Christian Belief, John Frame (2013) does not seem to use the term "Semi-Pelagian" or "Semi-Pelagianism." In the section critiquing Libertarian Free Will, Frame described "unstable mixtures" of Augustinian and Pelagian conceptions of freedom (p. 826?):
Libertarianism has a long history in Christian theology. Most of the church fathers held more or less this position until Augustine, during the Pelagian controversy, called it into question. Since then, there has been a contest between the Augustinian and Pelagian conceptions of freedom, resulting sometimes in various unstable mixtures of the two. Both Martin Luther and John Calvin maintained an Augustinian compatibilism, but the Socinians, and later the Arminians, offered vigorous defenses of libertarianism.
Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, Robert Duncan Culver lists, in its subject matter index, two places for discussion of semi-Pelagianism: pp. 386-7 and 687.
(pp. 386-7)
Semi-Pelagianism.Both in origin and in history this view might perhaps better be designated semi-Augustinian. Augustine and his successors defined depravity as total: human will enslaved, salvation wholly of grace and wholly by God's initiative. These teachers, while not exactly in reaction to Pelagianism, were stimulated by it. Those who shortly after the Augustinian victory at the council of Carthage (AD 418) and for the following century retreated somewhat from the decision of Carthage probably were not any kind of Pelagians -- semi- or otherwise. They were semi-Augustinians. They sought to define depravity, 'free will,' salvation by grace and faith in such a way as to leave man able to turn to God, to initiate repentance. The Semi-Pelagians agreed that all Adam's descendants received a fallen, corrupt human nature from Adam, but were only weakened by sin, not dead in sin. This appears in extracts from pertinent ancient reports. These views were common among some 'Protestants' of Reformation times. The Lutheran Formula of Concord apparently first called this outlook 'semi-Pelagianism.' It has affinities with Arminianism, Wesleyanism, some Southern Baptist theology, a good bit of Mennonite thinking and synergistic Lutheranism, as well as the Roman Tridentine theology. Even Zwingli has been accused of being 'semi-Pelagian' in his view of sin. This outlook does not regard fallen man as quite dead in trespasses and sins, though he may be very sick. He has sufficient spiritual power to co-operate in conversion. As we turn to Arminianism and Wesleyanism (Methodist theology) it will be seen they partake of some main features of this semi-Augustinianism (named Semi-Pelagianism to condemn it).Consistent Pelagianism is rightly called a heresy. It is an anti-Christian doctrine. Revived in Reformation times by Socinianism and in eighteenth-century American Unitarianism, it is still with us in apostate, that is to say, liberal religion, both Roman and Protestant, today as G. Gresham Machen proclaimed in his 1920 book, Christianity vs. Liberalism. As J. L. Neve comments in A History of Christian Thought, the Protestant Reformers and their orthodox successors were right in rejecting explicit synergism, the name then given to the notion fallen men have power, apart from enabling divine grace, to co-operate with God in coming to faith. Even the Canons of the Council of Trent agree on this point.Semi-Pelagianism and its latent synergism rest on a defective understanding of what it means to be 'by nature children of wrath,' 'dead in trespasses and sins,' having no life because they are 'condemned already.' Still millions of thoroughly Christian people, if they think about the problem at all think of imputation of Adam's sin as Semi-Pelagians. Likewise they may think they came to Christ wholly by choice of their own 'free' will. In my judgment, they have, to that extent, a defective theology, but certainly not heretical. They still pray as though all depends on God and sing praise to the Holy Spirit in 'convicting me of sin' and at Christmas time, of how 'God imparts to human hearts/ The glories of heaven.' The view of the Greek (Eastern Orthodox) churches of original sin and imputation of guilt for the sin of our first parents is to this day in all essentials the same as Semi-Pelagianism. For a description of Eastern Orthodox theology on these points by an Englishman who converted to orthodoxy and later wrote almost as spokesman to the English-speaking world see The Orthodox Church by Timothy Ware, on 'Grace and Free Will' and 'The Fall: Original Sin.' For a fair presentation of 'The Greek Anthropology' see Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine.
(p. 687)
The Semi-PelagianThis acknowledges the necessity of divine grace -- not restored ability of the will but only special assistance. To receive this assistance one must first desire to be free from sin, and to desire God and holiness. If one does this one may expect God's help.As developed in the church first in North Africa in the early fifth century and -- in spite of professed allegiance to Augustinism -- as it has prevailed in the Latin Church thence onward, Semi-Pelagianism teaches:
Freedom of the will, in the sense of power to do good, is not wholly lost, but it is very much weakened. Man in his present condition is morally diseased. The imputation [guilt for] of original sin is removed in baptism, and without baptism no one attains salvation. Owing to his morally diseased and weakened condition, man needs the assistance of divine grace, in order to the practice of holiness, and the attainment of salvation. The moral freedom of man, or his power to do good, works in connection with divine grace. The two things are not to be separated from each other... predestination to salvation or to perdition depends on the use man makes of the remainder of his freedom. [quotation is from Shedd, A History of Christian Doctrine]
So it is has been correctly asserted -- Pelagianism says man is morally well, Semi-pelagianism that he is sick, Augustinism that he is dead.
***
Update of August 13, 2023
Systematic Theology, Charles G. Finney does not refer to Semi-Pelagianism. Regarding Pelagianism, Finney offers the following comments (Lecture XL, Sanctification):
(1.) It seems to have been a favorite policy of certain controversial writers for a long time, instead of meeting a proposition in the open field of fair and Christian argument, to give it a bad name, and attempt to put it down, not by force of argument, but by showing that it is identical with, or sustains a near relation to Pelagianism, Antinomianism, Calvinism, or some other ism, against which certain classes of minds are deeply prejudiced. In the recent controversy between what are called old and new school divines, who has not witnessed with pain the frequent attempts that have been made to put down the new school divinity, as it is called, by calling it Pelagianism, and quoting certain passages from Pelagius and other writers, to show the identity of sentiment that exists between them.This is a very unsatisfactory method of attacking or defending any doctrine. There are no doubt, many points of agreement between Pelagius and all truly orthodox divines, and so there are many points of disagreement between them. There are also many points of agreement between modern perfectionists and all evangelical Christians, and so there are many points of disagreement between them and the Christian church in general. That there are some points of agreement between their views and my own, is no doubt true. And that we totally disagree in regard to those points that constitute their great peculiarities is, if I understand them, also true. But did I really agree in all points with Augustine, or Edwards, or Pelagius, or the modern perfectionists, neither the good nor the ill name of any of these would prove my sentiments to be either right or wrong. It would remain, after all, to show that those with whom I agreed were either right or wrong, in order, on the one hand, to establish that for which I contend, or on the other, to overthrow that which I maintain. It is often more convenient to give a doctrine or an argument a bad name, than it is soberly and satisfactorily to reply to it.
Systematic Theology, Augustus H. Strong. (numbers are page numbers of the pdf version at this link)
Regarding John of Damascus: "John, like the Greek Church in general, was speculative,
theological, semi-pelagian, sacramentarian" (III History of Systematic Theology, 1 In the Eastern Church ...) (p. 160)
(p. 167)
(b) Arminius (1560-1609), the opponent of predestination.Among the followers of Arminius (1560-1609) must be reckoned Episcopius (1583-1643), who carried Arminianism to almost Pelagian extremes; Hugo Grotius (1553-1645), the jurist and statesman, author of the governmental theory of the atonement; and Limborch (1633-1712), the most thorough expositor of the Arminian doctrine.
(p. 1286)
This view of the soul and spirit as different aspects of the same spiritual principle furnishes a refutation of six important errors: ... (c) That of the Semi-Pelagians, who excepted the human πνεῦμα from the dominion of original sin.
(p. 1586)
While Augustinianism regards human nature as dead, and Semi-Pelagianism regards it as sick, Pelagianism proper declares it to be well.
(p. 1577)
2. The Arminian Theory, or Theory of voluntarily appropriated Depravity.Arminius (1560-1609), professor in the University of Leyden, in South Holland, while formally accepting the doctrine of the Adamic unity of the race propounded both by Luther and Calvin, gave a very different interpretation to it—an interpretation which verged toward Semi-Pelagianism and the anthropology of the Greek Church. The Methodist body is the modern representative of this view.
(pp. 1578-9)(actually pp. 601-02 apparently)
See Arminius, Works, 1:252-254, 317-324, 325-327, 523-531, 575-583. The description given above is a description of Arminianism proper. The expressions of Arminius himself are so guarded that Moses Stuart (Bib. Repos., 1831) found it possible to construct an argument to prove that Arminius was not an Arminian. But it is plain that by inherited sin Arminius meant only inherited evil, and that it was not of a sort to justify God's condemnation. He denied any inbeing in Adam, such as made us justly chargeable with Adam's sin, except in the sense that we are obliged to endure certain consequences of it. This Shedd has shown in his History of Doctrine, 2:178-196. The system of Arminius was more fully expounded by Limborch and Episcopius. See Limborch, Theol. Christ., 3:4:6 (p. 189). The sin with which we are born “does not inhere in the soul, for this [soul] is immediately created by God, and therefore, if it were infected with sin, that sin would be from God.” Many so-called Arminians, such as Whitby and John Taylor, were rather Pelagians.
Classic Christianity, Thomas C. Oden does not appear to use the term "Semi-Pelagian" or the like.
Systematic Theology (in one volume), Norman Geisler
(71)
This view gets it name from Jacob (James) Arminius (1560-1609), a Reformed theologian from Holland, although “Arminianism” also bears resemblance to a view called semi-Pelagianism. However, the popular version of what we know today as “Arminianism” springs from John Wesley (1703-1791) and is more properly called “Wesleyanism.”Since subviews in the overall Arminian camp differ significantly, it is difficult to point to a single person who held to all the elements listed here. Even so, a general Arminian view of depravity, in contrast to Pelagianism, maintains that all people are born depraved and cannot on their own power obey God. Each human was either potentially or seminally in Adam when he chose evil, and, hence, he or she is born with a corrupt nature, under the stigma of Adam’s sin.
(2127)
Catholicism’s overreaction to Luther obfuscated the purity and clarity of the gospel and conflicted with their own earlier Second Council of Orange (529), which denied semi-Pelagianism.
(2446)
While some splinter group in Wesleyanism may be more Pelagian, the charge of Pelagianism is overstated as applied to Wesley or to many of his faithful followers. At the very worst, the Arminian view could be labeled semi-Pelagian, but no ecumenical council of the Christian church has ever condemned semi-Pelagianism as a heresy. So it is simply an inaccurate exaggeration to claim that Wesleyanism, in general, is “outpelagianizing Pelagius” (P, 398). Only if one presupposes the strong Calvinist’s view of monergism as the norm can one press the charge of Pelagianism against Wesleyans—and then it applies equally to plenty of non-Wesleyans and even moderate Calvinists. For all of them agree that God’s grace works cooperatively, not just operatively, on the human will in salvation.
(2576)
The Second Council of Orange (529), which condemned semi-Pelagianism, was a local (not universal) council. The later Catholic Council of Trent did allow the semi- Pelagian view.
Evangelical Theology, Michael F. Bird
(p. 521)
Augustine’s views prevailed and Pelagius was condemned at the Council in Ephesus in 431. What emerged in the aftermath, however, was not a bonafide Augustinian view of predestination, but a Semi-Pelagianism comprising of a synergistic cooperation of human and divine wills to effect salvation. The semi-Pelagian view was condemned at the Synod of Orange in 529. The synod favored human inability and the efficacy of God’s gracious salvation, but it fell short of affirming a decree of predestination about whom God would save in the end....On the eve of the Reformation, the general trend among theologians was a drift back towards Semi-Pelagianism. The Reformers reacted negatively to the moralistic optimism of medieval theology and insisted on a pessimistic view of the human will in its state of sin. Martin Luther and John Calvin both wrote works on the Bondage of the Will that emphasized how sin has eradicated free will so that people will not choose God of their own free volition.
(p. 560)
Through Calvary and the empty tomb, God’s verdict against us has been trans- formed into God’s verdict for us. These verdicts have been changed from condemnation to righteousness. It was the rediscovery of justification by faith alone, through grace alone, in Christ alone that constituted the protest of the Reformation against the Semi-Pelagianism of the medieval church, which promoted a teaching of salvation based on a synergy of grace, merits, sacraments, and free will.
(p. 676)
Pelagianism did not win the day, though Semi-Pelagianism did? Semi-Pelagianism is the view that the human will cooperates with divine grace and thus produces salvation in tandem.
(p. 677)
The way in which Adam’s sin affects the moral state and forensic status of humanity can be understood in three main ways. According to Pelagius, the main thing we got from Adam was a bad example. Second, Semi-Pelagian theologians said that what we receive from Adam is a corrupted nature with a disposition toward sinning. Finally, Augustinian theologians have argued that we receive from Adam both a corrupted nature and his guilt imputed to us.
(p. 677)
The ancient church rejected the Pelagian position that Adam was merely a bad example; likewise, they denied that humans enter the world with a blank slate. Human experience suggests otherwise; for instance, I’m amazed that I never had to teach my children how to lie; they picked it up like naturals! In the history of the church, it has been the Augustinian and Semi-Pelagian views that have captured the minds of most theologians at one time or another.
(p. 680)
In the medieval church many adopted a Semi-Pelagian position, whereby humanity received Adam’s corrupt nature but did not receive his guilt credited to them. This is called “concupiscence,” which refers to a habit or propensity toward sin.
Christian Theology: Biblical, Historical, and Systematic, Adam Harwood seems to mention the term only on one page (p. 375):
Many in the early church rejected Augustine's later views of predestination and the loss of human free will, though they were subsequently labeled (many of them incorrectly) as Pelagians or semi-Pelagians. Most who opposed Augustine held orthodox views, affirming the necessity of God's grace for salvation and denying that sinners initiate their own salvation.[fn68]
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