“…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13)

Augustine’s life experience had educated him in the experience of grace. His theology was experimental. Grace was no mere philosophy or theory. He had experienced the bitter bondage of sin. Nothing but the emancipating power of a good and gracious God could have set his soul at liberty.

Pelagius, on the other hand, had lived an austere and disciplined life, shaped by the ideals of asceticism rather than by Augustine’s dramatic experience of conversion. This legalistic framework became a source of pride, blinding his monkish heart to the deceitful corruption of the human soul. Having never understood the depth of sin, Pelagius failed to grasp the greatness of grace.

When Pelagius’ teaching spread south to Africa and east to Palestine Augustine sensed the danger facing the Church. In withstanding Pelagianism he upheld the claims of Christ and provided a framework that Luther and Calvin would draw upon a millennium later.

For Augustine, such was the inherent wickedness and guilt of man that nothing but the free and sovereign grace of God could save. Salvation is neither man’s choice nor does he deserve such. Even the exercise of faith and the subsequent good works that flow therefrom stem from the intervention of grace.

“Him that wills not, grace comes to meet, that he may will; him that wills, she follows up, that he may not will in vain.”

Augustine, Enchiridion, ch. 82.

Ultimately, however, Augustine’s experiential theology was proved by Scripture. Unlike the medieval Church, which a thousand years later placed greater authority upon the writings of the Fathers, Augustine rested on the plain teachings of Scripture. In this, despite his flaws, he was at one with the later Protestants. Free grace through Christ alone was his watchword.

Marvellous, infinite, matchless grace, 
Freely bestowed on all who believe;
You that are longing to see his face, 
Will you this moment his grace receive”.
Julia H. Johnston