The Pelagian controversy of the early fifth century was not simply a dispute about willpower: it was a clash over whether humanity retains genuine freedom after the fall and whether God's grace is merely assistance to an already-capable will or the entire source of any spiritual movement toward God. Pelagius, a British monk in Rome, taught that humans can choose good without supernatural grace because sin does not corrupt nature but merely forms bad habits. Augustine's response — increasingly radical over the course of the controversy — culminated in a doctrine of predestination in which God's unconditional election determines who receives the irresistible grace needed for salvation.
"although sin had its origin in free will alone, still free will would not have been sufficient to maintain justice, save as divine aid had been afforded man, in the gift of participation in the immutable good" — Augustine's direct refutation of Pelagius: free will is real but incapable of restoring righteousness without grace, because the very capacity to will the good requires divine assistance.
"no man is justified unless he believes in Christ and is cleansed by His baptism...no one whatever can be supposed able to be saved by any other means than through Christ Himself" — written after the conciliar condemnation of Pelagianism, Augustine grounds justification in Christ alone, against any claim that nature unaided can attain righteousness.
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