Semipelagianism - Pelagian and Semipelagian Theology

Pelagian and Semipelagian Theology

Pelagianism is the teaching that man has the capacity to seek God in and of himself apart from any movement of God or the Holy Spirit, and therefore that salvation is effected by man's efforts. The doctrine takes its name from Pelagius, a British monk who was accused of developing the doctrine (he himself appears to have claimed that man does not do good apart from grace in his letters, claiming only that all men have free will by God's gift); it was opposed especially by Augustine of Hippo and was declared a heresy by Pope Zosimus in 418. Denying the existence of original sin, it teaches that man is in himself and by nature capable of choosing good.

In Semipelagian thought, man doesn’t have such an unrestrained capacity, but man and God could cooperate to a certain degree in this salvation effort: man can (unaided by grace) make the first move toward God, and God then increases and guards that faith, completing the work of salvation. This teaching is distinct from the traditional patristic doctrine of synergeia, in which the process of salvation is cooperation between God and man from start to finish.