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The difference between Augustine and Pelagius concerning nature and grace centered in the doctrine of original sin. Pelagius contended that since nature and grace are the same, the freedom not to sin and to do good works was a gift by the grace of creation. Augustine denied this freedom; man since the fall was not able not to sin (non posse non pecarre) apart from the special grace of God. What was given to man in creation was lost by the fall and could only be restored by the special grace of Jesus Christ. Nature and grace are separate and distinct from each other. The natural freedom that was given in creation was lost by the fall, and since the fall, man is not able to do good works apart from the grace of God. Augustine appealed to the doctrine of original sin to support his denial of human freedom not to sin. The whole race, he held, was corrupted in the first or original sin of Adam; from Adam each member of the human race has inherited a sinful nature. By the process of natural generation each individual member of the human race is “tainted with the original sin” of Adam. And because of this inherited sinful nature man is not able not to sin. The nature that man possesses is the same nature that corrupted itself in Adam. This nature expresses itself in actual sins. The will is an expression of one’s nature, he held. And since human nature is sinful, man sins. Man is not a sinner because he sins but he sins because he is a sinner by nature. Thus man needs to be saved because he is a sinner by nature.

According to the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, which is sometimes called the natural headship theory, not only did the whole race corrupt itself in the first or original sin of Adam who is the natural head of the human race, but the whole race is guilty of Adam’s sin and has inherited the penalty of that sin, death. In the same way that the whole tribe of the Levites was in Abraham’s loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek, and thus each Levite paid tithes with him (See Heb. 7:9-10), each member of the human race was seed in Adam when he sinned, and thus each participated in the first or original sin by “seminal identity.” Because of the organic unity of the race in Adam, his act of sin was the act of every member of the human race, even though they were not conscious of this sin and were not even persons at the time. Following the Latin Vulgate translation of the last clause of Romans 5:12 in quo omnes peccaverunt [in whom all sinned],
Augustine concluded that because all men literally sinned in Adam, their natural head, they are all guilty and have all inherited the penalty of that sin — physical, spiritual and eternal death. Men are under condemnation not only because of their own personal sins, which each commits as an expression of his sinful nature, but because of the guilt of the original sin in which they participated in Adam before they were born.

After the Reformation many Protestant theologians reinterpreted the doctrine of original sin. God appointed Adam, they said, to be the federal head or legal representative of the whole race. God then entered into a covenant with the whole race through Adam as their legal representative. According to the terms of this covenant of works God promised to bestow eternal life upon Adam and the entire race if he, as federal head, obeyed God. On the other hand, God threatened the punishment of death, that is condemnation and a sinful corrupt nature, upon the whole race if he, as their federal head, disobeyed. Now since Adam sinned, God reckoned his descendants as guilty, under condemnation to eternal death. Adam’s sin is imputed to each member of the race as his own guilt. And because of this imputation of guilt, each member of the race has received by inheritance a sinful or corrupt nature. This sinful nature, which is itself sin, leads invariably to acts of sin. And each man in addition to the racial guilt is also guilty for his own personal sins. Thus men carry a double burden of guilt, of both objective and subjective guilt and condemnation. This theory of the relationship of Adam’s sin to the rest of the human race is known in Christian theology as the federal headship theory to distinguish it from the natural headship theory of Augustine. But in spite of the difference between them, these two theories lead to the same view of man’s need for salvation. Man is a guilty sinner because of Adam’s original sin and also because of his own personal sins which he commits because of an inherited sinful nature. Both theories view man’s relationship to God as a legal relationship and sin as a violation of that relationship as well as intrinsic to human nature. They are both basically and essentially legalistic.

In this doctrine of original sin, Augustine combined the legalistic conception of sin and death with another view of sin as intrinsic to human nature derived from the Greek view of reality. Augustine absorbed this view of sin as intrinsic to human nature from his pre-Christian days when he studied and taught philosophy first as a Manichean and later as a Neoplatonist. Although after his conversion he opposed this view of sin in the controversy with the Manicheans, he later drew upon these views, unconsciously perhaps, in developing his doctrine of original sin during the heat of the Pelagian controversy. They were ready-made concepts to be used as tools in the heated debate with Pelagius and the Pelagians. He reinterpreted them in a Christian framework and reclothed them in them in Biblical terminology.

This conception of sin as intrinsic to human nature follows from the Greek conception of God as divine reason and is an essential part of the Greek view of reality. Since a concept of God entails a concept of sin, the Greek concept of reason as the divine involves the concept of sin as intrinsic to human nature. According to the Greek view of reality, the senses are the opposite of reason, and since the objects of reason are good, the objects of the senses, the world of change, are evil or, at least, not good. Although Plato and Aristotle did not explicitly draw this conclusion, that the changing world of sense was evil, it was implied in their assertion that the good and the real is the rational. This conclusion was drawn by later Greek thinkers, the Neoplatonists and the Gnostics in particular. Time, matter in general, the body in particular, and all physical desires whatever are evil. Since the realm of time is the realm of change, time is inferior to eternity, which is the realm of the unchanging and hence the timeless. [1] Temporal existence is itself a stigma. Man is a prisoner of time and change; he yearns to escape the bondage of change for the eternal realm that never changes. Not only is time an evil to escape from, but matter in general, the mere fact of there being physical objects, is an obstacle to the good. It is opaque, inert, intractable stuff, impenetrable to thought and to the clarity of intellectual vision. In addition, matter is the source of multiplicity and diversity. In contrast to the realm of truth which is one and unity, the realm of the senses is many and disunity. Change is possible because there are many different physical things. Eternity is unchanging and timeless because there is no plurality of being but only one. Being and truth are one. The opposite of the one of being is the many of non-being; between them is the realm of becoming where the non-being seeks to become being, the many to become one. Matter, non-being, is the “principle of individuation” which splits reality into myriad fragments. Matter is the source of finiteness and evil. Material existence with its distinctions between one thing and another, including the distinction between the subject and object, the self and the non-self, must be overcome, abolished, transcended, so that all the different things of the world become one, become identical with one another. [2]

When applied to man, this view disparages his body. This attitude was given expression in the maxim so popular among the Greeks, “The body is a tomb” [soma sema]. The body is the prison-house of the soul. Man’s reason (rational soul) which is a fragment of the divine cosmic reason is held captive contrary to its nature in the fetters of sense. The body’s worst offense is that, by means of the five senses, it attracts the mind to the world of temporal and physical objects, thereby plunging it into ignorance and illusion. Plato’s famous allegory of the cave in the seventh book of the Republic clearly expresses this view. In this allegory, our position here in the world of sense is compared by Plato to that of men sitting chained in an underground cave, facing away from the entrance of the cave. They are able only to see the shadows of the outside world on the back wall of the cave. Having never been able to see the outside world, the prisoners believe these shadows to be true reality. So men imprisoned in the body are able only to see through the senses the shadows of true reality of divine reason. This disparagement of the senses in favor of reason leads to a negative view of the body as well as of matter and time. Aristotle only echoes this Greek view of reality when he complains that man’s rational nature is impeded by the exercise of bodily functions.

“There seems to be also another irrational element in the soul — one which in a sense, however, shares in a rational principle.   For we praise the rational principle of the continent man and of the incontinent, and the part of their soul that has such a principle, since it urges them aright and towards the best objects;  but there is found in them also another element naturally opposed to the rational principle, which fights against and resists that principle.  For exactly as paralyzed limbs when we intend to move them to the right turn on contrary to the left, so is it with the soul;  the impulses of incontinent people move in contrary directions.” [3]

The disparagement of the body by the Greek world view centers on the desires of the body and in particular the sex impulses. The physical desires of the body are incompatible with love for the divine reason, the longing to participate and become one with it. They prevent the knower from being completely “objective” and “disinterested”; they introduce a “subjective” factor to distort the clarity of the intellectual vision. [4]

Although opposing this view of sin and evil on the grounds of the goodness of creation (Gen. 1:12, 18, 21, 25, 31), Augustine never completely escaped this influence, and in the heat of the Pelagian controversy it emerged reclothed in Biblical terminology in the doctrine of original sin. Combined with the legalistic misunderstanding of sin and death, this Greek view of sin as intrinsic to human nature was introduced into Western Christian theology and has been at the bottom of many doctrinal controversies in the Christian church. [5]

The doctrine of original sin, although containing elements of the Biblical doctrine of sin and death, is a legalistic distortion and misunderstanding of the Biblical doctrine of sin and death. That spiritual death, the separation from God which was spread with physical death upon the whole race from Adam ( Rom. 5:12 ERS), is the condition for sin is not understood. This more primary and basic relationship of sin-because-of-spiritual-death is ignored. Most Protestant and Roman Catholic theologians ignore this relationship, not recognizing its existence. But Augustine could not ignore it because there were contemporary theologians in the 5th century, Mark the Hermit and Theodore of Mopsuestia, for example, who held to this view. Theodore of Mopsuestia in his treatise “Against the Defenders of Original Sin” apparently held to such a view. Jaroslav Pelikan says,

“Theodore often attributed sin to the fact of man’s mortality, although he sometimes reversed the connection.” [6]

Pelikan quotes Theodore as follows:

“Since sin was reigning in our mortality, and conversely death was growing stronger in us on account of sin, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came … and destroyed death by his death, he also destroyed the sin which was rooted in our nature by reason of mortality.” [7]

Concerning Mark the Hermit, Edward Yarnold says:

“What we have inherited from Adam, he maintained, is not his sin, because in that case we should all be born sinners, which is not true.  What is inherited is his death, which consists in separation from God.” [8]

Other early Greek church fathers such a Irenaeus and Athanasius also placed the emphasis on death rather than sin as what we received from Adam and from which Christ saved us. [9] Augustine attempts to refute this view of sin-because-of-death in his “A Treatise Against Two Letters of the Pelagians,” bk.IV, chapter 6-8. He writes concerning those who held this view.

“For where the apostle says, ‘By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so passed upon all men,’  they will have it there understood not that ‘sin’ passed over, but ‘death.’  What, then, is the meaning of what follows, ‘wherein all have sinned’?   For either the apostle says that in that ‘one man’ all have sinned of whom he had said, ‘By one man sin entered into the world,’ or else in that ‘sin’ or certainly in ‘death.’   For it need not disturb us that he said not ‘in which‘  [using the feminine form of the pronoun] but ‘in whom’ [using the masculine] all have sinned;  since ‘death’ in the Greek language is of the masculine gender.  Let them, then, choose which they will, — for either in that ‘man’ all have sinned, and it is so said because when he sinned all were in him; or in that ‘sin’ all have sinned, because that was the doing of all in general which all those who were born would have to derive; or it remains for them to say that in that ‘death’ all sinned.  But in what way this can be understood, I do not clearly see.  For all die in sin; they do not sin in death;  for when sin precedes, death follows — not when death precedes, sin follows ….

“But if ‘sin’ cannot be understood by those words of the apostle as being that ‘wherein all have sinned,’  because in Greek from which the Epistle is translated, ‘sin’ is expressed in the feminine gender, it remains that all men are understood to have sinned in that first ‘man,’  because all men were in him when he sinned;  and from him sin is derived by birth, and is not remitted save by being born again.” [10]

Note that the Latin translation of Rom. 5:12 which Augustine quotes omits the word “death” from the phrase “and so passed upon all men.” On this basis, Augustine incorrectly assumed that it was sin that passed upon all men, and that this sin is a sinful or corrupt nature that was passed. But the original Greek that Paul wrote includes the word thanatos [death] in the phrase, and our English versions correctly translates it, “and so death spread to all men.”

Augustine took the relative pronoun in the last clause of Romans 5:12 as masculine and at the same time he gave the preposition the meaning of “in.” Thus he gave the prepositional phrase eph ho the meaning in lumbis Adami [in the loins of Adam], following the Latin Vulgate translation. However, this interpretation must be rejected. For

(a) the Greek preposition epi does not here have the meaning of “in” and

(b) while the Greek relative pronoun ho may be taken as masculine, it is too far removed from anthropou [man] for that to be its antecedent, being separated from it by so many intervening clauses. [11]

The Latin Vulgate translation is obviously not correct. Most theologians today accept this conclusion but many still hold to Augustine’s interpretation while rejecting his grammatical analysis of this phrase as its basis. John Murray says,

“It is unnecessary at this stage in the history of exposition to argue that the Vulgate rendering, in quo omnes peccaverunt, though, as we shall see, it is theologically true, is nevertheless grammatically untenable.” [12]

How can a translation be theologically true and at the same time grammatically untenable? Does not exegesis determine theology and not theology exegesis? Murray’s legalistic theological presuppositions, like Augustine’s, determine for him the meaning of the phrase and not the rules of grammar. According to the legalistic presuppositions, death is always the penalty of sin, the penal consequence of the transgression of the law. Death, therefore, cannot produce sin. So according to them the Apostle Paul cannot be saying that “all sinned because of death.” Their legalistic theological presuppositions has made this interpretation impossible and meaningless for them.

In the doctrine of original sin, sin is misunderstood as intrinsic to human nature as an inherited sinful nature, an intrinsic inability to do righteousness and a definite necessity to do sin. This doctrine of the sinful nature is nowhere taught in Scripture. None of the passages of Scripture usually cited in support of this doctrine (Psa. 51:5; Job 14:4; Eph. 2:3) say that man since the fall has a sinful nature, that is, that man sins because he is a sinner by nature. On the contrary, all men sin because they are spiritually dead and are sinners because they sin ( Rom. 5:12d ERS).  Psa. 51:5, which says,

“Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,”

means either that David’s birth was a act of sin (that is, his birth was illegitimate, which it was not) or that he sins from birth as Psa. 58:3 says:

“The wicked go astray from the womb, they err from their birth, speaking lies.”    (See also Isa. 48:8)

Job 14:4, which says,

“Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?  There is none,”

means that righteousness can not come from the unrighteous and that a sinner can only bring forth sin; from the context it does not seem to be referring to the birth of a sinner. None of these passages says that man has a sinful nature or why man sins from birth. Paul explains that in Romans 5:12d ERS: “because of which [death] all sinned.”  In Eph. 2:2-3 Paul says,

“² In which [sins] you formerly walked according to the course of this world,  according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.  ³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh, indulging the wishes of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.”    (Eph. 2:2-3).

The “flesh” here is the body, which Paul contrasts with the mind; “the wishes of the flesh and of the mind.” The NIV totally mistranslates this phrase as “the craving of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts.” The RSV correctly translates it: “the desires of body and mind.” Also Paul says, “we were by nature children of wrath”, not “by nature sinners”. Paul is here not saying why men sin, but only that men are naturely objects of God’s wrath, since they have sinned.

The flesh is not the sinful nature. The Apostle Paul, like the other New Testament writers, never use the word flesh (sarx) to mean the sinful nature in the sense of that in man which makes him sin, that is, that man sins because he is a sinner by nature. Man does not sin because he is a sinner, but he is a sinner because he sins by choice, not by nature. When the Apostle John wrote, “The Word became flesh, and dewelt among us” (John 1:14), he clearly was not saying that the Son of God became a sinner by nature and had a sinful nature. Clearly he means that the Son of God became a human being, a man. Paul uses the word flesh (sarx), like the rest of the New Testament writers (The word occurs 151 times in the Greek New Testament), with the following different meanings.

1.  The soft tissue of the body (Rom. 2:28; I Cor. 15:39; Col. 2:13);

2.  The body itself (II Cor. 12:7; Gal. 4:13-14; Eph. 2:15; 5:29; Col. 1:24);

3.  The physical union of man and woman (“one flesh” I Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31);

4.   Body contrasted with the human spirit (I Cor. 5:5; II Cor. 7:1; Col. 2:5);

5.   Man (Rom. 3:20 and Gal. 2:16 quoting Psa. 143:2; I Cor. 1:29;
Gal. 1:16 and Eph. 6:2 “flesh and blood”; Rom. 7:18; John 1:14);

6.  Human life on earth (Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 10:3a; Phil. 1:22,24; Col. 2:10);

7.   Human nature (Rom. 6:19; 8:3; II Cor. 4:11; I Tim. 3:16);

8.  Human (“according to the flesh” Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22;
“body of flesh” Col. 1:22; 2:11)
or worldly (II Cor. 1:17; 10:2, 3b);

9.  Human descent or relationship, kin (Rom. 9:3; 11:14);

10.  Human point of view (I Cor. 1:26; II Cor. 5:16);

11.  Human contrasted with divine (Rom. 1:3; 9:5 Philemon 16);

12.   Unsaved (Rom. 7:5 “in the flesh”; 8:8-9);

13.  That which is not God or of God (Gal. 5:13-24);

14.   Anything that is an object of trust instead of God
(Isa. 31:1-3; Jer. 17:5; Rom. 8:4-7; Phil. 3:3,4;
Compare Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:2) [13].

The Greek word sarx usually translated “flesh” in our English translations (KJV, RSV, NAS) is incorrectly translated in the New International Version (NIV) as “sinful nature” in Rom. 7:17, 25; 8:3, 5, 8; Gal. 5:13, 16, 17; Eph. 2:3.  In Romans 7, Paul never identifies the flesh with sin or the sinful nature. The indwelling sin in Romans 7:17, 20 is not the sinful nature. Paul explains in verse 18 that indwelling sin is that “the good does not dwell in [him], that is, in [his] flesh.” The “flesh” here is that part of man that is not spirit (see 4 above).  Neither is “the law of sin” in verses Rom. 7:23, 25 and 8:2 the sinful nature; Paul defines “the law of sin” in verse 21: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do the good, evil is present with me.” The law of sin is not the sinful nature; it describes what sin does, not the cause of sin.

Neither in Romans 8 does Paul ever identifies the flesh with the sinful nature. In Romans 8:3 (“God… sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh …”) the word sarx [flesh] (=human nature) is qualified by the word “sin” because human nature is not inherently sinful (see 7 above). The flesh (=human nature) may be designated as sinful when a man chooses to sin (Rom. 6:16-18).

The Greek word sarx in Romans 8:4-13 designates anything that is an object of trust instead of God (see 14 above) and not the sinful nature. This use of sarx in verse 5 is just Paul’s way of saying that “those according to the flesh,” put their trust in something other than the true God, that is, “set their minds on the things of the flesh”. The word translated “set the mind on” indicates a “conscious spiritual orientation of life,” an attitude or disposition of the will. [14] See Paul’s use of this word phroneo in Rom. 12:16; Phil. 2:2,5; 3:15; Col. 3:2; and Matt. 16:23. This orientation toward the flesh, to that which is not God who is spirit, is what we have been calling the basic sin of idolatry. This is not the sinful nature and it is misleading to call it that. Those who are according to the Spirit, on the other hand, put their trust in the true God; they are oriented to the things of the Spirit. Since the god in whom one trusts is one’s ultimate criterion for all his choices, a person will choose those things that are in agreement with his ultimate criterion; his attitude and disposition will be oriented toward the things of his god. If his god is a false god (the flesh), he will be oriented toward the things of that false god; if his God is the true God (the Spirit), he will be oriented toward the thing of the true God.

The phrase “in the flesh” in Romans 8:8-9 is clearly equivalent to “unsaved” as in Rom. 7:5 (see 12 above); it is opposite to being in the Spirit which is to be saved. Paul used this phrase “in the flesh” previously in Rom. 7:5 to refer to their condition before they turned to Christ and were saved. It is equivalent to being “unsaved” and is the opposite to being “in the Spirit” (see verse 8:9). Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, because they do not have faith in the true God. “And without faith it is impossible to please God” (Heb. 11:6).

A legalistic Christian theology requires the doctrine of an inherited sinful nature. It teaches that man must have an inherited sinful nature otherwise he could save himself. It says that if man did not have an inherited sinful nature, he would be able to do good works and then he could save himself by his meritorious good works. But this is not why man cannot not save himself. Man cannot save himself because he is dead and he cannot make himself alive, not because he is not able to do meritorious works. The law cannot make alive.

“Is the law then against the promises of God?  Certainly not;  for if a law had been given which could make alive, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.”    (Gal. 3:21).

Since the law cannot make alive, righteousness is not by the law. A legalistic Christian theology does not understand this. It believes that the law can make alive, contrary to the statement of the Scriptures (Gal. 3:21), and that righteousness is by the law. This righteousness of the law is the merits earned by keeping the law. But it is a false righteousness, dirty filty rags, not the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:4-5). As long as Christian theology thinks of salvation legalistically as something earned by merits, either earned by us through the grace of the sacraments (as in Roman Catholic theology) or earned by another, by Christ’s active obedience (as in Protestant theology), it will need the doctrine of original sin to explain why man cannot save himself.

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