Page "Pelagianism" Paragraph 3

Pelagius was opposed by Saint Augustine, one of the most influential early Church Fathers.

When Pelagius taught that moral perfection was attainable in this life without the assistance of divine grace through human free will, Saint Augustine contradicted this by saying that perfection was impossible without grace because we are born sinners with a sinful heart and will.

The Pelagians charged Augustine on the grounds that the doctrine of original sin amounted to Manichaeism: the Manichaeans taught that the flesh was in itself sinful ( and they denied that Jesus came in the flesh ) – and this charge would have carried added weight since contemporaries knew that Augustine himself had been a Manichaean layman before his conversion to Christianity.