This Week in Housekeeping: Semi-Pelagianism

This weekend I updated the theological term semi-Pelagian. The precise definition has been discussed lately because of a recent statement on the doctrine of salvation put forward by a group of Southern Baptists who are not fans of Calvinism. 

Some have called the statement semi-Pelagian, or at least semi-Pelagian sounding.1 In response, its defenders have mostly denied this charge, with a few saying they really don’t care if it’s semi-Pelagian or not because they’re not bound by historical creeds anyway.

What is clear in all this is that not everyone shares the same definition of semi-Pelagianism. I looked up my Theological Term page on semi-Pelagianism and realized there wasn’t much there, so I decided to update it. I couldn’t find a whole lot to add, but I did find a little more info.

semi-Pelagianism

• Fixed formatting issues.
• Added this very helpful quote from Systematic Theology by Louis Berkhof:

  [Semi-Pelagianism] admitted that the whole human race is involved in the fall of Adam, that human nature is tainted with hereditary sin, and that all men are by nature inclined to evil and not able, apart from the grace of God, to complete any good work; but denied the total depravity of man, the guilt of original sin, and the loss of the freedom of the will.

• Added a link to John Hendryx’s Differences between Semi-Pelagianism and Arminian beliefs.
• Added a link to a quote from Herman Bavinck on Semi-Pelagianism.
• Added links to related terms Augustinianism, Pelagianism, and original sin.

As I see it, the semi-Pelagian bit in the so-called “traditional” statement on the doctrine of salvation is in Article 2 on the sinfulness of man: 

We affirm that, because of the fall of Adam, every person inherits a nature and environment inclined toward sin and that every person who is capable of moral action will sin. Each person’s sin alone brings the wrath of a holy God, broken fellowship with Him, ever-worsening selfishness and destructiveness, death, and condemnation to an eternity in hell.

We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will or rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned. While no sinner is remotely capable of achieving salvation through his own effort, we deny that any sinner is saved apart from a free response to the Holy Spirit’s drawing through the Gospel.

That’s a pretty clear denial of the bondage of the will (We deny that Adam’s sin resulted in the incapacitation of any person’s free will) and inherited guilt (We deny that Adam’s sin … rendered any person guilty before he has personally sinned).

1In some places, the language of this document is confusing. It doesn’t use the precise language you’d expect in a well-written theological statement. Who knows what some of those sentences mean!