God as Father: Lessons I Learned as a Dad (Part 3)

A few months ago I began a blog series that will be irregular (at best) on lessons I have learned from being a dad about God being our heavenly Father--i.e. what it means for God to be our Father, how that impacts our lives, our relationship with Him as our Father, etc. I have learned quite a bit since I became a dad because the father-child relationship analogy that the Scriptures use has become so much more real to me. Well, recently I have been thinking about another aspect of God's fatherhood and our relationship to Him.

My son Gabriel is almost three now, and that means he is in the stage commonly known as "terrible twos," which should really be "terrible twos and threes or maybe even fours." That means that Gabriel is beginning to understand more and more how he is individual with a will of his own and he is desiring to assert his autonomy more and more. Of course, every parent out there knows what is coming next: tantrums. Gabriel now knows what he wants, knows that he is an individual, and knows he does not want to be told what to do, which means we see a lot of tantrums. This is actually part of their developmental process and is a good sign in the grand scheme of mental and emotional development, though it sometimes feels like hell on earth for parents.

This past weekend, for example, we took him to two Halloween activities in our city on Saturday, and at both there was lots of candy, which is what one would expect. Well, we, of course, try to limit his sugar intake, but depending on the day and activity, we might bend the rules a little and let him have more than he normally would. And, we did that Saturday, letting him have a little more candy than normally we would. That, however, was not enough. At a local church's festivities, we cut off the candy because he had had more than enough and we were about to go home and have dinner, and all of a sudden his world went from being loads of fun to a tragedy that in his mind would rival Oedipus' discovery that the oracle at Delphi had been right all along. And, while he did not attempt to gouge out his eyes, the screaming and crying certainly made it sound like he had.

Such tantrums are common in our life right now, and my "gut" responses vary. Sometimes the tantrums are so over-the-top ridiculous that it is all I can do not to laugh. Often they are frustrating, trying my patience to its limits. Most of the time there is mixed in with other emotions a sense of loving pity--pity because he does not understand all the things involved in denying what he thinks he needs, pity because I do not like seeing him sad, pity because I am trying to do what is best for him and he does not understand, pity because his immaturity is making him overreact. Lately these tantrums have also been humbling for me personally, which may seem like an odd response, but allow me to explain.

In my prayer life, there are times when I "vent" to God about things going on and my opinion of how my life is going. Now, those types of prayers are not necessarily bad or sinful because He wants to know what is on our hearts and He knows them anyway. And, certainly honesty with God in our prayer lives is something we need to develop. But, there are times where my "venting" is really just a "grownup" way of describing a tantrum. When I look at Gabriel with pity while in the midst of a tantrum, lately I have thought, "God, is this what I look like to You when I vent in my prayers? Do I look like a child rolling on the ground screaming because I did not get my way?" I am pretty sure I know the answer to those questions, and I do not like it.

I think that is probably the case much of the time. Even though I might veil it in "grownup" language and might not be screaming while rolling on the floor, sometimes it is about the same thing--I am upset because I cannot understand why God is not doing something the way I think that it should be done, and I doing whatever it takes to convince Him that my way is better. It may not involve stomping and screaming, but it is not really any better than a tantrum. Yet, at the same time, when I think, "God, is this what I look like?" I also think "Wow, you are so patient, kind, and loving to me to put up with this." With a toddler, we can cut him some slack because he has not learned how to deal with his emotions properly, but I have no such excuses. And, yet, if I--a sinner and sub-par father--respond with loving pity, how much more does God as my heavenly Father do that for me?

If I am moved with pity because Gabriel does not understand all the things involved in denying what he thinks he needs, then how much more is that true of God? The gap between God's knowledge and my own is far greater than the gap between my knowledge and Gabriel's--I am much less than a toddler in my knowledge compared to God. As the LORD says in Isaiah, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." If I am moved with pity because I do not like to see Gabriel hurt, how much more is that true of my heavenly Father who loves me perfectly? Of course, just like I know it is sometimes necessary for Gabriel to experience disappointment for his own good, so He knows that sometimes it is necessary for His good plan for me. Yet, even though it is necessary, it does not mean He does not experience fatherly sympathy for His confused and hurting child. If I am moved with pity because Gabriel does not understand that I am trying to do what is best for him, how much more is that true of my heavenly Father who always works all things for my good? My wisdom (as limited as it is) far exceeds Gabriel's, and, indeed, Gabriel would not throw a tantrum if he knew what I knew. Well, the same can be said of us. God's wisdom far, far, far exceeds our own, and God always answers our prayers in the way we would have them answered if we knew everything He knew and were as wise as Him. But, just as Gabriel does not understand because his knowledge and wisdom are limited, so I do not understand because my knowledge and wisdom are limited. So, my heavenly Father looks upon me with loving pity and says, "My child, you do not understand, but please trust me, for I love you more than you love your own son." And, if I am moved with pity for Gabriel because his immaturity causes him to overreact, how much more is that true of our loving and understanding heavenly Father? Immaturity does not, of course, excuse Gabriel's reaction and neither does it excuse my "grownup" tantrums, but it does move me to fatherly compassion for my son, and I think the same is true of our heavenly Father.

At the end of the day, I still need to do what is best for Gabriel, as God does for me, but thinking about how much I--a very imperfect father--am moved with love, compassion, and pity for my son makes me so thankful for my heavenly Father who is the perfect Father. If I can respond in love and compassion to my son, most certainly God does to me. Even when I throw a tantrum, He looks upon me with fatherly love because He has adopted me and loved me perfectly in Christ.

There is, of course, another side to this: how I would like Gabriel to respond. I know Gabriel cannot understand many of the decisions Erika and I make concerning him, but I would like him to respond by saying, "You know dad, I don't get it, but I know you love me, so I trust you." Obviously that is pipe dream for Gabriel. Every day Erika and I care for him, feed him, clothe him, love him, give him experiences, and so much more, but when what he thinks he "needs" is challenged, he forgets all that. He so easily forgets how much love we have shown him, so trust in those times is hard. But, am I really any different when it comes to my relationship to God--my heavenly Father? Throughout my life God has provided for me, proved Himself faithful over and over again, and never let me down, and yet when what I think I "need" is challenged, I forget all that too. I bet my heavenly Father would like me to say, "You know Dad, I don't get it, but I know You love me, so I trust You."

That is what the Psalms do. Do you know what the most common type of psalm in the book of Psalms is? It is not the hymns, the confidence psalms or the wisdom psalms. It is not the thanksgiving psalms or psalms of remembrance. It is the laments. There are more psalms of lament than any other type of psalm. These psalms express intense sadness, suffering, and confusion about life, and there are more of them than any other type. That alone should tell us something about the Christian life: God's people experience real suffering and pain often. But, the psalms of lament have a characteristic to them that keeps them from descending into "grownup" tantrums.

These psalms (e.g. Ps 13, 22, 26, 42-44, 74, 77, 79, 88, 102, 130, 143) almost always follow a very important structure. They begin with an invocation to God for help. Then, there is a complaint section that may lead to a plea for help, confession of sin, or cry for vindication. And, then, most importantly, all but one of them end with confident praise to God. For example, Ps. 13 ends with:

⁵ But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
    my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
⁶ I will sing to the Lord,
    because he has dealt bountifully with me.

In this psalm, David has not seen any resolution between the beginning and the end, but even when he complains and cries out for God to act, he does not forget what is true about God. Even though it does not feel that way to him, he reminds himself of the truth.

I think we can learn something about how we should pray when confused or in pain from these psalms. It is okay for us to pour out our hearts to God and cry out to Him in pain and confusion. In fact, it is good for us to do so, but when we do that, we must never act arrogantly towards God--thinking we know better--or question His character--accusing Him of wrongdoing. The psalms of lament always ground their complaint in the goodness of God and then come back to that goodness with faith at the end, even when everything in the life of the psalmist seems to testify to the contrary. The psalms of lament combine honest, intense expressions of grief with truthful, biblical, faithful reminders of who God really is.

When we pray and "vent" like that, then we are not throwing a "grownup" tantrum but are doing exactly what we want our children to do: saying, "Dad, I don't get it, but I know You love me, so I trust You." That is a righteous lament; not a toddler tantrum.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Exodus: A Great Salvation -- The LORD is Sovereign

One of my favorite annual periodicals is the Darwin Awards. If you haven’t heard of those, sometime you should look them up. The subtitle for this prestigious set of awards is “Chlorinating the Gene Pool: Commemorating Those Who Improve Our Gene Pool by Removing Themselves from It,” if that gives you any idea of what’s coming. They are morbid (but generally quite amusing) stories from the previous year of people who died, or rather brought about their own deaths, in, shall we say, unintelligent ways. While preparing for this sermon of this post, one story from the 1999 Awards kept coming back to my mind. It’s the story of a lawyer and two of his friends on a fishing trip, and it goes like this:

A lawyer and two of his buddies were fishing on Caddo Lake in Texas. A lightning storm hit the lake and most of the fisherman immediately headed for the shore. But not our friend the lawyer. He was alone on the rear of his aluminum bass boat and his buddies were in the front. This gentleman stood up, spread his arms wide (crucifixion style) and shouted:  “Here I am Lord! Show yourself to me!” Needless to say, God delivered. The other two passengers on the boat survived the lightning strike and are reported to have joined the Ministry immediately.

I couldn’t help but keep thinking of that story as I was preparing for this sermon because as silly as that story is, that is essentially what Pharaoh did ch. 5, which we talked about last sermon. Remember, Pharaoh has refused to let God’s people go and impertinently asked, “Who is the LORD that I should obey His voice?” He, like the lawyer in our story, thinks that YHWH is no threat at all to him, so he challenges YHWH, basically declaring war Him. And, the plagues--which we talked about from a historical perspective in the last post--are God’s response. As God says 7:4-5, “I will lay my hand on Egypt… by great acts of judgment. The Egyptians shall know that I am the LORD,” and Pharaoh will learn this too, though it takes a lot of righteous judgment and a long time because of his stubborn hardness of heart. And, essentially God answers Pharaoh’s question and judges Egypt by manifesting His sovereignty over everything in existence. In fact, His sovereignty is more clearly displayed in this story than almost anywhere else in Scripture.

If you want to find out more of how the plagues display God's sovereignty, you can listen to the sermon here or read the transcript here. I pray that the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor

Augustine's Anti-Pelagian Writings

"Both by nature and by grace, Augustin was formed to be the champion of truth in this controversy. Of a naturally philosophical temperament, he saw into the springs of life with a vividness of mental perception to which most men are strangers; and his own experiences in his long life of resistance to, and then of yielding to, the drawings of God’s grace, gave him a clear apprehension of the great evangelic principle that God seeks men, not men God, such as no sophistry could cloud. However much his philosophy or theology might undergo change in other particulars, there was one conviction too deeply imprinted upon his heart ever to fade or alter,—the conviction of the ineffableness of God’s grace. Grace,—man’s absolute dependence on God as the source of all good,—this was the common, nay, the formative element, in all stages of his doctrinal development, which was marked only by the ever growing consistency with which he built his theology around this central principle." ~ B. B. Warfield, Introductory Essay on Augustin and the Pelagian Controversy

Those of you who know me well know that the writings of Augustine have had a huge impact on my development as a Christian—both spiritually and theologically. He has had such an enormous impact on me that I gave my son Gabriel the middle name "August" in his honor. In a recent post, I gave some recommended reading for 2013 and one of the books I suggested was Augustine's Anti-Pelagian Writings. To be honest, if I would have you read only one of Augustine's works, it would be his Confessions, but if I would have you read two, it would be his Confessions and his Anti-Pelagian Writings. Since the former is so much more commonly known, today I will focus on the latter. Below is a section of B. B. Warfield's introduction to the Anti-Pelagian Writings. It is only a small portion (the essay is quite long and included as an introduction to most versions of the Anti-Pelagian Writings) but it is enough to give you a taste of the theological importance of Augustine's efforts against Pelagius' heretical teachings. I hope it "wets your whistle" and inspires you to read this important collection of Augustine's work.

It was inevitable that the energy of the Church in intellectually realizing and defining its doctrines in relation to one another, should first be directed towards the objective side of Christian truth. The chief controversies of the first four centuries and the resulting definitions of doctrine, concerned the nature of God and the person of Christ; and it was not until these theological and Christological questions were well upon their way to final settlement, that the Church could turn its attention to the more subjective side of truth. Meanwhile she bore in her bosom a full recognition, side by side, of the freedom of the will, the evil consequences of the fall, and the necessity of divine grace for salvation. Individual writers, or even the several sections of the Church, might exhibit a tendency to throw emphasis on one or another of the elements that made up this deposit of faith that was the common inheritance of all. The East, for instance, laid especial stress on free will: and the West dwelt more pointedly on the ruin of the human race and the absolute need of God’s grace for salvation. But neither did the Eastern theologians forget the universal sinfulness and need of redemption, or the necessity, for the realization of that redemption, of God’s gracious influences; nor did those of the West deny the self-determination or accountability of men. All the elements of the composite doctrine of man were everywhere confessed; but they were variously emphasized, according to the temper of the writers or the controversial demands of the times. Such a state of affairs, however, was an invitation to heresy, and a prophecy of controversy; just as the simultaneous confession of the unity of God and the Deity of Christ, or of the Deity and the humanity of Christ, inevitably carried in its train a series of heresies and controversies, until the definitions of the doctrines of the Trinity and of the person of Christ were complete. In like manner, it was inevitable that sooner or later some one should arise who would so one-sidedly emphasize one element or the other of the Church’s teaching as to salvation, as to throw himself into heresy, and drive the Church, through controversy with him, into a precise definition of the doctrines of free will and grace in their mutual relations.

This new heresiarch came, at the opening of the fifth century, in the person of the British monk, Pelagius. The novelty of the doctrine which he taught is repeatedly asserted by Augustin, and is evident to the historian; but it consisted not in the emphasis that he laid on free will, but rather in the fact that, in emphasizing free will, he denied the ruin of the race and the necessity of grace. This was not only new in Christianity; it was even anti-Christian. Jerome, as well as Augustin, saw this at the time, and speaks of Pelagianism as the “heresy of Pythagoras and Zeno;” and modern writers of the various schools have more or less fully recognized it. Thus Dean Milman thinks that “the greater part” of Pelagius’ letter to Demetrias “might have been written by an ancient academic;” Dr. De Pressensé identifies the Pelagian idea of liberty with that of Paganism; and Bishop Hefele openly declares that their fundamental doctrine, “that man is virtuous entirely of his own merit, not of the gift of grace,” seems to him “to be a rehabilitation of the general heathen view of the world,” and compares with it Cicero’s words: “For gold, lands, and all the blessings of life, we have to return thanks to the Gods; but no one ever returned thanks to the Gods for virtues.” The struggle with Pelagianism was thus in reality a struggle for the very foundations of Christianity; and even more dangerously than in the previous theological and Christological controversies, here the practical substance of Christianity was in jeopardy. The real question at issue was whether there was any need for Christianity at all; whether by his own power man might not attain eternal felicity; whether the function of Christianity was to save, or only to render an eternity of happiness more easily attainable by man.

Genetically speaking, Pelagianism was the daughter of legalism; but when it itself conceived, it brought forth an essential deism. It is not without significance that its originators were “a certain sort of monks;” that is, laymen of ascetic life. From this point of view the Divine law is looked upon as a collection of separate commandments, moral perfection as a simple complex of separate virtues, and a distinct value as a meritorious demand on Divine approbation is ascribed to each good work or attainment in the exercises of piety. It was because this was essentially his point of view that Pelagius could regard man’s powers as sufficient to the attainment of sanctity,—nay, that he could even assert it to be possible for a man to do more than was required of him. But this involved an essentially deistic conception of man’s relations to his Maker. God had endowed His creature with a capacity (possibilitas) or ability (posse) for action, and it was for him to use it. Man was thus a machine, which, just because it was well made, needed no Divine interference for its right working; and the Creator, having once framed him, and endowed him with the posse, henceforth leaves the velle and the esse to him.

At this point we have touched the central and formative principle of Pelagianism. It lies in the assumption of the plenary ability of man; his ability to do all that righteousness can demand,—to work out not only his own salvation, but also his own perfection. This is the core of the whole theory; and all the other postulates not only depend upon it, but arise out of it. Both chronologically and logically this is the root of the system.

When we first hear of Pelagius, he is already advanced in years, living in Rome in the odour of sanctity, and enjoying a well-deserved reputation for zeal in exhorting others to a good life, which grew especially warm against those who endeavoured to shelter themselves, when charged with their sins, behind the weakness of nature. He was outraged by the universal excuses on such occasions,—“It is hard!” “it is difficult!” “we are not able!” “we are men!”—“Oh, blind madness!” he cried: “we accuse God of a twofold ignorance,—that He does not seem to know what He has made, nor what He has commanded,—as if forgetting the human weakness of which He is Himself the Author, He has imposed laws on man which He cannot endure.” He himself tells us that it was his custom, therefore, whenever he had to speak on moral improvement and the conduct of a holy life, to begin by pointing out the power and quality of human nature, and by showing what it was capable of doing. For (he says) he esteemed it of small use to exhort men to what they deemed impossible: hope must rather be our companion, and all longing and effort die when we despair of attaining. So exceedingly ardent an advocate was he of man’s unaided ability to do all that God commanded, that when Augustin’s noble and entirely scriptural prayer—“Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt”—was repeated in his hearing, he was unable to endure it; and somewhat inconsistently contradicted it with such violence as almost to become involved in a strife. The powers of man, he held, were gifts of God; and it was, therefore, a reproach against Him as if He had made man ill or evil, to believe that they were insufficient for the keeping of His law. Nay, do what we will, we cannot rid ourselves of their sufficiency: “whether we will, or whether we will not, we have the capacity of not sinning.” “I say,” he says, “that man is able to be without sin, and that he is able to keep the commandments of God;” and this sufficiently direct statement of human ability is in reality the hinge of his whole system.

There were three specially important corollaries which flowed from this assertion of human ability, and Augustin himself recognized these as the chief elements of the system. It would be inexplicable on such an assumption, if no man had ever used his ability in keeping God’s law; and Pelagius consistently asserted not only that all might be sinless if they chose, but also that many saints, even before Christ, had actually lived free from sin. Again, it follows from man’s inalienable ability to be free from sin, that each man comes into the world without entailment of sin or moral weakness from the past acts of men; and Pelagius consistently denied the whole doctrine of original sin. And still again, it follows from the same assumption of ability that man has no need of supernatural assistance in his striving to obey righteousness; and Pelagius consistently denied both the need and reality of divine grace in the sense of an inward help (and especially of a prevenient help) to man’s weakness.

It was upon this last point that the greatest stress was laid in the controversy, and Augustin was most of all disturbed that thus God’s grace was denied and opposed. No doubt the Pelagians spoke constantly of “grace,” but they meant by this the primal endowment of man with free will, and the subsequent aid given him in order to its proper use by the revelation of the law and the teaching of the gospel, and, above all, by the forgiveness of past sins in Christ and by Christ’s holy example. Anything further than this external help they utterly denied; and they denied that this external help itself was absolutely necessary, affirming that it only rendered it easier for man to do what otherwise he had plenary ability for doing. Chronologically, this contention seems to have preceded the assertion which must logically lie at its base, of the freedom of man from any taint, corruption, or weakness due to sin. It was in order that they might deny that man needed help, that they denied that Adam’s sin had any further effect on his posterity than might arise from his bad example. “Before the action of his own proper will,” said Pelagius plainly, “that only is in man which God made.” “As we are procreated without virtue,” he said, “so also without vice.” In a word, “Nothing that is good and evil, on account of which we are either praiseworthy or blameworthy, is born with us,—it is rather done by us; for we are born with capacity for either, but provided with neither.” So his later follower, Julian, plainly asserts his “faith that God creates men obnoxious to no sin, but full of natural innocence, and with capacity for voluntary virtues.” So intrenched is free will in nature, that, according to Julian, it is “just as complete after sins as it was before sins;” and what this means may be gathered from Pelagius’ definition in the “Confession of Faith,” that he sent to Innocent: “We say that man is always able both to sin and not to sin, so as that we may confess that we have free will.” That sin in such circumstances was so common as to be well-nigh universal, was accounted for by the bad example of Adam and the power of habit, the latter being simply the result of imitation of the former. “Nothing makes well-doing so hard,” writes Pelagius to Demetrias, “as the long custom of sins which begins from childhood and gradually brings us more and more under its power until it seems to have in some degree the force of nature (vim naturæ).” He is even ready to allow for the force of habit in a broad way, on the world at large; and so divides all history into progressive periods, marked by God’s (external) grace. At first the light of nature was so strong that men by it alone could live in holiness. And it was only when men’s manners became corrupt and tarnished nature began to be insufficient for holy living, that by God’s grace the Law was given as an addition to mere nature; and by it “the original lustre was restored to nature after its blush had been impaired.” And so again, after the habit of sinning once more prevailed among men, and “the law became unequal to the task of curing it,” Christ was given, furnishing men with forgiveness of sins, exhortations to imitation of the example and the holy example itself. But though thus a progressive deterioration was confessed, and such a deterioration as rendered desirable at least two supernatural interpositions (in the giving of the law and the coming of Christ), yet no corruption of nature, even by growing habit, is really allowed. It was only an ever-increasing facility in imitating vice which arose from so long a schooling in evil; and all that was needed to rescue men from it was a new explanation of what was right (in the law), or, at the most, the encouragement of forgiveness for what was already done, and a holy example (in Christ) for imitation. Pelagius still asserted our continuous possession of “a free will which is unimpaired for sinning and for not sinning;” and Julian, that “our free will is just as full after sins as it was before sins;” although Augustin does not fail to twit him with a charge of inconsistency.

The peculiar individualism of the Pelagian view of the world comes out strongly in their failure to perceive the effect of habit on nature itself. Just as they conceived of virtue as a complex of virtuous acts, so they conceived of sin exclusively as an act, or series of disconnected acts. They appear not to have risen above the essentially heathen view which had no notion of holiness apart from a series of acts of holiness, or of sin apart from a like series of sinful acts. Thus the will was isolated from its acts, and the acts from each other, and all organic connection or continuity of life was not only overlooked but denied. After each act of the will, man stood exactly where he did before: indeed, this conception scarcely allows for the existence of a “man”—only a willing machine is left, at each click of the action of which the spring regains its original position, and is equally ready as before to reperform its function. In such a conception there was no place for character: freedom of will was all. Thus it was not an unnatural mistake which they made, when they forgot the man altogether, and attributed to the faculty of free will, under the name of “possibilitas” or “posse,” the ability that belonged rather to the man whose faculty it is, and who is properly responsible for the use he makes of it. Here lies the essential error of their doctrine of free will: they looked upon freedom in its form only, and not in its matter; and, keeping man in perpetual and hopeless equilibrium between good and evil, they permitted no growth of character and no advantage to himself to be gained by man in his successive choices of good. It need not surprise us that the type of thought which thus dissolved the organism of the man into a congeries of disconnected voluntary acts, failed to comprehend the solidarity of the race. To the Pelagian, Adam was a man, nothing more; and it was simply unthinkable that any act of his that left his own subsequent acts uncommitted, could entail sin and guilt upon other men. The same alembic that dissolved the individual into a succession of voluntary acts, could not fail to separate the race into a heap of unconnected units. If sin, as Julian declared, is nothing but will, and the will itself remained intact after each act, how could the individual act of an individual will condition the acts of men as yet unborn? By “imitation” of his act alone could (under such a conception) other men be affected. And this carried with it the corresponding view of man’s relation to Christ. He could forgive us the sins we had committed; He could teach us the true way; He could set us a holy example; and He could exhort us to its imitation. But He could not touch us to enable us to will the good, without destroying the absolute equilibrium of the will between good and evil; and to destroy this was to destroy its freedom, which was the crowning good of our divinely created nature. Surely the Pelagians forgot that man was not made for will, but will for man.

In defending their theory, as we are told by Augustin, there were five claims that they especially made for it. It allowed them to praise as was their due, the creature that God had made, the marriage that He had instituted, the law that He had given, the free will which was His greatest endowment to man, and the saints who had followed His counsels. By this they meant that they proclaimed the sinless perfection of human nature in every man as he was brought into the world, and opposed this to the doctrine of original sin; the purity and holiness of marriage and the sexual appetites, and opposed this to the doctrine of the transmission of sin; the ability of the law, as well as and apart from the gospel, to bring men into eternal life, and opposed this to the necessity of inner grace; the integrity of free will to choose the good, and opposed this to the necessity of divine aid; and the perfection of the lives of the saints, and opposed this to the doctrine of universal sinfulness. Other questions, concerning the origin of souls, the necessity of baptism for infants, the original immortality of Adam, lay more on the skirts of the controversy, and were rather consequences of their teaching than parts of it. As it was an obvious fact that all men died, they could not admit that Adam’s death was a consequence of sin lest they should be forced to confess that his sin had injured all men; they therefore asserted that physical death belonged to the very nature of man, and that Adam would have died even had he not sinned. So, as it was impossible to deny that the Church everywhere baptized infants, they could not refuse them baptism without confessing themselves innovators in doctrine; and therefore they contended that infants were not baptized for forgiveness of sins, but in order to attain a higher state of salvation. Finally, they conceived that if it was admitted that souls were directly created by God for each birth, it could not be asserted that they came into the world soiled by sin and under condemnation; and therefore they loudly championed this theory of the origin of souls.

The teachings of the Pelagians, it will be readily seen, easily welded themselves into a system, the essential and formative elements of which were entirely new in the Christian Church; and this startlingly new reading of man’s condition, powers, and dependence for salvation, it was, that broke like a thunderbolt upon the Western Church at the opening of the fifth century, and forced her to reconsider, from the foundations, her whole teaching as to man and his salvation.

Augustine's anti-Pelagian writings are available for free all over the web. Here is the link to the CCEL version, which gives you a number of formats (online, PDF, plain text file, etc.), and here is a .mobi version that you can use on your Kindle, which you can get for free on any smart phone. I hope the above section of B. B. Warfield's introduction to them inspires you to read them. They will bless your soul, expand your mind, and magnify the glory of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in your heart.

By His Grace,
Taylor