Man is Endowed with the Faculty of Distinguishing Good and Evil; So That, Without Compulsion, He Has the Power
Compulsion-a force that compels
Without Compulsion - without a force that compels
We, of course, have to excuse Irenaeus since the Church would not condemn the Pelagius heresy for another 300 years. Many of the early fathers were more interested in trying to get the church to grow rather than putting together a systematic view of scripture.
So when the Church condemned Pelagius it overlooked Irenaeus........LOL..??
What sort of mindset drives a man to condescendingly ("we, of course, have to excuse Irenaeus....") label one of the early Church Fathers a heretic?
Even a modicum of humility would give a sane person pause.
This is not Pelagianism;
"For He commissioned [messengers] to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper. Matthew 22:3, etc. The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham; Matthew 3:9 but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection.
The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves."
What he says, is that men will be held accountable by God for the uses to which they put their free will.
The Bible is quite clear on two things: that God is sovereign, and tht we are responsible. What's in the middle is a mystery.
Grace does not compel, grace enables.
Man is Endowed with the Faculty of Distinguishing Good and Evil; So That, Without Compulsion, He Has the Power
Compulsion-a force that compels
Without Compulsion - without a force that compels
We, of course, have to excuse Irenaeus since the Church would not condemn the Pelagius heresy for another 300 years. Many of the early fathers were more interested in trying to get the church to grow rather than putting together a systematic view of scripture.
But the Divine aid is not compulsion in the eyes of the Church from Apostolic times. How do you account for that? It has nothing to do with a systematic view of Scripture.