Replies

To alter the conversation to justification or indulgences would be unproductive, if we cannot find some common ground on the “will” of man. So, I will offer a little more discussion material here.

You maintain that the will of man is “free” to choose among all selections physically possible. You maintain that this freedom is because God has given enough grace to all men to allow them to freely choose unaided and unifluenced. This is so they alone are responsible for the moral outcomes of their lives. Please comment upon what Paul continues to argue when he presents his “bondage of the will” passage in Romans 7. I reproduce it here...

14 “For we know that the Law is spiritual; but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not wish to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that it is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which indwells me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; FOR THE WISHING IS PRESENT IN ME, BUT THE DOING OF THE GOOD IS NOT.”

Much more is said by Paul about this dilemma, but the ordinary sense is that his will is, in fact, not free. He laments that he, and all men, are trapped in this wicked carcass worthy of death. “Who will set me free from the body of this death?” He cries.

What the Law could not do, God did.

Now, if the sin is dwelling in Paul and renders him unable to choose that which is good, even as he sees the right thing to do, how is it that you maintain man is perfectly free to choose good and reject evil? And how do you distinguish this from Pelagianism (or Semi-pelagianism)?

Yes, that is a very relevant passage, about bondage to sin. But does it deny free will? Note that the contrast is drawn here between law and grace and between carnality and spirituality; yet both are present in man: "I know that there dwelleth not in me, that is to say, in my flesh, that which is good. For to will, is present with me; but to accomplish that which is good, I find not" (v.18).

Then St. Paul concludes:

24 Unhappy man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death? 25 The grace of God, by Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with the mind serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of sin.

This shows that the will is present even when it is not strong enough to "accomplish that which is good".

Pelagianism would say that man alone and without assitance of grace, can reach salvation. The doctrine of free will does not teach that.

I am not sure what semi-pelagianism is.