In Praise of Pelagius

Pictured above (supposedly) are Pelagius, founder of the Pelagian heresy, and Augustine of Hippo; one a heretic and one a saint.  Sadly, I'm not sure which is Pelagius and which is Augustine.

We don't know much about the life of Pelagius but for the fact that he was a monk, and was considered to be British, or Irish, or Scottish depending on the record on which you rely.  He and Augustine were contemporaries, both born in the 4th century C.E. or A.D., whichever you prefer, both dying in the 5th century.  Augustine, of course, became a bishop.

While we don't know much about the life of Pelagius, we know far too much of the life of Augustine, or so I think.  We know much of Augustine's life because he thoughtfully told us of it, in great detail, in his Confessions.  That work describes his sinful, profligate ways before his fittingly dramatic conversion to Christianity and attendant salvation, but also includes prayers of thanksgiving and speculations on whatever theological or philosophical issues caught his fancy.

Presumably, Augustine's Confessions served as a model for the Confessions of the similarly self-regarding Rousseau, who also carefully cataloged his misdeeds for our benefit though not, it seems, for any religious reasons.  Nevertheless, Rousseau was also saved, but not by God, and his misdeeds were evidently rendered tolerable when he became the Rousseau he thought we should know and admire.

Both Augustine and Rousseau were apparently the kind of men who relished describing their sins.  Perhaps Augustine flaunted his sinfulness in part due to his acceptance and it may be said creation of the doctrine of Original Sin, that peculiar belief that all of humanity is, forever, tainted by the sin of Adam and Eve and so damned unless redeemed by God's grace, which is in God's gift.  This is not a doctrine Pelagius was willing to accept, but which the Church ultimately did accept.  Thus, Pelagius became a heretic and Augustine a saint.

Unfortunately, the writings of Pelagius were lost, or more probably were destroyed after his condemnation.  So we know them only through the writings of those who thought he should be condemned.  It seems though that Pelagius thought human nature to be untouched by the sin of Adam and Eve.  As a consequence, humans had the capacity to be good and to renounce evil, and didn't require the gift of God's grace to do so.  Immorality was a matter of will, or lack of will to do good.  People could do good deeds without the intervention of God.  Human will in itself, as created by God, was sufficient to assure a sinless life.  God may help us, inspire us to do good, but he doesn't cause us to do good by granting us his grace.

For Pelagius and his followers, the notion that human nature is prone to sinfulness from birth excuses immoral conduct.  It serves as an explanation of our evil deeds as the result of something beyond our control; we're naturally bad because Adam and Eve did what they did or failed to do what they failed to do.  How are we to be blamed for doing what we have to do by our nature, i.e. for not being able to do the impossible?

I find it interesting that, for me at least, certain Christian heresies seem so much more sensible, so much more edifying, so much more ennobling than orthodox Christian doctrine.  Pelagianism is one of those heresies, as it teaches that we're responsible for our own conduct and are not damned by the actions of mythological forbears, a damnation which seems extraordinarily vengeful coming from the God of the universe.  The Arian heresy which avoids the problems encountered by insisting Jesus was wholly God and wholly man at the same time, consubstantial with the Father, is to me another of those heresies.

I also find it interesting that Pelagianism seems similar in various ways to the teachings of the pagan philosophers, and to the teachings of the Stoics in particular.  Pelagius thought that as creature of God we cannot be inherently sinful and debased; the Stoics thought us good, not evil, and partakers in the divine.  The Stoics emphasized our ability to act for the good, "in accordance with nature", nature itself being good, and that bad conduct is the result of a failure in our use of reason, resulting from our desires and fears as to things beyond our control.  Pelagius and his followers taught we could be good by the exercise of our own will.  According to the Stoics, no God or gods were needed in order for us to act in accord with nature.  God's grace wasn't necessary to a good life according to Pelagius.

Christianity borrowed freely from the pagan philosophers in various ways.  What was it about Pelagianism that merited its condemnation by the Church, and still merits its condemnation?  It seems that it's felt that Pelagianism doesn't accept that we're ultimately dependent on God's mercy and indulgence to be saved, and incapable of determining what is good by ourselves.  It seems an unworthy basis on which to condemn a doctrine that makes us responsible for our own actions rather than damns us for purported actions taken long, long ago, and credits us with the ability to discern what is good and reject what is evil.

What's Wrong about Rights

Legal rights are, generally, most useful and beneficial.  What we think of as rights is a relatively new development in the law.  The concept of legal or human rights (as we understand them now) seems to almost leap forth in the 18th century, from somewhere.  Perhaps that wretched fellow Rousseau played a part in this, perhaps there was something more complicated involved. 

We don't see it much (or at least I don't) in ancient times in the West; I'm not certain we see it at all in the East.  Roman law is vast, but beyond the view that certain people are due certain things by virtue of their status--e.g. a Roman citizen being due an appeal to the emperor--individual rights don't factor large in the days extending from the Twelve Tablets to Justinian's Codex.

I've read that the concept of rights has its basis in the idea of natural law.  I question this, though.  Natural law certainly appears in Roman jurisprudence and may be said to be a factor, even a very important factor, in ancient philosophy, particularly in Stoicism.  But if Natural Law engendered the belief that we are endowed by Nature or Nature's God with certain inalienable rights, in my opinion this occurred long after Natural Law had been conceived.

While Stoicism certainly anticipated the idea of a "brotherhood of man" and so recognized the worth of each person by virtue of the possession of a part of the Divine Reason, and its maxim that we should live according to nature indicates that nature provides us with rules which should govern our conduct in life, I don't see this as equivalent to the belief that each person has certain rights.  Indeed, the concept of rights as we understand it seems foreign to Stoicism.

We say we have a "right" to something when we believe that we are or should be free to do something or possess something.  We have a claim to it; we are entitled to it, to the exclusion of anyone else.  Stoicism teaches us that things beyond our control are indifferent.  It urges us not to disturb ourselves with them, not to seek or desire them.  What else is the claim to have a right to property but a claim that one is entitled to something beyond our control?  Epictetus tells us not to be disturbed even by the loss of a loved one, or disturbed no more than by the loss of a favorite cup.  It would be bizarre for a Stoic sage to maintain that he is entitled to anything, even to his own life.  Nature/God will determine when we die and how; we should be prepared to die, but our death is one of the things beyond our control  It's in the nature of a gift, a natural part of life.

Stoics tout the freedom one has from others and other things, but that freedom derives from the recognition of that which is indifferent to us and our own self-discipline.  The Stoic has no conception of a right to be free; one can be free even if in prison, as one maintains sovereignty over that which is truly in one's control.

For my part, I believe the only rights we have are those recognized by the law, that is to say, legal rights.  Certainly those are the only rights which are enforceable.  Legal rights, though sometimes conceived of as possessory, in fact result from restrictions imposed particularly on governmental power.  We have no right of free speech, for example, in the law.  We have the First Amendment, though, which prohibits the government from restricting free speech.  Legal rights therefore often exist purely because the law prohibits certain conduct by others.  I can speak freely in the sense that the government is unable to prevent me from doing so.

When we speak of rights outside the law, whether we call them natural rights, inherent rights, god-given rights, we purport to refer to what has application only if protected by the law.  We treat them as if they are legal rights, though they are not.  We claim to be entitled to certain things or entitled to do certain things by virtue of non-legal rights.

It seems to me that when we employ the concept of rights in ethics, we take an idea which has a beneficial function in the law and employ it where it has no function at all or a negative function.   Rights are something we have or claim.  Our interest in them is selfish.  We don't see rights as creating duties to others.  If we have the right to do and think what we wish, even if that right is qualified so that our right to act and think may not be used to harm others, we may do as we please even if we are cruel, envious, uncharitable, craven, contemptible, gluttonous, miserly.  We may be utterly unworthy, and are not only free to be so but have every right to be so.

In other words, we have the right to be wrong, bad, immoral as long as we don't infringe directly on the rights of others.  This is an ethics which sanctions, if it doesn't actually encourage, the disregard of the suffering of others.

I've always been a proponent of civil liberties, and still am.  Legal rights are essential to our freedom and so vastly significant in the law.   But rights seem a poor thing on which to base a code of morality.

Regarding St. Augustine

The Bishop of Hippo was not, I think, a very likable fellow.  He is certainly one of those whose stature in Western history is such that we are told we must read his various works, or at least one of them, most likely his City of God, in order to consider ourselves properly educated.  His influence in Western Christianity is profound; he is, I suppose, its Plato, just as St. Thomas Aquinas may be considered its Aristotle.  And Western Christianity has, for good or ill, profoundly influenced Western history, so I suppose he's entitled to his august status (tee-hee).  But he has much to answer for as well.

He was evidently one of those loathsome men who, like Rousseau, reveled in what they thought to be their unworthiness, so much so that he felt compelled to relate it to us in detail.  In his Confessions he flaunts his misdeeds, especially his sexual activities, which seem to have fascinated him after his conversion as much if not more than they did when he was a wretched pagan neo-platonist or Manichean.  I don't think this can be said to be simply the style of the time, but in his defense it may be possible to claim that zealous converts and sinners who have lost their way and been, most ostentatiously, found, have always been inclined to air their sins in public with a kind of masochistic delight.

Of more significance than his flamboyance in this respect, however, is his relentless propagation of the view that humanity, and indeed this world in general, is wicked, contemptible, lost, consigned to the flames of hell but for God's saving grace, which the Divinity dispenses with a miserliness which is appalling but is thus especially gratifying to those chosen as recipients, and of course but for the salvation that was the consequence of Jesus' sacrifice (this grace and this apparently incomplete salvation exist somewhat uncomfortably side-by-side in Augustine's theology).  Our evil and that of the world, and the glorification of the Civitas Dei as compared with the Civitas Terrena, are his primary "contributions" to our history and our culture in my not very humble opinion.

Just how miserable these contributions and their effect are and have been is, of course, the subject of some debate.  It would seem to me unsurprising that such views may encourage the development of a priestly elite, a fixation on achieving a state of grace through various rituals, and the denigration of the world and all its pleasures to the point where providing for the worldly comforts of people is a secondary concern at best.  All eyes must be on the heavenly prize which may await us, not on what is here.  And that was the way of it for many centuries, and still is now in many cases.

It's a sad legacy for any man.  It's possible Augustine didn't foresee that such thoughts would lead to the institutional Christianity which came to be.  Like other Christian apologists, he would claim that Christian doctrine had nothing to do with the disintegration of the Western Roman Empire.  He was busily writing away even as the Vandals were hammering at the walls of Hippo.  They were good enough to leave Augustine's cathedral standing, though, and this no doubt was considered a sign of something good for Augustine and the Church. 

We have in a sense been cursed with great men, or cursed by them.  Too many of the great have been convinced that they know what is good and true, and have been inclined to seek the imposition of their beliefs on others.  The great are absolutists, and see things as black and white, good and evil.  They invariably believe themselves to be good, though, and those who oppose them to be evil.  Thus Augustine waged his wars against the Donatists and the Pelagians.  It's likely he more than Nero fiddled while Rome burned; what matter the Civitas Terrena?

But truly, Rome's demise in the West was well along by that time and probably could not have been prevented by even the most patriotic of pagans.  Augustine's importance was not in the destruction of Rome, but in the creation of a new Rome, one whose ambitions were just as imperial but directed towards a universal dominion of another kind.  That new Rome proved more lasting than the old, though there is no Civitas Dei.

Allan Bloom, Old Fogey

In the late 1980s, Allan Bloom wrote a book entitled The Closing of the American Mind, which made quite a stir back then and still is a subject of some controversy.  It is a broad and somewhat ponderous critique of higher education here in our Great Republic, from his perspective as a professor.  It was latched onto by conservatives and lashed at by liberals.  Bloom denied being a conservative, and to do him credit he is now and then careful to qualify his assertions which seem on their face to be consistently critical of what are considered positions favored by the political left.

I find myself sympathetic with certain of his claims, though I must admit it's been quite some time since I lurked in the halls of the Academy.  But I can't help but disagree with most of them.  I don't think, though, that my disagreement arises from the fact that he is or should be considered a conservative.  For all I know, his statements he was not a conservative were earnest and true.  This book does not establish he was a conservative, in my opinion.  Instead, it establishes he was an old fogey; someone with a fussy and excessive regard for what and how things were done in the past, to and by them.

What strikes me about the book is the hostility to the modern which informs, if it does not inflame, Bloom's many complaints.  Bloom has a genuine fondness for the good old days when the classics were read, classical music was listened to, the family was the fundamental unit of society and politics, love and sex were romantic.  The father was a paterfamilias, the mother through the clever employment of feminine charm and "wiles" (a word he uses with some frequency) assured that the father, as a male constantly subject to his brutish needs, remained a provider to the children she instinctively produced and loved. 

But Bloom at the time he wrote his book found his students (he refers to them as "kids" all too often) to be orphans of a sort.  Largely the children of divorced parents, they lacked grounding in the dutiful and secure ambiance of the family.  They did not read the classics; indeed, they had been taught to despise or at best disregard them.  Sex was, to them, merely a pleasure.  They listened to rock music.

According to Bloom, this sad state of affairs was the result of the Enlightenment.  Divines like Hobbes and Locke opined that conduct was based on individual self-interest, and from this premise derived systems based on individual freedom.  Society and the family were no longer of real concern.  Things just got worse from there.  Soon people like Mill and Dewey appeared.  Bloom seems to think that these two were proponents of relativism (this is news to me, and would have been to them, I think).  They and others came to convince us that it is not possible to make critical judgments of claims or people, resulting in "openness" of a kind Bloom finds objectionable in his students.

Neither philosophy nor religion provides guidance to the kids any longer.  Modern philosophy is unconcerned with how to live, with the great questions which were addressed by philosophers in the past.  Nobody reads anymore, so the kids are not prompted to consider those questions through the influence of great writers.

To the extent Bloom takes the position that relativism and the view that critical judgments cannot or should not be made are adversely affecting our society and education, I am in agreement with him.  I'm uncertain where Mill and Dewey fit in, though.  Mill would seem to be the least objectionable of the Utilitarians from the perspective of an old fogey.  Dewey seems to have been a very unassuming person but has become a sort of boogie man to those of the right of the so-called culture wars. 

Bloom at one point acknowledges that Dewey sought to apply scientific method to addressing problems which were not traditionally scientific (political and social problems).  Given that fact, I think it's difficult to maintain Dewey supported relativism.  But it may be that what Bloom objected to was the application of that method outside of the sciences--though he doesn't seem particularly fond of science, either.  Dewey was an adherent of the use of creative intelligence and inquiry which requires the making of judgments and a consideration of their consequences in determining conduct; how does this amount to the rejection of standards by which judgments can be made?

Bloom frequently refers to Rousseau, and seems to think highly of him and his thoughts on education and love.  But Rousseau is an odd choice, I think, given Bloom's thesis.  If students are adrift due to their failure to read the appropriate works, what are we to say of Rousseau?  He relegated his own children to virtually certain death by consigning them to what passed as orphanages in his time, all the while writing of the proper way to raise and educate the children of others.  If Rousseau wrote admirably about children while casually disposing of his own, why claim it is necessary to read Rousseau in order to know how to go about educating and raising children?  Writing about this issue as he did didn't serve to induce him to act properly.  Why should reading him induce others to act properly?

Bloom was not a fool.  He didn't claim that the old ways were best except by implication, which is to say that he wrote that he didn't mean to maintain they were perfect, or the best guides to living and learning.  Instead, he states that since they are gone, and since they gave students the grounding they so clearly need, they must be replaced by something which will serve the same purpose.  Now, though, there is nothing, according to Bloom.

Of course, if there is nothing now, and if something is better than nothing and the old ways were something, then it would seem to follow that we are better off reinstating and following the old ways.  So it is difficult to contend that Bloom was not an advocate of the old ways of doing things, I believe.

What seems to pervade the book is the belief that the students, the "kids", must be led along the path of life in the Academy, as they receive no appropriate guidance from their families or friends or the declining culture and society in which they live.  There is a kind of elitism generating Bloom's complaints.  Accepting that it is at least possible there are no absolute truths (and it seems that Bloom accepted this possibility, or at least did not commit himself to propounding absolute truths exist) it doesn't follow that it is impossible to make reasonable judgments, i.e. to be open to anything, without objection.  On the contrary, we make judgments without relying on absolute truths or absolute certainty frequently; we must do so.  Bloom doesn't object to skepticism or the questioning of norms in itself.  He does seem to object to students as they are now (without education and enlightment courtesy of our relativistic and materialistic society) being skeptical and questioning, however.  He thinks that is something they are ill-equipped to do.

For Bloom, I think, the common herd is incapable of making the right decisions, and especially so the progeny of that herd.  It is for those who are truly educated to educate them so they can make those decisions.  Those who are truly educated are not modern.  They are, like Bloom, old fogeys.