Saint Augustine's doctrine on grace (2)

Abstract

Redemption is intimately connected in Augustine with his doctrine on original sin: because of man's fall, redemption was necessary. Augustine tackled the problem of redemption from a Christological and an antropological point of view; with regard to the former he considered Christ as our redeemer and our mediator; with regard to the latter, which is what interests us here, he considered redeemed man with reference to his discussions with the Pelagians, who held that redemption was simply a process from good to better, and not from a state of evil to a state of goodness. The Pelagians spoke of redemption in the same way they spoke of the Baptism of infants: they admitted redemption and they admitted the Baptism of infants saying that both were necessary, but according to Augustine they were equivocating for they held that infants are baptised to obtain spiritual regeneration and so enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, and through redemption man is elevated to a higher state. There is nothing wrong, in these statements, what is wrong is what the Pelagians deny, i.e. that Baptism frees infants from the hereditary sin and that redemption is a liberation from evil.