# The pelagic argosy *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 07 May 2003* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### David Duffy *07 May 2003, 22:10* While rereading Lem, I was suddenly caught by "no more than any genuine heresy such as the Manichaean or the Pelagian." And yes, the Pelagians "emphasize human free will as the decisive element in human perfectibility and minimize or deny the need for divine grace and redemption". Well, it *might* be a coincidence. ``` | David Duffy (MBBS PhD) ,-_|\ | email: davidD at qimr.edu.au ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101 / * | Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research \_,-._/ | 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia GPG 4D0B994A v -- ``` --- ### *THAT* Matt Weber *08 May 2003, 00:58 · follows David Duffy* > While rereading Lem, I was suddenly caught by "no more than any genuine > heresy such as the Manichaean or the Pelagian." And yes, the Pelagians > "emphasize human free will as the decisive element in human > perfectibility and minimize or deny the need for divine grace and > redemption". Well, it *might* be a coincidence. > > > > -- > | David Duffy (MBBS PhD) ,-_|\ > | email: davidD at qimr.edu.au ph: INT+61+7+3362-0217 fax: -0101 / * > | Epidemiology Unit, Queensland Institute of Medical Research \_,-._/ > | 300 Herston Rd, Brisbane, Queensland 4029, Australia GPG 4D0B994A v > > -- Pelagius is usually seen as the counter of Augustine's views on free will and human perfectibility. Pelagius held that human beings could, through the exercise of free will, choose good over evil independent of God's help; Augustine's somewhat more pessimistic view was that without God's grace men were irredeemably depraved. Of course, Augustine's became the official Church party line and later led to the excesses of Calvin, Knox, et al. Anthony Burgess is pretty obviously Pelagian in his view of human perfectibility, btw... Matt poll oid alwphx, all exinos en meya. Archilochus, fl. c. 650 B.C., in E. Diehl (ed.), Anth. Lyr. Gr. ---