Pelagianism

Alex David Groce · 21 May 2000, 13:30 · from urth-v0029.mbox · original

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From: Alex David Groce <Alex_Groce at gs246.sp.cs.cmu.edu>
Subject: Re: (urth) Pelagianism
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 13:30:00
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Alga wrote:

>I find it difficult to understand how such a doctrinaire belief as
>Communism could endorse a radical embracement of Free Will. Could you
>explain a bit?

The idea, as I understand it, isn't that Communism is Pelagianism,
rather that it's a kind of secular adaptation of certain ideas with a
Pelagian flavor.  The key idea is that Pelagianism proposes that it is
possible to attain perfection and/or the beatific vision without the
aid of supernatural grace (which Aquinas claims was the Devil's actual
rebellion--not to become God, because the Devil would know that was
impossible, but to atain perfection sans divine grace).  Communism
offers a similar, although deterministic, vision of a purely human
(and now purely materialistic) method of achieving utopia, of
"immanentizing the eschaton."  Communism, of course, is not a personal
achievement of a state of perfection.

I'll give a better idea of what I mean about Original Sin/Vodalus'
space program later (I don't have New Sun with me at the moment).
Charting the origins/breakouts of what I say Wolfe means as
"heresies"--I'll try to this for the ones I can, although I'm offering
it more as a gut instinct of how things are portrayed thn something I
think is obvious from the text.

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32
--
Alex David Groce (agroce+ at cs.cmu.edu)
Ph.D. Student, Carnegie Mellon University - Computer Science Department
8112 Wean Hall (412)-268-3066
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~agroce

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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