THEOLOGICAL CONCEPTS

Theological Concepts

Theological Concepts

Introduction

The paper discusses five theological concepts, their identification, integration and implications. It highlights the impact of each concept on personal leaning and the way it shapes up the religious and social faiths.

Augustine & Pelagius (Doctrinal Conflict)

Identification

From the textbook learning, it is found that the Augustine's' teaching on the grace and doctrinal conflict was considered a touchstone of orthodoxy within the western church. Erickson (1998) states that Pelagius was a British monk who journeyed Rome and read Augustine's confessions of sin. The doctrinal conflict is based on the theological system that included not only original sin but also a form of predestination. On the other hand, Augustine taught the doctrines of limited atonement and irresistible grace (Erickson, 1998). However according to the literature, Augustine's writings conflict with these doctrines. Within the Augustine's context, the theologian debated about the precise nature of God and participation of man in the salvation. The basic conflict in the doctrine of Augustine & Pelagius is that Pelagius in his commentary on the Thirteen Epistles of Saint Paul draws all the consequences of a coherent voluntarism by the notion that man sins for himself. God is juts and wants nothing unreasonable. No one else is punished on account of other's sins. Pelagius can be right about the pseudo concept of original sin. However Saint Augustine transmits this dogmatic mythology ion a way that Pelagius compete misunderstood. The textbooks and literature emphasized that perhaps Pelagius is right about the quarrel of mythology of original sin in spite of his academic mythology (Bramsted, Melhuish, 1978). The controversy between Pelagius and Augustine began when the British monk Pelagius raised opposition to the prayer of Augustine “Give us what you have orders and order what you want' Pelagius rejected this concept that a divine gift is necessary to carry out God's commands. Pelagius and his followers focused on the fact that responsibility always involves skills, if a man has a moral responsibility he needs to obey the law of God.

Integration

Often I see that the controversy of Augustine and Pelagius as an irrevocable aspect. My personal learning about the inter generational sin is that it is social rather than metaphysical in nature. In other words, the sins of the father can result in children and grand children. For instance the families with a long history of alcoholism have to contend with this view. Therefore, the Pelagius and Augustine's doctrinal conflict need to be reconsidered and questioned. However if one takes the historical interpretation of the Psalm, David's voice is wracked with feelings of guilt and shame after accepting the death of Uriah. He felt like he was conceived in sin. This verse can be taken as a poetic lamentation of a guilt ridden mind and not a statement of metaphysical truth (Erickson, 1998). This tendency to define original sin as lust emanating from the pagan concept of the material creation is evil.It reflects the dualistic philosophy that had been part of pre-Christian history of ...