Can Grace be Rejected?

"For since, in the wisdom of God, the world 
through wisdom did not know God, it pleased 
God through the foolishness of the message 
preached to save those who believe."

                                             1 Corinthians 1:21

Read: 1 corithians1:18-25

 The condemnation of Pelagius did not lead to 
universal acceptance of Augustine's ideas about original sin, free will, and grace. In North africa and then in France, a movement began that came to be known as Semi-Pelagianism Its most prominent was John Cassian, the abbot of a French monastery. His principal objection was to Augustine's doctrine predestination.

    Augustine said that human beings, dead in sin, cannot choose obedient to God unless and until God steps in to regenerate them, raising them From spiritual death and freeing them their evil desires. But Augustine believe that God bestows His grace selectively, that He does not act to save everyone but let some remain in sin. In other words, He gives grace to some and justice to others. Cassian and his followers, full of zeal to declare the universality of grace, took issue with that idea. They believed in a real Fall and held that all Adam's progeny are born incorruption with wills that are so weakened that no one can be redeemed apart from grace. And they must cooperate if they are to be saved. God offers His grace to all people who will have it, and they can accept or refuse it. The Semi-Pelagians were saying that natural man, though fallen, retains some small, core kernel of power to incline himself to respond to the offer of God's and cooperate with it.

    Augustine argued that if the Semi-Pelagians 
were right that God merely grace, no one would
be saved, for no fallen person has the ability to
accept offer. He declared, with scripture, that the liberation of fallen sinners is the work of God alone, not a cooperative venture of God and man. He said that God, before the foundation of the world, determined to save some people and did. If He had not done so, no one would be saved.

   Cassian, like Pelagius before him, was 
condemned as a heretic. But the ideas of both
men have endured and flourished. In the
contemporary culture, Pelagianism ( the Fall
made no change in man ) is the view of the 

secular culture and Semi-Pelagianism
(God offers grace that can be accepted or
refused ) is the dominant view in the church.

    Cassian said that Agustine's view of 
predestination destroyed the need for outreach. Not so, for God has commanded us to take the Gospel To all lands, and He is pleased to use the foolishness of human preaching In knowing that the efficacy of our outreach rests with Him.