146 THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 



No doubt it was reverence for Holy Scripture that 

 led St. Augustine to appropriate St. Paul's terminology 

 in technically defining the effect of Adam's fall upon 

 mankind; and the phrase ''original sin" derives its 

 theological currency from him. But in giving tech- 

 nical force to terms which St. Paul employed sym- 

 bolically and with untechnical freedom, St. Augustine 

 gave birth to one-sided views and to an interpretation 

 of St. Paul which has given an unfortunate twist to 

 much later theology. His one-sidedness was also due 

 to reaction from the Pelagian denial of inherited 

 spiritual incapacity and of our dependence for salvation 

 upon supernatural grace. This reaction led St. 

 Augustine to deduce from the occasional references 

 of Holy Scripture to the mystery of divine predestina- 

 tion and election a very definite doctrine of absolute 

 predestination and irresistible grace. This doctrine 

 isolates, exaggerates, and caricatures the biblical teach- 

 ing upon which it is based, and nullifies the Scriptural 

 counter-truths of human freedom and personal respon- 

 sibility.^ St. Augustine himself and his catholic suc- 

 cessors were prevented from drifting into positive 

 heresy by their docile attitude towards the Church 

 and by their belief in the catholic doctrine of sacra- 

 mental grace. But the sixteenth-century protestants 

 and reformers, who broke away from the Church and 

 abandoned her sacramental doctrine, pressed the logic 



1 Cf. J. B. Mozley, Predestination, chh. v-viii. The results of 

 St. Augustine's influence upon scholastic theology are exhibited by 

 the same writer, chh. ix, x. 



