Listening for the Goodness

A historical review has revealed that the Christian faith had been introduced to the Celtic people as early as the third century. But it was not until the fourth century that a distinctive Celtic spirituality emerged. One of the first prominent Celtic theologians was a man named Pelagius. Those opposed to Pelagius believed that he was teaching that people were capable of saving themselves and not on the redeeming grace of God. While much of the writings of Pelagius have not survived, most of his teaching has been filtered through the eyes of his  greatest critics -  Augustine of Hippo and Jerome.

As I mentioned last week, Pelagius grew up in a different world from Augustine or Jerome. The missionaries who worked among the Celts in northern Britain had chosen to follow the Gospel of John and its emphasis on listening for the heartbeat of God.  This emphasis resonated with the people whose ancient spirituality found a natural connection to the teaching of the missionaries.  The people embraced this new faith and found in it a deeper meaning – something that they had been seeking for. But the approach taken by these missionaries did not sit well with people like Augustine who believed that these missionaries were wrong in their theological outlook as it did not align with the accepted doctrinal positions adopted by the church in Rome.

It is interesting to note that the manner in which those missionaries worked among the Celts was copied in later centuries by those who first worked among the indigenous peoples of Canada and in parts of the Caribbean and Africa.  Rather than denying any spirituality in the people they encountered, they chose to reveal to them the fulness of the God they had already come to know.

One of the major criticisms of Pelagius was his lack of emphasis on the church in its structures and hierarchy.  With the emphasis on listening for the heartbeat of God and finding God in all creation, Pelagius believed that each person was responsible for their spiritual growth.   It is interesting that the modern church has rediscovered the need for people to truly grow spiritually. Many books on spirituality and prayer talk of finding a spiritual director to aid the believer.  Pelagius called this person an anamchara or soul friend who  did not have to be a priest or religious leader. The anamchara or soul friend needed to be someone to whom you could open your inner self, ‘hiding nothing’, he says, ‘revealing everything’ in order to know and further explore what is in one’s own heart.  If you are to listen for the heartbeat of God, you needed to be able to hear your own heartbeat. The emphasis of Pelagius was not in building empire but building community.

Another mark of the Celtic spirituality which Pelagius emphasized was a strong sense of the goodness of creation in which the life of God can be glimpsed.  He believed that there is a thin veil that separates heaven from earth and that narrow shafts of divine light pierce this veil.  While he would have looked to that time of the coming of a new heaven and a new earth, he recognized that we live with the reality of this earth and this heaven. And so we are to seek for the presence and spirit of God in everything that is part of this creation – the creation of God.   Pelagius’ understanding was that all creation was given life by God and so the spirit of God dwelt within God’s creation. And God saw that what was created was good and beautiful. Pelagius believed that if God saw all of creation as good then we should see the world as God created it – its beauty and its goodness

Because Pelagius saw God as present within all that has life, he understood Jesus’ command to love our neighbour to mean not only humanity but all life.   Believers were encouraged to love all people, friends and enemies alike, and do good in return for evil. For Pelagius, Jesus was the embodiment of all wisdom and humility and was the perfection of the wisdom by which we are to be guided in life. He truly believed that the ways and wisdom of God needed to be written on the heart.  People needed to live the life God intended not by rules as much as by heart.

Doctrines help to explain mysteries, and commandments and rules seek to guide, but it is how we respond with our heart and what actions we take that truly matter. For Pelagius, to simply believe in God as revealed by Christ was no sign of true faith or spiritual growth; it was how that belief translated into a life that sought to follow the example of Christ. He was not suggesting that people did not need to believe in Jesus or his atoning sacrifice but rather he was encouraging them to go beyond simple belief or doctrine to embrace the message of Christ and to grow in likeness to him. Never did he believe that believers could become perfect in this life, but he did believe that they needed to strive to that perfection. To restrain from doing wrong deeds was of little good if people were not prepared to also do good deeds.

Pelagius also firmly held that every child was conceived and born with the image of God.  He believed that in the newborn was the original, unsullied goodness of creation and humanity’s essential blessedness. In the birth of a child God was giving birth to his image on earth. For him the image and goodness of God was at the heart of every human.  But while he appeared to deny the position of the church with regard to original sin, he did not deny the presence of sin but chose to see it as that which has obscured or covered the very goodness with which we were created.  The image of God is at the heart of every person waiting to be uncovered. Our redemption in Christ becomes for us a setting free, a releasing of what we essentially are. What Pelagius emphasized and sought for people to come to appreciate was the dignity of our human nature.  He believed that our creation was not a mistake and that created in the image of God meant that there is an essential goodness within us. He believed that our deepest desire is for God even though other desires obscure our true heart. He never claimed that we could not sin but he strongly believed that we were created in goodness. We have exercised the freedom given by God and we can use that freedom to seek for God’s redemption of our inner selves by receiving the gracious gift of forgiveness and choosing the path of true life in Christ. Evil is a fog that blinds us to our true selves but God’s grace is the strength that lets us break through our blindness and receive the salvation promised through Christ.

Pelagius also puzzled over something else. When we meet good, kind and just people outside the church, where do these qualities come from? For Pelagius this was a sign that the  essential nature of humanity is good and   a gift of God.  Pelagius saw the Church as an integral part of the wider world that has been given the key to unlock the essential nature of all creation.   The question for Pelagius was not how we institutionalize this goodness but rather how do we help others outside the Church to discover that essential goodness within them.

1. Philip Newell, the author whose work is the basis for this series poses some questions for us to ponder:

If we believe that at birth we lack the image of God and are essentially sinful, what are the implications for our spirituality? Does it mean that there is no vital connection between true spirituality and the sort of purity, simplicity, innocence and goodness of an infant?

If we deny that God is at the very heart of life, are we essentially without God, without original goodness in our mothers’ wombs, so that our spirituality does not grow out of what God has planted within us? Is spirituality alien to our original nature, or does grace nurture our innate goodness? What about our relationship with the rest of humanity? If we regard others as lacking essential goodness because they are outside the Church’s sacramental ministry, does that mean that our spirituality has nothing to learn from other faiths and from the virtues that, as Pelagius reminds us, can be observed in our neighbours, many of whom are not members of the Christian church? (Listening for the Heartbeat of God, pp. 21-22)

We do not know how Pelagius responded to his harsh treatment at the hands of the institutional church but we do know how he chose to live his life and express his faith. He wrote: ‘Wisdom consists in listening to the commandments of God, and obeying them. A person who has heard that God commands people to be generous, and then shares what he has with the poor, is truly wise. A person who has heard that God commands people to forgive…. and then reaches out in love to his persecutors, is truly wise’ (Carmina Gadelica III, p. 207)

Next Week: Listening within Creation