February 9, 2025
Now we have covered quite a distance and time in our study of the heresies. We began all the way back in the 1st century and recently found ourselves in the 16th and 17th centuries with the heresies of Martin Luther and Henry VIII. If we remember from some of our previous articles, some heresies come about because of an unguided or unbridled attempt to fight against another heresy – for example as the heresy of Monophysitism was an attempt to combat the heresy of Nestorianism, which ended up going to far. While we keep in mind the historical context of the 17th century, all the upheaval present in theology and society as a result of those heresies, there is an active attempt in the Church to “right the ship” and present the actual teaching of Christ and the Church Tradition. That was the main reason for the founding of the Jesuits by St. Ignatius of Loyola – to combat the protestant heresy and present the true teachings of the Church.
As many of the earlier heresies were dealing with Christ or the Trinity, a consequence of Martin Luther’s rebellion is that the sights are now set on what the proper understanding and teaching about grace is. The Church continues to emphasize the idea of grace as that free gift of God, she also points to the constant fact and necessity of the use of my free will in the reception of and growth in grace. That is where Luther and his followers went off the deep end in that they discounted and completely devalued the aspect of man’s free will in the order of grace. One of the heresies that comes about as a consequence of Luther is Jansenism.
The Dutch bishop of Ypres, Cornelius Jansen, is where it takes its name and official beginning. He had authored a series of books on the Pelagian and semi-Pelagian heresies and the doctrine of grace of St. Augustine and the last volume was published shortly before his death.
The irony is that he himself was very orthodox in his beliefs and the heresy which came to bear his name and use his book as its basis began after he had already died. The heresy was begun by a friend of Jansen, Abbot Jean du Vergier de Hauranne of SaintCyran-en-Brenne Abbey in France.
The basis of this heresy was twofold:
1. To oppose the protestant doctrine that free will plays no part in the acceptance of and growth in grace; and
2. On the other hand it opposed the Jesuit idea – which was based in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas – that grace, while being a free gift of God requires the cooperation of the free will.
It took the doctrine of St. Augustine on concupiscence (the inclination of man to choose sin after the fall of Adam and Eve, a consequence of original sin) and the damage done to mans will by original sin and magnified it. St. Thomas obviously agreed with Augustine’s main points and understood this, but instead of totally despairing of the good man can accomplish through the use of the will as the Jansenists ended up doing, he understood that although the will is damaged by original sin and concupiscence, man can still cooperate with the grace of God and attempt to grow in that grace. The Jansenists taught that concupiscence now dominated the will and therefore the will would always be defeated by that inclination to sin and never be able to choose to accept God’s grace and that God does not offer grace to all but those whom he does, this grace basically forces itself into the life of the person over their fallen will without the assent of the free will.
We will look at this a little further next time.
God love you, Fr. Anthony
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