Irenaeus a Semi-Pelagian?

[CharlieJ]

OK, I realize that "semi-Pelagian" is anachronistic to use for a guy in the 2nd century, but I'm reading through Irenaeus' Against Heresies and I was surprised to see such a fully developed account of, well, not Augustinian teaching on the will. Is this commonplace in the pre-Augustinian Fathers?

And in that He saith, How often would I have gathered they children and thou wouldst not: He declared the ancient law of man’s liberty: how that God made him free form the beginning, having power of himself, as he had a soul of his own, to act upon God’s decree voluntarily, and not upon compulsion from God. For in God is no violence: but a good mind is always where He is. And therefore, while He gives good counsel to all, He hath set in man the power of choice, as also in the Angels (for the Angels have reason): so that on the one side they who have been obedient, may deservedly keep the good thing which they have, God’s gift, but preserved by themselves: but those who have not obeyed, will deservedly be found far from good, and will receive condign punishment: because that when God mercifully gave what was good, they did not diligently keep it, nor count it precious, but despised His excess of bounty…. If some are by nature born bad and others good, neither are these praised for being good, since they were framed such; nor the others blamed, being so born. But because they are all of the same nature, and able to retain and do what is God, and able on the contrary to reject it and do it not: justly even among men who are well governed, and much more with God, are the one praised, and meet witness borne unto them, of their general choice of what is good, and perseverance in it; the others blamed, and due punishment set upon them, for rejecting what is right and good. And therefore the Prophets (as we have shewn at large) used to exhort men to do righteously, and to fulfil what is good: as though that kind of thing were in our own power, and men’s great carelessness were the cause of their falling into forgetfulness, and being destitute of that sound judgment, which the good God by His Prophets hath enabled men to form.

And more explicitly:

And not in works only, but also in faith the Lord that kept man's choice free and independent: saying, According to thy faith be it unto thee: signifying that it is a man’s own faith, because he hath his own proper judgment. And again, All things are possible to him that believeth; and, Go, as thou hast believed, be it unto thee. And all such places shew that Man is in his own power concerning faith.

 

[AC.]

yes, from what I could tell..... practically all the church fathers prior to Augustine were free-willers

 

[MW]

William Cunningham (Historical Theology, 1:180, 181):

The substance of the matter is this: The apostolical fathers generally use the language of Scripture upon these subjects, while they scarcely make any statements which afford us materials for deciding in what precise sense they understood them. They leave the matter very much where Scripture leaves it, and where, but for the rise of errors needing to be contradicted and opposed, it might still have been left. He who sees Augustinian or Calvinistic doctrines clearly and explicitly taught in the Bible, will have no difficulty in seeing also plain traces of them at least in the works of the apostolic fathers; and he who can pervert the statements of Scripture into an anti-Calvinistic sense, may, by the same process, and with equal ease, distort the apostolic fathers.

We have already had occasion to notice that the point where erroneous and defective views upon the doctrines of grace seem to have first insinuated themselves, was in regard to the freedom of the human will, explained and applied in such a way as to lead ultimately at least to an obscuration, if not a denial, at once of the doctrine of the total depravity of man, and of the necessity of the special operation of the Holy Ghost, in order to the production in man’s character or life of anything spiritually good. There is some difficulty, as I have mentioned before, in understanding precisely what is the full bearing and import of many of the statements of the fathers of the second and third centuries upon this subject, because they occur commonly in the course of observations directed against the fate or stoical necessity which was very generally advocated by the Gnostic sects. This circumstance renders it very difficult to determine whether at first, at least, they really meant to ascribe to free will an [Greek] auteksousian, more than Calvinistic divines have generally conceded to it. But there can be no doubt that error steadily increased in this direction, and that many of them came to entertain views upon this subject plainly inconsistent with what the Scripture teaches as to the natural impotency of man, and the necessity of divine agency; and that, though never wholly abandoning the doctrine of original sin, they soon came to overlook two distinctions of fundamental importance on this subject – viz., first, the distinction between the power or ability of man in his fallen and in his unfallen condition; and, secondly, the distinction between man’s power or ability in matters external or merely moral, and in matters purely spiritual; that is, which have respect to real obedience to the law which God has imposed, and to the doing of those things which He requires, that we may escape His wrath and curse due to us for our sins. These two distinctions, I have said, are of fundamental importance. They were, however, generally overlooked by the early fathers. Augustine, of course, understood them, else he could never have rendered such important services as he did to the cause of sound doctrine. They were brought out fully and prominently by the reformers. They are distinctly set forth in the standards of our church; and I am persuaded that, where they are not distinctly admitted and fully applied, it is impossible to give a complete and accurate exposition of the system of Christian theology, as taught in the sacred Scriptures.