A lot of the debate about salvation, justification, faith, and good works comes back to this question. Everyone knows that people have a sin problem, but how far down does it go? How badly has sin affected the human race? The traditional responses have been...
- Totally Messed Up - This was the view of Augustine contra Pelagius. Pelagius taught that sin was not an inherited condition of mankind, but a personal choice. Everyone was born neutral with the freedom to choose either good or evil. Everyone had the natural, God-given ability to be good. Therefore, salvation came as a result of our own efforts to be good. Contrary to this, Augustine taught that sin has totally messed people up and apart from God's grace there is no hope for salvation. Calvin followed Augustine and taught that God must regenerate a person in order for them to respond to him.
- Partly Messed Up - The Old Catholic church initially adopted Augustine's view but later drifted into a form of semi-Pelagianism. The Roman Catholic church's position today is that sin has sort of messed up people, but not completely. All people have the ability to respond to God and so salvation is a result of God's grace, but also man's spontaneous response. God and man work together for a person to be saved. This also has become the Arminian view.
- Not Messed Up - This is the view of Pelagius (as described above) and many liberal Christians today. There is no original sin and sin is not an inherited condition. It's perfectly normal for humans to be imperfect and God does not expect perfection from us (liberal Christianity). OR God does demand that we be good and we do have this power within us. Therefore we are saved through tapping into our own inner goodness and being the people we know we can be (Pelagius and also some liberals).