Pelagius’s teaching was condemned by the great council of Ephesus in 431. He had failed to grasp sin’s great distorting effect and how turning toward God without his grace was impossible. Yet over the next century the church expressed independence from Augustine’s ideas of irresistible grace and predestination. Some critics argued that Augustine had broken the longstanding practice of embracing human freedom. Vincent of Lerins complained of this innovation when he wrote that a Christian should believe what has been believed “always, everywhere, and by all.
