The deepest cleft which separates men calling themselves Christians in the conception of the plan of salvation, is that which divides what we may call the Naturalistic and the Supernaturalistic views. The line of division here is whether, in the matter of the salvation of man, God has planned simply to leave men, with more or less completeness, to save themselves, or whether he has planned Himslef to interven to save them. The issue between the naturalist and supernaturalist is thus the eminently simple one: Does man save himself or does God save him?
The consistently naturalistic scheme is known in the history of doctrine as Pelagianism. Pelagianism in its purity, affirms that all the powers exerted in saving man is native to man himself. But Pelagianism is not merely matter of history, nor does it always exist in its purity. As the poor in earthly goods are always with us, so the poor in spiritual things are also always with us. It may indeed be thought that there never was a period in the history of the Church in which naturalistic conceptions of the process of salvation were more wide-spread or more radical than at present. A Pelagianism which out-pelagianizes Pelagius himself in the completeness of its naturalism is in sact at the moment intensely fashionable among the slef-constituted leaders of Christian thought. And everywhere, in all communions alike, conceptions are current which assign to man, in the use of his native powers, at least the decisive activity in the saving of the soul, that is to say, which suppose that God has planned that those shall be saved, who, at the decisive point, in one way or another save themselves.
Notable Quote, B.B. Warfield, The Plan of Salvation, pg 15-16
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