At first I thought Pelagius held a more humane view of humanity than Augustine did, even though he was a heretic... after all, he said people were not inherently sinful but good by nature. I thought I would prefer a philosophy that took such a positive stance. Also, people are influenced by self-fulfilling prophecies. If nobody believes you are capable, then it's hard to rise above the predictions.
But after the discussion and thinking about it, that line of reasons places sole responsibility for our mistakes on us, no excuses and there is no real grace. In the end, I see it is gentler to think there are mitigating circumstances that result in us getting off the straight and narrow. If perfection were possible, then we should take ourselves and others to task for every little mistake and foible. After a single day of messing up, it would be hard to keep up our morale since by rights we should have preformed in a better, wiser, smarter, kinder etc. manner. Eventually we would quit trying what we were not naturally gifted at since out of our comfort zones we would be bound to make mistakes. These mistakes would snowball in magnitude because as R. Neibuhr observed, when we don't live up to our own lofty expectations, it results in sin.
I guess, I appreciate it when the reality of a difficult situation is acknowledged, but another person remains optimistic and encouraging:
Sometimes I get annoyed when people make a blanket statement like Greek or whatever, shouldn't be so hard for me... that I have an edge. Saying this makes me feel stupider since they are not acknowledging my reality. If I am struggling, spending untold hours on something that everyone else thinks ought to be a piece of cake for me, then what choice do I have other than think I am brain dead or defective? If something is hard and I find it hard, then it's par for the course, but if it is supposed to be easy and it isn't, the logical conclusion is something is wrong with me.
On the other hand, I wouldn't want people saying, "Poor Cindy, she'll never, ever make it." I might work hard to prove them wrong, but their lack of confidence in me would hurt too.
This is all my long way of saying, I'm glad Augustine comes out saying the scales are tilted in favor of us botching life, so relax and depend on Grace; yet a pinch of Pelagius' attitude that we can and should suceed, might not hurt. Hummmmm, maybe grades would be an appropriate illustration. I always strive for an "A" in every subject- maybe I will get one, or maybe I won't, the thing is, if I don't try for the loftiest goal, I might not even pass a course. An Augustine-like voice might say, relax, STM is so hard, you won't get all A's- that would take the pressure off, but the danger is you could relax too much. Then a Pelagius sort might say, better get all A's or else, which would be unrealistic and stressful.