"The Pelagians, at least as Augustine saw them, had a bad theory of change. and they had a deficient view of divine grace. They thought that God worked in Christians through two means. First, He created them with a powerful capacity for moral willing. Such it to be a good person, the main thing you had to do was to deploy this capacity for willing in the right direction. Second, they held that God had given Christians a blueprint for His vision of human life through the Bible, through His laws. So they would know what it is He wants them to do. and what he wants them to use their will for. The theory of change then was to read the Bible and then try very hard to do what it says. "