There is a fine line between humility and humiliation, and when Augustines critics, both loyal and disloyal, fault him for morbid self-criticism, they generally mean to imply that he has crossed the line. You can have a relationship with another person only if you know something of humility; otherwise your ego gets in the way. If, however, you are humiliated instead of humbled, there is no you to enter into a relationship. Massilians and Pelagians had differing understandings of when humility before God became too much of a good thing, but they had common cause in not liking Augustines scruples about the human will to relate to God. If everything about the souls relationship to God is Gods doing, including the very desire to be in relation, where exactly does the soul surface in its redemption? The Word seems to have become a monologue.
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