Regeneration is solely the work of God's grace in your soul, by the divine initiative,

and you're being rescued from the kingdom of darkness and from the state of the flesh,

is by God's grace and by God's grace alone.

You heard the gospel, and your friend heard the gospel.

Why did you become a believer and your friend did not?

This is the Saturday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

I'm glad you're with us today.

We're in a series by R.C. Sproll, and we're considering

the five solas of the Reformation. And today, he considers Sola Gratia, Grace Alone.

We're going to continue with our series of study on the five solas of the Protestant Reformation. And closely related

to the doctrine of Sola Fide is the doctrine of Sola Grazie, which means literally by grace alone.

Now in the Middle Ages in the Roman Catholic Church, of course the leading theologian was St. Thomas Aquinas,

and the church since that time has referred to Thomas as the angelic doctor, the Dr. Angelicus, the doctor of the angels. They have another

nickname for the great St. Augustine who ministered at the end of the fourth century and into the

beginning of the fifth century, and Augustine's nickname is Dr. Grazie.

That is, he's known as the Doctor of Grace in church history

because he is the one who first formulated this idea of Sola Grazia.

And so we look back to Augustine in the controversies in which he was involved to get a source

of understanding of this idea of Sola Grazia.

Let's look first at the historical provocation that led to this phrase in the teaching of Augustine.

And it came about in the so-called Pelagian controversy that took place roughly around the turn of the century from the 4th to the 5th centuries.

And it began when Pelagius was a British monk who came to Rome to visit Rome and heard of the reputation of the

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