Augustinianism#Theodicy and Free will

{{Catholic philosophy}}

"Augustine considered the human race as a compact mass, a collective body, responsible in its unity and solidarity. Carrying out his system in all its logical consequences, he laid down the following rigid proposition as his doctrine: 'As all men have sinned in Adam; they are subject to the condemnation of God on account of this hereditary sin and the guilt thereof'"Smith's Hagenbach, History of Doctrines, 1, 299Wiggers Augustinisnm and Pelagianism, p. 268

According to Augustine, even the world and corporeal entities, being fruits of divine love, have their value and meaning, while the some Platonists tended instead to devalue them.Tina Manferdini, Comunicazione ed estetica in Sant'Agostino, p. 249, Bologna, ESD, 1995 This attempt to place history and earthly existence within a heavenly perspective, where even evil finds explanation in some way, always remained at the center of its philosophical concerns.

These are the most important values for an Augustinian.{{cite news|publisher=www.merrimack.edu |title=Augustinian Values |author=Fr. Alberto Esmeralda, OSA |url=http://www.merrimack.edu/uploads/Dean_of_the_College/files/esmeralda.pdf |access-date=23 November 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901144844/http://www.merrimack.edu/uploads/Dean_of_the_College/files/esmeralda.pdf |archive-date=1 September 2006 }}

1. Love
2. Interiority
3. Humility
4. Devotion to Study and the pursuit of Wisdom
5. Freedom
6. Community
7. Common good
8. Humble and generous service
9. Friendship
10. Prayer

{{Main|Divine command theory}}

Augustine offered the Divine command theory, a theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.{{cite book | title=Divine Commands and Morality | publisher=Oxford University Press | year=1981 | author=Helm, Paul | isbn=0-19-875049-8}}{{cite book | title=Platonistic And Disenchanting Theories of Ethics | publisher=Peter Lang | year=2007 | author=Chandler, Hugh | isbn=978-0-8204-8858-5}} Augustine's theory began by casting ethics as the pursuit of the supreme good, which delivers human happiness, Augustine argued that to achieve this happiness, humans must love objects that are worthy of human love in the correct manner; this requires humans to love God, which then allows them to correctly love that which is worthy of being loved. Augustine's ethics proposed that the act of loving God enables humans to properly orient their loves, leading to human happiness and fulfilment.{{cite web | url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/divine-c/#H2 | title=Divine Command Theory | publisher=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy | date=21 August 2006 | access-date=15 August 2012 | author=Austin, Michael W.}}

The Just war theory is a doctrine that ensure war is morally justifiable through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. In Romans 13:4 Augustine claims that, while individuals should not resort immediately to violence, God has given the sword to government for good reason. Augustine argues that Christians, as part of a government, need not be ashamed of protecting peace and punishing wickedness when forced to do so by a government. Augustine asserted that this was a personal, philosophical stance: "What is here required is not a bodily action, but an inward disposition. The sacred seat of virtue is the heart."{{cite web|url=http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2001/septemberweb-only/9-17-55.0.html|title=A Time For War?|author=Robert L. Holmes|work=ChristianityToday.com|date=September 2001 |access-date=25 April 2015}}Contra Faustum Manichaeum book 22 sections 69–76

Augustine's ethics is that of ancient eudaimonism,Holte 1962 but he defers happiness to the afterlife and blames the ancient ethicists saying that their arrogant conviction resulting from their ignorance of the fallen condition of humanity that they could reach happiness in this life by philosophical endeavor,De civitate dei 19.4Wolterstorff 2012 Augustine takes it as axiomatic that happiness is the ultimate goal pursued by all human beings.De beata vita 10De civitate dei 10.1De trinitate 13.7 For Augustine Happiness or the good life is brought about by the possession of the greatest good in nature that humans can attain and that one cannot lose against one's will.

{{Main|Divine illumination}}

Augustine emphasised the role of divine illumination in our thought, saying that "The mind needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth. You will light my lamp, Lord,"Confessions IV.xv.25

For Augustine, God does not give us certain information, but rather gives us insight into the truth of the information we received for ourselves.

:If we both see that what you say is true, and we both see that what I say is true, then where do we see that? Not I in you, nor you in me, but both of us in that unalterable truth that is above our minds.Confessions XII.xxv.35

Thomas Aquinas criticizes the divine illumination, denying that in this life we have divine ideas as an object of thought, and that divine illumination is sufficient on its own, without the senses. Aquinas also denied that there is a special continuing divine influence on human thought. People have sufficient capacity for thought on their own, without needing "new illumination added onto their natural illumination".Summa theologiae 1a2ae 109.1c

{{See also|Mind–body dualism}}

Saint Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with very clear anthropological vision. Augustine saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body.Cf. A. Gianni, pp.148–149 He was much closer in this anthropological view to Aristotle than to Plato.Hendrics, E., p. 291.Massuti, E., p.98. In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead sec. 5 (420 AD) he insisted that the body pertains to the essence of the human person:

{{quotation|In no wise are the bodies themselves to be spurned. (...) For these pertain not to ornament or aid which is applied from without, but to the very nature of man.De cura pro mortuis gerenda CSEL 41, 627[13–22]; PL 40, 595: Nullo modo ipsa spernenda sunt corpora. (...)Haec enim non-ad ornamentum vel adiutorium, quod adhibetur extrinsecus, sed ad ipsam naturam hominis pertinent; Contra Faustum, 22.27; PL 44,418.}}

Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua – your body is your wife.Augustine of Hippo, Enarrationes in psalmos, 143, 6.CCL 40, 2077 [46] – 2078 [74]; 46, 234–35.Augustine of Hippo, De utilitate ieiunii, 4, 4–5. According to N. Blasquez, Saint Augustine's dualism of substances of the body and soul doesn't stop him from seeing the unity of body and soul as a substance itself.El concepto del substantia segun san Agustin, pp. 305–350. Following ancient philosophers he defined man as a rational mortal animal – animal rationale mortale.De ordine, II, 11.31; CCL 29, 124 [18]; PL 32,1009; De quantitate animae, 25,4ХнНЧ

7–49; CSEL 89, 190–194; PL 32, 1062–1063Cf. Ch. Couturier SJ, p. 543

{{Main|Original sin}}

File:Michelangelo, Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden 00.jpg's painting of the sin of Adam and Eve from the Sistine Chapel ceiling]]

Augustine wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it.{{cite book

|editor1-last=Cross|editor1-first=Frank Leslie|editor1-link=Frank Leslie Cross|editor2-last=Livingstone|editor2-first=Elizabeth A.|title=The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church|chapter=Original sin|year=2005|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-280290-3|edition=3rd rev.}} For Augustine, Adam's sinAugustine taught that Adam's sin was both an act of foolishness (insipientia) and of pride and disobedience to God of Adam and Eve. He thought it was a most subtle job to discern what came first: self-centeredness or failure in seeing truth. Augustine wrote to Julian of Eclanum: Sed si disputatione subtilissima et elimatissima opus est, ut sciamus utrum primos homines insipientia superbos, an insipientes superbia fecerit (Contra Julianum, V, 4.18; PL 44, 795). This particular sin would not have taken place if Satan had not sown into their senses "the root of evil" (radix Mali): Nisi radicem mali humanus tunc reciperet sensus (Contra Julianum, I, 9.42; PL 44, 670) is transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire",[http://www.talentshare.org/~mm9n/articles/sindeath/3.htm "Original Sin"]. Biblical Apologetic Studies. Retrieved 17 May 2014. Augustine of Hippo (354–430) taught that Adam's sin is transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire", sexual desire and all sensual feelings resulting in humanity becoming a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will.William Nicholson. [https://books.google.com/books?id=MeOx95oNQ9YC&dq=concupiscence%2C+or+%22hurtful+desire%22&pg=PA118 A Plain But Full Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England], page 118. Retrieved 17 May 2014. resulting in humanity becoming a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will. When Adam sinned, human nature was thenceforth transformed. Adam and Eve, via sexual reproduction, recreated human nature. Their descendants now live in sin, in the form of concupiscence, a term Augustine used in a metaphysical, not a psychological sense.Thomas Aquinas explained Augustine's doctrine pointing out that the libido (concupiscence), which makes the original sin pass from parents to children, is not a libido actualis, i.e. sexual lust, but libido habitualis, i.e. a wound of the whole of human nature: Libido quae transmittit peccatum originale in prolem, non est libido actualis, quia dato quod virtute divina concederetur alicui quod nullam inordinatam libidinem in actu generationis sentiret, adhuc transmitteret in prolem originale peccatum. Sed libido illa est intelligenda habitualiter, secundum quod appetitus sensitivus non continetur sub ratione vinculo originalis iustitiae. Et talis libido in omnibus est aequalis (STh Iª–IIae q. 82 a. 4 ad 3). Augustine insisted that concupiscence was not a being but a bad quality, the privation of good or a wound.Non substantialiter manere concupiscentiam, sicut corpus aliquod aut spiritum; sed esse affectionem quamdam malae qualitatis, sicut est languor. (De nuptiis et concupiscentia, I, 25. 28; PL 44, 430; cf. Contra Julianum, VI, 18.53; PL 44, 854; ibid. VI, 19.58; PL 44, 857; ibid., II, 10.33; PL 44, 697; Contra Secundinum Manichaeum, 15; PL 42, 590. He admitted that sexual concupiscence (libido) might have been present in the perfect human nature in paradise, and that only later it became disobedient to human will as a result of the first couple's disobedience to God's will in the* original sin.Augustine wrote to Julian of Eclanum: Quis enim negat futurum fuisse concubitum, etiamsi peccatum non-praecessisset? Sed futur-us fuerat, sicut aliis membris, ita etiam genitalibus voluntate motis, non-libidine concitatis; aut certe etiam ipsa libidine – ut non-vos de illa nimium contristemus – non-qualis nunc est, sed ad nutum voluntarium serviente (Contra Julianum, IV. 11. 57; PL 44, 766). See also his late work: Contra secundam Iuliani responsionem imperfectum opus, II, 42; PL 45,1160; ibid. II, 45; PL 45,1161; ibid., VI, 22; PL 45, 1550–1551. Cf.{{cite book|title=Le mariage chrétien dans l'oeuvre de Saint Augustin. Une théologie baptismale de la vie conjugale|last=Schmitt|first=É.|year=1983|series =Études Augustiniennes| location=Paris|page=104}} In Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam which all humans inherit. Justo Gonzalez interprets Augustine's teaching that humans are utterly depraved in nature and grace is irresistible, results in conversion, and leads to perseverance.{{cite book|author=Justo L. Gonzalez|title=A History of Christian Thought: Volume 2 (From Augustine to the eve of the Reformation)|publisher=Abingdon Press|date=1970–1975}}

Augustine's understanding of the consequences of original sin and the necessity of redeeming grace was developed in the struggle against Pelagius and his Pelagian disciples, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum, who had been inspired by Rufinus of Syria, a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia.Marius Mercator Lib. subnot.in verb. Iul. Praef.,2,3; PL 48,111 /v.5-13/; {{cite book |last= Bonner |first= Gerald |chapter= Rufinus of Syria and African Pelagianism |title= God's Decree and Man's Destiny |location= London |year= 1987 |pages= 31–47 |isbn= 978-0-86078-203-2 |publisher= Variorum Reprints}} They refused to agree that original sin wounded human will and mind, insisting that human nature was given the power to act, to speak, and to think when God created it. Human nature cannot lose its moral capacity for doing good, but a person is free to act or not to act in a righteous way. Pelagius gave an example of eyes: they have capacity for seeing, but a person can make either good or bad use of it.Augustine of Hippo, [http://www.augustinus.it/latino/grazia_cristo/grazia_cristo_1_libro.htm De gratia Christi et de peccato originali], I, 15.16; CSEL 42, 138 [v. 24–29]; Ibid., I,4.5; CSEL 42, 128 [v.15–23].

The Catholic Church accepts the doctrine of original sin as Augustine taught.[https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/Original-Sin Original sin]

{{Augustine}}{{Main|Augustinian soteriology}}For Augustine God orders all things while preserving human freedom.{{cite book |last=Levering |first=Matthew |title=Predestination: Biblical and Theological Paths |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-960452-4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cLBS6Dl1OYgC }} Prior to 396, Augustine believed that predestination was based on God's foreknowledge of whether individuals would believe, that God's grace was "a reward for human assent". Later, in response to Pelagius, Augustine said that the sin of pride consists in assuming that "we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us (in his foreknowledge) because of something worthy in us", and argued that it is God's grace that causes the individual act of faith.

Some Catholics dispute that Augustine believed predestination in the latter way, and claim that Augustine affirmed free will in the choice of being saved or not.[https://www.catholic.com/qa/augustine-had-it-right-calvin-did-not Augustine Had It Right; Calvin Did Not]

{{Main|Augustinian theodicy}}

The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evil The Problem of Evil]", Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "[https://www.iep.utm.edu/e/evil-evi.htm The Evidential Problem of Evil]", Nick Trakakis

Augustine develops key ideas regarding his response to suffering. In Confessions, Augustine wrote that his previous work was dominated by materialism and that reading the works of Plato enabled him to consider the existence of a non-physical substance. This helped him develop a response to the problem of evil from a theological (and non-Manichean) perspective,

Augustine rejected the notion that evil exists in itself, proposing instead that it is a privation of (or falling away from) good, and a corruption of nature.Menn 2002, p. 170 He wrote that "evil has no positive nature; but the loss of good has received the name 'evil.'"The City of God, Augustine of Hippo, Book XI, Chapter 9 Both moral and natural evil occurs, Augustine argued, owing to an evil use of free will,Bennett, Peters, Hewlett & Russell 2008, p. 126 which could be traced back to the original sin of Adam and Eve.Svendsen & Pierce 2010, p. 49 He believed that this evil will, present in the human soul, was a corruption of the will given to humans by God, making suffering a just punishment for the sin of humans.Menn 2002, p. 174 Because Augustine believed that all of humanity was "seminally present in the loins of Adam", he argued that all of humanity inherited Adam's sin and his just punishment.Bennett, Peters, Hewlett & Russell 2008, p. 127 However, in spite of his belief that free will can be turned to evil, Augustine maintained that it is vital for humans to have free will, because they could not live well without it. He argued that evil could come from humans because, although humans contained no evil, they were also not perfectly good and hence could be corrupted.Menn 2002, p. 176

{{#section-h:Pelagianism|Pelagianism and Augustinianism}}

• Fulgentius of Ruspe
• Fulgentius Ferrandus
• Possidius
• Marius Mercator
• Orosius
• Cassiodorus
• Caesarius of Arles
• Arnobius the Younger
• Boethius
• Isidore of Seville
• Antoine Arnauld
• Blaise Pascal
• Nicolas Malebranche
• Anselm of Canterbury
• Giles of Rome
• Gregory of Rimini
• John Scotus Eriugena
• Bonaventure
• Bruno of Cologne
• John Henry NewmanJohn Henry Newman: Reason, Rhetoric, and Romanticism [https://books.google.com/books?id=gdt0pIjDDFwC&dq=John+Henry+Newman+Augustinianism&pg=PA167 pg. 167]
• Pope Benedict XVI[https://www.beesondivinity.com/articles/benedict-xvi-the-great-augustinian Benedict XVI, The Great Augustinian]
• René Descartes{{cite book|last=Gutting|first=Gary|title=Pragmatic Liberalism and the Critique of Modernity|date=13 February 1999|publisher=Cambridge University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/pragmaticliberal0000gutt/page/116 116]|quote=Modernity begins with Descartes' mutation of Augustinianism. Taylor emphasizes that "Descartes is in many ways profoundly Augustinian".|isbn=978-0-521-64973-5|url=https://archive.org/details/pragmaticliberal0000gutt/page/116}}

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• Ambrose
• Amillennialism
• Augustinian soteriology
• Augustinian hypothesis
• Filioque
• Scotism
• Scholasticism
• Christian humanism
• Latin theology
• Neoplatonism and Christianity
• Western Christianity

}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}}

• {{cite book |last1=Bonner |first1=Ali |title=The Myth of Pelagianism |date=2018 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-726639-7 |language=en|series= British Academy Monograph}}
• {{cite book |last1=Chadwick |first1=Henry|author-link=Henry Chadwick (theologian) |title=Augustine: A Very Short Introduction |date=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-285452-0 |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Dodaro |first1=Robert |author-link1=Robert J. Dodaro |title=Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine |date=2004 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-1-139-45651-7 |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Elliott |first1=Mark W. |author-link1=Mark W. Elliott |editor1-last=McFarland |editor1-first=Ian A. |editor2-last=Fergusson |editor2-first=David A. S. |editor3-last=Kilby |editor3-first=Karen |editor4-last=Torrance |editor4-first=Iain R. |title=The Cambridge Dictionary of Christian Theology |date=2011 |isbn=978-0-511-78128-5 |pages=377–378 |language=en |chapter=Pelagianism}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Harrison |first1=Carol|author-link=Carol Harrison (theologian) |title=Truth in a Heresy? |journal=The Expository Times |date=2016 |volume=112 |issue=3 |pages=78–82 |doi=10.1177/001452460011200302|s2cid=170152314}}
• {{cite book |last=James |first=Frank A. III |year=1998 |title=Peter Martyr Vermigli and Predestination: The Augustinian Inheritance of an Italian Reformer |publisher=Clarendon |location=Oxford |url=https://www.questia.com/library/1833170/peter-martyr-vermigli-and-predestination-the-augustinian |access-date=14 December 2015 |archive-date=22 December 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222113343/https://www.questia.com/library/1833170/peter-martyr-vermigli-and-predestination-the-augustinian }}
• {{cite book |last1=Keech |first1=Dominic |title=The Anti-Pelagian Christology of Augustine of Hippo, 396-430 |date=2012 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford |isbn=978-0-19-966223-4 |language=en}}
• {{cite encyclopedia|last=Kirwan|first= Christopher |title=Pelagianism |publisher=Taylor & Francis|encyclopedia=Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy |language=en|doi=10.4324/9780415249126-K064-1 |date=1998|isbn= 978-0-415-25069-6 }}
• {{cite book |last1=Nelson |first1=Eric|author-link=Eric M. Nelson |title=The Theology of Liberalism: Political Philosophy and the Justice of God |date=2019 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-674-24094-0 |url=https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/john-rawls-justice-jewish-heresy |language=en}}
• {{cite book |last1=Puchniak |first1=Robert |editor1-last=Stewart |editor1-first=Jon Bartley |editor1-link=Jon Stewart (philosopher) |title=Kierkegaard and the Patristic and Medieval Traditions |date=2008 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-0-7546-6391-1 |language=en |chapter=Pelagius: Kierkegaard's use of Pelagius and Pelagianism}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Rackett |first1=Michael R. |title=What's Wrong with Pelagianism? |journal=Augustinian Studies |date=2002 |volume=33 |issue=2 |pages=223–237 |doi=10.5840/augstudies200233216}}
• {{cite book |last1=Scheck |first1=Thomas P. |editor1-last=Cartwright |editor1-first=Steven |title=A Companion to St. Paul in the Middle Ages |date=2012 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-23671-4 |pages=79–114 |language=en |chapter=Pelagius's Interpretation of Romans}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Squires |first1=Stuart |title=Jerome on Sinlessness: a Via Media between Augustine and Pelagius |journal=The Heythrop Journal |date=2016 |volume=57 |issue=4 |pages=697–709 |doi=10.1111/heyj.12063}}
• {{cite book|isbn=978-1-1391-7804-4|title=The Cambridge Companion to Augustine|date= 2001|editor1-first= Eleonore |editor1-last=Stump|editor2-first= Norman |editor2-last=Kretzmann|location= New York|publisher= Cambridge University Press|pages=124–147|last=Stump|first=Eleonore|chapter=Augustine on free will}}
• {{cite book |last1=Visotzky |first1=Burton L. |editor1-last=Grypeou |editor1-first=Emmanouela |editor2-last=Spurling |editor2-first=Helen |title=The Exegetical Encounter Between Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity |date=2009 |publisher=Brill |location=Leiden |isbn=978-90-04-17727-7 |pages=43–62 |language=en |chapter=Will and Grace: Aspects of Judaising in Pelagianism in Light of Rabbinic and Patristic Exegesis of Genesis}}
• {{cite book |editor1-last=Hwang |editor1-first=Alexander Y. |editor2-last=Matz |editor2-first=Brian J. |editor3-last=Casiday |editor3-first=Augustine |title=Grace for Grace: The Debates after Augustine and Pelagius |date=2014 |publisher=Catholic University of America Press|location=Washington, D.C. |isbn=978-0-8132-2601-9 |language=en|chapter=Introduction|last=Weaver|first=Rebecca|pages=xi–xxvi|author-link=Rebecca Weaver (theologian)}}
• {{cite book|isbn=978-1-1391-7804-4|title=The Cambridge Companion to Augustine|date= 2001|editor1-first= Eleonore |editor1-last=Stump|editor2-first= Norman |editor2-last=Kretzmann|location= New York|publisher= Cambridge University Press|chapter-url=https://www.academia.edu/859842|last=Wetzel|first=James|chapter=Predestination, Pelagianism, and foreknowledge|pages=49–58}}

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