DCT: Augustine and Human Nature

Influence on Augustine: Manichaeism

• suffering caused by lower power, not higher (Satan)

• 2 souls: higher desires God, lower desires evil

• Physical world a battle between Light and Darkness

• The soul is Light, trapped in a material body- must be liberated but lower soul craves material pleasures- resist through prayer + abstinence

• Influenced views on concupsicence + lust

Platonism (differed from Plato but admirers)

• some human minds could contemplate God- ascend from material existence- the material world leads to evil and suffering

• Truth/wisdom/happiness achieved when soul separates from material influence

• Further concupiscence- ideas on the body and innate imperfection which contrasts our Will

Augustine vs Pelagius

• Adam would have died even without sin

• Adam’s sin only affected himself- humans are born into Adam’s pre-sin state

• The human race did not”die” through Adam or rise again through Jesus’ death

• Pre0Jesus, some sinless lives were led

Bible on The Fall

• “Indeed it was very good”

• “God created man in his own image”

• Eve is created out of Adam, she is his helper

Pre-Fall Humanity

• Body and soul work together in harmony

• Sex a rational act based on “Go forth and multiply”- Adam and Eve married in a physical not lustful relationship- PERFECT EQUALS (logical contradiction- perfect equals but Augustine argues woman inferior)

• Humans have the Will- the ability not to sin, choose between good and evil

Post-Fall Humanity: Pride

• Adam and Eve sin due to their Pride- they want to be like Gid

• Some angels are created with less grace so have more pride

• “For ‘pride is the start of every kind of sin’”

Akrasia- the Divided Will

• “half wounded”- we can recognise good, but can only do evil- “For I do not what I want, but I do the very thing I hate”

• e.g. Augustine struggling with lust

Post-fall Concupiscence

• people can no longer control their desires

• Body not inherently sinful (it was made by a perfect God), but we are dominated by concupiscence

Concupiscence- pre/post lapsarian sex

• Prelapsarian- rational act done at the bidding of the mind

• sexual organs can now be active when do/don’t ant them to be- PUDENDA- genitalia are parts of shame, reminder of sinful rebellion

• Inherent lust in sexual activity passes down concupiscence

• “Then the flesh began to lust against the Spirit. With this rebellion we are born”- City of God

Post-Fall Humanity: Original Sin

• DOUBLE DEATH- First ‘death’ Adam’s sin kills God + humanity’s relationship, 2nd death is human mortality

• TRANSMISSION OF SIN- Adam’s sin passed to descendants like a bad tree’s rotten fruit- “all seminally present in the loins of Adam”

The Doctor of Grace

Grace is:

• God’s love and mercy

• Can give Christians moral guidance

• Human’s don’t deserve grace tjrough merit

• Encourages the soul to praise God

• CAN TRANSFORM THE WILL + OVERCOME HUMAN PRIDE

• Seen in Jesus’ sacrifice + the Holy Spirit

“In Adam all die, but in Christ all will be made alive”

Augustine: Grace

• God’s generous, undeserved and free act of love- EXPRESSED IN GIVING JESUS TO RESTORE HUMANITY

• Salvation only possible through divine grace

• Grace not earned, humans don’t deserve it

Summum Bonum: The Highest Good

• compares to Platonic idea of Form of the Good

• “Highest good” can be achieved by those who devote their hearts to God- only those God has chosen through grace

• Happiness in our lives TEMPORARY, can’t compare to eternal happiness of being in God’s presence

Augustine: Predestination

• God has ordained all that will happen- especially who will receive salvation

• Pride makes us assume “we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us”- faith is caused by God’s grace

• Double Predestination- God chooses heaven or hell

Henry Chadwick

• Supports Augustinian grace and salvation

• Strength is “overhwleming consciousness of human dependence, awe and reverence [of] God”

The Second Vatican Council

• Since the Fall, “man is split within himself”

• “But the Lord himself came to free and strengthen man […] for sin has diminished man, blocking his path to fulfillment”

Augustine: Free Will

• changing ideas iver time- earlier, argued sin was the failure to do good

• Later- humans couldn’t overcome sin through reason/ self control

• Humans are inevitably drawn to sin

• PESSIMISTIC, damns humanity

Post-Fall Men and Women

• “Even before her sin woman had been made to be ruled by her husband and to be submissive”

• Technically ‘through love’ “but St Paul does not permit a woman to rule over a man”

• “If this order is not maintained, nature will be corrupted still more”

• “I cannot think of any reason for woman’s being made as man’s helper if we dismiss the reason of procreation”- men make better conversation

Julian of Eclanum

• Augustine brings Manicheain thoughts into the Church

• grace erfects nature but nature cannot inherently be evil as it was made by God

• Confusing Original Sin and concupiscence- sex itself not always inherently sinful

Peter Brown (on Julian of Eclanum)

• Augustine’s understanding of sex influenced by his years of sexual ‘immorality’ (not his words)

• “The secual impulse […] is ordained by God”- cannot have sex without the impulse

Dawkins on Augustine

• heavily flawed scientific understanding- homunculus theory, no understanding of genetics

• Humans cannot be descended from 2 people

• We can’t even look at the Fall symbolically, because it leaves Xianity with an unjustified obsession with sin, guilt and repressed sexuality

• Not ethical to “condemn every child […] to inherit the sin of a remote ancestor”

Pinker on Augustine

• Humanity has developed reason in the post-Enlightenment age

• Acceptance of the HUMANITARIAN PRICIPLE- mutual cooperation, rational negotiation- can be logically discovered so we don’t need divine Grace

• Changes in Western society- (supposedly)- decline in death penalty, tyranny, abuse and torture

Niebuhr on Augustine

• post-Enlightenment focus on rationality has failed

• Collective rejection of idea of sin → loss of awareness that actions can’t be purely ‘good’- leads to greater injustice and suffering as consequences not as carefully considered

• Most readily apprent when considering groups

• Human ego in thinking we can all reason our way to goodness- we should return to God to help us understand our limits and how to achieve possibilities

• “It will not be perfect peace” “Divorcing themselves from […] the priblems of collective man”

Freud on sex

• God is a psychological construct due to our need for a father figure

• In ancient societies, this could have restrained violent tendencies

• God is a sign of repressed sexual guilt

• We are deeply shaped by our secual drive but we should not feel guilty- will return later in life (return of the repressed)

• Use psychotherapy to channel secual impulses in a healthy manner

Hobbes: Human Nature (reported by Nigel Warburton)

• low view of humanity- selfish, driven by fear of death and the hope of personal gain

• we all seek power over others, even if we don’t realise

• Example of locking the door when leaving the house because we know people could steal

• We can only be kept in check through the rule of law and the threat of punishment

• In the case of a societal breakdown, we would all follow along to survive- it would be rational to kill before we were killed- “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”

• We are kept in check by a powerful individual who has the power to punish others in a ‘social contract’

• Giving up some freedoms for the sake of safety

Hobbes vs. Pinker

• Pinker- too optimistuc? disregarding the cases of brutality and tyranny today- cannot outright reject human certain tendencies

• Pelagius- we are “educated in evil”- it’s Augustine’s society, not human nature

• Pelagius- predestination would make God unjust as humans have no agency, unlike Augustine’s claim- we must be capable of moral goodness if God commands it from us

• Hobbes TOO PESSIMISTIC- Humans still have an ability to maintain control and keep reason- otherwise all society everywhere would always be broken down

• Same w. Augustine- Akrasia- if that was possible we would never experience goodness or kindness/ sacrifice- GK Chesterton

Augustine and Pelagius

• Pelagius- we have free will, not Akrasia- we sometimes do good through our free will, provided by God- “assisted by divine help” to merit our salvation

• Why woukd God command humans to do good if they could not or if any goodness was only done by God? as if God were “unmindful of human frailty”

• Augustine- “For it is God who works in you to will and to act”- so why doens’t he always if he is sometimes capable?

• Unjust punishment is just unable to understand