St Augustine's ideas

What did Augustine claim?

claims that there is a human nature corrupted by original sin

What did he think?

By observing himself, and others he thought had a natural predisposition to sin, which for him raised the question of where that came from, since it would contradict God’s omnibenevolence to suggest that God created it

What did he conclude?

Humanity must be the blame for it and looked to the Genesis story as an explanation

What did Augustine believe regarding free will?

If God has a plan and makes it, he already knows what is going to happen.

What term did Augustine use to describe our corrupted nature?

Concupiscene, this means that we have an innate longing or desire for things that are sinful

How is concupiscene passed on to all humans?

passed on from Adam and Eve to all humans as their descendents

What did Augustine believe as well?

human nature was ‘hopelessly corrupted, here it means for Augustine that it is devastating

How did he describe us?

‘a lump of sin’- massa peccati

who are the elect?

those chosen by God to retrieve eternal life

who are the remnant?

those who are left behind after God’s judgement when the rest are destroyed

what is reprobate?

a sinner who is predestined to damnation

what is predestination?

the belief that God has already decided what will happen, and has elected certain souls for salvation

What else is concupiscene?

a desire for earhtly pleasures, especially sexual desires

what does he believe about being ‘lumped together’

even though some humans may find it unfair that we are lumped together, this feeling arises because we do not understand the enormity of our sinfulness nature

Although damaged by original sin, we still have free will- what did Augustine believe?

without free will, God would be the author of sin and could not be considered omnibenevolent

What is our essential human nature?

its free- liberum artibirium

What example does Augustine give?

weighing scales with one side already stacked with heavily with weights. While the scales still work from this position, it is impossible for any weight on the other side to have real effect. This means human beings are free, but only to sin