Augustine on human nature

Soul and body?

• Both created by God

• Both GOOD and essential parts of what it means to be human

• BUT hierarchy - soul is rational, moral and ruler of body

• Described using analogy of a rider of a horse steering more animalistic instincts of the body and guiding a person along sensible course of action

Two functions of soul

Obedient function: concerned with obeying things above it in hierarchy (God for man) and thus must be capable of understanding its instructions

Deliberative function: think about and choose between different courses of action

Types of love human will comprised of

Caritas and cupiditas

Caritas

Generous love: ordered towards God as the highest good, and towards oneself and others in proper proportion according to God’s will

Cupiditas

Self love/desire - in prelapsarian state, was in total cooperation with caritas to care for the self without subverting supreme love of God

Prelapsarian will of Adam and Eve

“unified will”

• Reason and bodily appetites were completely subject to the control of the soul

• Caritas and cupiditas were in perfect harmony, allowing humans to remain obedient to God and carry out their duties in the world

Prelapsarian free will

Liberum arbitrium

• Original uncorrupted freedom of Adam and Eve

Concordia

Friendship, best of all possible human relationships

What caused Fall?

Superbia - pride

• Desire to be like God - knowing good and evil, wanting to redefine in their own terms

• Ended perfect relationship with God - meant they could no longer enjoy harmonious relationship with Him or each other, as soul and will have been corrupted and divided

How did idea of wanting to have God’s knowledge occur to Adam and Eve?

• Satan was an angel that fell from grace, tried to rule the world

• Satan takes form of serpent, plants idea of disobedience in Eve’s mind

• not CAUSE of Fall, but provided stimulus for the will to disobey God’s commands - act of rebellion is entirely result of human free will

• So humanity had disposition to sin, but Satan provided catalyst for its realisation

After Fall, will:

• Became divided and weakened (akrasia)

• Natural balance of the will became inverted - fell into cupiditas - greed

• Postlapsarian will not completely destroyed - it can desire good conceptually but lacks the moral strength and freedom to execute it

• Although it wants to good, it is weakened by selfish desires - cupiditas - and therefore always does opposite

• After Fall, will is “half weakened” and ingrained out of habit - at war with itself and unable to obey its own orders - slave to its own corrupted habits

Divided will

AKRASIA

Will post Fall

Non posse non peccare - inability not to sin

Concupiscence

Rebellion of the body

• Uncontrollable uprising of physical desires against the dictates of reason

• Any action in which bodily desires or animalistic drives overrule judgement of the rational soul - e.g. desire for power, food, money, sex

Augustine, City of God

“From this moment on, then the flesh began

to lust against the spirit. With this rebellion we are born.”

Augustine, City of God, Ch.13

Prelapsarian sex

• Used to be rational act controlled by the “bidding of the will”

• Since the Fall, the body was in control

• Proof - Augustine uses the fact that sexual organs can be active when the mind does not want them to be and passive when it wants the opposite

Genitalia

Become reminder of humanity’s sinful rebellion

PUDENDA: “Parts of shame”

• LUST inherent in all sexual activity ensured that concupiscence would be passed on from one generation to the next as all people are born as the direct result of sin: rebellion against God is at the heart of their being

Realism

View that all humans were literally seminally present in loins of Adam

Because entire race was present in that one root, all humans participated in the act, share its guilt and corrupt nature

Effects of fall on relationships

Prelapsarian - true love (caritas) desires true good of the other in relation to God, resulting true friendship (concordia) based on genuine communion, trust, and mutual respect

Concupiscence inverts this - treats people as objects to be enjoyed for self-gratification

• Will is unable to control bodily desires, this translates into a hidden/overt will for power over the other - individuals seek to dominate, use or consume other person for their own self satisfaction

Originated Original sin

Inherited corrupted condition and guilt with which every human being is born

Augustine on sin in human nature

It is an ontological CONDITION of human existence, not merely a propensity to sin

Augustine’s analogies for sin

1) Disease

Hereditary disease for which Christ is the “divine physician”

• Humanity is healed by grace

2) Power

• Holds humanity captive, we cannot break from its grip

• Christ is LIBERATOR - source of grace which breaks the power of sin

3) Guilt

• Passed down from one generation to next

• Christ is the “forgiver” - brings forgiveness and pardon

Pelagius contrasting view

Human free will is in perfect balance and totally responsible for its own sins…Fall had no lasting impact on human nature

• God created humanity, gave commands knowing precisely what is was capable of managing to do

• He would not have created beings unable to follow His commands

• SIN is an act wilfully committed against God

• To say that Fall rendered humans incapable of obeying God’s laws remover responsibility of individual for their sin, so is an insult to God’s justice

Contrasting view: ancestral sin

Used by Eastern Orthodox Church

Describes spiritual and physical fallout of Adam and Eve’s transgression in Eden

• Human beings born clean of Adam’s personal guilt - individuals only held accountable for their own moral choices, newborns enter world sinless + pure

• Humanity inherits consequence of Fall - mortality

• Adam broke communion with source of life, so humanity became mortal

• Inherits a wounded will

• Spiritual vulnerability - fear of death drives self-preservation, breeds greed, envy, “disordered passions”

• Human nature is deeply fractured and prone to sin, but divine image within us is obscured, not totally destroyed

Augustine division of humanity into two groups

City of God, heavenly city: founded on love of God to the contempt of self

City of man, Earthly city: founded on love of self to the contempt of God, encompasses all historical empires, driven by mankind in its fallen state, and particularly “LIBIDO DOMINANDI” - desire for domination over others, starting with pride

• The perfect Christian state couldn’t exist on Earth because of man’s fallen nature - true stability and justice can’t be achieved in this life, only after death via grace

Fallen city of man driven by

LIBIDO DOMINANDI

• Men have urge to control, use and subjugate others, reducing human beings and world into instruments for personal glory, power, security

Why are there structural flaws in human societies

City of man:

• Love of finite things - trapped in never-ending losing cycle

• Human govts. can achieve temporary, fragile order - “Peace of Babylon”. But it is never permanent, maintained through coercion, fear, subjugation

• Human history is a cycle of rising and falling empires/systems

• Man’s fallen nature - no political system, law or ruler can cure the corruption of the human soul, only God’s grace

Peace of Babylon

Earthly peace

Can only be achieved by repressive political structures which control sinful natures by force and restrictive laws

Only useful because people have “mortal interests” - their aim in living in a peaceful society is just for material wellbeing, not a spiritual ideal or aim

Augustine on role of Christian

• Citizens of heaven belong spiritually to New Jerusalem, but naturally must physically mix with citizens of Babylon

• Christians have interest in preserving earthly peace and stability of Babylon until Judgement Day separates two cities

• Aquinas saw this as a virtue - but not AUGUSTINE… Christians should use earthly peace to practice virtue + spread gospel, but should keep eyes on destination - City of God - which can only be fully known after death + through God’s grace

Feminist counter to Libido dominandi?

Eisler - distinguishes between “dominator model” of society and “partnership model”

Augustine mistakes the dominator model exemplified within patriarchy for the entirety of human nature

• Because he was writing from within the collapse of the Roman Empire - a highly patriarchal time

Counter to Libido dominandi

• Could be right about social instability, but this is not because of Original Sin

• Social instability and corruption occur because of societal structures, not individuals

• Result from SELECT groups of people desiring power - not all

Hobbes counter

• Human life does descend into chaos, etc.

• But argues from psychological egoism - biological causes, not original sin

• It is not inherently sinful or evil - no objective morality, preemptive violence in a lawless world is a rational response to an environment of scarcity and distrust

Pelagius on human nature

• God created human nature good and complete, possessing reason and free will

• Fall didn’t corrupt entire human race - Adam’s sin only harmed himself, subsequent humans sin by imitation rather inheriting a fallen nature

Humans have retained “full moral ability” to obey God’s commandments and live a sinless life if they choose to

Sin is an act wilfully committed against God

Idea of a “fallen nature” outside human control removes RESPONSIBILITY for sin

Pelagius on grace + salvation

Defined grace as “external endowment” comprising three gifts: 1) creation of human nature and gift of free will 2) external guidance of Law of Moses 3) moral instruction and example of Jesus

• Grace makes it easier to do good, but is not strictly necessary to choose righteousness and avoid sin

Why is Pelagianism a heresy

• Renders God’s grace optional/unnecessary

• Jesus reduced to a mere moral teacher and example as opposed to Redeemer

• Christ’s Incarnation and Crucifixion were undermined, losing core theological purposes

Grace

God’s generous, undeserved, unmerited and free act of love for the world expressed supremely in the giving of Jesus Christ so humans can overcome their sinful natures

Early Augustine view on predestination

God “wills/desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

• Understood as God “provides opportunity for” being saved

• But humans have free will - can choose whether to love God or not, those that do will be saved, those that don’t won’t be

God “predestines” certain people for salvation because of divine foreknowledge

God views our linear time in one simultaneous present, so knows whether we will accept His grace or not

So Grace is a “reward for human assent”

Later Augustine : After Pelagian controversy

God “wills/desires all people

to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

• Understands “all” as “all kinds”, meaning “all those elected”

• Sin of pride is assuming we have some sort of say in our own salvation - unacceptable when considering God’s omnipotence, our own fallen nature because of Original Sin

Summum Bonum

Highest/ultimate good

• God Himself

• Eternal life with God, where peace and complete satisfaction securely possessed - not achievable in mortal life

• True happiness, consisting in enjoyment of God in afterlife, City of God

• Requires unearned Grace