Augustinianism is the philosophical and theological system of

Augustine of Hippo Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

and its subsequent development by other thinkers, notably

Boethius Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, commonly known as Boethius (; Latin: ''Boetius''; 480 – 524 AD), was a Roman senator, consul, ''magister officiorum'', historian, and philosopher of the Early Middle Ages. He was a central figure in the t ...

, Anselm of Canterbury and Bonaventure. Among Augustine's most important works are '' The City of God'', '' De doctrina Christiana'', and '' Confessions''. Originally, Augustinianism developed in opposition to Pelagianism; it was widespread in medieval western philosophy until the arrival of Thomism and Aristotelianism.

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

and Plotinus influenced Augustine in many ways, and he is considered a Neoplatonic philosopher.Saint Augustine
/ref> The Augustinian theodicy and other Augustinian doctrines such as the

divine illumination According to divine illumination, the process of human thought needs to be aided by divine grace. It is the oldest and most influential alternative to naturalism in the theory of mind and epistemology. It was an important feature of ancient Gre ...

and the invisible church show a strong Platonic influence.

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereig ...

cautioned that all of the Western Church teaching leads to him:

View of humanity

"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 Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

; they are subject to the condemnation of God on account of this hereditary sin and the guilt thereof'" 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. 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.

Ethics

These are the most important values for an Augustinian. #

Love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

# Interiority #

Humility Humility is the quality of being humble. Dictionary definitions accentuate humility as a low self-regard and sense of unworthiness. In a religious context humility can mean a recognition of self in relation to a deity (i.e. God), and subsequent ...

# Devotion to Study and the pursuit of Wisdom #

Freedom Freedom is understood as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or to possess the power and resources to fulfill one's purposes unhindered. Freedom is often associated with liberty and autonomy in the sense of "giving one ...

Community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, t ...

Common good In philosophy, economics, and political science, the common good (also commonwealth, general welfare, or public benefit) is either what is shared and beneficial for all or most members of a given community, or alternatively, what is achieved by c ...

# Humble and generous service #

Friendship Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague. In some cultures, the concept of ...

Prayer Prayer is an invocation or act that seeks to activate a rapport with an object of worship through deliberate communication. In the narrow sense, the term refers to an act of supplication or intercession directed towards a deity or a deifie ...

Meta-ethics

Augustine offered the Divine command theory, a theory which proposes that an action's status as

morally Morality () is the differentiation of intentions, decisions and actions between those that are distinguished as proper (right) and those that are improper (wrong). Morality can be a body of standards or principles derived from a code of con ...

good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God. 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.

Just war

The

Just war theory The just war theory ( la, bellum iustum) is a doctrine, also referred to as a tradition, of military ethics which is studied by military leaders, theologians, ethicists and policy makers. The purpose of the doctrine is to ensure that a war i ...

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. based upo
Romans 13:4
Augustine claimed that, while individuals should not resort immediately to violence, God has given the sword to government for good reason. Augustine argues that

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρ� ...

, 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."

Happiness

Augustine's ethics is that of ancient

eudaimonism Eudaimonia ( Greek: εὐδαιμονία ; sometimes anglicized as eudaemonia or eudemonia, ) is a Greek word literally translating to the state or condition of 'good spirit', and which is commonly translated as ' happiness' or ' welfare'. In ...

, 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, Augustine takes it as axiomatic that happiness is the ultimate goal pursued by all human beings. 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.

Epistemology

Augustine emphasised the role of

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," 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.

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, Dominican Order, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino, Italy, Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican Order, Dominican friar and Catholic priest, priest who was an influential List of Catholic philo ...

criticizes the

, 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 A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the world through the detection of stimuli. (For example, in the human body, the brain which is part of the central nervous system re ...

. 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".

Anthropology

Soul

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. He was much closer in this anthropological view to Aristotle than to Plato.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 A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

: Augustine's favourite figure to describe ''body-soul'' unity is marriage: ''caro tua, coniunx tua – your body is your wife''. 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. Following ancient philosophers he defined man as a ''rational mortal animal'' – ''animal rationale mortale''.

Original sin

Michelangelo, Fall and Expulsion from Garden of Eden 00

Augustine wrote that original sin is transmitted by

concupiscence Concupiscence (from Late Latin noun ''concupiscentia'', from the Latin verb '' concupiscence'', from ''con-'', "with", here an intensifier, + ''cupi(d)-'', "desiring" + ''-escere'', a verb-forming suffix denoting beginning of a process or state) ...

and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it. For Augustine, Adam's sin is transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire", 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 Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

, not a

psychological Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries bet ...

sense. Augustine insisted that concupiscence was not ''a being'' but a ''bad quality'', the privation of good or a wound. He admitted that sexual concupiscence (''libido'') might have been present in the perfect human nature in

paradise In religion, paradise is a place of exceptional happiness and delight. Paradisiacal notions are often laden with pastoral imagery, and may be cosmogonical or eschatological or both, often compared to the miseries of human civilization: in para ...

, 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. 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. Augustine's understanding of the consequences of original sin and the necessity of redeeming grace was developed in the struggle against

Pelagius Pelagius (; c. 354–418) was a British theologian known for promoting a system of doctrines (termed Pelagianism by his opponents) which emphasized human choice in salvation and denied original sin. Pelagius and his followers abhorred the moral ...

and his Pelagian disciples, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum, who had been inspired by

Rufinus of Syria Rufinus the Syrian or Rufinus of Syria ( fl. c. 400) was a Christian theologian, priest and author, generally identified as a Pelagian.Theodore of Mopsuestia. 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. The

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

accepts the doctrine of original sin as Augustine taught.

Predestination

For Augustine God orders all things while preserving human freedom. 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

, Augustine said that the sin of

pride Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) w ...

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 Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to ac ...

in the choice of being saved or not.

Theodicy and Free will

The

problem of evil The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,The Problem of Evil, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyc ...

is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an

omnipotent Omnipotence is the quality of having unlimited power. Monotheistic religions generally attribute omnipotence only to the deity of their faith. In the monotheistic religious philosophy of Abrahamic religions, omnipotence is often listed as one ...

, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
The Problem of Evil
, Michael TooleyThe Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,

, 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

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.'" 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. 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. 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.

Comparison

Notable Augustinian philosophers

* Fulgentius of Ruspe *

Fulgentius Ferrandus Fulgentius Ferrandus or Ferrand of Carthage (died 546/547) was a Christian theologian of the Roman province of Africa, modern day Tunisia. Biography Little is known of his early life. At the end of his life, he was a deacon of the Church of Carth ...

* Possidius *

Marius Mercator Marius Mercator (born probably in Northern Africa about 390; died shortly after 451) was a Latin Christian ecclesiastical writer best known for his advocacy of Augustinian theology during the Pelagian controversy. In 417 or 418 he was in Rome whe ...

* Orosius *

Cassiodorus Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator (c. 485 – c. 585), commonly known as Cassiodorus (), was a Roman statesman, renowned scholar of antiquity, and writer serving in the administration of Theodoric the Great, king of the Ostrogoths. ''Senator'' ...

* Caesarius of Arles * Arnobius the Younger *

* Isidore of Seville *

Antoine Arnauld Antoine Arnauld (6 February 16128 August 1694) was a French Catholic theologian, philosopher and mathematician. He was one of the leading intellectuals of the Jansenist group of Port-Royal and had a very thorough knowledge of patristics. C ...

* Blaise Pascal * Nicolas Malebranche * Anselm of Canterbury * Giles of Rome * Gregory of Rimini * John Scotus Eriugena * Bonaventure *

Bruno of Cologne Bruno of Cologne, O.Cart. (german: Bruno von Köln, it, Bruno di Colonia;c. 1030 – 6 October 1101), venerated as Saint Bruno, was the founder of the Carthusian Order. He personally founded the order's first two communities. He was a celebrate ...

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and ...

René Descartes René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{philosophy topics Catholic theology and doctrine Christian terminology Christian theological movements Philosophical schools and traditions Neoplatonism 4th-century establishments Augustine of Hippo