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The Great Thinkers of Western Philosophy |
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Augustine sustained a long debate against Pelagianism. Pelagius, who gave origin to the heresy which bore his name, held that the freedom of the human will is a gift of God, a grace of God. But from the moment he has received free will man no longer has need of further graces to attain his moral perfection: the powers of his nature are sufficient for this. Human nature has not been corrupted by original sin, but remains integral, and is able of itself to attain the perfection that is due to it. Augustine hence found it necessary to defend orthodox doctrine regarding both the redemptive work of Christ and the necessity of grace for attaining moral perfection. The teaching of Augustine is summarized in the following points:
As a consequence of original sin, the human race has not only been deprived of preternatural and supernatural gifts, but the whole of nature has been upset, so that after original sin man is naturally unable not to sin. Christ, by his death on the cross, has remedied this disorder. But if the Redemption worked by Christ has given us once more the possibility of regaining supernatural goods, still it has not restored to us the preternatural gifts. It has left human nature unchanged from what it was a consequence of sin; all the sufferings which entered the world with original sin remain as a means of purification and mortification. Hence, granted this natural weakness of human nature, the will, in order to attain moral perfection, needs grace. Now grace comes from God and is external to the will. How is grace to be reconciled with liberty? This was one of the problems which disturbed the mind of Augustine, and he, in order to uphold the efficacy of grace, neglected the second element, liberty.
We have already had occasion to explain certain basic points of Augustine's moral or ethical doctrine when we spoke of the human will as the sole cause of moral evil. Augustine's theory concerning evil is his greatest philosophico-theological discovery -- particularly his distinction between metaphysical evil, which is a deficiency or lack of being, and moral evil, which is a deficiency or lack of good. Another important point in Augustine's moral teaching is his doctrine of voluntarism, or the primacy of the will over the intellect. The will is love, and according to Augustine it is necessary to love in order to know, and not vice versa. The primacy of the will is the intrinsic law of being, which finds its first actuation in God, who has created out of love. This love or desire reaches down even to inferior beings, in which it is manifested as instinct and blind appetition or appetite. Since the first love must be love of God, and all other loves must be subordinated to this first love, Augustine teaches that love signifies order. Action is activity according to love. Any sin is an act of hatred, for sin is separation (aversion) from the order or love which has its center in God. Because sin is an act of hate, the man who sins, not being able to destroy the order established by God, harms himself and falls from his being. Every good action is an action according to love: "Love," says Augustine, "and do what you wish -- Ama et fac quod vis." The voluntarism of Augustine indicates the clear separation of the Latin ethical concept from the Greek. Greek genius, theoretical, speculative, creator of philosophy, makes the intellect -- conscience -- the basis of morality; theory takes precedence over practice. Augustine, representing the genius of Rome, which loved the practical and active life, and created law, defends the greater value of activity over speculation, prefers fact to theory, and hence the primacy of the will over the intellect. The voluntarism of Augustine found in the Middle Ages great champions in the mystics and in the Franciscan School.
VII. Politics: The City of God Augustine wrote his masterpiece, The City of God, while the Roman empire was falling into ruin under the barbarian invasions and the Church was rising from the imperial remains. There was need of justifying these two events, which disturbed the spirits not only of pagans but of believers as well. With this purpose in mind, Augustine undertook his work, which can be considered the first in the philosophy of history. Augustine's view of the history of humanity is organic and unified, but it is also ascetic and Christian. Christ is the very soul of history. The coming of Christ presupposes another truth of Christianity, original sin. In consequence of original sin, men are divided into two distinct cities: one of God, the other earthly. Both, however, are at the service of Christ. The city of God, prior to the coming of Christ, was represented by the people of Israel; the earthly city was represented by the Roman empire. The two cities had a different purpose, the one religious and the other political. The first had the task of preparing for the coming of Christ with prophecies; the second was to prepare for his coming politically. After the coming of Christ and the founding of the Church, the purpose of the Roman empire had been fulfilled, and hence it fell under the assaults of the barbarians. If in the Christian era the Church represents the city of God, moral evil, wherever it be found, will be the representative of the earthly, the satanic city. These two cities now are politically unseparated and only religiously diverse, for the Church has a universal task and must embrace the elect and the predestined of all times and of all races. The complete division will be made on the Great Sabbath, when the good will be made eternal citizens of the city of God, the eternal Jerusalem, and the evil will be confined forever to the city of Satan, hell. But who are those who will end in glory and who will end in torment? This, too, was one of the many problems that tortured the mind of Augustine. The answer to this is among the secrets of God.
St. Augustine affirms that the world was created by God from nothing, through a free act of His will. Time is a being of reason ("rens rationis") with a foundation in things which through becoming offer to the mind the concept of time as past, present, and future. Augustine affirms the absolute unity and the spirituality of the human soul. In regard to the nature of the soul he affirms that the soul is simple and immortal. Then sensitive soul, besides having the five senses, is endowed also with a sensitive cognition which is common to animals and which judges the proper object of each of the senses. The intellective soul has three functions: being, understanding, and loving, corresponding to three faculties: intellective memory, intelligence, and will. The primary among these three faculties is given to the will, which in man signifies love. The will of man is free. Three kinds of evil can be distinguished: metaphysical, physical, and moral, and each of them consists in a deficiency in being, a descent toward non-being. Metaphysical evil is the lack of a perfection not due to a given nature and hence is not actually an evil. Under this aspect, all creatures are evil because they fall short of full perfection, which is God alone. Physical evil consists in the privation of a perfection due to nature, e.g., blindness is the privation of sight in a being which ought to have sight according to the exigencies of its nature. The only true evil is moral evil; sin, an action contrary to the will of God. The cause of moral evil is not God, who is infinite holiness, nor is it matter, as the Platonists would have it, for matter is a creature of God and hence good. Neither is the will as a faculty of the soul evil, for it too has been created by God. The cause of moral evil is the faculty of free will, by which man is able to deviate from the right order, to oppose himself to the will of God. Such opposition gives moral evil reality -- negative, metaphysical reality in the sense of decadence of the order established by God, and hence decadence of being or descent toward non-being. Sin, from the very fact it is decadence of being, carries in itself its own punishment. By sinning man injures himself in his being, for he falls from what he ought to be. As a result of this fall there exist the sufferings which he must bear, such as remorse in the present life. In The Radical Academy
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