Augustine's teachings on human nature

• basic Augustine facts

  -born 354AD and died 430AD

  -for the first part of his life he was a non-Christian

  -he followed Manichaeism which sees life as a battle between darkness and light

  -he studied Plato

  -he had a mistress out of wedlock who gave birth to a son

  -he wrote many books, including 'Confessions' and 'The City of God'
• Saint Augustine makes this observation concerning humans…​

  -we all seem to know what the good is but we seem incapable of doing it (at least all the time​)

  -we know that being a good person involves being kind, courageous etc., but how often are we any of those things?
• divided nature

  -there seems to be something wrong with humans

  -we have a sense of what goodness is, but at the same time there is a darkness in human nature that causes us to sin

  -Augustine thinks that we have fallen away from something perfect

  --> our true home lies in the past somewhere and we have fallen into this dark world, still retaining a memory or sense of perfection
• Plato

  -Saint Augustine, before he became a Christian, was a follower of Plato

  -Plato believes we have come from the realm of forms and fallen into this world which is an imperfect copy of the realm of forms

  -Augustine seems to link the realm of forms with the story of the garden of Eden
• before the fall

  -Augustine thinks humans lived in a state of what he calls in Latin, Concordia

  -to get an idea of what this is like think of a best friend or relative

  --> someone you feel completely comfortable with​, who you can say anything to​ & you can trust absolutely​ (this is a state of Concordia)

  -originally all of humanity was in this state with each other​

  -sex was there but not lust
• the story of the Garden of Eden

  -our divided nature is explained by an incident deep in human history (incident Augustine calls the Fall)

  -God put Adam & Eve in a paradise called Eden

  -2 trees were planted: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

  -Adam & Eve were told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

  -Eve nevertheless was tempted to eat the fruit and then encouraged Adam to do the same

  -once they ate, they felt shame over their nakedness​

  -God expelled them from the garden, away from the tree of life
• free will

  -Augustine, like most people, believed strongly in free will and its importance in happiness

  -he therefore believed that God had given Adam & Eve free will​

  -however, after the expulsion from the garden of Eden, our free will became limited

  --> this is because our nature became defective​
• all humanity tainted by original sin

  -all of humanity, descended from Adam and Eve, are tainted with their fallen nature (passed down ‘genetically')

  -this taint is known as concupiscence

  -this is a tendency to be driven by selfish impulses
• what drives us and is hard to resist

  -cupiditas

  -this is the love of world things e.g. money, power, food, sex, music, TV etc​.
• the deadly sins

  -seven deadly sins:

  -wrath: ira

  -greed: avaritia

  -sloth: acedia

  -pride: superbia

  -lust: luxuria

  -gluttony: gula

  -*envy: invidia

  
  

  -despair: tristitia

  -vainglory: vanagloria
• the good side of our nature

  -caritas

  -this is the selfless love of others and their welfare​
• seven heavenly virtues

  -theological virtues:

  --> charity, faith and hope

  -cardinal virtues:

  --> fortitude, justice, prudence and temperance
• before the Fall

  -in Genesis 1-2, God created a perfect world, carefully ordered, & made humans as the pinnacle of his creation, made in his 'image and likeness' (Genesis 1:26)

  -Adam & Eve enjoyed a harmonious relationship w/ each other & w/ God & they had everything they needed in Garden of Eden

  -only things God asked of them was they didn't eat fruit of tree of knowledge of good & evil and they take care of creation (stewardship)

  -they lived in complete obedience to God, nothing would threaten them - Augustine said there was perfect harmony between human body, human will & reason
• before the Fall continued

  -a key way to describe the relationship that Adam and Eve had is friendship

  -the two were married as friends and they enjoyed a friendship with God as well as all of creation

  -they could reproduce but sex was not driven by lust but by friendship

  -the human will, for Augustine, was a balance between the powers of self-love and generous love and in the Garden of Eden, the two were in harmony
• stewardship

  The Christian idea that humans must take care of God's creation - God's gift of the planet to us.
• human will

  For Augustine, this was given to humans at creation by God and was used to make choices.
• the Fall

  -Genesis 3 describes the Fall of humankind:

  --> serpent assures Eve she won't die if she eats of the tree of knowledge of good and evil

  --> Eve eats fruit & gives some to Adam. They realise they're naked & make coverings for themselves

  --> Adam & Eve hide from God who is walking in the garden as they're naked. God asks what they have done & realises they have eaten from the forbidden tree

  --> God curses serpent & condemns him to crawl on the ground and be the enemy of people
• the Fall continued

  --> God punishes woman by saying childbirth will be painful & she will be ruled over by her husband & she will desire him

  --> God punishes man by saying he will have to work hard to produce crops all his life

  --> God banishes them from Eden and places an angel to guard garden

  -for Augustine, this was turning point for humanity

  -perfection of Eden was lost & harmony between body, will & reason disappeared into imbalance

  --> will is corrupted, so all of human nature as we see it now comes from this moment
• importance of the Fall

  -the realisation that they're naked at moment of eating the fruit is significant

  -Augustine sees this nakedness & the shame & lust that comes from it as being a sign that the will is no longer in harmony because it is nakedness that drives lust - when selfish love overtakes generous love

  -when the woman is punished, she is told she will desire her husband and so married relationships will no longer be about friendship in a pure sense but lust in a corrupted sense
• the Fall quote

  'And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us knowing good and evil"' (Genesis 3: 22).
• explanation strength

  -it doesn't make sense to say that Adam and Eve were tempted because if Augustine is right that everything was perfect and they were created perfectly, they should not even have been able to think about disobeying God

  --> BUT some Christians find it useful as it explains how things are, such as the control men have historically had over women, the significance of lust and the broken relationship with God
• literal strength

  -a textual analysis of Genesis 1-3 suggests different authors

  -if there are different authors, then the account is less likely to be literally true

  --> BUT the Fall, if understood literally, challenges God's nature; for example, why God would create a world with imbalance, evil & suffering in it
• far-reaching strength

  -evidence from evolution, for example, discredits the Genesis account in its entirety (because humans evolved over time, rather than being created ready-made) and the existence of the Garden of Eden - which itself cannot be found with an angel guarding it

  --> BUT however difficult it is to believe that the Fall is literally true, the story's influence on Christianity is so far-reaching that it perhaps needs to be taken seriously. The account can have use to Christian thought even if it is not taken literally
• original sin

  Used to refer to the first sin of Adam and Eve that is passed on to humans through reproduction.
• concupiscence

  Humanity's inclination to sin and to be influenced by lust, desires and selfishness.
• St. Paul quote

  Letter to the Romans: 'I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ... it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out' (Romans 7:15-18).
• the effects of the Fall

  -Augustine thought that as the Fall was a turning point for human history, the effects of the Fall have been felt by all humans since

  -this is the idea of Original Sin - the idea that with the first sin, all humans have been tainted through inheriting from earlier generations, right back to Adam and Eve, and so they deserve the same punishment that Adam and Eve received
• concupiscence

  -friendship can still exist, but Augustine believed it was a struggle to maintain as the will has become corrupted & tries to pull people away from goodness as they become affected, especially by lust

  -the word used for a lack of control over our desires, especially lust, is concupiscence

  -Augustine believed that this rules human will now: it takes over the human will so that choices are warped & we tend to choose our own selfish desires over unselfish ones

  -although Augustine celebrated friendship, he would never meet with a woman on his own to avoid the effects of lust
• Protestantism VS Catholicism

  -in Christian thought, many Protestants believe the Fall has entirely corrupted human nature & this cannot be dealt with by humans alone

  -Catholics believe human nature has been weakened & people must struggle against concupiscence

  -the key difference is that Protestants believe that concupiscence is the sin itself that we all have; Catholics believe that it is what causes sin

  -in this way, these Protestants are closer to Augustine than Catholics
• transmission & Paul

  -Augustine believed effects of Fall could be seen in the way different people treat each other, in the control lust has & the fact a man's body can't control his desires

  -as every act of sex is driven by concupiscence, Original Sin is passed on through sex & so every human since Adam & Eve has been born in a state of sin

  -Paul outlines the nature of concupiscence in his letter to the Romans

  -the will is weakened by the effects of the Fall - Paul writes how he is driven to make the wrong choices because of concupiscence that is inside him & over which he has no control
• Augustine and women

  -Augustine himself was affected by the issue of sex

  -before he became a Christian, he had experienced sexual freedom

  -this has perhaps had an impact on his approach to concupiscence

  -he had many female friends and did not see women as less equal than men but simply as less dominant, which is why he believed women should be ruled by men in the home - echoing the punishment of Eve at the Fall
• Fall consequences

  -Augustine said "human nature is without any doubt ashamed about lust - and rightly ashamed" ('City of God')

  -by talking about concupiscence as part of human nature, Augustine is reaffirming that it comes to each person from birth

  -in this way, Original Sin is often described as being 'contracted, not committed'

  -Augustine spoke of the idea of the 'double death' of humans - the first death is shown in the relationships that have been destroyed at the Fall and the second death is the one we all go through by being mortal again as a result of the Fall
• OS strengths

  -if Fall were true, unfair for humans to be affected by actions of A&E

  --> BUT concupiscence links well to experience of temptation & explains why we're affected by it

  -OS origins not in truth but in Augustine's own struggles with sex & relationships

  --> BUT idea of our physical desires being in control of us shared by some psychologists

  -evolution demonstrates humans have emerged from many ancestors so OS can't have come out of sin of A&E

  --> BUT OS explains why God allows humans to commit atrocities in world & still remains a God of love as shows centrality of f. w.
• predestination

  The idea that God chooses specific people to bring them to salvation.
• grace

  God's complete, generous love, given to us though we do not deserve it, seen primarily in his giving of his son, Jesus Christ to save people from their human nature.
• the human will

  -human will changed from state of harmony

  -after the Fall, Augustine believed the will to be divided & tearing humans apart between what they know they should or shouldn't do & what they want to do

  -even living a pure & chaste life, a human will be affected by concupiscence

  --> led Augustine to reject idea that humans are completely free & he ended up with a hardened view of predestination
• the human will continued

  -Augustine's view on predestination leaves humans quite powerless: all they can do is push through their lives & hope they are part of God's chosen people

  -God's willingness to choose some people is expressed in his grace

  -free will originally given by God at creation, when humans were made in his image

  --> however, the will has been entirely corrupted by the Fall along with all other relationships & is the cause of human selfishness
• God's grace

  -effects of Fall mean, for Augustine, humans can't restore broken relationship w/God on their own

  --> he believed harmony could only be restored through direct action of God - his grace (his free gift of love to humanity who are undeserving)

  -God's grace shown in Jesus' death on cross - the 'second tree' that made up for the sins committed by A&E at 'first tree'
• God's grace continued

  -humans continue to turn away from God, inc. those who've had faith in God's grace, but this for Augustine is a result of OS despite ongoing outpouring of his grace through the Holy Spirit

  -God's generosity continues in his willingness to allow some to go to Heaven, which is Eden given back to those who deserve it
• summum bonum

  The highest good.