Agustines belief on human nature

• Augustine's teachings about grace:

  • can't be reconciled with God through our efforts
  • Generous giving of God's love to people even if they don't deserve it
  • 'The Doctor of Grace' ==> prescribed the Grace of God as a cure for the sinfulness of humans
  • Grace can save people from eternal punishment
  • Grace of God found in Christ
  • Summon bonum ==> state of eternal happiness, supreme good
  • similar to Plato's form of good
• How convincing are Augustine's teachings on the historical Fall and the Original Sin?

  + very influential on Christian thought

  -many believe it is more mythical than literal

  -evolution and natural selection

  -OS is unjust and difficult to believe ==> how can others be punished through sin

  + could be inherited even if we don't believe in it

  have to accept God's help
• Is Augustine's view of human nature optimistic or pessimistic?

  • Pessimistic => we are already wrong, no escape from it except by God's grace, later writings show that he believes there is no escaping our fallen nature, future fates already created
  • Optimistic => Quaker movement believes that we all have the Divine light within us all, offered a cure for sinfulness through Jesus Christ
• Is Augustine right that human sin means that humans can never be morally good?

  -very little point in trying to act good

  +recognition of imperfection could lead to moral progress --> but we still rely on God's grace

  -key attributes of God questioned

  -sexuality is treated as repressive in Christianity

  -we are born as blank slates
• Is there a distinctive human nature?

  • Augustine believed there was an ideal human nature => before the fall we were able to live in friendship and harmony with innocence
  • Once sin came into the world, society was fall of repression and hatred
  • Couldn't be led to summum bonum
  • Dawkins believes that we have animalistic tendencies
  • Buddhism => impermanence and suffering (dukkha)
  • Confucius => good and bad are apart of our human essence
  • Jean Paul Sartre didn't believe in human nature
• Founder of alot of Christian thought
• the fall: biblical event in which Adam and Eve disobeyed God's command and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden
• Will: part of human nature that makes free choices
• Sin: disobeying the will and commands of God
• Neoplatonism: philosophical thinking arising from the ideas of Plato
• Redeemed: the theological world for saved from sin due to Christ's sacrifice
• Concordia: human friendship
• Cupiditas: selfish love
• Caritas: generous love
• Concupiscence: uncontrollable desire for physical desires and pleasures
• ecclesia: heavenly society => contrast with earthly society
• summum bonum: the highest most supreme good
• Augustine's history:

  • Augustine's mother was a devout Christian while his father was quite hostile to the Christian ways
  • He was born in North Africa, apart of the Roman empire
  • As a young man, he followed the teachings of the Manichees and became a missionary for them ==> to which his mother was displeased
  • He became interested in Plato's ideas especially those which influenced Plotinus' teachings on the shame of living in the body and the Form of the Good
  • Heard preaching from the Bishop of Milan and was affected by the content
• Augustine cont'd:

  • At age 32, he converted to Christianity but this meant leaving his mistress and child which was painful for all
  • In CONFESSIONS => wrote about his pre-Christian life which involved struggling with sexual promiscuity
  • became a bishop
  • laid the groundwork for confession in Catholicism
• Augustine's view on humans before the fall:

  • based on the beginning of Genesis and the letter of Paul to the romans
  • we depend on the same form of Adam ==> similar to Plato's beliefs on the world of forms
  • Platonic thought and key concepts of Manicheism
  • three key parts with our relationship with God: 1. people are created by God, 2. they are fallen in nature, 3. they can be redeemed
  • we were purposely planned by God, to have a special place in the universe
  • enjoyed harmony
  • not physically made in God's image => imago Dei
• After the Fall:

  • the fall led to lust and desire which was a punishment => 'your desire will be for your husband'
  • they felt shame when naked => 'before the fall they were naked and felt no shame'
  • childbirth was now painful and Adam would have to work the land
  • barrier between us and God that is guarded by angels
• Human nature and will: the fall

  • for humans to have a healthy life and friendship was essential
  • friendship increases happiness and decreases sadness
  • Adam and Eve lived in this 'friendship' meaning to not have ulterior motives
  • humans have freewill
  • we are born into sin => Original Sin => we are descendents of Adam and Eve which means we have to inherit Adam's guilt and sin
• Augustine was interested in the problem of Evil as he believed that God was good and perfect (like Plato's belief in the Form of Good). In his book, 'On Free Will', he argues against the Manichee belief by saying that there is one power: God. God made Adam in his own image, meaning God gave Adam freewill to chose his own actions. This means Augustine believes that evil is entirely caused by our misuse of freewill
• Caritas- this generous love is an expression of God's love
• Cupiditas- error of will and or selfish love
• In book 2 of On Free Will:

  • all good things come from God, but not all human actions come from God
• Locke argued Augustine's belief on human nature is wrong as we are born as blank slates
• Tabula Rasa = blank slate
• Sartre states there is no such thing as human nature; environment and culture affect each unique individual.
• Aquinas => The Synderisis => Humans are naturally inclined to do good and avoid evil
• Original Sin and its effects on the will and human societies:

  • original sin marks humanity as a whole
  • tendency to sin => passed through generations
  • flawed human nature
  • Augustine and Pelagius disagreed as Pelagius believed that people could live morally if they try hard enough
  • After the Fall Augustine saw the human will as being divided
  • People have corrupted this will as they are inclined to do wrong and become selfish
  • This is seen in Romans 7 where Paul is describing the struggle between his spiritual inclinations and his selfish desires
• Romans 7: key quotes

  • we know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual
  • sold as a slave to sin
  • I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin
• Original Sin and its effects on the will and human societies:

  • in Romans 7 Paul describes how he longs to be free from sin
  • once we know something is wrong, it makes is more desirable
  • Paul emphasises that Christians are forgiven sinners but they have not stopped sinning
  • Augustine could relate to this => stole a pear from a tree as a child
  • he stole simply for pleasure
  • sin was a part of human nature ==> we are all born with it so children face it
• Augustine and Edicia:

  • Augustine wrote to a woman named Edicia and told her off as she decided to not have sex with her husband
  • as a result her husband had committed adultery => 'against the 10 commandments'
  • she had also given away her her family jewels and expensive clothes to become more spiritual
  • Augustine told her that she should have waited for her husband to agree with her and renounce physical pleasure
• Augustine on men, women and sexuality:

  • In Confessions: Augustine describes his issue with staying celibate as he has had a mistress and wife. He finds it hard to control his own sexual desire.
  • Lust, sexual desire and jealousy are distractions from loving and obeying God
  • He had contradictory views as he believed that in marriage man and woman should take a pledge of celibacy yet this was not the case in his letter to Edicia
  • Augustine lived plainly
• Augustine and Women:

  • his view on women has had a profound effect on Christianity and many of it denominations
  • when describing his mothers faith in Confessions, he uses the male adjective “virile”
  • Augustine is usually more sympathetic toward women than other writers at the time
  • he believed that women were not inferior to men but were just more passive => man should be the main decision maker
• What is the difference whether it is in a wife or a mother, it is still Eve the temptress that we must beware of in any woman. . . I fail to see what use woman can be to man, if one excludes the function of bearing children. 
• Augustine on Original Sin and human society:

  • before the Fall, people were capable of living together in harmony => no need for any kind of repressive political authority
  • without the fall, society would still need a leader but they'd be more like a father figure
  • however due to original sin, we need a forceful authority otherwise we won't behave
  • he believed that people were meant to rule over everything