1.1 Augustine's teaching on human nature Flashcards
Key Words
- Concordia:
- Cupiditas:
- Caritas:
- Concupiscence:
- Concordia: Human friendship.
- Cupiditas: Selfish love, a love of worldly things and of selfish desires.
- Caritas: ‘Generous love’, a love of others and of virtues i.e. agape
- Concupiscence: Uncontrollable desire for physical pleasure and material things
Augustine largely bases his theory of human nature on a reading of….?
Genesis 2-3 (The Fall).
Before the Fall?
- humans would have enjoyed sexual relations
but it would not have been governed by lust. - Before the sin they had not realised they were naked, so they must have been comfortable with their bodies.
- Adam and Eve are created as social creatures revealing friendship is the highest social good.
- Humans are born with Free will and given choice to obey or disobey God, the chief characteristic of being made in the image of God.
After the Fall?
- people still have the ability to reason and to recognise right from wrong. But they have corrupted the will so they are inclined to do wrong and to be selfish and be lustful.
Will?
driven by love which after the Fall could pull the person in the right or the wrong direction
Cupiditas?
wrong love- love of impermanent changeable worldly things, love of selfish needs and self. It is an error of will to follow cupiditas and individual fully responsible
Caritas
right love – love of others, expression of the will of God as eternal law, displayed through the virtues (prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice). Leads to happiness, not necessarily worldly happiness but spiritual happiness.
name the ppl who Objected
Augustine’s view on human nature
- Jean-Paul Sartre
- Richard Dawkins
- Sigmund Freud
- Rousseau
Objections: Jean-Paul Sartre
Augustine’s view on human nature
would argue that there is no human nature. In Existentialism is not a Humanism, Sartre remarks that “existence precedes
Colin Gunton RESPONSE to Jean Paul Sartre objection
Augustine’s view on human nature
observes that modern debates have failed to mention Augustine’s important insight that science and philosophy do not consider the religious dimension of being human.
Objections: Richard Dawkins
Augustine’s view on human nature
would also challenge any theory of human nature based on the Bible. He would argue evolution disproves the possibility of Adam and Eve and the concept of seminal presence and original sin is immoral
Barbour RESPONSE to Richard Dawkins objection
Augustine’s view on human nature
agrees that evolutionary biology means the idea of an original event makes little sense but suggests suffering, conflict and death long preceded humanity. Genesis 3 is an imaginative story about humans use of their potential and relationship with the world. Creation, Fall, redemption are not separate events but continuing processes in each individual’s life.
Objections: Sigmund Freud
Augustine’s view on human nature
Rejects Augustine’s connection between original sin and its transmission to future generation through sexual intercourse and pleasure is part of it. Freud argues sex is not just for reproduction but natural aspect of human development. Human disorders result of environment (family, education, religion) not passed down.
RESPONSE to Sigmund Freud objection
Augustine’s view on human nature
Augustine understands and attempts to account for human emotions. All societies put some restrictions on sexuality and Augustine has rightly highlighted the potential damage of uncontrolled sexual behaviour.
Objections: Rousseau
Augustine’s view on human nature
argued In their natural state, humans are essentially generous creatures and only act otherwise when situation and circumstance cause them to. He remarked, “Man in born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”
Hobbes RESPONSE to Rousseau objection
Augustine’s view on human nature
argued that in their natural state humans are not co-operative but selfish and brutish (animal-like). He said, “The life of man, solitary, poor, brutish, and short.”
Concupiscence
uncontrollable desire for physical pleasures and material
things
Pelagius
argues that humans can live morally pure lives
after the Fall if they tried hard
Augustine argues that human can only be saved through___ ___ not good ___
Grace
God’s, grace, work
The price of Adam and Eves sin was paid by ?
Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross
People will continue to sin even after receiving what? - remember Augustine’s examples from his own Confessions.
God’s grace
remember Augustine’s examples from his own Confessions.
God will __some people for eternal life in heaven.
elect
Summum Bonum?
(Highest Good) - Only available to those who set their hearts on God and whom God chooses through his grace.
Pelagius argument against Augustine (Salvation comes through grace)
argues just because Adam set a bad example and sinned does not mean we are not destined to follow his example; we are equally capable of following example set by Christ and achieve perfection without grace
What response to Palagis argument
Salvation comes through grace
Gulf between God’s transcendence and man’s contingent existence cannot be bridged from man’s side but only from God’s, through Jesus Christ. You could refer to the Doctrine of participation that reception of baptism which makes us members of Christ.
kant object to augusitne (Salvation comes through grace)
Augustine said salvation only through grace as we are corrupted by original sin. Kant recognises there are powerful human emotions but no such thing as sin, just lack of reason. Moral life seeks to rise above animal instincts and rests on the ‘good will’ obedient to reason.
What response to Kant objection to Augustin’s
Salvation comes through grace
Reinhold Niebuhr argued that though post-Enlightenment thinkers have made it unfashionable to talk about sin, it is wrong to think reason can bring about just and fair societies. (war, poverty, cruelty)
