1.1 Augustine's teaching on human nature

Question 1

Key Words

1. Concordia:
2. Cupiditas:
3. Caritas:
4. Concupiscence:

Answer 1

1. Concordia: Human friendship.
2. Cupiditas: Selfish love, a love of worldly things and of selfish desires.
3. Caritas: ‘Generous love’, a love of others and of virtues i.e. agape
4. Concupiscence: Uncontrollable desire for physical pleasure and material things

Question 2

Augustine largely bases his theory of human nature on a reading of….?

Answer 2

Genesis 2-3 (The Fall).

Question 3

Before the Fall?

Answer 3

1. humans would have enjoyed sexual relations
   but it would not have been governed by lust.
2. Before the sin they had not realised they were naked, so they must have been comfortable with their bodies.
3. Adam and Eve are created as social creatures revealing friendship is the highest social good.
4. 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.

Question 4

After the Fall?

Answer 4

1. 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.

Question 5

Will?

Answer 5

driven by love which after the Fall could pull the person in the right or the wrong direction

Question 6

Cupiditas?

Answer 6

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

Question 7

Caritas

Answer 7

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.

Question 8

name the ppl who Objected

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 8

1. Jean-Paul Sartre
2. Richard Dawkins
3. Sigmund Freud
4. Rousseau

Question 9

Objections: Jean-Paul Sartre

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 9

would argue that there is no human nature. In Existentialism is not a Humanism, Sartre remarks that “existence precedes

Question 10

Colin Gunton RESPONSE to Jean Paul Sartre objection

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 10

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.

Question 11

Objections: Richard Dawkins

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Barbour RESPONSE to Richard Dawkins objection

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Objections: Sigmund Freud

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 13

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.

Question 14

RESPONSE to Sigmund Freud objection

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

Objections: Rousseau

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 15

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.”

Question 16

Hobbes RESPONSE to Rousseau objection

Augustine’s view on human nature

Answer 16

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.”

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Question 17

Concupiscence

Answer 17

uncontrollable desire for physical pleasures and material

things

Question 18

Pelagius

Answer 18

argues that humans can live morally pure lives

after the Fall if they tried hard

Question 19

Augustine argues that human can only be saved through___ ___ not good ___

Grace

Answer 19

God’s, grace, work

Question 20

The price of Adam and Eves sin was paid by ?

Answer 20

Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross

Question 21

People will continue to sin even after receiving what? - remember Augustine’s examples from his own Confessions.

Answer 21

God’s grace

remember Augustine’s examples from his own Confessions.

Question 22

God will __some people for eternal life in heaven.

Answer 22

elect

Question 23

Summum Bonum?

Answer 23

(Highest Good) - Only available to those who set their hearts on God and whom God chooses through his grace.

Question 24

Pelagius argument against Augustine (Salvation comes through grace)

Answer 24

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

Question 25

What response to Palagis argument

Salvation comes through grace

Answer 25

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.

Question 26

kant object to augusitne (Salvation comes through grace)

Answer 26

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.

Question 27

What response to Kant objection to Augustin’s

Salvation comes through grace

Answer 27

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)

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