Augustine on human nature Flashcards
What are the two extreme opposites of human nature
Cold blooded murderer; selfless priests
- all humans have the potential to be both
Rousseau on human nature
humans are generous and act differently when the situation asks
‘man is born free and everywhere he is in chains’
Hobbes on human nature
Humans are brutish and selfish - purpose is to conquer brutal nature and establish fair and just societies
Augustine
Big influence on Western Philosophy
- honest about personal experience
- book ‘confessions’
Manicheism
- dualists - evil cause by a dark lower power
- world is a battlefield between light and darkness and body is a particle of light entrapped within the human body
- liberate soul by resisting material cravings - prayer and abstinence
- links to Elect
Why did Augustine reject Manicheism
dissatisfied with the lack of explanations for the universes as there was no science
- superstition
Platonism
Differed from Plato - human minds capable of contemplating the end by ascending up the levels of reality
Soul + body - harmony but soul cannot control the body
- once separated wisdom and happiness are achieved
What did Platonism lead Augustine to believe
Evil is not a separate power but an absence of good however still felt an inner conflict what intellect alone couldn’t fix
Conversion to Christianity
read OT at symbolic level removed contradictions in the Bible
- wisdom can come from Gods grace in Jesus
Plegians
monk who did not believe original sin caused universal guilt in which only God can remove
- humans sufficient will to divorce it
- even if Adam had not sinned would’ve died
- Adams sin only harmed himself not the whole human race
- Children born in an Antelpasarian state
- human race does not die in Adams sin/ rise again in Christ
- even before Christ some men lived without sin
How did Augustine oppose the Plegians
seminal presence - can only alleviate sin from Gods grace as incapable of choosing good or following God alone
Human will before the fall
Genesis 1-3 accounts of creation
- until fall harmony was expressed in obedience of Adam and eve to God and duties
- also harmony of body will and reason
What is the will as love
Will - God- given created from nothing with humans - ability to choose/reject God - determines the kind of person
- Driven by Cupidas and Cartias, both necessary elements of will
- To love our neighbour must love ourselves first leading to a love of God
Augustine on sex and friendship before the fall
Adam and Eve married as friends
- equally participated in a friendship with God
- commanded to be fruitful - reproduction part of friendship
Sex is secondary to friendship and sex would occur without lust - now harder to control bodily desires
- friendship only possible through love and Christ
Human nature after the fall
- pride - reject perfect relationship with the world and God
- sinned out of desire to belike God
- pride means harmony is gone and Cupidas is separate from Cartias
Idea came from:
Lucifer (fallen angel) jealous of pre-fallen state and plants idea of disobedience in Eves’ mind
- God may have seen but result is entirely free will
- will precedes the evil of act and pride is the mother of all vices
- body is not evil but the will - unable to control bodily desires
Divided will
Soul divided
- rational to determine good but damage in the fall means will is not strong enough to overcome bodily desires
St Paul Romans
“For I do not do what I want, but I do the thing I hate”
Weakness of the will
Akrasia
Aristotle and Plato on the will
If lie in bed for a few more minuities is it weakness of the will or just a preference
Concupiscence
- tendency to sin or be swayed
- fallen state man cant control libido and desiring parts of the soul dominated by Concusipence
- body not evil as created by good God = fault of weak will
- jealousy and betrayal = friendship - so heavily distracted from God
Augustine on Original sin
Post-antelapsarian world - sin - rebellion of will
Lack of controls over sexual desires and organs - Fall
Presence of Concusipence - lack of rational soul
Sin - ontological condition of human condition
- no one morally good no matter how virtuous they may seem
What is double death
First death by Adams rebellion; mortality as Gods punishment
What is transmission of sin
First act of sin - chain of disasters - Adam’s children rebellious like him in the same way a tree bears rotten fruit
- every sexual act tainted and every human born into sin
Free will
Sin whether want too or not - even Chaste life is not enough to escape Concusipence and encouraged marriage to abstain from sex after having children
Predestination
Only God knows who is desiring of Gods grace and gift of Heaven - OPTOMISTIC
- some will be saved
Fall as part of a spiritual journey
Fall; renewal and redemption - positive symbols of spiritual life/ each persons spiritual journey
Genesis 1-3 - imaginative story about moment we lose our innocence and engage with the realities of life
- phase where people act rebelliously
How do Jews view the Fall
Torah - human journey to perfection
Modern Christians on the fall
fall does not allow human moral and spiritual development
life - not biological but a human body and soul journey
Dawkins on Original sin
Dawkins - contradictory to evolutionary biology as well as absurd and dangerous
1) absurd to imagine corruption of billions of people rest on two people
- evolution = humans emerged from less sophisticated animals without consciousness to make decisions to rebel - Adam and Eve absurd
2) Symbolic accounts does not excuse obbsession with guilt; sin; repressed sexuality
3) Idea God - restore humans by killing Jesus on the Christ - sadomasochistic and irrational
Humanitarian principle
Steve Pinker
- religion responsible for violence; suffering and debasement of humanity
Humans get on better when taken into account others interests - respect each other - don’t need faith but autonomous rational negotiation
Since - West declined in capital punishment; use of torture; wars; tyrants
Niebuhr response to Humanitarian principle
Failure to understand sin leads to colossal mistakes in society
- rationalism of West failed
rejecting sin - humans have failed to realise that no action can entirely be good and cause great evil and suffering
- reason is not enough to bring about just society
- understand through God
Criticisms on sex
Augustine - feel guilty
Church role of controlling sex through marriage and teaching people to repent from sexual impulses
Freud - natural part of human development - defining factor of relationship
