Augustine’s View On Human Nature Flashcards
“To what extent has Augustine’s view on human nature caused more harm than good?” Essay
A: Augustine has caused sexism. View that Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Women born from Adam’s rib. Everyone is corrupted due to Eve. Daly - Christians see humans as subservient. Women cannot be priests
CA: Niebuhr - need to acknowledge the fact we have original sin. Enlightenment - growth in using reason. World wars, need to rely more on God’s grace
E: Dawkins and Darwin - didn’t happen, just sexist
A: Augustine’s - all sex sinful, concupiscience. Do not have full controls of our body. Freud - could cause neurosis
CA: Augustine - the Fall happening was a blessing in disguise ‘felix culpa’. God bought his incarnation to save humanity from their sins
E: Weak as cannot have friends, or love without sinning. Takes away the whole point of being a good person. We are predestined to go to heaven or hell. No incentive to be a good person.
Akrasia,Cupiditas,Caritas
Akrasia: The divided will
Cupiditas: selfish love
Caritas: generous love
Before the Fall we had caritas and cupiditas in balance, the Fall messed this up
Pelagius
Direct counter to Augustine’s teachings on God’s grace:
- There is no original sin, we have free will to be good people. Augustine won the debate and his beliefs were published in the Nicean council
- Similar to John Locke: tabula rasa
There is a distinctive human nature:
- Rousseau: humans have a basic tendency to be generous, but society holds them back
- Augustine & Niebuhr: corrupt human nature, humans are naturally sinful - influenced by the enlightenment which is making people more optimistic about human nature.
Catholic Church view on original sin
- The Fall is an allegory that explains why humans can never be good. Humans will always fall into temptation
“Critically assess Augustine’s teaching that original sin is the reason why humans lack free will” essay
A: Augustine believes that we do not have free will as we cannot help but sin. Augustine’s teachings are right. Humans cannot control concupiscence in their life. Augustine himself admitted to having an affair. Started with the Fall. He argued that before the Fall humans had free will but used to be obedient to God. Caritas before the fall.
CA: original sin does not over ride free will. we just have additional burdens to overcome. Sheep and the goats: if we use our free will to do good works then we can overcome original sin, not just grace so we have free will.
E: However lack of free will is evident around us, humans always fall into temptation. Concupiscence is shared by all humans. Augustine is right as if we had free will God would not need to send down Jesus, to give people God’s grace as humans are undeserving and unable to restore the relationship between God.
A: Backed by psychologists. Humans lack of freedom is evident it the world. We do not choose our characteristics.. Psychologists have just misidentified where this lack of freedom has come from. E.g. born rich or poor.
CA: Pelagius: unfair that we lack free will due to original sin as we could not control it what Adam and Eve did. Suggests that people can be responsible for actions committed by others. Having free will makes more sense without coercion from original sin aligns more with a just punishment . We have free will to do good.
E: Augustine is not arguing that God blamed the whole of humanity for Adam’s sins. It was just a factual consequence. Augustine points to “neither can his grace be unjust, nor his justice cruel”. We do not have free will and this not unjust. we are undoubtedly sinful beings
Augustines teachings of the Fall
- Due to the fall all humans are tainted with original sin passed down through the act of sex which is driven by concupiscence. Concupiscence rules human will now. Augustine would never meet with a women on his own to avoid the effects of lust.
- St Paul writes about the effect of concupiscence in his letter to the Romans saying how he is made to make the wrong choices because of concupiscence
- He believed that men were naturally more dominant therefore women should be ruled by men - echoing the punishment of the fall.
- The Fall tore apart the human will: tearing apart what humans want to do and what they know.
- Even living a chaste life, a human will be affected by concupiscence - therefore human are not completely free leading to his ideas of predestination
- All humans can do is push through their lives and hope they are part of God’s chosen people.
- Harmony can only be restored with God’s grace which is his free gift to humanity who are completely undeserving. God’s grace is shown by the death of Jesus on the cross
- God’s generosity continues in his willingness to allow some to go to heaven
- the summum bonum is available to those who have faith in God
Scholars on Augustines human nature
Against:
- Pelagius: didn’t believe in original sin. The Fall only harmed Adam and Eve not the rest of humanity. People are not born into a pre fall state. We do have free will
- Freud: God is a psychological contraction. Creation of God due to repressed sexual guilt. The sexual drive is an essential quality of human behaviour
- Dawkins: Christianity has an unhealthy obsession with guilt and repressed sexuality. Original sin is contrary to the theory of evolution.
- Pinker: Christianity has been responsible for a lot of suffering and violence. We should replace the irrational superstition of original sin
- Rousseau: humanity is generous and only acts others when situations cause us to act otherwise
For:
- Niebuhr: failure of sin leads to mistakes being made by society. The optimistic view of humanists have failed. Leaders are ignorance if they believe that moral goodness and reason is enough to reign just societies. Need to understand our falle nature first then we can understand our true limits
- Hobbes: humanity is selfish and brutish, the only thing that separates us from humans from reason. Our purpose is to conquer the animalistic brutish side leading to fair societies
“Augustine’s view of human nature is an optimistic one. Discuss this claim”
A: Pessimistic - original sin - as we can never avoid sin due to the Fall. Concupiscence -> can never talk to the opposite sex without concupiscence. Has been passed down through original sin
CA: Optimistic because he says that even though we don’t deserve to be saved. Jesus gave us God’s grace which - predestination. God’s ultimate show of love - optimistic considering we don’t deserve it. Offers redemption for us to reach the summum bonum
E: Pelagius: the fact we have unavoidable original sin and therefore are completely unable to avoid evil - suggests an unjust God which is pessimistic. Since we are not responsible for the actions committed of others it suggests that we don’t have free will as well therefore pessimistic
A: Dawkins - predestination very pessimistic a since Augustine’s view mean that people are condemned to go to heaven or hell before you are born, some may argue that there is no point in attempting to do good when we are ‘innately doomed’
CA: Just realistic Hobbes: naturally brutish nature & Barth would agree that we have been so corrupted by original sin - witness the horrors of Nazi regime. Niebuhr: no action is truly good just a fact
E: not a strong argument as Barth in particular may have been influenced by the time he was in. John Locke; tabula rasa so we aren’t naturally evil
