st. augustine on human nature

Question 1

Andres Breivik (2011).

Answer 1

Killed eight people in a car bombing in Oslo, then 69 youths in a Utoya Youth Club.

Question 2

Maximillian Kolbe (1941).

Answer 2

Took the place of another Auschwitz inmate when 10 were chosen to starve to death as a deterrent after three inmates had escaped.

Question 3

Jean-Jacques Rousseau on human nature.

Answer 3

Claimed humans are generous and only act otherwise when circumstances demand.

Question 4

Thomas Hobbes on human nature.

Answer 4

Argued humans were naturally selfish and brutish but logic indicates cooperation makes life easier.

Question 5

Where did Augustine study.

Answer 5

Rhetoric in Carthage.

Question 6

What did he call Carthage?

Answer 6

‘Hissing cauldron of lust.’

Question 7

Manichean.

Answer 7

An esoteric form of Christianity that claims Satan is active in he human world, that we have a higher soul which is trapped in a lower soul linked to the human flesh which it must be liberated from, as it drives humans towards material delights.

Question 8

Platonism.

Answer 8

Claimed some could ascend levels of reality through contemplation of the One (God) and the soul must detach from the material body to merge with God for complete knowledge and salvation.

Question 9

Ambrose of Milan’s teaching to Augustine.

Answer 9

That the Bible should be read symbollically.

Question 10

Augustine’s problem with Christianity.

Answer 10

• Biblical contradictions.
• Unsophisticated and unrefined.

Question 11

Augustine’s conversion experience.

Answer 11

• Sat beneath a fig tree in a moment of distress, when he had a vocal religious experience of a child saying “pick up and read” which he believed to be God’s command to return to theological studies.
• Read Romans 13:13-14 and realised wisdom came from God’s grace.

Question 12

Pelagians teachings.

Answer 12

• Human’s have the free will to overcome personal guilt independently.
• Children are born in the same state as Adam and Eve before the Fall.

Question 13

Human Will before the Fall.

Answer 13

• Human body, will and reason was in sync.
• Will was created with humans ‘ex nihilo’ and allowed us freedom but directed by ‘cupiditas’ and ‘caritas’.
• Adam and Eve shared friendship, with sex as a secondary component.

Question 14

Human Will after the Fall.

Answer 14

• Adam and Eve were motivated by pride, inspired by Satan.
• Disobedience was the cause of all vices.
• The will became broken, ‘cupiditas’ and ‘caritas’ separated.
• We know what is moral but pride and concupiscence controls the soul.
• Humans can not gain control over themselves but only God’s grace can save us.

Question 15

Double death.

Answer 15

The first being the friendship between God and man caused by Adams rebellion. The second is humanities moral state as punishment from God.

Question 16

Transmission of sin.

Answer 16

The concept of Adam’s disobedience and pride being transmitted by sexual intercourse tainted by concupiscence.

Question 17

Other Christian interpretations of the Fall.

Answer 17

That it is a metaphorical representation of peoples life events as they reject God before their redemption.

Question 18

Richard Dawkins on Original Sin.

Answer 18

• The Fall is contradictory to evolution.
• Augustinian theodicy has caused unhealthy obsession with guilt.
• Claims God killing Jesus on the cross was sadomasochistic.

Question 19

The Humanitarian Principle.

Answer 19

Steven’s Pinker’s principle that humans function better when they take account of one another’s interest; the development of it after the Enlightenment meant irrational superstition was replaced.

Question 20

Reinhold Niebuhr on original sin.

Answer 20

• Modern society has rejected the concept of sin to the point of removal of any sense of responsibility so injustice is perpetuated.
• Believes human nature is cured through a proper relationship with God.
• Claims human behaviour cant be put into good or sinful due to many contradictions.