St Augustine on Human Nature Flashcards
Orginal sin
Man is corrupted by the fall and unable to live moral life despite best efforts
-IS the first sin passed on by reproductions
-as all of mankind is ‘seminally present in the loins of Adam’
-is impossible to evade
-’mass a damnata’ - the mass of the damned
Love
The human will is driven by love, after the fall this is led in two distinct directions
Caritas – Generous love for others, the love god shows to humanity. Is an expression of the will as gods eternal law. Brings happiness and the Sonum bonum
Cupitidas – love of impermeant/changeable earthly things
Is an error of the will to follow , leads to ignorance and unhappiness
The human will is synonymous with love.
-Human will is god given and created ex nihlo
-serves as reminder of gods total love and goodness
Friendship
Friendship
-before the fall edam and eve are married but friends
-sex was secondary to friendship, not driven by desire but gods command to ‘be fruitful and multiply’
- Augustine believed that Adam could summon an erection at will and that this will was in complete harmony and in control of the body.
-after fall led by lust over love/friendship
Pride
Satan
-Satan an angel who fell through pride and grace to try to rule the earth
-Satan encourages Eves pride, leading her to fall
-Satan as ‘most cunning’ catalyst promotes men’s corruption
‘whose unfallen condition he envied, now that he himself had fallen.”
YET MAN IS STILL RESPONSIBLE - ‘the evil will precedes the evil act’
Weakness of the Will
Ancient philosophers also recognized this difficulty in always doing the right thing and described it as a “weakness of will” (Akrasia).
Akrasia (weakness of will): Aristotle describes four stages of the moral life: Wickedness; self-control, temperance and life without struggle
Augustine’s notion that the evil will preceded the evil act was an explicit rejection of his prior Manichean and Platonist ideas that it was the body alone which was evil and corrupt.
- For Augustine it was the integrity of the will that was most central particularly because a weakened will was unable to control bodily and natural desires for food and sex.
-See divided will that despite knowing what good is, humans are continually weakened by desires to do the opposite.
The divided Will
Post the fall - will is at war with itself and unable to obey its own orders.
Augustine posits image of lady continence
Continence: self-restraint, especially to abstain from sexual pleasures. Augustine describes continence using the metaphor of a beautiful chaste woman.
-Offers pure and serene life of celibacy, Yet the will is dominated by sinful desires
Concupiscence: Sexual lust but can also refer to uncontrolled desires of all kinds such as craving food, power and money.
Divided will described by st paul ‘why do i do evil I hate not the good that I want
Grace and Predestination
Grace – the love and mercy of god, its divine outpouring to humanity
Transforms the will to be obedient to god
Acts as the only cure for sinfulness
Overcomes human pride
Shows gods mercy to allow eternal life despite our sin
Paul calls grace a “gift” which we cannot ‘take credit’ for earning (Ephesians 2:8). That suggests that getting into heaven is not something that human beings have the power to achieve.
Only with God’s granting of undeserved grace can we possibly be saved.
Limited election/ double predestination
. If we cannot get ourselves into heaven then God has either predestined us for heaven, or he hasn’t and our original sin damns us to hell. This view is called double predestination: that heaven is predestined for some and hell for others.
Cannot save self due to weight of original sin
-predestined by gods omniscient knowledge
Develops double predestination - he idea that God chooses some people to be saved and others to be damned, before we are born
-’’and those he predestined he also called’
-predestined are ‘elect’ rest ‘reprobate
Peace
‘Earthly peace’ - compromise made between sinful human wills
-allows access to material goods
-aim for it our of ostensible ‘moral interests’
Heavenly peace – prelapsarian harmony and love, now only found in heaven
Human society
The state is an punishment to remedy mans fallen nature
-it owns/controls/ has slavery as punishment
-but also necessary to provide order/ control
Earthly city – Governed by material forces where those going to hell are condemned
City of God– Where those who are chosen exist, the heavenly story of ecclesia is how we must live
*Pilgrim to a foreign land’ metaphor to show how Christians should behave
Only reach this in the afterlife
Sonnum Bonnum
*The greatest/highest good
*Highest good is only available for those who set their hearts on God and who God chooses through his grace
*Happiness on this earth is only temporary
Remember Augustine was influenced by Plato. Augustine saw Plato’s Form of the Good as being similar to the goodness of God.
Happiness in this life is temporary.
The Summum Bonum is eternal happiness and comes from being in the presence of God. The ultimate goal / end for all humans is the Summum Bonum.
It is only possible for those who fully turn their hearts to God and whom God chooses through his Grace. The Summum Bonum can be seen as an aspect of God.
Achieved only by grace of god
