United Inwardly by Love: Augustine's Social Ontology (original) (raw)
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The Theological Principles Underlying Augustine’s “City of God”
Theological Research. The Journal of Systematic Theology
In his treatise the City of God Augustine intended to show that the pagans anti-Christian charges blaming the Christians for the fall of Rome were unsubstantiated and that it was in Christianity that they could find the solution to many of their own moral and religious problems. The Bishop of Hippo wanted also to equip Christians with the appropriate arguments to refute pagan charges and to make them rejoice in the plan for the Salvation of humankind. In his assessment of the true value of philosophical principles it was essential for Augustine not to renounce the authority of Christ. Augustine claims that the human race is divided into two antagonistic communities, cities, in their pursuit of their respective 'happiness' (civitas Dei; civitas terrena). The two loves are mutually antithetical; the love of God, which is a social love and a love of justice, which is the very opposite of self-love, is an espousal of injustice.
The Theological Principles Underlying Augustines on The City of God
In his treatise The City of God Augustine intended to show the pagans and their anti-Christian charges blaming the Christians for the fall of Rome were unsubstantiated, and that it was in Christianity that they could find the solution to many of their own moral and religious problems. The Bishop of Hippo wanted also to equip Christians with the appropriate argumentation to refute pagan charges and to make them rejoice in the plan for the Salvation of humankind. In his assessment of the true value of philosophical principles it was essential for Augustine not to renounce the authority of Christ. Augus-tine claim that the human race is divided into two antagonistic communities – Cities in their pursuit of their respective 'happiness' (civitas Dei; civi-tas terrena). The two loves are mutually antithetical; the love of God, which is a social love and a love of justice is the very opposite of self-love, which is an espousal of injustice. Keywords The City of God, the two loves, civitas Dei; civitas terrena, the apologetic motives, the seven ages of the world history
Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God
Cambridge University Press, 2020
In this volume, Veronica Roberts Ogle offers a new reading of Augustine’s political thought as it is presented in City of God. Focusing on the relationship between politics and the earthly city, she argues that a precise understanding of Augustine’s vision can only be reached through a careful consideration of the work’s rhetorical strategy and sacramental worldview. Ogle draws on Christian theology and political thought, moral philosophy, and semiotic theory to make her argument. Laying out Augustine’s understanding of the earthly city, she proceeds by tracing out his rhetorical strategy and concludes by articulating his sacramental vision and the place of politics within it. Ogle thus suggests a new way of determining the status of politics in Augustine’s thought. Her study clarifies seemingly contradictory passages in his text, highlights the nuance of his position, and captures the unity of his vision as presented in City of God.
Augustine's "City of God": The First Culture War
The Imaginative Conservative, 2020
In “The City of God,” Augustine systematically lays bare the empty ideology of the city of man and the Roman empire in a breathtaking counter-narrative that remains remarkably modern and relevant for today. In contrast to the city of man, the City of Love, Augustine argues, is the godly city to which Christians belong and is the city for which Homer and Virgil longed.
Augustine and the History of Political Ideas: The City of God and the City of Men
2023
In our time there is little doubt that some events are global. Even those who think that the strongest ties and the main moral, social, and political duties are those we have to our family, our city or our nation, instead of to humanity as a whole, recognize that there are phenomena that are, literally, planetary in scale. In a certain sense, this observation seems to be motivated by reasons of an economic, technical or cultural nature—due to the universal applications of science, the increasing migrations and contacts between the different peoples of the earth, and so on. Some prefer to underline certain technological causes, while others underline the “moral” roots, but in any case, as twentieth-century French philosopher Raymond Aron once said “the unity of the planet is already complete, its vicissitudes are already integrated in universal history.” This unity exists regardless of what people think. However, contrary to what is sometimes said, this awareness of planetary unity is not exactly recent; it was a given at least since the end of World War II and has much older roots. During the Cold War, this was expressed with great rhetorical force in Kennedy's famous words: “We all inhabit the same planet, we all breathe the same air, we are all afraid, we are all worried about the future of our children, we are all mortal.” We know that there is, beyond blood ties, family, culture or religion, a social and moral horizon that is common to all, and the question is precisely what the best organization is for living together despite the differences and incompatibilities between people and their worldviews. Like Kennedy’s speech went on to state: “So let us not be blinded by our differences – but let us direct our attention to our common interests and the means by which these differences can be resolved. And if we can't end our differences now, at least we can help make the world safe for this diversity.” A just order is global in scope. The platonic Socrates corrected the “opinion” of the age according to which justice was simply favoring friends and allies well while inflicting harm on enemies and adversaries. But he never suggested that the ties that bind us, or that government itself, could be “worldwide.” Nor did historians of the Roman Empire pretend that its history was universal: it was, on the contrary, the history of the city to which citizens owed their first loyalty. The opinion or feeling that we should favor our own people first and foremost has not disappeared but is now counterbalanced by the idea that such an opinion is parochial, if not based on mere prejudice, because we are all men, we all inhabit the earth, and we all share the same fate. The first philosophers who seriously defended the idea that humanity had a common destiny in the West were perhaps the Stoics. But this idea was linked to the idea of divine Providence, as the cosmos is too big to be governed by any human regime or government. For the notion of a universal city of men, as distinct from the cosmos ruled by God, was introduced only by Augustine.
An Invitation to Augustine's "City of God"
The Imaginative Conservative, 2019
No work of Christian theology has left such an impact on the world and biblical interpretation and understanding as St. Augustine’s “City of God.” We who read the Bible do so, often unknowingly, through the eyes of the bishop of Hippo.
From The City of Reason vol 3 Universitas by Dr Peter Critchley Augustine is the last great ancient thinker, using all of his pagan education and training for powerful and cogent statement of Christian thought. Augustine “provided the medieval consciousness, amid an entirely different sociological and political reality, with its foundation and spiritual weapons”. Karl Jaspers certainly underestimates the contributions of thinkers before Augustine, but his appraisal of Augustine’s achievement isn’t far from the truth: “No philosopher before Augustine had concerned himself with the uncertainty of freedom, the ground of its possibility or the question of its actual meaning. But Augustine, thanks to his understanding of St Paul, considered these matters with an enduring force of conviction” (Karl Jaspers, Plato and Augustine (New York: Harcourt Brace/Harvest Book, 1962) 95). The basis of St Augustine’s The City of God (civitas dei) is the distinction between the earthly city and the heavenly city; these form two distinctive communities, one of the ungodly and the other of the godly. This paper shows how Augustine targets individualism to define a Christian version of ‘rational freedom’. The root of the evil in the earthly city is selfishness. In Augustine’s view, individuals are restless, seeking to dominate each other and make each other means to private ends. Human life is thus an endless quest for power and self-gratification. In Augustine’s conception, the state is necessary, not to make individuals good or virtuous but to restrain them from doing evil. Augustine’s argument is that whilst government and society are natural for human beings, they are also irredeemably coercive. The state is not a positive instrument for promoting the good life – the ‘rational’ conception - but a neutral instrument for imposing the civil peace – the liberal protective or instrumental view. For this reason, Augustine does not belong in the tradition of ‘rational freedom’. Whereas politics in ancient Greece was defined in terms of the creative self-realisation of the human ontology, in Augustine's conception the earthly political association is more an instrument of division, force and rapacity.
Ontological dimension of community education refers to Augustine's thought in the City of God
To educate each person integrally as a member of society, ethical principles with an ontological dimension are needed. This qualitative research with literature study method aims to explore the ontological dimension of community education refers to Augustine's thought in The City of God. The results of this study show that community education is synonymous with building the City of God, which is characterized by human relationships with God so that they are able to use freedom driven by altruist love to implement social responsibility for the realization of peace, justice and happiness in common life. Education of conscience plays an important role in developing the sensitivity, concern and responsibility of each person to realize true happiness in life together. True happiness, which is the goal of everyone's life, has a moral, relational-dialogical, dynamic and affective character. Altruistic love, which stems from man's relationship with God, is an ethical principle in social life. At the same time, the idea of each person's relationship with God and his presence in conscience confirms Augustine's position on the ontological dimension of the morality of living together. Augustine's ideas about the ontological dimension of social morality have influenced moral education in the Christian tradition and philosophical discourse over time.