Augustinianism is the philosophical and theological system of Augustine of Hippo and its subsequent development by other thinkers, notably Boethius, Anselm of Canterbury and Bonaventure.Rogers, Katherine. The Neoplatonic Metaphysics and Epistemology of Anselm of Canterbury. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press. 1997.Saint BonaventurePrayer after Augustine: A study in the development of the Latin tradition Among Augustine's most important works are The City of God, , and Confessions.
Originally, Augustinianism developed in opposition to Pelagianism;Augustinism in McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia] it was widespread in medieval western philosophy until the arrival of Thomism and Aristotelianism.Augustinianism Encyclopedia.com
Plato and Plotinus influenced Augustine in many ways, and he is considered a Neoplatonic philosopher.The Significance of NeoplatonismSaint Augustine The Augustinian theodicy and other Augustinian doctrines such as the divine illumination and the invisible church show a strong Platonic influence.Wallace M. Alston, The Church of the Living God: A Reformed Perspective (Westminster John Knox Press, 2002 ), p. 53De deo Socratis, XVII–XIX)
Pope Benedict XVI cautioned that all of the Western Church teaching leads to him:
View of humanity
According to Augustine, even the world and corporeal entities, being fruits of divine love, have their value and meaning, unlike Platonists, who tended to devalue them. This attempt to place history and earthly existence within a heavenly perspective, where even evil finds explanation in some way, always remained at the center of its philosophical concerns.
Ethics These are the most important values for an Augustinian.
Love Interiority Humility Devotion to study and the pursuit of wisdom Freedom Community Common good Humble and generous service Friendship Prayer
Meta-ethics
Augustine offered the Divine command theory, a theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God. Augustine's theory began by casting ethics as the pursuit of the supreme good, which delivers human happiness. Augustine argued that to achieve this happiness, humans must love objects that are worthy of human love in the correct manner; this requires humans to love God, which then allows them to correctly love that which is worthy of being loved. Augustine's ethics proposed that the act of loving God enables humans to properly orient their loves, leading to human happiness and fulfilment.
Just war Just war theory is a doctrine that determines whether a war waged by a state is morally justifiable, or not, through a series of criteria, all of which must be met for a war to be considered just. Citing Romans 13:4 Augustine claims that, while individuals should not resort immediately to violence, God has given the sword to government for good reason. Augustine argues that Christians, as part of a government, need not be ashamed of protecting peace and punishing wickedness when forced to do so by a government. Augustine asserted that this was a personal, philosophical stance: "What is here required is not a bodily action, but an inward disposition. The sacred seat of virtue is the heart."Contra Faustum Manichaeum book 22 sections 69–76
Happiness Augustine's ethics is that of ancient eudaimonism,Holte 1962 but he defers happiness to the afterlife and blames the ancient ethicists saying that their arrogant conviction resulting from their ignorance of the fallen condition of humanity that they could reach happiness in this life by philosophical endeavor.De civitate dei 19.4Wolterstorff 2012 Augustine takes it as axiomatic that happiness is the ultimate goal pursued by all human beings.De beata vita 10De civitate dei 10.1De trinitate 13.7 For Augustine, happiness or the good life is brought about by the possession of the greatest good in nature that humans can attain and that one cannot lose against one's will.
Epistemology
Augustine emphasised the role of divine illumination in our thought, saying that "The mind needs to be enlightened by light from outside itself, so that it can participate in truth, because it is not itself the nature of truth. You will light my lamp, Lord."Confessions IV.xv.25
For Augustine, God does not give us certain information, but rather gives us insight into the truth of the information we received for ourselves.
Thomas Aquinas criticizes the divine illumination, denying that in this life we have divine ideas as an object of thought, and that divine illumination is sufficient on its own, without the senses. Aquinas also denied that there is a special continuing divine influence on human thought. People have sufficient capacity for thought on their own, without needing "new illumination added onto their natural illumination".Summa theologiae 1a2ae 109.1c
Anthropology
Soul
Saint Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with very clear anthropological vision. Augustine saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body.Cf. A. Gianni, pp.148–149 He was much closer in this anthropological view to Aristotle than to Plato.Hendrics, E., p. 291.Massuti, E., p.98. In his late treatise *On Care to Be Had for the Dead", sec. 5 (420 AD), he insisted that the body pertains to the essence of the human person:
Augustine's favourite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: – "your body is your wife".Augustine of Hippo, , 143, 6.CCL 40, 2077 – 2078 ; 46, 234–35.Augustine of Hippo, , 4, 4–5. According to N. Blasquez, Saint Augustine's dualism of substances of the body and soul does not stop him from seeing the unity of body and soul as a substance itself., pp. 305–350. Following ancient philosophers he defined man as a "rational mortal animal" – ., II, 11.31; CCL 29, 124 ; PL 32,1009; De quantitate animae, 25,4ХнНЧ 7–49; CSEL 89, 190–194; PL 32, 1062–1063Cf. Ch. Couturier SJ, p. 543
Original sin
Augustine wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it. For Augustine, Adam's sinAugustine taught that Adam's sin was both an act of foolishness () and of pride and disobedience to God of Adam and Eve. He thought it was a most subtle job to discern what came first: self-centeredness or failure in seeing truth. Augustine wrote to Julian of Eclanum: (, V, 4.18; PL 44, 795). This particular sin would not have taken place if Satan had not sown into their senses "the root of evil" (): (Contra Julianum, I, 9.42; PL 44, 670) is transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire","Original Sin". Biblical Apologetic Studies. Retrieved 17 May 2014. Augustine taught that Adam's sin is transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire", sexual desire and all sensual feelings resulting in humanity becoming a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will.William Nicholson. A Plain But Full Exposition of the Catechism of the Church of England, page 118. Retrieved 17 May 2014. resulting in humanity becoming a (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will. When Adam sinned, human nature was thenceforth transformed. Adam and Eve, via sexual reproduction, recreated human nature. Their descendants now live in sin, in the form of concupiscence, a term Augustine used in a metaphysical, not a psychological sense.Thomas Aquinas explained Augustine's doctrine pointing out that the ('concupiscence'), which makes the original sin pass from parents to children, is not a , i.e. sexual lust, but , i.e. a wound of the whole of human nature: (STh Iª–IIae q. 82 a. 4 ad 3). Augustine insisted that concupiscence was not "a being" but a "bad quality", the privation of good or a wound. (, I, 25. 28; PL 44, 430; cf. , VI, 18.53; PL 44, 854; ibid. VI, 19.58; PL 44, 857; ibid., II, 10.33; PL 44, 697; , 15; PL 42, 590. He admitted that sexual concupiscence () might have been present in the perfect human nature in paradise, and that only later it became disobedient to human will as a result of the first couple's disobedience to God's will in the* original sin.Augustine wrote to Julian of Eclanum: (, IV. 11. 57; PL 44, 766). See also his late work: , II, 42; PL 45,1160; ibid. II, 45; PL 45,1161; ibid., VI, 22; PL 45, 1550–1551. Cf. In Augustine's view (termed "Realism"), all of humanity was really present in Adam when he sinned, and therefore all have sinned. Original sin, according to Augustine, consists of the guilt of Adam which all humans inherit. Justo L. González interprets Augustine's teaching that humans are utterly depraved in nature and grace is irresistible, results in conversion, and leads to perseverance.
Augustine's understanding of the consequences of original sin and the necessity of redeeming grace was developed in the struggle against Pelagius and his Pelagian disciples, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum, who had been inspired by Rufinus of Syria, a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia.Marius Mercator , 2,3; PL 48,111 /v.5-13/; They refused to agree that original sin wounded human will and mind, insisting that human nature was given the power to act, to speak, and to think when God created it. Human nature cannot lose its moral capacity for doing good, but a person is free to act or not to act in a righteous way. Pelagius gave an example of eyes: they have capacity for seeing, but a person can make either good or bad use of it.Augustine of Hippo, , I, 15.16; CSEL 42, 138 [v. 24–29]; Ibid., I,4.5; CSEL 42, 128 [v.15–23].
The Catholic Church accepts the doctrine of original sin as Augustine taught."Original sin". Catholic Encyclopædia.
Predestination
For Augustine God orders all things while preserving human freedom. Prior to 396, Augustine believed that predestination was based on God's foreknowledge of whether individuals would believe, that God's grace was "a reward for human assent". Later, in response to Pelagius, Augustine said that the sin of pride consists in assuming that "we are the ones who choose God or that God chooses us (in his foreknowledge) because of something worthy in us", and argued that it is God's grace that causes the individual act of faith.
Some Catholics dispute that Augustine believed predestination in the latter way, and claim that Augustine affirmed free will in the choice of being saved or not."Augustine Had It Right; Calvin Did Not"
Theodicy and Free will
The problem of evil is the question of how to reconcile the existence of evil with an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and omniscient God.Michael Tooley, "The Problem of Evil", The Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyNick Trakakis, "The Evidential Problem of Evil", The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Augustine develops key ideas regarding his response to suffering. In Confessions, Augustine wrote that his previous work was dominated by materialism and that reading the works of Plato enabled him to consider the existence of a non-physical substance. This helped him develop a response to the problem of evil from a theological (and non-Manichean) perspective.