Augustine

If the providence of God does not preside over human affairs, we have no need to busy ourselves about religion.

A Patristic Treasury: Early Church Wisdom for Today, edited by James R. Payton, Jr

As you can imagine, this will take more than one post.

NB: Augustine is viewed with some suspicion in Eastern Orthodoxy, although he is sainted in all traditions which recognize saints. For example, he has a greater confidence than many in the ability of human reason to penetrate the mysteries of the Christian faith. Further, the imputation of original sin and the denial of the freedom of the human will after our parents’ fall have been rejected with Orthodoxy.

I will note (*) comments that Payton has noted as falling outside of the bounds of Eastern Orthodox thought.

God

The true and inscrutable God, who is perhaps – but only rarely – perceived by intelligence, is never perceived by any sense. *

Here, Augustine comments that God can be perceived by intelligence, yet also is never perceived. It seems contradictory. Perhaps what Augustine has left us is an example of one struggling with just how far man’s intelligence can reach.

The Son

Christ came chiefly for this reason, that human beings might learn how much God loves them….

He showed us in the Cross what we should have to endure; He showed us in the Resurrection what we have to hope for.

The proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the Resurrection of our Lord.

This is a nice summary of God’s love and the Christian life.

In the Old Testament the New is concealed, and in the New the Old is revealed.

For no other reason were all the things that we read in the Holy Scriptures written before our Lord’s coming than to announce His coming and to prefigure the Church to be….

…all divine Scripture that was written before was written to foretell the coming of the Lord…

The recognition of this has come to me just in the last years: the focal point, or fulcrum, of the entire Scriptural narrative and of the truth of the Scripture is Christ: the Old Testament points to Him, and the New Testament reveals Him.

The Trinity

…we will no longer shout about the equality of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and the unity of the Trinity itself, and the manner in which these three are one God, in a profession of faith expressed in a babble of words, but may absorb this by most pure and most fervent contemplation in the heavenly silence.

This comment is not noted by Payton as one with which the Eastern Orthodox Church takes exception. Yet, here again, Augustine appears to recognize that man’s reason, or intelligence, cannot really grasp “God,” yet at the same time may absorb God by contemplation. Again, perhaps nothing more than a man struggling with the wall keeping God’s being from man’s reason.

To be fair to Augustine, and as I have written elsewhere, what do the Christological struggles in the several counsels post Nicea and Constantinople represent other than this struggle: man’s reason trying to grasp God? And in this struggle, the Church was divided.

There are some things best left to mystery. We can always point to what is false without having to come up with words to describe what is true.

Scripture

Faith will totter if the authority of Scripture begins to shake.

Prima Scriptura. In other words, not sola, as in only, but prima, as in primary.

Scripture commands nothing except love and condemns nothing but lust, and in that way fashions the lives of human beings….

For Augustine, love is aimed at the enjoyment of God; lust is aimed at enjoying one’s self without reference to God. In other words, “love” isn’t love.

In regard to the canonical Scripture, one must follow the judgement of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to those which have been privileged to be the seat of an apostle and to have received apostolic letters.

Pride

Nothing is more opposed to love than envy, and the mother of envy is pride.

By no other way was it possible for us who fell by pride to return to humility.

Since humanity fell through pride, He restored it thought humility.

Humility is the foundation of Christian life.

There is no difficulty in abstaining except when there is lust in enjoying.

I can resist anything but temptation.

How can the mind that feeds on dissension and strife preserve the health that comes from peace?

I don’t know if there are any readers here who were readers from the early days of my other blog. However, and I am not pleased with this, often my posts would feed dissention and strife; I could have made my points in a more respectful manner, but didn’t.

Sin

Through sin in our first parents we fell and have all come into the inheritance of death. We were brought low, became mortal, were filled with fears and errors, all through this sin. With this inheritance and this guilt everyone is born. *

As noted, the Eastern Orthodox do not agree with this concept, that Adam and Eve’s sin is imputed to their descendants.

My two cents…other than what this might mean for infants, we are all in the same boat when it comes to being sinful. We all sin, we are all fallen – by fallen, I mean we fall short of that which we were designed to be. I suspect several other doctrinal positions follow one way or the other depending on one’s view on this topic of imputation.

Yet, ultimately, here we are. Everyone reading these words (and also true for the one writing them) is fallen, is sinful, is living a life that falls shorts of the life for which God created us to live. However we got here, whatever terms one chooses to use to explain this, here we are.

Whether one agrees with original sin as the explanation or rejects this and comes up with another makes no difference to this reality: we all sin, we all fall short.

So now what?

How about this:

Repentance

What will I lack if I have God? And what is the good of all else to me, if I have not God?

I am at this time doing nothing but purging myself of futile and harmful opinions.

Unless we walk by faith, we shall not attain to sight.

Discourse

The science of reasoning is of very great service in searching into and unraveling all sorts of questions that come up in Scripture; only in the use of it we must guard against the love of wrangling and the childish vanity of entrapping an adversary.

Augustine goes on to add: anything of use from the philosophers (especially the Platonists) that is in harmony with our faith should be claimed for our own use. This sits well with me: all truth is from God; God breathed into man, therefore all men have access to God’s truth.

Not that those without faith can grasp all of it, but they can claim bits and pieces, and even help Christians with language and concepts that help us understand God and this world.

We have progress in philosophy when a disputant thinks little of victory as compared with the discovery of what is just and true.

When I find myself wanting to do nothing more than argue, I have to remind myself: can I not find anything true in what the other person is saying? Can I not then use that to begin to build some common understanding?

It is a disgrace for disputants to haggle about words, when no difference about the subject matter remains.

For my part, I am nearly always dissatisfied with my discourse.

Augustine goes on to explain a problem many of us have: he often cannot find the words that properly capture that which he has in his head and wishes to express.

Biographies / Sources

Augustine (354 – 430) is the most profound of all Latin Church Fathers. His influence in Western Christianity is more significant than that of any other theologian.