Augustine’s commentary on Alypius’ curiositas at the gladiatorial show (6, 8, 13) recounts one of the most well-known stories in Augustine’s Confessiones. Despite the various interpretations or explications of the story in Augustinian scholarship, this paper argues that the story centres around Alypius’ curiositas as a function of Alypius’ preceding, morally deficient character. The author provides a fourfold, cumulative and philological case for this thesis. He develops this case by means of four evidences. First, Augustine uses the phraseology (...) of animus forti temperantia (6, 7, 12), the virtuous character describing Alypius when he had overcome his love of the gladiatorial games. Second, Augustine distinguishes between “supreme” and “a surface level” virtue, the existence of which is best explained by its application in Augustine’s remark that Alypius had been audax rather than fortis. Third, Augustine uses the language of talis in reference to Alypius, a term describing sorts or kinds of things or persons; in this context, this is the language of character. Finally, Augustine’s use of adhuc implies that there is a type of character Alypius had been, the remedy of which was to acquire an animus forti temperantia. The author then argues that Augustine envisions that the healing of curiositas (as a vice) is from God, especially when a virtuous character – the means by which one is able to overcome curiositas – itself is articulated as a gift of God’s grace. The response to such healing, then, is gratitude. The author concludes that this paper contributes both to a more comprehensive interpretation of the Alypius narrative (6, 8, 13) as well as contemporary scholarship on Augustine’s relation to (psychotherapeutic) healing. (shrink)

In claiming the independence of theology from science, Ernan McMullin nevertheless saw the danger of separating these disciplines on questions of mutual significance, as his accompanying article “Biology and the Theology of the Human” in this edition of Zygon shows. This paper analyzes McMullin's adoption of emergence as a qualified endorsement of a view that avoids the excesses of both dualism and materialism. I argue that McMullin's distinctive contribution is the conceptual clarification of emergence in the light of a precise (...) understanding of matter, in light of Aristotelian metaphysics and Darwinian theory. As applied to human nature, McMullin retains an Augustinian outlook that sees spirit as emergent in the human body and which posits a credible biblical hermeneutic. I indicate briefly how McMullin's perspective could be fortified by a fuller natural theology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:How Augustinian Is Aquinas's Basic Account of Free Decision?Jamie Anne SpieringIntroductionQuestions about Augustine's influence on Thomas Aquinas are always interesting. In the previous century, leading Thomists such as Marie Dominic Chenu, Jean-Pierre Torrell, and Étienne Gilson wrote about the influence of one great master on the other. However, no one thinks the investigation is complete: the contributions of the new century have begun and are expected to continue.1 (...) In this article, I would like to consider how Augustine influenced Aquinas's account of something known to both authors as liberum arbitrium: free choice, or free decision.2 When we speak of grace and [End Page 435] human freedom, Aquinas's debt to Augustine and the extent of his fidelity to the master have been frequently explored.3 The same is true with regard to the fairly advanced question of the relation between human freedom and divine foreknowledge.4 But in this article I would like to consider Thomas's treatment of what we might call the basic questions surrounding man's ability to choose freely—questions about its essence and its existence. What is this liberum arbitrium, which Augustine repeatedly calls "a gift of nature"? How should we understand its activity? How should we understand its origin? Thomas Aquinas deals with liberum arbitrium as a power of the soul in question 83 of Summa theologiae [ST] I, in question 24 of De veritate, and in chapter 48 of Summa contra gentiles [SCG] II. These texts are not about the role of grace or the causality of God—though they prepare for the discussion—but simply about the powers of an intellectual nature. How Augustinian is Aquinas's account in these texts?5 [End Page 436] I will try to explore the question with reasonable thoroughness in this paper.6It will surprise no one to hear that my answer to "was Aquinas an Augustinian in his basic treatment of free decision?" is "in a way, no, and in a way, yes." It is both surprising and notable how significantly Aquinas departs from the Augustinian path. The first part of this paper will discuss three major ways in which Aquinas's account of liberum arbitrium breaks openly (by medieval standards) from the type of careful loyalty we see in earlier authors. In the second part of the paper, I will argue that Aquinas's account follows Augustine in distinctive ways: instead of prioritizing Augustine's context and preferred evidence for free decision, Aquinas does more to locate free decision within the quest for happiness which provided the ultimate pattern for Augustine's thought. He is an Augustinian, but of a very different kind.Aquinas's Treatment of Liberum Arbitrium Represents a Significant Break with the Augustinian TraditionIt simply was not Thomas's practice to write statements such as: "I am going to treat this topic in a way different from that of Augustine, and I plan to make significant improvements." How, then, can we understand whether, and to what extent, he made a break with Augustine's ideas? Direct comparison of the authors' works is the obvious strategy, but such comparison is complicated by our ignorance of whether Aquinas had actually seen the work in question or was only familiar with quotations from it. So I will employ an additional strategy to reveal Aquinas's breaks with Augustine: I will compare Thomas's work to that of Peter Lombard and Anselm of Canterbury. We know Aquinas had read Peter's work thoroughly, because [End Page 437] he wrote a commentary on it, and citations in De veritate reveal that Thomas knew at least the highlights of Anselm's work on free decision. Both Peter and Anselm are faithful to many aspects of Augustine's treatment: they follow him in the way they contextualize the topic, and they are careful to use Augustinian language in defining it. Aquinas does not. He radically shifts the context for the liberum arbitrium discussion and rejects definitions that use Augustine's formulations. He uses a boldly Aristotelian framework to replace a number of elements in Augustine's treatment. Finally, unlike Augustine, Peter, or Anselm, he asks about the... (shrink)

Should Christian ethics be an ecclesial or a nationalist project? This book addresses this question by tracing the development of an Augustinian and ecclesial approach to Christian ethics, noting the critiques the former brings against the latter, and assessing their merits.

Augustine’s legacy, particularly his view of marriage as being primarily procreative and the sin of mutually desired non-procreative sex, has had a lasting impact on sexual theology and ethics in the Catholic Church. Yet indulging in the Augustinian legacy without reflection and regarding children as the end goal of marriage has led to the unchallenged assumption that children are needed in every marriage. I will examine the problematic concept of matrimony as a necessary producer of children through a variety (...) of ethical lenses – the environmental, the feminist, and the bioethical – and provide an alternative to the procreative norm of sexual expression. By focusing on the unitive aspect of marital love instead of the procreative, partners are liberated to realize their union as fully mature, regardless of biological generation thus addressing ethical concerns and providing a theological alternative to the procreative marriage. (shrink)

Dans le cadre d’une analyse de discours professionnel, nous avons développé la notion de routine discursive pour décrire des séquences partiellement figées que l’on met en relation avec des déterminations textuelles et/ou discursives. Dans cet article nous nous intéressons à la façon dont ces routines s’inscrivent dans la textualité et contribuent à la façonner. Le principal résultat de nos explorations est la mise au jour d’une séquence que nous proposons d’appeler « séquence évaluative », dont nous dégageons les principaux traits. (...) Sur le plan méthodologique, nous avons procédé à des explorations textométriques autour des routines déjà identifiées et de formes qui peuvent jouer un rôle dans la structuration de la textualité de ces rapports : les marqueurs argumentatifs, les marqueurs de structuration textuelle et les formes de discours rapporté (RDA). Pour cela, nous avons procédé à une annotation multidimensionnelle du corpus grâce à l’outil d’annotation intégré dans Le Trameur.Nos analyses nous ont permis de dégager la présence récurrente d’un mouvement allant du général vers le particulier, qui est au principe d’une structuration en séquence dont nous dégageons les régularités. Notre travail met ainsi en évidence que l’activité d’évaluation propre au travail éducatif correspond à un processus rédactionnel qui repose sur la configuration textuelle des routines discursives. (shrink)

How does Christianity bear on philosophy? Is there such a thing as Christian philosophy, or are there only Christians who are also philosophers? How should Christianity and philosophy be related? Should they be related? In “Advice to Christian Philosophers” I said that Christian philosophers should display more autonomy: they have their own fish to fry, their own projects to pursue,. Here I want to say more about what these projects are like. And the right way to think about these matters, (...) so it seems to me, is broadly Augustinian. Accordingly, I want to propose a programmatic sketch of a conception of Christian philosophy that grows out of some central Augustinian emphases. I don’t claim, however, that Augustine in fact thought of Christian philosophy the way I shall suggest. The primary focus of my paper is not historical ; what I want to do is make a suggestion as to how we should think about Christian philosophy now; but this way of thinking of the matter grows out of Augustinian roots. It’s worth noting, furthermore, that what is at issue is not just a way of thinking about Christianity and philosophy, but about Christianity and scholarship more generally. (shrink)

Heidegger’s 1921 lecture course, “Augustine and Neo-Platonism,” shows the emergence of certain Augustinian elements in Heidegger’s account of the human being. In Book X of Augustine’s Confessions, Heidegger finds a rich account of the historicity and facticity of human existence. He interprets Augustinian molestia (facticity) by exhibiting the complex relation of curare (the fundamental character of factical life) and the three forms of tentatio (possibilities of falling). In this analysis, molestia appears as the how of the being of (...) life. Heidegger also makes an important critique of what is Platonic in Augustine. Specifically, he rejects what he calls Augustine’s axiological interpretation of tentatio for a more existential one. Heidegger understands axiology to be a calculative preferring of one good over another in reference to a theoretical hierarchy of goods. We offer a defense of Augustine which focuses on the historical manner in which goods are disclosed in desire. (shrink)

This article attempts to articulate an understanding of the Augustinian value of Caritas as a call for Augustinian Institutions of Higher Education to promote justice and equity in the world. The author grounds this definition of Caritas by incorporating three primary concepts of Catholic Social Teaching: the dignity of the human person, concern for the common good and a preferential option for the poor and marginalized in society. The article attempts to apply this definition of the value of (...) Augustinian Caritas to the ways in which a concern for social justice and equity is promoted and practiced in an undergraduate teacher preparation program in an Augustinian educational institution. (shrink)

Richard A. Watson - Augustinian-Cartesian Index: Texts and Commentary - Journal of the History of Philosophy 43:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 43.3 359-361 Zbigniew Janowski. Augustinian-Cartesian Index: Texts and Commentary. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2004. Pp. xv + 275. Cloth, $35.00. This is an English translation and substantial expansion of the French edition . Besides augmenting Augustinian citations, Janowski has added indices and commentaries for Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Francis Bacon, and (...) Montaigne. The result is a crucial compilation and analysis of the major textual sources of Descartes's philosophy. Janowski demonstrates that Descartes's metaphysics is foundationally Augustinian, particularly in his dependence on the doctrine of God's creation of eternal truths: "the idea that God creates by an act of understanding" . This doctrine was, in fact, left out of the Meditations. Janowski argues that it logically belongs in the fourth Meditation but was deleted because it was almost universally denied by the.. (shrink)

Augustinian Just War Theory and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: Confessions, Contentions and the Lust for Power,edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Senior Editor, et al. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2011. Details: A work concerning Augustine’s influence on Christian just war theory and the rhetoric of just war theorists from two symposia in addition to an Augustinian critique of the wars. Preface by Most Rev. Sean Cardinal O’ Malley, O.F.M. Cap., Archbishop of Boston. Foreword by (...) Roland J. Teske, S.J. Chapter One is a brief history of Augustine’s influence on the theory. Chapter Two includes a transcript of a symposium on the topic that includes the following distinguished contributors: Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., John D. Caputo, Most Rev. Edwin Cardinal O’Brien, Ambassador Thomas Melady, Col. Jack Jacobs, Dr. Joseph Hagan. Chapter Three includes a transcript of a colloquium on the topic that includes the following distinguished scholars and contributors: Joseph Margolis, Frederick Van Fleteren, Brian Kane, et al. (Advance Praise by James J. O’Donnell and Arthur Waldron.). (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to show that Augustine’s Confessions, understood “sub specie dubitationis”, constitute a substantive argument for the philosophical position that may be described as “Augustinian skepticism”. The point is that, according to Augustine’s conversion narrative, what human beings can know becomes thematic only within the horizon of what they must believe, and therefore a doxic attitude other than rationality plays the primary and ultimate role in their quest for answers to questions about the meaning of (...) life and death. An explication of the text of the Confessions suggests that a failure to understand Augustinianskepticism makes it impossible to account for a long list of big philosophical topics in Augustine’s thought. (shrink)

Drawing support from Nietzsche and Foucault, Connolly argues that the Augustinian Imperative contains unethical implications: its carriers too often convert living signs that threaten their ontological self-confidence into modes of otherness to be condemned, punished, or converted in order to restore that confidence. With a lucidity and rhetorical power that makes it readily accessible, The Augustinian Imperative examines Augustine's enactment of the Imperative, explores alternative ethico-political orientations, and subsequently reveals much about the politics of morality in the modern (...) age. (shrink)

The essay is framed by conflict between Christianity and Darwinian science over the history of the world and the nature of human personhood. Evolutionary science narrates a long prehuman geological and biological history filled with vast amounts, kinds, and distributions of apparently random brutal and pointless suffering. It also strongly suggests that the first modern humans were morally primitive. This science seems to discredit Christianity's common meta-narrative of the Fall, understood as a story of Paradise Lost. The author contends that (...) this Augustinian story and its character of Adam as endowed with superhuman gifts, and yet as so fragile as to fall, as claimed, is implausible, at any rate, even apart from science. He proposes that Christians consider adopting a Supralapsarian metaphysics of divine purpose supported by the intuitions of Irenaeus, who depicted the first human beings as comparable to innocent, but morally undeveloped children. In this approach the existence of evils is part of the divine plan to "defeat" them in and through the Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection of Christ. Putting an "Irenaean Adam" in place of the "Augustinian" counterpart may not remove conflict with science completely, but at least reduces it, and leads to a Christian narrative that is more plausible, in the light of science. (shrink)

This essay is framed by conflict between Christianity and Darwinian science over the history of the world and the nature of original human personhood. Evolutionary science narrates a long prehuman geological and biological history filled with vast amounts, kinds, and distributions of apparently random brutal and pointless suffering. It has also unveiled an original human person with animal psychosomatic heredity. This narrative seems to discredit Christianity's metanarrative of the Fall—Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. The author contends that the Augustinian (...) story and its character of Adam are implausible, anyway, for reasons of theology and apologetics. He proposes that Christians adopt instead a Supralapsarian metaphysics of original human personhood and existence that grows from the intuitions of Irenaeus. The outcome will be improved Christian theology, more persuasive theodicy, and, above all, peace with Darwinian science. (shrink)

From close to its inception, St. Augustine’s misunderstanding of the nature of ancient Greek philosophy, “Christian philosophy,” and the way the human soul essentially relates to human body caused formal Christian education to be (a) born in a somewhat unhealthy condition, (b) founded upon a devastating mistake of organizational self-misunderstanding, which essentially prevented it from comprehending how human reason could function both abstractly as a contemplative (or speculative) scientific intellect and concretely as a command and control prudential reason. This flaw (...) in Augustinian psychology of the human person and Augustine’s misunderstanding of the nature of ancient Greek philosophy continued to influence Christian education from the start of the Christian West until the Christian and secular universities of today. For contemporary Christian education to preserve its identity in an increasingly fragmented world, a psychology of the human person adequate to explain the essential connection between the human soul and body and the nature of philosophy must replace this flawed Augustinian psychology that continues to plague the contemporary world. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that Christian political participation as envisioned by those I term “Augustinian democrats”—a group of Protestant ethicists following a path cleared by Jeffrey Stout’s 2004 Democracy and Tradition—is founded upon an elegantly rendered political ontology, but leaves incomplete a description of the practical task and place of the church. My contention is that this incompletely developed practical task is not accidental to the manner in which these Augustinians complete the speculative, ontological task. The completion of (...) the speculative task combined with the incompletion of the practical task, I conclude, nevertheless results in a hybrid and especially interesting picture of personhood that points to an understanding of Protestantism as the attempt to recover human individuality within Christianity. (shrink)

Heidegger’s 1921 lecture course, “Augustine and Neo-Platonism,” shows the emergence of certain Augustinian elements in Heidegger’s account of the humanbeing. In Book X of Augustine’s Confessions, Heidegger finds a rich account of the historicity and facticity of human existence. He interprets Augustinianmolestia (facticity) by exhibiting the complex relation of curare (the fundamental character of factical life) and the three forms of tentatio (possibilities of falling).In this analysis, molestia appears as the how of the being of life. Heidegger also makes (...) an important critique of what is Platonic in Augustine. Specifically, herejects what he calls Augustine’s axiological interpretation of tentatio for a more existential one. Heidegger understands axiology to be a calculative preferring ofone good over another in reference to a theoretical hierarchy of goods. We offer a defense of Augustine which focuses on the historical manner in which goods are disclosed in desire. (shrink)

Our appreciation and appropriation of Augustine's thought is hindered by assumptions which serious engagement with his thought makes both visible and dubious. His account of the dynamics of human knowing seems, at first glance, a jumble of confusions, but, once better understood, it helps transform both the terms and the framework of our epistemology. His account of human agency seems similarly confused, but also works, once rightly understood, to transform our vision of what agency is. Further-more, Augustine's different anthropological and (...) metaphysical assumptions provide not only a platform for criticizing what modernity takes for granted but also resources for reconstructing three important issues in Christian ethics. A proper appreciation of Augustinian anthropology offers benefits, then, beyond the merely exegetical. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Heidegger claims that the history of the concept of time bears an Aristotelian stamp. In this paper, I dispute that claim. Instead, I argue that the history of the concept of time is primarily Augustinian. To support this claim, I demonstrate that Augustine’s theory of time is a quantitative theory of time, while Aristotle’s theory of time is a qualitative theory of time. Since most theories of time in the tradition are quantitative, it seems unlikely (...) that they derived any significant influence from Aristotle’s theory, as Heidegger claims. But there are significant parallels to Augustine’s theory. This is true for both of the major theories of time: those found in Classical Mechanics and those found in Kant. I close with some speculation as to why Heidegger makes the claim he does concerning the history of the concept of time. (shrink)

The Barcan formula is a theorem of quantified modal logic. Its most straightforward interpretation appears to commit one to “possibilism,” the view that merely possible things exist. Alternative systems of logic revise the formal semantics to preclude the theorem and its consequences. The crux, however, is the modal metaphysics presupposed by the formal semantics. This paper presents an alternative metaphysics of possibility that follows Augustine’s suggestion that God’s plan is only one of a range of alternative histories for a creation. (...) The metaphysics is a version of “trace actualism”—neither pure possibilism nor pure actualism. (shrink)

By tracing some of the historical and hermeneutical influences of Augustine on Martin Heidegger and his 1927 magnum opus, this article argues that Being and Time has an “Augustinian constitution.” While Heidegger’s philosophical terms are in a certain sense original, many of them have their conceptual origins in Augustine’s Christian thought and in his philosophizing from experience. The article systematically revisits all of Heidegger’s citations of Augustine, which reveals not only the rhetorical influence of Augustine on the organization of (...) Being and Time, but also the fact that the conceptual inspiration of the work and the development of its philosophicalterms are significantly indebted to Augustine. Further, an original synthesis of Heidegger’s methodology with Augustine’s thought on restlessness and conversion is developed in order to demonstrate the philosophical compatibility between Heidegger and Augustine. This synthesis results in what the author considers the foundations for an Augustinian phenomenology. (shrink)

Students and scholars will find that these essays provide impressive evidence of the persisting vitality of Augustine's thought.

In developing his trademark use of “consonance” to prescribe a relationship between Christian faith and the natural sciences, Ernan McMullin drew on severaldistinctly Augustinian philosophical and theological themes during his fifty years of scholarship. Particularly prominent in McMullin’s work were an emphasis placed on Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic, which prioritized both literal and non-literal interpretive techniques, and Augustine’s epistemology of divine illumination. This paper examines several elements as part of an expository account of McMullin’s contribution toward the consonance between Christian (...) faith and the natural sciences. It also outlines McMullin’s theory of retroduction and his account of scientific realism, both of which are philosophical positions that provide additional support for consonance from an epistemological perspective. I conclude that for McMullin, consonance is a differentiated term that hints at underlying metaphysical claims without necessarily delineating the nature of those claims. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article interrogates Jean-Louis Chrétien’s phenomenological appreciation of prayer as a call to the transcendent other, by juxtaposing it with the style and content of Augustine’s Confessions. In the Confessions, prayer is less the contradiction of presence than it is the paradox of simultaneous presence-and-absence, God being both the most intimate and the most remote at the same time. It is concluded that Chrétien’s phenomenology fails to understand prayer as the reciprocity it claims to articulate because, despite affirming both the (...) presence and the absence of God to the one praying, phenomenology cannot hold both these propositions in tension but must continually resolve them into a contradiction in which the subject ‘discovers’ God only by falling back on the self. The question is one of style and genre: Augustine’s speech addresses someone whereas Chrétien’s does not. In as much as he follows the phenomenological style established by Husserl, Chrétien cannot value any spe... (shrink)

All of the ingredients for what has become known as Anselmian perfect being theology were present already in the thought of St. Augustine. This paper develops that thesis by calling attention to various claims Augustine makes. It then asks whether there are principled reasons for determining which properties the greatest possible being has and whether an account of what contributes to greatness can settle the question whether the greatest possible being is the same as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and (...) Jacob. The paper develops Augustine’s answer to the first question by extracting several principles he endorses that generate a hierarchy of greatness. It addresses the second question by discussing the requirements of worship and of creation. (shrink)

This is the second fascicle issued by the American review of Latin studies, Folia which is designed to make readily available source-material for a series, Augustinian Ideas That Have Dominated the West. The present meticulous compilation of Herr Hohensee offers a valuable working-tool to the research student, which exhaustively notes 1,164 passages in the Augustinian corpus where the master-term auctoritas is used or explained. It first lists the references according to chronological order and in a simple systematic division (...) of general, divine and human authority; and then collects a select anthology of the main passages according to this systematic division. The work is completed by an unusual series of indices, which state the grammatical context of Augustine’s use of the term which illustrates the nature, act, passive character and person of authority, respectively, and finally the related virtues and vices. In the current zeal for linguistic analysis the present work supplies the groundwork for the examination of a master usage in the past. (shrink)

Augustine of Hippo (354–430 A.D.) meditated on the transcendent attributes of numbers that accountants so skillfully employ and on the attributes of moral rules. He thereby achieved a profound awareness of their Source in Truth. Nature is also governed by numbers; it is a “melody” that, again, woos one to its Source in Beauty. Whereas some businessmen meditate to clear their minds of clutter so as to make successful business decisions, Augustine persisted beyond the mere absence of clutter. Within the (...) stream of his own consciousness he found a focal point that led to the experience of the presence of a transcendent God in his own deeper self. The “order of love” enables one to achieve balance and a higher freedom wherein one cannot do wrong and possesses the courage to work toward building an earthly city that is just and beautiful, one that facilitates Everyman’s penetration of his own depth. (shrink)