01 augustine

8/2/2019 01 Augustine

1/6

CHAPTER 2: AUGUSTINE: GRACEAND HUMAN AUTONOMY

I. Context:

Late 4th

Century Christianity shifts from being a persecute minority religion to state religion of the masses

Strong tradition of a radical conversion to an authentic Christian life of dedication andperfection

Augustine:o focus: problem of evil in human existence & nature of humanity

o Major themes: total dependency on God and mechanics of grace & election [in terms

of the phenomenon of delight: what we delight on and the fact that we are delightedare from God]

Pelagius:o Preached:

against pagan morality brought about by conversions of convenience

radical conversion demands a decision

Christian ideals that stood out against Roman pagan past: Christianity isa new life!

o All this made conversion of unbelievers difficult that some reformers sought

refuge in Africa that had a more established Church (weathered by the strugglewith the Donatists).

o Concerned about the degenerating Church life in Rome

II. The Teaching

Teaching on Pelegians Augustine

Human Freedom o The ability to discern goodfrom evil is Gods grace;

o Part of our nature and re-

mained intact and untainted byoriginal sin

o While free choice remained, thehuman will was entrapped bysin;

o The custom & habit of personal

sin imprisoned free choice toselfishness.

Original Sin o Did not involve personal guilt

leading to damnation

o Human nature is fundamental-

ly disordered because of inher-ited sin that involves personalguilt

o Human nature is being pulled

down and prevented from as-

cending to God [concupis-cence].

Baptism o Christianity is an adult affair

that required conversion &baptism into a radically newlife.

o Infant baptism: initiation into

o An unbaptized infant cannot be

saved


2/6

the Kingdom of God; effects oforiginal sin mediated by soci-ety

o Adult baptism: remission of sin

Perfection o Advance to perfection through

asceticism and self-discipline

o Not possible in ones lifetime

Grace as a Force External:o Jesus teaching and his exam-

ple which one could follow ifhe chooses to

o External bonds of sinones

past and influence of societycould be broken if one had thecourage to follow Jesus.

Internal:o Sin held one prisoner from

within; a persons will is aprison in itself

o Grace as delight in the good, a

new form of freedom that re-quired internal modification ofthe human will

o God had to work from within

human freedom for the prob-lem lies in the will enslaved to

sinSalvation o Universal will of God for salva-

tion

o Only the few who were called

and given the inner force to re-spond

III. The Values

Pelagius Augustineo Human autonomy: the persons freedom

and power of self-determinationo Idealistic: one may work at his own per-

fectiono The Christian is a son of God, an eman-

cipated heir who is now responsible forhis self-definition

o He is a different person [complete break

from the past] who must make a differ-ence [in the manner of living]

o The total dependency of the human being

on God who is utterly absoluteo Realistic: Perfection is eschatological and

can never be realized in this world

o Universal salvation is possible

o May be achieved through human nature:

each is free since human freedom is in-tact despite the effects of sin which areexternal

o Sin is certainly abroad, but it affects peo-

ple mainly through the external mecha-nisms of social influences that leave theinternal nature and freedom of a personintact in its core.

o Hence, a person can respond to Gods in-

vitation [which is given to all people at alltimes] at any given time.

o Gods grace is necessary for salvation

and it is absolutely gratuitouso Sin has a grip on the heart from within

[concupiscence]o Despite disordered nature God still gives

his grace to a select few [election & pre-destination]

o Grace as a sudden and spontaneous

movement over which one has no control

2


3/6

IV. The Dangerous Extremes

Extreme Pelagianism Extreme Augustianismo Zero-tolerance for sinfulness

o Legalism

o Elitist ascetic perfectionism which may

be unrealistic and inhumano Heavy burden is placed on ones free-

dom and autonomy; freedom may not beliberating after all

o Too tolerant of sinfulness

o The sick Christian: toleration of medi-

ocrityo Doctrine of Predestination may be dis-

couragingo Human autonomy is compromised due

to too much dependence on Godo

V. The Larger Issues

Issues Regarding . . . PelagianIdealism/Optimism

AugustinianRealism/Pessimism

Anthropology o Christian Life was seen as a

witness and sign of Godand His grace to the paganempire of this world.

o Despite rigid asceticism, hu-

man natures freedom forthe good is still intact

o allowed within the Church

all the human failings thatone finds outside it

o Leveling of the wholesale

Christian witness to thecommon standard of the or-dinary

o Could canonize the double

standard of a nominal Chris-tianity for ordinary people inthe world and the realChristianity that led peopleto flee to the monasteries.

Church o Freedom not to be confused

with individualismo P. did not want the individu-

al to be an ascetic outsidethe Church; he wanted theentire Church to be ascetic

o Was content with Church of

a dedicated few

o Envisaged the Church as

the majority religion, a stateChurch, of the masses

o Result: breakdown of Chris-

tendom consciousnessacultural or a Christianevent?

Human History o Human history can move to-

ward God without the helpof explicit Christianity

o Earthly tasks could not have

ultimate significance for itwas difficult to see how thiscan change the final out-come

o Grace is radically gratu-

itous: comes to man who is

3


4/6

sinful through and through,in no way deserving of theinitiative by which Godtransforms his bad will intoa good will.

o Good acts of pagans,

though of some apparentvalue, are ultimately sham,because they do not bringpagans any closer to unionwith God.

VI. Ambiguous Assumptions:

1. Pelagianism: Idea of freedom will not do.

Freedom is not simply the power to choose

Power to chooses is not simply a purely detached or disinterested state of equi-librium by which persons can completely dispose of themselves wither toward goodor evil

There are levels in our life at which we are not in control of ourselves: human lib-erty and our elemental delight are often twisted [e.g. addiction]

Paul Tillich: estranged existencein whole areas of our existence, we are pas-sive to and a victim of our total self, our past and our milieu.

The effects of both the determinisms of personality and the external attrac-tions to sin are far deeper and more pervasive than Pelagianism supposes.

2. Augustine: Does not give full justice to human freedom as well.

Infants who die without baptism are worthy of damnation!

Quasi-physical inheritance of original sin involving personal guilt

Doctrine of the universal salvific will of God: interpreted too particularistically; ineffect, A. interpreted it away

Gods grace seems to be coextensive with explicit revelation, the Church, or ex-plicit faith; explicit knowledge of JC is not necessarily an ontological condition forgraces operating in any given individual or society, or in history at large.

Other-worldliness is escapist: Christian life must be led in the world , must be alife for this world

Seemed to confuse absolute and total gratuity of grace with its nonuniversality;while Gods grace remains totally gratuitous, it is still operative in the life of every sin-gle human being

Augustines people appear too dependent on God, that he ultimately robs

human existence of its autonomy and compromises the Christian God in sodoing.

VII. Integration through Polarity

Human existence involves a fundamental polarity

Rahner: person vs. natureo Concupiscence: the natural tension between person and nature

o Person: the center of human autonomy and freedom by which one asserts, posits

4


5/6

and creates himself;o Nature: human existence under the laws of our particular kind of being; the indi-

vidual is conditioned, limited, finite and determined; includes the whole of onesbeing insofar as it is prior to freedom and self-determinationpsychological, bio-logical, social, etc.

o People cannot completely determined themselves either for good or for evil. But

the more human beings transcend these spontaneous mechanisms and posittheir whole self, sometimes against these a priori tendencies of nature, some-times in the same direction, the more they become persons.

o There is an inner dualism within us, making us potentially divided selves, but

within that dualism we strive for the ideal of unity and autonomy of personhoodthat comes with self-direction and self-positing.

Tillich: freedom and destinyo These two elements exist together but pull in opposite directions

o Freedom ensures that the individual is not a machine whose course is entirely

predictableo Destiny presupposes that the individual is not a series of arbitrary acts

o

The universe works through us as part of the universe. Pelegian Pole: freedom / person

Augustinian Pole: destiny / nature

VIII. Freedom, Sin and Grace

To preserve both the role of grace and human freedom and autonomy, one mustconceive of grace as operating in human life in such a way as not to underminethat freedom, and this demands a relationship involving some sort of cooperationbetween God and human beings in the exercise of freedom and the doing of good.

Augustine: grace does not destroy but establishes human freedom [and autonomy].

Rahner: Grace is a self-donation of God to human beings. Grace means that God giveshimself to individuals, is present to them, in a new and personal way. Gods grace is

present and available to everyone [Gods universal salvific will]. Difference levels of viewing Augustinian-Rahnerian concept of grace:

1. Grace guarantees human autonomy.

The personal address of an infinite and absolute God guarantees the autono-my of human existence over the negative aspects of finitude and the destruc-tive forces of temporalityof our being-unto-death.

Augustine: A person desires to be, and to be absolutely means to be in God.

That is, the desire for autonomy of being is supremely fulfilled when it is metby the personal contact with God that grace mediates.

2. Grace expands freedom by giving liberty.o The human has the ability to determine the self.

o

Freedom / freed will [librum arbitrium]: the power to choose this or thato Liberty [libertas]: the power to chooses the transcendent good and stems

from an inner delight in the good [Augustine], which is a gift of the Holy Spir-it [grace]

o Thus in Augustine, grace is seen as a force that expands the field of horizon

of freedom to include the possibility of decision that transcends the self andthis world in its intentionality.

o Liberty expands freedom in the sense that the objects of choice and decision

exist in a new context of importance where intentionality is trained towards

5


6/6

what is ultimately important and permanently valuable.o Contact with God through his grace enables a person to exert himself or her-

self over the determinisms of nature in a new and qualitatively different way,in an ultimate and absolutely meaningful way that would not be possible with-out this ultimate contact with God.

3. Grace overcomes the roots of sin.o For Augustine, sin resides in the will itself and this is its mystery; sin is in hu-

man freedom; it passes through habit and custom to reside in the spiritualperson; the effects of sin come to be lodged in the person

o Sin as cupiditas: we assertourselves but cannot transcend ourselves and in-

stead, try to draw reality into ourselves; makes the individual precisely as per-son the norm and value of all other things an uses the world and other to sat-isfy the self

o Grace as caritas: the personal contact with God re-orients the person where

cupiditas becomes caritas, a love not only for the good as such but a lovethat recognizes that others have an absolute value in themselves and cannotbe used as a means of self-satisfaction or as a means for anything; a lovethat allows the other to be for what he or she is in himself or herself

IX. Conclusion1. Polar tension is not between matter and spirit but between nature [and its mechanisms

and determinisms] and person; between freedom and destiny

2. Nature [and its attendant systems and determinisms] must be put in the service of per-sonhood.

3. This can be done only through the grace of Christ that constitutes human autonomy andexpands human freedom giving it a new depth and power to overcome the egoism andselfishness that is sin. [the dominant concept of grace until the 13th century]

6

01 augustine

Documents