Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine

Augustine's exposition of the image of God in Book 15 of On The Trinity (De Trinitate) sheds light on multiple issues that arise in scholarly interpretations of Augustine's account of lying. This essay argues against interpretations that posit a uniform account of lying in Augustine—with the same constitutive features, and insisting both that it is never necessary to tell a lie and that lying is absolutely prohibited. Such interpretations regularly employ intertextual reading strategies that elide distinctions and developments in Augustine's ethics of lying. Instead, I show how looking at texts written prior and subsequent to the texts usually consulted suggests a trajectory in Augustine's thought, beginning with an understanding of lies as morally culpable but potentially necessary, and culminating in a vision of lying as the fundamental evil and the origin of every sin.

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confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

Retracing Augustine's Ethics

Puffer¹

2016

“…Where can Christ be linked with a just society, then, save in Dodaro's title? Schlabach's reply is the church; Dodaro's answer, the virtuous intentions of faithful, humble statesmen who accept Jesus Christ as the impresario of their souls' “efforts to overcome obstacles to the true knowledge and worship of God,” efforts that become preconditions for the “creation and preservation of a just society” (Dodaro 2004, 31). The creation and preservation of a genuinely just society?…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The second was apostolic, the heroism countenanced by Christianity's first apostles. It placed pleasing God above all else (Dodaro 2004, 53). Chiding leaders for their attachments to conventional concepts of the heroic, Augustine, according to Dodaro, bent every effort to increase the appeal of the apostolic.…”

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confidence: 99%

Christian Realism and Augustinian (?) Liberalism

Kaufman

2010

Augustine's ontology, ecclesiology, and soteriology have recently been mined to help Christian realists and liberals respond to the problems that pluralism and conflict create for democratic societies. The results challenge those secularists who object to the late antique prelate's "moralizing" as well as others who insist that "public reason"-not religious traditions-makes for more meaningful political conversations and for collaboration "across differences." But the results also raise the question whether Augustine would have gone along with the realists and liberals he has inspired and outfitted.

“…17 17 In his discussion of “ignorance and weakness” as the twin sources of injustice, Robert Dodaro points out that the human desire to know and love God is “diminished by the moral self‐deception and self‐reliance which result from these twin effects of original sin” (2004, 29). As he puts it, “only the soul that struggles by faith and humility to know and love God” through God's self‐revelation in the mystery of the Incarnation can overcome this false desire for self‐sufficiency (2004, 29). …”

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confidence: 99%

MODERN LIBERALISM AND PRIDE An Augustinian Perspective

Krom

2007

In "Toward an Augustinian Liberalism," Paul Weithman argues that modern liberal institutions should be concerned with the political vice of pride as a threat to the neutral, legitimate use of public power that liberalism demands. By directing our attention to pride, Weithman attempts to provide an incentive to and foundation for an Augustinian liberalism that can counteract this threat. While Weithman is right to point to the centrality of pride in understanding the modern liberal tradition, an investigation of the early modern reflections on pride in politics reveals a deeper tension between Augustine and modern liberalism than Weithman's analysis acknowledges. This essay discusses this tension by focusing on Hobbes's account of pride and equality in the commonwealth, asking whether Hobbes can be understood as a thinker in the Augustinian political tradition. In order to provide a background on pride as a political vice, this essay contrasts Aristotelian magnanimity with Augustinian humility. Finally, Aquinas's attempt to reintroduce magnanimity into the Augustinian political tradition is considered as a more consistent development of Augustine's thought, thereby revealing more pointedly the tension between Augustine and modern liberalism. By way of conclusion, the possibility of deflating this tension is briefly addressed by considering Jean Bethke Elshtain's discussion of an Augustinian liberalism that does not rely upon a "secular" conception of human nature.