Augustine:

God and the

CHAPTER 10.C Soul
SIN AND THE GREAT CHAIN
OF BEING
 In the Great Chain of Being, reality and values are ordered:
o a thing’s degree of being is an index to its degree of goodness.

God, perfect being and goodness, should be loved most of all, and all the
rest of creation in appropriate degrees, corresponding to their goodness.
o Love God with your whole heart, whole soul . . .
o Love your neighbor as yourself – we share the same degree of value.

For Augustine - The virtuous person has their loves rightly ordered.

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For Augustine, sin is disordered love
According to Augustine, we can choose to love
things inappropriately;
we can love more what is of lower value and
love less what is of higher value.

Sinful desires motivate us to commit wicked

acts:
murder, theft, adultery, deception, etc.
E.g., Jane loves money and is willing to kill her
aged aunt to get it.

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Augustine cautions us to avoid two errors:

Error 1: Thinking that sin is ignorance Error 2: Thinking that we are victims of sin:
i.e., sin is just what happens to us.

 Socrates and Plato claim that we

do evil out of ignorance.  Augustine posits that we will to sin.
 Augustine disagrees.  If the will is wrongly directed,
 Augustine holds that the light the emotions will be wrong.
 The will is free. For what we
of Wisdom has enlightened
every person and the rules of will we are responsible.
righteousness are written in  Sin is a matter of the will going
the human heart. wrong, for which we are
responsible.

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Three classes of goods
 Great goods whose mere possession guarantees a righteous life – i.e. justice

 Lesser goods – helpful but not essential – i.e. wealth, physical beauty

 Intermediate goods whose possession does not guarantee either virtue or

happiness, yet without them, no one can be virtuous or happy – i.e. free
will

The will commits sin when it turns away from higher goods toward its private
good, either external to itself or lower than itself.
“When we value most highly the goods we can have in common – such as justice,
love, and truth – peace reigns in our community” (Melchert, 246).

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PRIDE IS THE ROOT OF ALL SIN FOR AUGUSTINE

 Recall the hubris or pride of the ancient Greeks (cf. Melchert, Chapter 1).
 Back to Genesis -- Serpent: “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5).
 “This then is the original evil: man regards himself as his own light, and
turns away from that light which would make man himself a light if he
would set his heart on it” (Augustine in Contra Gentiles 14.13).
 “For in this attempt at self-sufficiency we are catapulted at once into
anxiety and concern for our own well-being, which we ourselves now have
to guarantee” (Melchert, p. 246).
 We have disorder, both within our souls and among one another.

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HUMAN NATURE AND ITS
CORRUPTION
“The result of sin is a diminution in the very being of human beings; they become
smaller – more ignorant, weaker, and less in control of themselves” (Melchert, p. 248).

 “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very
thing I hate . . . I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no
longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me” (Romans 7:15, 18-20).
o For Augustine, Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves -- free
us from sin.

The quality of our lives will be determined by the nature of our loves.
(Cf. Melchert, p. 250).

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HUMAN NATURE AND ITS
CORRUPTION
 Augustine divides love into two kinds: charity and cupidity.

 “I call ‘charity’ the motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for
his own sake, and the enjoyment of one’s self and of one’s neighbor for
the sake of God; but ‘cupidity’ is a motion of the soul toward the
enjoyment of one’s self, one’s neighbor, or any corporeal thing for the
sake of something other than God” (OCD 3.10).
o Consider: greed, avarice, lust and gluttony
o If charity is the motivation for one’s life – all will be love.

“Love, and do what you will” (Augustine)

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HUMAN NATURE AND
ITS CORRUPTION

 Some things are to be used, whereas others are to be enjoyed. Some may be
both used and enjoyed.
 God alone is loved for His own sake.
 “You made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they
rest in you” (C1.1).
 “Delight in friends and neighbors – or in our own talents and excellences
– must be a delight that always turns to gratitude by being referred to the
One who provides it all” (Melchert, p. 250).
 “We don’t treat God as a means to some further end. In God we ‘rest.’
God is to be enjoyed” (Melchert, p. 250).

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 CONSIDER
AUGUSTINE’S WORDS. . .
“One of the manifestations of sin is a refusal to admit that it is sin. Neither of the first
humans would admit to sin; each tried to pin it on someone else” (Melchert, p. 247).

“It is not a matter of efficiency, but of deficiency; the evil will itself is not effective but
defective. For to defect from him who is the Supreme Existence, to something of less
reality, this is to begin to have an evil will. To try to discover the causes of such defection . .
. is like trying to see darkness or to hear silence . . . No one therefore must try to get to know
from me what I know that I do not know ” (CG 12. 6-7; Melchert, p. 247).

Augustine does not see any conflict between God’s omniscience and individual freedom.

God infallibly foresees that I am going to exercise my free will.

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AUGUSTINE’S MAGNUM
OPUS: THE CITY OF GOD
The Earthly City The City of
God
Augustine, like others, saw Rome as  Augustine understands human history as
great because it guaranteed earthly meaningful – it has a narrative unity
peace for its citizens better and longer  History reveals God’s plan
than any other city.  History is about God’s calling citizens
of a heavenly city out of the sinful
world
 “Pursuing earthly goods for their own sake
is self-destructive, for it leads to
 “Augustine believes that we can get a
competition, conflict, and disaster. And that
is Augustine’s explanation for Rome’s fall” perspective on history only if we see it
from the viewpoint of eternity – through
(Melchert, p. 253).
God’s eyes, so to speak” (Melchert, p.
254).
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Augustine,
It makes
sense when you
say . . .

Augustine,
I disagree! ...

Augustine,
What would you
say
about . . .
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 REFERENCES
Augustine of Hippo. (1960). The Confessions of St. Augustine. (Ryan, J. K. , Trans.). New York: Image Books.
(Original work published AD 397-398).

Melchert, N. (2014). The Great Conversation: A Historical Introduction to Philosophy (7th ed.). New York:
Oxford University Press.

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