The Theology of Augustine

An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works

Levering, Matthew

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781441240453
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia cristiana

Most theology students realize Augustine is tremendously influential on the Christian tradition as a whole, but they generally lack real knowledge of his writings. This volume introduces Augustine's theology through seven of his most important works. Matthew Levering begins with a discussion of Augustine's life and times and then provides a full survey of the argument of each work with bibliographical references for those who wish to go further. Written in clear, accessible language, this book offers an essential introduction to major works of Augustine that all students of theology--and their professors!--need to know.

1
On Christian Doctrine

Augustine’s first career as a rhetorician stands in the background of his On Christian Doctrine, the bulk of which was composed in 396–97 and which was completed in 426 by the addition of the final sections of Book 3 and the whole of Book 4.[20] In becoming a Christian, and then a priest and bishop, Augustine found himself still having much to do with words, both as an interpreter and as a preacher. The Christian preacher receives from the Church the sacred books of Scripture, which contain both the Law and the Prophets and the apostolic witness to Jesus Christ and the Church. The books that compose the New Testament assert that Jesus is the Messiah who fulfills the Law and the Prophets. The New Testament books thus not only require interpretation themselves, they also advance hermeneutical claims regarding the Scriptures of Israel. The words and deeds that Scripture reports must be interpreted if we are to understand their historical and theological significance. Moreover, the Christian preacher cannot undertake this task alone. Earlier Christians have interpreted Scripture in ways that the Church has received as authoritative and true, and debates over true interpretation have always been a feature of the Church’s life.

In On Christian Doctrine, therefore, Augustine offers an account of biblical interpretation and preaching. He organizes his study around love. Scripture, he argues, teaches us what and how to love. To become good interpreters, we must learn to recognize how the words of Scripture direct us to love of God and neighbor. In this task we can easily be led astray by biblical passages that seem to point in the opposite direction or that at least suggest that created goods, rather than God, can make us truly happy. We can also be led astray by lack of knowledge of the biblical languages or of other fields of learning, as well as by superstitions such as astrology.[21] Augustine is therefore interested in how interpreters of Scripture should be trained. He knows that by a proper use of speech, we can move others to love what we love, but we can also fall into pride on account of our learning or on account of our rhetorical eloquence. Despite this danger, biblical interpreters must be learned and rhetorically skilled.

Prologue

Augustine announces that he intends to offer certain rules for interpreting the Scriptures. He briefly addresses possible objections to his approach, foremost among them the view that erudition is not truly needed for understanding God’s Word.[22] The Holy Spirit can illumine the meaning of biblical texts without any need for human instruction. While granting that this is so, Augustine points out that the usual way is for God to work through human teachers. Even St. Paul, after his encounter with the risen Lord on the Damascus road, had to go to the house of Ananias to be instructed, and even Moses learned from his father-in-law, Jethro. Likewise the centurion Cornelius, after being visited by an angel, had to go to St. Peter for instruction, and the Ethiopian eunuch learned from St. Philip. In general, therefore, God teaches humans through other humans.[23] God thereby ensures that the Church truly serves as an instrument of salvation, as it would not if God taught each individual everything directly, without mediation. If we could teach nothing to each other, how would relationships of love between fellow humans be fostered? So long as they recognize that every good gift comes from God, human teachers will not fall into pride at their own gifts or into envy when another teacher goes further. In offering his rules for interpretation, Augustine seeks not to explain the meaning of particular biblical texts but rather to show how to read biblical texts in general. The goal is to help the reader who encounters obscurities in Scripture, by showing how such obscurities should be handled.

Book 1

The two tasks that pertain to interpreting Scripture, Augustine notes, are discovering what there is to be learned and teaching what one has discovered.[24] He first explores how we discover what there is to be learned in Scripture.

He begins with a crucial distinction between things (res) and signs. By things, he means particular realities such as cattle, stones, trees, or water. In Scripture we learn about things through signs.[25] For example, Augustine mentions Genesis 28:11, “Taking one of the stones of the place, he [Jacob] put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep.” The stone that Jacob used for a pillow is a thing, and the word “stone” is a sign. Yet the matter is more complicated in Scripture, as Augustine immediately observes, because Jacob’s stone also serves as a sign. The key to a right reading of Scripture is to realize that God can and does use things as signs. In this case, Jacob’s stone is, in Augustine’s view, a sign of Christ’s humanity. All signs are signs of things; but not all things are signs. It should be noted that even God is a thing (res), although he is most certainly not a thing like other things and he is never a sign of another thing.

Treating things in themselves (and not as signs), Augustine inquires into what our attitude should be toward them. Because things are good, they attract us. On what thing or things should we set our hearts? The danger is that we will cleave to things that are passing away rather than to eternal things. But an equal danger is that we will reject created things as if we could get to our goal without the help of created things. Augustine therefore sets the following rule regarding things: “Some things are to be enjoyed, others to be used, and there are others which are to be enjoyed and used.”[26] To enjoy a thing is to cleave to it with all our heart. When we seek a thing in order to enjoy it, we make it our ultimate happiness and we consider it the resting point of our desire. If we can obtain the thing that we hope to enjoy, we think that we will be blessed and at rest, so that we will not wish to seek further things. Thus, something that is to be enjoyed must be loved strictly speaking for its own sake and not for the sake of any further good.[27] By contrast, to use a thing is to love something but not for its own sake. When our ultimate happiness rests in something, we love other things for the sake of the thing in which our ultimate happiness rests. Other things help us to obtain our goal, and we love them in reference to that ultimate goal. When we love something but do not rest in it because it cannot make us fully happy and blessed, we love the thing in its reference to what we hope to enjoy. In other words, we use the thing on our path toward the happiness that we hope to enjoy.

It is important, therefore, to know what things to enjoy and what to use. All too frequently we seek to enjoy, or place our ultimate happiness in, things that cannot bear this weight. We must learn instead to use these things rather than to cleave to them for their own sake. Otherwise we will find ourselves loving created things above God. In our journey back to our Creator God, we need the help of many things in order to reach our true goal. Augustine compares the human person to a wanderer who is attempting to return to his homeland. The wanderer needs carriages and ships to return home, but if the wanderer got attached to the journey with its carriages and ships and began to love these things more than his homeland, he would no longer want to return home. This is the situation in which many of us find ourselves; we are alienated from the homeland that would give us true happiness, because we have become attached to this world. This world is good, but it is not the infinite good for which we were made, and so it cannot give us happiness. God made it so that we, and others, can use the things in it to journey to him. By means of “the things that have been made,” we should strive for union with God’s “invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity” (Rom. 1:20).

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the “things” (res) that we were created to enjoy. These three are one in divinity, but they are distinct in relation to each other. Our human concepts of God fall infinitely short of God. But even though our words about God are inadequate, nonetheless we can speak truth about God. Augustine explores the various ways in which people conceive of God. Some conceive of God as the sun or as the entire cosmos; some conceive of gods among which one is primary. But we do not conceive of God truthfully in these ways. We begin to speak truth about God when we recognize that God is greater than all finite things. God could not be less than the most perfect finite thing. Therefore he must be living, and indeed he must be simply the perfection of life itself. He must be intelligent, and not in a mutable way but supremely so, since it is better to be unchangeably wise than to be threatened with a return to foolishness. When we imagine God as a finite thing, we show that our minds need purification so as to see the divine light. This purification is the first step of our journey to our homeland, God himself. Since God is infinite spirit, we travel toward God not by spatial movement but by holy love. By our own strength, we cannot supply ourselves with such love; to suppose that we can is the sin of pride. The incarnate Son of God, however, has shown us the path of humility by which we should travel.

Still speaking of things we should enjoy, Augustine offers a brief account of Jesus Christ. He quotes John 1:14, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The divine Word becoming flesh can be conceived along the lines of our thought becoming speech. Our thought does not itself change, but it assumes the form of vocal words so that others can hear it. Likewise, the divine Word, while remaining unchanged in itself, assumed a human nature so that we could see, hear, and touch him. Christ is both physician and medicine to our wound of sin.[28] He applies the cure of humility to our disease of pride. His death pays the penalty owed by sin and frees us from eternal death. Having undergone death, he had the power to rise from the dead, so we can trust him to raise us from the dead and to glorify our bodies so that they will no longer be subject to death. Since he has loved us so much, we should rejoice to have him as our judge. He has given us his Holy Spirit so that we might love each other and receive our eternal reward. In the Church, which is his “body” (Eph. 1:23), he unites us in charity with him and with each other. Those who love him are liberated from the slavery of sin and will live in glorious union with him forever. Christ calls us to enjoy him now and eternally.

Given his many friendships, Augustine is aware that it seems harsh to speak of using, rather than enjoying, our fellow humans and ourselves. True friends do not use each other for gain, but rather they share interests with each other and enjoy spending time with each other. Yet the distinction that he wants to highlight has to do with how much more we should love God than we love any created reality. Strictly speaking, the only way to love another person for his or her own sake, or to love ourselves for our own sake, would be to turn another person or ourselves into an idol. We cannot rest in other humans or ourselves in the sense of finding our ultimate happiness in them. Neither other humans nor we ourselves have the resources to give us enduring blessedness. If in this technical sense we tried to “enjoy” each other or ourselves, we would already fail to love each other or ourselves as we ought. This is so because the dignity and goodness of human existence is enhanced by our connection to the eternal God. Seen in light of our connection to God, we are more than merely transient creatures; we have enduring existence and value. Without this connection to God, we would lack enduring existence and value. If we try to enjoy others or ourselves as if we were God, we paradoxically find ourselves much less worthy of love.

When we love others and ourselves on account of God, we “use” ourselves and others rather than “enjoy” ourselves and others. In other words, God is our goal. All our other relationships find their fullness in relation to our enjoyment of God. God gives us our ultimate happiness, in which all our other relationships will be fulfilled. God alone is lovable and enjoyable with our whole hearts, and other relationships are true friendships insofar as they are ordered to our friendship with God. If they draw us away from God, they are false friendships, since they would not then be ordered to our true good.[29] Put another way, in loving our neighbors and ourselves, we should do nothing that is not also fully and truly love of God. If we were to act against the love of God, we would thereby fail also to be true lovers of our neighbors and ourselves. With regard to our neighbors and ourselves, “use” therefore signifies rightly ordered love rather than manipulation or instrumentalization. When we “use” nonrational things rightly, we are not in a relationship of love with them, since love is an interpersonal communion—although we love our bodies, since they belong to ourselves. Those who seem to hate their bodies in fact hate the limitations and defects of their bodies rather than their bodies per se.

This discussion of the distinction between using and enjoying prepares Augustine to interpret Jesus’s teaching, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40). To love rightly, we must love God above all, and all things in relation to God. We must love others as we love ourselves; and we must love ourselves while being willing to sacrifice our bodily lives out of love for others. Although we should love all others equally, we cannot distribute our acts of love equally among all humans on earth. Those closest to us have first claim to our acts of love.

Just as theatergoers who love a certain actor love each other on account of that actor, says Augustine, so it is for those who share a love for God. Like theatergoers who spread the word about the great actor, so those who love God spread the word about God. If any hate the great actor—or hate God—the lovers hate this hatred and strive to change it. If those who hate God really knew him, they would love him. God has no need for our love; he desires our love not for his sake but for ours, so that he can reward us eternally. In a similar way, we have no need for the love of our enemies, since we do not fear that they can take away what we love. Rather, we are sorry for them since they are missing out on so great a good, and we wish for them to be able to share it with us in the communion of love. In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus makes clear that all humans, including our enemies, are our neighbors and are to be loved. We owe benevolence and mercy to all (see also Matt. 5:44; Rom. 13:9–10), so that we may enjoy God.

The distinction between “enjoy” and “use,” as the two modes of love, causes some difficulties when it comes to God’s love for us. God does not love us as his ultimate happiness. If we were God’s ultimate happiness, he would be needy in relation to us, and his love would be demanding of gift rather than the source of all gift. He must, then, “use” us; but Augustine immediately adds that he doesn’t “use” as we do. When we use a thing, we love it in reference to God. Our goal is to enjoy God for his own sake, and so we do not love other things as our ultimate end, but instead we love them with reference to that end. God loves his own good, and in loving his own good, he loves us as ordered to that good. God’s love of us can be called “use” because he loves us not as his ultimate good but as ordered to that good. He is the divine good, and he wills to share it with us; in this regard he can be said to “use” us, by ordering us to the good that he is. The difference between his “use” of things and our “use” of things, therefore, is that we use things as part of our journey to attain our end, whereas he already is his end and he uses things to give them their end. His use is useful not to him but to us. Certainly, when we imitate God’s love, we serve others mercifully in order to be useful to them rather than to advance our own purposes; but precisely such mercy actually does advance our own purposes, by configuring us to Christ. The reward that God gives us consists in our enjoyment of God, through which we enjoy each other in God.

If we “enjoy” ourselves, then we rely upon a created thing for our ultimate happiness. It is this pride, ridiculous when viewed objectively, that constituted the fall of the angels and the fall of humankind. Holy persons show us the goodness of created things, but they do not allow us to stop there. They guide us toward the source of all goodness, God. In this manner Paul refuses to permit his flock to find their good in him: “Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:13); “Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7). The key is to refuse to place our hope for happiness in anything but God. If we cleave to created things, we turn ourselves away from their source. Even our delight in the beloved cannot be our goal. If we focus on our delight, we will lose the beloved. Even Christ, if we know him solely in his humanity, cannot lead us to our goal (see 2 Cor. 5:16). When we know the human Christ in his divinity, we come to know the Father in the Holy Spirit, and we can enjoy him. The Word dwells with us in time and dies for us, but he does so not to enclose us in temporal things but to lead us, in the flesh, to enjoy eternal things at the right hand of the Father.[30]

Scripture, then, teaches about temporal and eternal things. The purpose of the whole of Scripture is that we come to love rightly, to “enjoy,” the eternal Trinity in the fellowship of the saints. This purpose is at the heart of the providentially ordered course of temporal things recorded in Scripture. These temporal things direct us to our goal without being themselves our goal. With regard to the temporal things of salvation history, Augustine states that we should “love those things by which we are carried along for the sake of that toward which we are carried.”[31] He goes on to say that Scripture is only understood rightly when it is understood, in all its parts, to be about the love of God and neighbor. If, in trying to understand a biblical text, we interpret it in a manner that builds up charity but that turns out not to be the meaning intended by the author, we can be sure that we have not distorted the fundamental meaning of the text. Granted that it is best to seek the meaning intended by the author, we should not forget that Scripture is about love. We must approach Scripture in faith, hope, and love, and not place our trust in our own interpretations, which can lead us astray. Not erudition, but faith, hope, and love lead us to our goal of the vision of God. Many will attain this goal without studying even the books of Scripture. Indeed, biblical erudition is of no value unless it serves a life of faith, hope, and love; Scripture will not endure eternally, but love will. Since God gave us Scripture not so that we might rest in it but in order that we might come to enjoy him forever in love, we cannot read Scripture rightly unless by faith we know what is to be hoped for and loved, and unless by hope and charity we live accordingly.

Book 2

Just as the subject of Book 1 was things, the subject of Book 2 is signs.[32] As examples of signs, Augustine gives the footprints of an animal or the smoke of a fire. Signs are things that signify not themselves but something else. Footprints or smoke are natural signs, but August...