The Guise of the Bad in Augustine's Pear Theft

Trinity Journal, 2005

This paper is divided into two main sections. The first section discusses Augustine’s doctrine of culpability as seen in his treatment of original sin, and concludes briefly with the impact it has upon his doctrine of justification. The second section of the paper appropriates Augustine’s soteriology in light of wider evangelical soteriology generally, and Reformed thought, specifically.

It is well known that Augustine favored an allegorical method of interpretation. While this exegetical approach to faith seeking understanding is evidenced most vividly in De trinitate, it likewise can be identified in the Confessions as well-albeit less conspicuously. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to expose the discreet allegories contained within the latter of these two works and show how they serve to reify the mystical, convoluted concept of conversion.

n M. Vinzent & D. Stanciu (eds), Studia Patristica LXXXVI: Papers presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies held in Oxford 2015. Volume 12: Augustine on conscientia, ISBN 978-90-429-3582-2., 2017

This paper is devoted to examining what position, relating the notion of will and the concept of moral responsibility, can be detected in Augustine’s two writings dedicated to the question of lying (De mendacio, Contra mendacium). Both of these works contain a sequence of argumentation that places this problem in the context of a theory of moral responsibility and rejects the idea that one’s proper sin can be considered a lesser evil compared to the sin of someone else, which one would be able to avert by the means of his own sin. The first section of the paper deals with the main propositions implied by Augustine’s argumentation, which are the following: (1) It is possible for someone not to want the sin of someone else even if he does not want to avoid it by committing a sin himself provided that it is at all possible). (2) It is possible for someone not to want to commit a sin when by doing it he wants to avoid the sin of someone else as a greater evil (provided that it is by any odds possible to avert it this way). (3) In the case of a believer God is less willing to forgive a sin (e.g. a lie), if it is committed in order to either avert a greater evil or attain a greater good. Behind this proposition lies the conviction that one will not repent for a sin or not even admit it to be a sin if he has committed it as a part of a noble plan. (4) It follows from the actual human condition that a normal believer is bound to face continuously the temptation of avoiding the sin of someone else by committing a lesser sin of one’s own. To yield to this temptation is vicious, but human, and God can forgive even this, provided that one has repented for it. The second section of the paper is devoted to making a comparison of Augustine’s position and that of those willing to pull the lever and save the lives of five men at the expense of the life of one. This comparison makes it easier to see that Augustine himself is following a special version of the principle: “the ends justify the means”, a version in which the end is of a moral character and affects eternal life. The third section compares the applications of this principle in the writings on the question of lying with those that can be found in his works relating to the Donatist controversy and in a letter sent to a desperate wife.

‘Heeding and Hiding their particular Knowledge? An Analysis of Augustine’s Dispute with Fortunatus’, in: Thérèse Fuhrer (Hrsg.), Die christlich-philosophischen Diskurse der Spätantike (Philosophie der Antike), Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag 2008, 113-121

Journal of Religious Ethics, 2010

Augustine famously defends the justice of killing in certain public contexts such as just wars. He also claims that private citizens who intentionally kill are guilty of murder, regardless of their reasons. Just as famously, Augustine seems to prohibit lying categorically. Analyzing these features of his thought and their connections, I argue that Augustine is best understood as endorsing the justice of lying in certain public contexts, even though he does not explicitly do so. Specifically, I show that parallels between his treatments of killing and lying along with his “agent (auctor)–instrument (minister)” distinction, in which God is the true agent or “author” of certain acts and humans are merely God's instruments, together imply that he would regard certain instances of public lying as permissible and even obligatory. I buttress my argument by examining several key but neglected passages and by responding to various objections and rival interpretations. Throughout, I challenge standard interpretations of Augustine's ethics of killing and lying and seek to deepen our overall understanding of these dimensions of his thought. In so doing, I contribute to ongoing discussions of public and private lying and to the task of relating Augustine's thought to contemporary debate and deliberation on war, killing, and lying.

The Athenaeum Review 4 (Spring/Summer 2020)

Saint Augustine of Hippo influenced Western Christianity as a theologian and bishop throughout his long literary career. Central to the Christianization of his intellectual development was reading “quosdam Platonicorum libros”–“certain Platonic books.” This paper contributes to the discussion of Augustine’s Platonism by providing an analysis of Confessiones X.27.38 in light of the Enneads of Plotinus and Augustine’s De Ordine libri duo and Contra Academicos libri tres–both early Cassiciacum texts. We find such a methodology important on account of the warning of J. J. O’Donnell: the later reflections of Augustine on his conversion experience may create “a structure for the past that is not irrefutable.” Consequently, we will bracket Augustine’s works written after the Confessiones. Within this epoché, the analysis of Confessiones X.27.38 will follow an iterative approach. After delineating certain salient features, we will examine the Enneads and Augustine’s early Cassiciacum texts with these very features in mind. The fruit of this investigation will serve as the backdrop for a final reading of Confessiones X.27.38. We will show that Augustine in Confessiones X.27.38 adheres to a Neo-Platonic structure and that it has clear antecedents in Augustine’s early writings. The Neo-Platonic doctrines involved in the structure of Confessiones X.27.38 will have significance for questions regarding the Platonicorum libros by uncovering the doctrinal contents of these books. Our investigation will set the stage for further in depth analyses of Augustine’s Confessiones.

The Cambridge Companion to Augustine's Confessions, Edited by Tarmo Toom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020

This chapter focuses on the metaphilosophy of Augustine's “Confessions.” All the places of this work in which Augustine speaks explicitly of philosophy, of the philosophers, and of their writings are taken into consideration. An analysis of these places reveals the way in which Augustine, at the time he wrote his “Confessions,” recalled and judged the role played by philosophy until his baptism at the age of thirty-two.

Augustinian Studies, 2022

The following article examines Augustine's efforts in De gestis Pelagii (gest. Pel.), the bishop of Hippo's commentary on the acts of the Synod of Diospolis at which Pelagius was acquitted of heresy in December 415 CE. Gest. Pel. is far from an attempt to offer an impartial account of the synod's events. Rather, it forms a key part of Augustine's efforts in the aftermath of Diospolis to re-interpret what appeared to be a disaster for the anti-Pelagian cause. In this sense, gest. Pel. is a work with a clear rhetorical purpose. The question at the heart of this article is whether, as two scholars have recently suggested, Augustine's rhetorical aims in this work led him to consciously misrepresent the facts -- about the synod's decision, Pelagius's views, and his own history with Pelagius. I will argue that we can plausibly take Augustine at his word in gest. Pel.

Journal of Religious Ethics, 2018

In this article, I offer a reading of City of God 19.6 that is consonant with Augustine's message to real judges. Often read as a suggestion that torture and execution are judicially necessary, I argue that 19.6 actually calls such necessities into question, though this is not its primary purpose; first and foremost, 19.6 is an indictment of Stoic apatheia. Situating 19.6 within Augustine's larger polemic against the Stoics, I find that it presents the Stoic judge as a man who lacks fellow feeling, and therefore, has only a parodic happiness, costly to himself and those he judges. A new look at Augustine's letters to judges confirms this reading, and shows that, for Augustine, the man of humanitas is the true model for the good judge, not the man of apatheia.