St Augustine and Material Heresy

Being wrong is one thing; being wrong because you don’t know any better is another thing entirely. So St Augustine writes:

If, Honoratus, a heretic, and a man trusting heretics seemed to me one and the same, I should judge it my duty to remain silent both in tongue and pen in this matter. But now, whereas there is a very great difference between these two: forasmuch as he, in my opinion, is an heretic, who, for the sake of some temporal advantage, and chiefly for the sake of his own glory and pre-eminence, either gives birth to, or follows, false and new opinions; but he, who trusts men of this kind, is a man deceived by a certain imagination of truth and piety. [De utilitate credendi 1]

I suppose I could add another option (besides just being mistaken) to the non-pejorative possibilities for those who disagree with us: being deceived. And St Augustine shows here that different types of errors warrant different sorts of responses. Generally speaking (for those of us who do not happen to be Doctors of the Church…) the first sort of response ought to be in the range of humility.

But I digress. The point that I wished to make with this post is that there is nothing novel in the Catholic Church’s insistence that the sons and daughters of actual heretics (that is, those who have been formally condemned by the Church as such) are not guilty of formal heresy when they follow in their parents’ footsteps. They err, certainly, if they believe the same heretical things, but they are just not in the same boat with the leaders.

Elsewhere we have seen that St Augustine said basically the same thing.

But though the doctrine which men hold be false and perverse, if they do not maintain it with passionate obstinacy, especially when they have not devised it by the rashness of their own presumption, but have accepted it from parents who had been misguided and had fallen into error, and if they are with anxiety seeking the truth, and are prepared to be set right when they have found it, such men are not to be counted heretics. [Letter 43]

So we see that Augustine agrees with the Catholic Church. We should not be surprised to learn that this is the case; after all, he was Catholic. He doesn’t use the words “material heresy,” but the idea is clearly present, as is the distinction between that and formal heresy. There’s nothing “progressive” or “liberal” about the Church saying today that Protestants are our brothers in Christ by virtue of their baptism, nor in denying that they are subject to the anathemas of Trent. It’s simple justice.

St Augustine Accepted Church Authority

St. Augustine accepted the authority of the Catholic Church, unlike Protestants who vainly wish that he was one of their own. Says the Doctor of the Church:

This religion can be defended against loquacious persons and expounded to seekers in many ways. Omnipotent God may himself show the truth, or he may use good angels or men to assist men of good will to behold and grasp the truth. Everyone uses the method which he sees to be suitable to those with whom he has to do. I have given much consideration for a long time to the nature of the people I have met with either as carping critics or as genuine seekers of the truth. I have also considered my own case both when I was a critic and when I was a seeker; and I have come to the conclusion that this is the method I must use. Hold fast whatever truth you have been able to grasp, and attribute it to the Catholic Church. Reject what is false and pardon me who am but a man. What is doubtful believe until either reason teaches or authority lays down that it is to be rejected or that it is true, or that it has to be believed always. Listen to what follows as diligently and as piously as you can. For God helps men like that. [Of True Religion 20, in Augustine: Earlier Writings, p. 235; emphasis added]

Now of course we must not conclude from the complete absence here of any mention of Scripture that St Augustine held the Bible in contempt. Far from it. But at the same time, it would be absurd to suppose that he held the authority of the Catholic Church in contempt. Far from it! As we see above, he held that the Church has authority to define dogmas and to condemn heresy, and that God blesses those who accept what the Church teaches.

An interesting side note here (apart from the primary point that he submitted to the Church’s authority and urged others to do the same) is that he evidently held to some form of doctrinal development. For he anticipates that there will be subjects about which we may find ourselves unsure of the truth, but which will be settled by decree of the Church. It seems reasonable to infer that such decrees may not already exist in every case, so that the expectation is for some questions to be definitively settled in the future. This is not the only place where he has expressed such an opinion; he also did so in On Free Choice of the Will. See here.

St Augustine on “Fitness”

Sometimes we hear Protestants complain that arguments from fitness for some belief or other are invalid. For example, when we say that it was fitting that Our Lady’s virginity should have been preserved, Protestants get upset as though it proves nothing.

Here is something that that St Augustine has to say about arguments from fitness.

When this is known it will be as clear as it can be to men that all things are subject by necessary, indefeasible and just laws to their Lord God. Hence all those things which to begin with we simply believed, following authority only, we come to understand. Partly we see them as certain, partly as possible and fitting, and we become sorry for those who do not believe them, and have preferred to mock at us for believing rather than to share our belief. [Of True Religion, 14]

By his measure we would say (quite reasonably, I think) that an argument from fitness is not so certain as one based more upon reason. This fact does not mean that arguments from fitness are without any validity at all. Similarly, it seems clear that he does not consider them to be contrary to reason. Lastly, there is more than a hint here of St Anselm’s saying, “I believe in order that I may understand:” the pattern in the quotation above is to begin by believing what the Church teaches, and to move from there to understanding.

I concur with Augustine’s careful understanding of the usefulness of arguments from fitness (see another example here): they certainly aren’t as good as demonstration, but they are not without value, either. In any case, the purpose of this post is merely to highlight the fact that St Augustine stands in the long tradition of the Church in affirming the use of such arguments, and Protestants distance themselves from him when they reject them.

St Augustine affirmed free will

This should be unsurprising, because he was a Catholic. Nevertheless it is unfortunately necessary to make these things crystal-clear, so that Protestants who persist in misrepresenting the great Doctor of the Church will be without excuse.

In today’s episode, we see that St Augustine re-affirms that which he previously said in On Free Choice of the Will.

If the defect we call sin overtook a man against his will, like a fever, the penalty which follows the sinner and is called condemnation would rightly seem to be unjust. But in fact sin is so much a voluntary evil that it is not sin at all unless it is voluntary. This is so obvious that no one denies it, either of the handful of the learned or of the mass of the unlearned. We must either say that no sin has been committed or confess that it has been willingly committed. No one can rightly deny that a soul has sinned who admits that it can be corrected by penitence, that the penitent should be pardoned, or that he who continues in sin is condemned by the just law of God. Lastly if it is not by the exercise of will that we do wrong, no one at all is to be censured or warned. If you take away censure and warning the Christian law and the whole discipline of religion is necessarily abolished. Therefore, it is by the will that sin is committed. And since there is no doubt that sins are committed, I cannot see that it can be doubted that souls have free choice in willing. God judged that men would serve him better if they served him freely. That could not be so if they served him by necessity and not by free will. [Of True Religion, xiv, 27; in the Library of Christian Classics volume Augustine: Earlier Writings, p. 238; emphasis added]

This flies directly in the face of the Reformed error of “Irresistible Grace,” according to which men are unable to reject the grace that God gives them to believe.

Unquestionably some folks will suggest that perhaps St Augustine later rejected this view. But as noted earlier in regard to On Free Choice of the Will, he did nothing of the sort in the Retractations. Happily, the LCC editors saw fit to include the Retractations associated with Of True Religion (see pages 218-221). Did Augustine later in life reject what this book says about free will? No he did not.

5. In another place (chap xiv) I say, “Sin is so much voluntary evil, that there would be no such thing as sin unless it were voluntary.” That may appear a false definition; but if it is diligently discussed it will be found to be quite true. [ibid., p. 219]

I am reminded of suddenly of something said by Captain Jack Sparrow: “pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day.” Like it or not, some day Calvinists are going to have to square with the fact that St Augustine isn’t one of them. He was no proto-incipient-Calvinist; he was Catholic.

St Augustine Still Isn’t Protestant

I’ve devoted a number of posts to demonstrating the folly of Protestant attempts to paint St Augustine with their own colors. In short: it cannot be done—not, at any rate, if one wishes to avoid running his works through a shredder and pulling out tiny little bits that have that Geneva ring to them when you turn up the music really loud. Okay, I’m going bonkers with the metaphor-mixing. Let’s move on.

Here is yet another small snippet showing the unambiguously Catholic character of his writings. St Augustine opens the Soliloquies with a prayer, part of which go like this:

God, through whom we disapprove the error of those, who think that there are no merits of souls before You. God, through whom it comes that we are not in bondage to the weak and beggarly elements. God, who cleanses us, and prepares us for Divine rewards, to me propitious come Thou. [I, 3; emphasis added]

This passage flatly contradicts the Protestant errors that there is no sense at all in which we merit anything but condemnation from God, and that there is no sense at all in which we could be said to receive rewards from Him.

In the very next section of this opening prayer, he writes:

God, by whose ever-during laws the stable motion of shifting things is suffered to feel no perturbation, the thronging course of circling ages is ever recalled anew to the image of immovable quiet: by whose laws the choice of the soul is free, and to the good rewards and to the evil pains are distributed by necessities settled throughout the nature of everything. [I, 4; emphasis added]

This passage repeats the fact that the good will be rewarded, just in case we didn’t get the point the first time. And it adds the extra observation that man’s will is not in bondage in the way that at least some Protestants think. He doesn’t discuss the reasons for these facts in this context, but we have seen elsewhere (here, for one example) why he says so. In short: if we do not have free will, or if God does not reward the good, then He is not just. But this is obviously impossible. Consequently it is the Protestant claims to the contrary that are in error.

St Augustine doesn’t get this wrong. He wasn’t some crypto-proto-Protestant. He was Catholic. He wouldn’t be a Doctor of the Church if he wasn’t. That very fact really ought to induce Protestant hangers-on to think seriously about how they view his teaching.

Edit: It is probably necessary (unfortunately) to respond to the suggestion that St Augustine wrote the Soliloquies early in his career and that consequently it supposedly does not reflect his mature thought. The problem with this is that the Retractations related to this work say nothing about rejecting the ideas I've quoted here. The portion of the Retractations related to the Soliloquies is included in this edition of his works (pp. 17-18), and it says nothing whatsoever about these ideas. It is therefore unreasonable to suppose that he rejected free will or merits later in life.

St. Thomas and the Argument for the Perpetual Virginity of Mary

In a previous post we showed that Aquinas made a typological argument for the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin in his commentary on the Angelic Salutation. This was part of a response to a Protestant’s claim that the use of typologies contradicted St. Thomas’ views concerning the usefulness of the different senses of Scripture: clearly it does not, since he made use of them himself.

But some folks might be tempted to suggest that his use of typology in the commentary doesn’t contradict the Protestant’s argument, because (so it might be said) Aquinas isn’t making an argument in the commentary; these folks might say that the commentary on the angelic salutation is devotional, and not actually an argument. In this post we shall see that St. Thomas used typological arguments in the Summa Theologiae, which is clearly not a devotional work.

In ST III Q28 A3 he addresses the question “Whether Christ’s Mother Remained a Virgin after His Birth?” In the sed contra he writes:

It is written (Ezekiel 44:2): “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it; because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it.” Expounding these words, Augustine says in a sermon (De Annunt. Dom. iii): “What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that ‘no man shall pass through it,’ save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this—‘The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it’—except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—‘it shall be shut for evermore’—but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?”

St. Thomas approves Augustine’s typological interpretation of Ezekiel 44:2 as referring to Mary, and uses it as part of his argument in defense of her perpetual virginity. From this we see that the use of typology in argument is not contrary to St. Thomas’ statement that only the literal sense should be used for that purpose; this is so because God is the author of Scripture, and consequently a single passage may have more than one literal sense (as he stated in I Q1 A10).

You can't always get what you want

 

Thoughts expressed over here that seem worth adding here:

 

Many Protestants, particularly those in the Reformed camp, like to think of St. Augustine as one of their own, even sometimes supposing that he was practically a veritable forerunner of their own theology. They consider him to be a great theologian. Of course, I agree with that opinion (and so does the Catholic Church, which names him a Doctor of the Church), but it seems to me that the Protestant’s description of him undermines itself.

 

I have shown in a series of posts that St. Augustine was absolutely Catholic, holding to the following:

• Submitted to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church
• Held that Scripture must be interpreted according to Sacred Tradition
• Affirmed that doctrine develops
• Denied so-called “total depravity”
• Denied that man is culpable for that of which he is genuinely (not willfully) ignorant
• Affirmed that real holiness, and not a mere forensic imputation, was necessary for salvation
• Affirmed that God rewards the merits of the righteous
• Affirmed that we have free will, and that this is necessary for the just punishment of the wicked
• Affirmed the authority of Sacred Tradition
• Affirmed transubstantiation (or, if you prefer, the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist)
• Affirmed the validity of consecrated virginity
• Affirmed that Scripture has multiple meanings
• Affirmed the veneration of the saints, holy relics, and other sacred objects
• Affirmed the Catholic canon of Scripture
• Affirmed that the Church defines the canon of Scripture
• Affirmed that sins are forgiven by the Sacrament of Baptism
• Affirmed that prayers should be offered for the dead
• Affirmed the offering of the Mass for the dead
• Affirmed that the saints pray for us
• Affirmed the authority of Scripture because of the authority of the Church
• Affirmed the Catholic enumeration of the Ten Commandments
• Denied that God saves men against their wills

I’m sure that more could be said: this list is merely the result of my reading of a few of Augustine’s works. But it’s sufficient for my purposes here. My point for this post is that it is simply not credible (as I said in the combox post linked above) to suggest that Augustine’s views on the subjects in this list are utterly discontinuous with those views of his that Protestants happen to like. No. If they are going to say that St. Augustine was a great theologian, they must account for how he can be so wonderfully right about a few things and yet (as they would say) so badly wrong about the things above (and many others). It is not the mark of a great theologian to be incoherent, and yet that is exactly what Protestant opinions of him demand. On the Protestant handling of St. Augustine, on their own terms, it is unreasonable to describe him as a “great theologian” (although he is). On their own terms, he could only reasonably be described as lucky, mostly inconsistent, or wildly erratic to have got some few things right while messing up so many things (as we see above).

 

Thought experiment: suppose a 21st century theologian came along, affirming the things we see in the list above and also those things from Augustine’s writings that Protestants approve (we Catholics would call him “an orthodox Catholic,” but I digress). Would any Protestant put such a man on the same pedestal on which they place Augustine? How many Protestants would be likely to approve such a man? LOL! Do we even need to ask the question? Of course not. And this simply goes to show the radical inconsistency of Protestant approval of St. Augustine: they ignore what they don’t like while trying to claim him as their own.

 

Protestants can’t have it both ways. If St. Augustine was a great theologian, they must consider his theology as an organic, coherent whole. It’s dishonest and unfair to pretend that his explicitly Catholic views are not one with the parts of his writings that they happen to like.

 

St. Augustine was Catholic. Attempts to say otherwise aren’t even remotely plausible.

St. Augustine Pleads Ignorance

It should probably be said in St. Augustine’s defense that it seems likely (although I’m not in a position to demonstrate it) that what we shall see in this post is not a view that he held all his life. Nevertheless, just as St. Thomas may err concerning the Immaculate Conception, so too St. Augustine was only human. We may be certain that he no longer has any doubts about this question:

There are these four theories concerning the soul: [1] The soul comes from propagation. [2] The soul is created new in the case of every individual. [3] The soul exists elsewhere and is sent divinely into the body of a man at birth; or lastly [4] of its own will, it slips into bodies. We must not affirm any one of these rashly. Either the catholic commentaries on the divine Scriptures have not yet given this question the explanation and enlightenment that its obscurity and complexity deserve; or, if it has already been done, the book has not reached my hands. [On Free Choice of the Will, III.xxi, p. 133f]

Several thoughts come to mind. First, it is surprising to me at first glance that this might have been unclear to St. Augustine at any time in his Christian life, but maybe that’s being a bit too unfair. As a Protestant I learned that there were two theories about where the soul comes from, corresponding to the first two mentioned by St. Augustine above, but it was never exactly clear which of these one must hold (if it was even something that Protestants would consider that important). I guess I would never have imagined the question being as apparently difficult as Augustine does, but there you go: we stand on the shoulders of giants, right?

[For those who might not know, the Catholic Church teaches (§366) the second of Augustine’s theories; this is what St. Thomas taught, too]

Secondly, it’s worth noting that St. Augustine fully intends to submit to the teaching of the Catholic Church on this point. He has no intention of jumping to a view of his own apart from what the Church says. The problem he faced was one of ignorance: he didn’t know what the Church taught about it, but it seemed to him that if the Church hadn’t yet spoken on the subject, it should do so. St. Augustine, we see, was by no means one to suppose that he could get along just fine with just his Bible. No. He understood, and we need to understand, that when we come to the Bible, we must read it within the living tradition of the whole Church. We don’t read it within the tradition of the Presbyterians, or of the Baptists, or of the Lutherans; we read it within the tradition of the Catholic Church. That means that if our interpretation of the Bible contradicts the teaching of the Church on faith and morals, then we have made an error in what we think the Bible says. Period. St. Augustine was a faithful son of the Church; it seems clear that this was his view as well.

Thirdly, St. Augustine understood that doctrine develops. Over time, the Church’s understanding of the Faith grows and becomes more clear. In our passage above, the saint makes it clear that it was at least possible that the Church had not yet spoken on the matter, and that he hoped that She would do so. I don’t know if She had done so by his day, so that Augustine was simply uninformed on this point, but She has spoken by now, as I pointed out above.

St. Augustine and Goodness in Human Nature

In another post we saw that St. Augustine disagrees with certain forms of the Reformed/Presbyterian doctrine of total depravity. Some folks think that non-Christians are completely incapable of doing anything that God would view as good. This is not St. Augustine’s view.

It is no trifling matter that even before the merit of good works, the soul has received a natural power of judgment by which it prefers wisdom to error and peace to difficulty, so that it achieves these not simply by being born, but instead by its own endeavor. If the soul is not willing to act, it may justly be regarded as sin, for it has not put to good use the faculty that it received. For although it was born in ignorance and difficulty, nevertheless it is not compelled by necessity to remain in the state in which it was born. [On Free Choice of the Will, III.xx, p. 131-132]

If we are created so that we prefer wisdom to error, which is a good thing, it cannot be said to be evil or wicked when a man pursues wisdom. Of course it is possible for a man to “fail” to find wisdom deliberately, by prejudiced searching or deliberately hiding from it; but if we have free will as St. Augustine insists throughout the book, then it cannot be the case that we are compelled to shun wisdom.

This isn’t to say, of course, that a man may merit initial justification. It is to say that it is irrational to suggest that non-Christians never do good; it is to say that to hold that the non-Christian cannot do good is decidedly not an Augustinian view: “even before the merit of good works” a man has some powers for good. They cannot save him, of course, but that is not why God gave them to us.

St. Augustine on Invincible Ignorance

St. Augustine believes that some unbelievers seem to have a valid appeal to ignorance.

Although there is One present everywhere who in many ways through His creation beckons to hostile servants, instructs believers, comforts those who hope, encourages those who work, aids those who try, and hears those who pray, you are not considered at fault if you, against your will, are ignorant; however, if you are ignorant because you fail to ask, you are at fault. You are not blamed because you do not bind up your wounded limbs. Your sin is that you despise Him who wishes to heal you. No one is denied the knowledge of how to seek advantageously what, to his disadvantage, he does not know, and how he must humbly confess his stupidity, so that He who neither errs or toils when he comes to give aid may help the man who seeks and confesses. What a man through ignorance does not do rightly, and what he cannot do, even though he wills rightly, are called sins because their origin lies in free will. … [W]e call sin not only what is properly called sin because it is committed from free will and in full knowledge, but even that which must follow from the punishment of sin. Thus we speak of nature in one way when we refer to man’s nature as he was first created, faultless in his own class; and we speak of it in another way when we refer to the nature into which, as a result of the penalty of condemnation, we were born mortal, ignorant, and enslaved by the flesh. Of this the Apostle says, “We also were by nature the children of wrath, as were the others.” [On Free Choice of the Will, III.xix, pp. 129-130; emphasis added]

It seems here that he means to say that Original Sin is not sin properly speaking, because it is not associated with any deed on our part arising from free will and full knowledge. But along the way he acknowledges that a man is not blameworthy if through no fault of his own he is not a Christian. This seems to me to be consistent with Romans 2, and it is consistent with the teaching of the Catholic Church. It is certainly not consistent with at least some forms of Protestantism; there are some who deny that God extends any grace at all to those who are not Christian; there are some who insist that by original sin “we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil.” It seems clear that such men are at variance with St. Augustine’s words above.

He says something pretty similar a few pages later.

Therefore, if blessedness for us consisted of fine speech and if it were considered a crime to err in speech and grammar in the same way as when we err in the activities of living, no one would denounce an infant because it set out from this point to pursue eloquence. Clearly, however, a man would rightly be condemned if by the perversity of his will he had either returned to babbling like an infant, or had remained at that first stage. So even now, if ignorance of the truth and difficulty in behaving rightly are the natural points from which man begins his ascent toward the blessedness of wisdom and tranquility, no one properly condemns the soul because of its natural origin. But if a man refuses to strive for excellence, or wills to step back from where he set out, he justly and properly suffers punishment.

The Creator of man is in all respects to be praised: whether because from the beginning He instills in man the capacity for the highest good, or because He aids man in attaining this good, or because He completes and perfects man’s progress; and He justly ordains the justest condemnation for sinners—either those who, from the first, refuse to strive for achievement, or those who slip back from a higher state—according to their just deserts. Besides, we cannot say that God created an evil soul on the basis of the argument that it is not so great as it has the power to be if it advances… [p. 138]

Natural ignorance isn’t culpable.

St. Augustine and Merely Forensic Justification

It does not appear that St. Augustine’s conception of justification is merely forensic. In Book III of On Free Choice of the Will, he writes:

If…we should see the noble man changed so as to be fit for a heavenly dwelling and then raised to the stars, we would rejoice. But if we should see the depraved criminal, either before or after punishment, raised to a seat of honor in heaven even though he is still as evil as ever, who would not be indignant?

…Unlike the just man…the wicked man, as long as he is wicked, cannot reach the immortality of saints, that is, sublime and angelic immortality…[Book III, chapter IX (pp. 109-110)]

Mere forensic justification does not make the sinner just or holy, as even the Protestant concedes; the claim is that on the basis of what amounts to a legal fiction the sinner is declared “not guilty,” despite the fact that he is still actually a sinner. But St. Augustine here appears to agree with Psalm 14: Such a man isn’t fit for a heavenly dwelling.

Platonic Influence on St. Augustine

St. Augustine exhibits the influence of Platonism on his thinking here and there in On Free Choice of the Will. One example is in his ideas about numbers, as shown in this snippet from Book II, Chapter VIII:

Augustine. If someone were to say to you that numbers were impressed upon our spirit not as a result of their own nature, but as a result of those objects which we experience with the bodily senses, what answer would you make? Or do you agree with this?

Evodius. No, I do not. Even if I did perceive numbers with the bodily senses, I would not be able to perceive with the bodily senses the meaning of division and addition. It is with the light of the mind that I would prove wrong the man who makes an error in addition or subtraction. Whatever I may experience with my bodily senses, such as this air and earth and whatever corporeal matter they contain, I cannot know how long it will endure. But seven and three are ten, not only now, but forever. There has never been a time when seven and three were not ten, nor will there ever be a time when they are not ten. Therefore, I have said that the truth of number is incorruptible and common to all who think.

A. I do not disagree with your answer, for you spoke truly and clearly. [p. 54]

Of course it’s true that arithmetic and math are rational, but it doesn’t follow at all that we know nothing about them by way of our senses. The most obvious reply is that we all learn numbers by way of our senses: we are taught what “one” and “two” are by our parents (or others), who show us what these terms mean. We learn simple addition by way of our senses as well: we are shown one item, and two more are added to it, and we can then count that there are three; in this way we learn that 1 + 2 = 3. Obviously that is just a beginning, and of course reason comes into play in our comprehension of math. But it seems quite mistaken to suppose that we don’t begin to learn about this by way of what we can see and touch.

I think that a useful counter-example may be seen in this article, in which we learn about the Pirahã tribe in Brazil, whose concept of numbers is limited to “one,” “two,” and “many.” As the article says by way of example, they are unable to reliably distinguish between four and five objects in a row. But if “the truth of number is incorruptible and common to all who think,” in the way that St. Augustine apparently suggests, then it seems that the Pirahã tribe must not be able to think. But this is absurd: they are human beings created in the image of God. Therefore we know that they can think. Hence we must say that Augustine’s claim that “the truth of number” is “common to all who think” is incorrect.

St. Augustine argues against an empirical component to our ideas of numbers in a peculiar way. He says that the infinite divisibility of a body argues against means that we must “concede that no body is truly and purely one” (ibid., p. 55). But what does that have to do with whether we may distinguish the idea of one by way of what we see? I don’t think that it has anything to do with it. At the very least it seems to me to be obvious that infinite divisibility doesn’t mean we can’t look at any particular body and say that there is just one of them. The fact that a rock might be divisible doesn’t mean that it’s not a single rock. But Augustine says no: “The perception of one does not occur through any bodily sense” (ibid).

Similar Platonic influence seems to me to be evident in chapter X of Book II, where it appears that he views truth as a sort of subsisting thing somehow. He argues that for a given fact, its truth is not something that one man can hold in opposition to another; rather, its truth is available to all:

A. Can we deny that this fact is true and one, yet common for all who know it? Each man sees it with his own mind, not with mine, yours, or anyone else’s; yet what is seen, is present for all to see in common. We cannot deny this, can we?

E. Of course not.

…

A. Can anyone call truth his own, when it is present unchangingly, for all to meditate upon who have the power to meditate?

E. No one can truly call truth his own. Truth is one and common to all, just as much as it is true.

…

A. I shall not ask you any more questions of this kind. It is sufficient that you see and grant, as I do, that it is certain that these judgments are rules and, as it were, lights of virtue; and that true and unchangeable things, whether individually or all together, are present in common for all to meditate upon who have the power to perceive with mind and reason. [p. 61-62]

In chapter XII, he says that immutable truth exists, and it seems that he means that it has some sort of actual being:

You will not deny, therefore, that immutable truth, comprising everything that is immutably true, exists; and you cannot say that immutable truth is yours, or mine, or anyone else’s. It is present and shows itself as a kind of miraculously secret, yet public, light for all who see what is immutably true. [p. 66]

This doesn’t seem to me to be the best account of what truth is. It seems to me that Aquinas’ view, and Aristotle’s, is more reasonable: namely, that something may be said to be true when it conforms to reality.

St. Augustine: The Purpose of Free Will

God did not give us free will as part of some kind of crapshoot. He gave it to us for a reason, says St. Augustine.

If man is a good, and cannot act rightly unless he wills to do so, then he must have free will, without which he cannot act rightly. We must not believe that God gave us free will so that we might sin, just because sin is committed through free will. It is sufficient for our question, why free will should have been given to man, to know that without it man cannot live rightly. That it was given for this reason can be understood from the following: if anyone uses free will for sinning, he incurs divine punishment. This would be unjust if free will had been given not only that man might live rightly, but also that he might sin. For how could a man justly incur punishment who used free will to do the thing for which it was given? When God punishes a sinner, does He not seem to say, “Why have you not used free will for the purpose for which I gave it to you, to act rightly”? Then too, if man did not have free choice of will, how could there exist the good according to which it is just to condemn evildoers and reward those who act rightly? What was not done by will would be neither evildoing nor right action. Both punishment and reward would be unjust if man did not have free will. Moreover, there must needs be justice both in punishment and in reward, since justice is one of the goods that are from God. Therefore, God must needs have given free will to man. [On Free Choice of the Will, II.I, p. 36; emphasis added]

If God gave us free will with the intention that we should be free to use it to sin, then it would be unjust for him to punish us if we sin, says St. Augustine: for we would only be putting it to one of the uses for which God gave it to us. But this is wrong; God did not give us free will for that purpose. He gave us free will in order that we might freely do that which is good. Consequently when we sin, we abuse the gift that he has given to us, and thereby become subject to just punishment.

Note also that he insists upon what we have seen before. That is, justice in punishing us for sin demands that we have free will: “What was not done by will would be neither evildoing nor right action. Both punishment and reward would be unjust if man did not have free will.” If we lack free will, and if our sins are compelled in some way, then they are not actually sins, properly speaking; it would therefore be unjust to punish them as though we were actually responsible for them. This is why Catholic moral teaching insists that compulsion removes guilt, either partly or completely (depending upon the compulsion).

Lastly, note again that St. Augustine insists upon the reward that is justly due to those who do good. But this would only be just if there is a sense in which our good works may be truly said to be our own, and this cannot be said if we do not have free will. St. Augustine was Catholic; he firmly believed that our good deeds merit a reward from God (although, of course, they are completely inadequate as a means by which we may receive initial justification; we may only receive that by means of God’s grace alone, as we have seen many times).

St. Augustine: The requirements of justice

On Free Choice of the Will begins with a question (it is framed largely as a dialogue between Augustine and his friend Evodius).

Evodius: Tell me, please, whether God is not the cause of evil.

Of course, as St. Augustine points out, this question is silly for the Christian.

But if you know or believe that God is good (and it is not right to believe otherwise), God does not do evil. Also, if we admit that God is just (and it is sacrilege to deny this), He assigns rewards to the righteous and punishments to the wicked—punishments that are indeed evil for those who suffer them. Therefore, if no one suffers punishment unjustly (this too we must believe, since we believe that the universe is governed by divine Providence), God is the cause of the second kind of evil, but not of the first.

It’s not that God causes or does evil in an absolute sense; that would be heretical (as he says in the first sentence) because God is good. There is a relative sense in which he might be said to do “evil,” though, if we are talking about the punishment of the wicked, says our author: the evil man considers punishment to be an evil thing that happens to him. In point of fact, though, Augustine reminds us that God’s justice demands that he punish the wicked and reward the righteous.

Would it be just if God punished the wicked but did not reward the righteous? It seems not, in Augustine’s view. The complaint that might be offered: “You punish them for doing evil, but you do not reward us for doing well.” Some might pretend that no one does good, but the Bible (Mt. 25:31-46) does not seem to bear them out.

Now the book is on free will, and so of course we ought to expect St. Augustine to address its relation to justice.

[E]ach evil man is the cause of his own evildoing. If you doubt this, then listen to what we said above: evil deeds are punished by the justice of God. It would not be just to punish evil deeds if they were not done willfully. [Emphasis added]

God’s justice demands that he punishes evil deeds, but if we are compelled to do them, it simply cannot be said that we are liable for them.

[Quotations above taken from Book I of On Free Choice of the Will, p. 3]

We see the same thing in Book II, chapter I:

Both punishment and reward would be unjust if man did not have free will. [p. 36]

The fact that God foreknows that we will sin does not mean that we lack free will. St. Augustine offers additional arguments about this in the book, but for our purposes here it is sufficient to remark that what we’ve said above applies here as well. If God’s foreknowledge constitutes a compulsion whereby our free will is removed, he could not justly punish the wicked for sin nor reward the righteous for good.

[L]et us acknowledge both that it is proper to His foreknowledge that nothing should escape His notice and that it is proper to His justice that a sin, since it is committed voluntarily, should not go unpunished by His judgment, just as it was not forced to be committed by His foreknowledge.

[Book III, chapter IV; p. 95]

It might be worth pointing out what we’ve seen repeatedly already (and what we see again above) concerning St. Augustine’s views on the reward that awaits the righteous: in short, there is one. He constantly refers to it as a reward for good deeds done. Although he doesn’t use the word in what we’ve seen above, he steadfastly recognizes this reward as something that one merits by his deeds.

St. Augustine, On Free Choice of the Will: Overview

I will have a few (maybe several) posts on St. Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will. I don’t have an online link to this book. Surprisingly to me, it’s not available at New Advent. I presume this is because it is peculiarly omitted from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series. I am not familiar with the theological predispositions of the editors and translators of NPNF, but it strikes me as odd that this particular work would not be included.

On the other hand, if those editors were of any sort of Reformed stripe that really took seriously (as Calvinists do) their doctrine of predestination, I think we might be able to arrive at an answer. Because if there is anything that On Free Choice of the Will is not, it is predestinarian. It has, admittedly, been a while, but I am at a loss to think of any books by Reformed authors on the subject of man’s free will. My wife suspects that (possibly) Packer’s Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God might have, but even if that’s so, it’s but one book (and by a man that at least some Reformed types aren’t too keen to claim as one of their own). Let us compromise and suggest that there may be some very few books on the subject from the Reformed camp. In general, though, they simply do not write books about it; and in many cases what they write about free will is intended to deny that we have it.

But St. Augustine was not Calvinist. He was not Reformed. He was Catholic. And so he was perfectly willing to write such a book as this, because of course the Catholic Church teaches both that we have a free will and that God has an eternal plan of predestination.

Another striking feature of the book as a whole is that The Doctor appealed to Scripture very little. Most of the argument is strictly philosophical—something else that is doubtless unappetizing to many Reformed. There is also at least one theological oddity that might perhaps embarrass those who disagree with St. Augustine about it…But we’ll save that for a post of its own.

It’s also worth noting, for the sake of those who might try to suggest that On Free Choice of the Will was somehow superseded by St. Augustine’s later writings, that this is quite simply not the case. While in fact it was written very early in his Christian life, he revisited it in his Retractations (near the end of his life) because the Pelagians were ripping quotations from it for their own use. Far from overturning anything that he actually wrote in the book, though, all he does is make clear that they were taking things out of context. In short: he certainly did not repudiate the views in this book. [Source for the material in this paragraph may be found in the Appendix (pp. 151-158) of the edition of On Free Choice of the Will linked above; it includes both the text of the Retractations pertinent to this book and historical notes from the translators].

St. Augustine Approves Catholic Truth

This post presents indirect evidence that St. Augustine was Catholic and not some sort of proto-crypto-forerunner of Protestantism. In On Christian Doctrine Book IV, chapter 21, he quotes St. Cyprian concerning the Cup in the Eucharist. In this part of the quotation, he affirms the authority of Tradition:

“Observe” he says, “that we are instructed, in presenting the cup, to maintain the custom handed down to us from the Lord, and to do nothing that our Lord has not first done for us: so that the cup which is offered in remembrance of Him should be mixed with wine.”

But the Bible doesn’t say a thing about whether there should be water mixed with the wine in the Chalice. So it’s clear that St. Cyprian is appealing to Sacred Tradition here, rather than the Bible.

Nor can it be held that His blood, by which we are redeemed and vivified, is in the chalice when it contains no wine, through which the blood of Christ is shown, as is foretold by all the mysteries and testimonies of the Scriptures. [Ibid., quoted from the Robertson translation]

If Christ’s blood is not in the Cup when there is no wine (as Cyprian affirms), then it must be the case that Christ’s blood is in it when the wine is there.

Later (paragraph 47), St. Augustine quotes St. Cyprian again, this time concerning virgins:

Now our discourse addresses itself to the virgins, who, as they are the objects of higher honor, are also the objects of greater care. These are the flowers on the tree of the Church, the glory and ornament of spiritual grace, the joy of honor and praise, a work unbroken and unblemished, the image of God answering to the holiness of the Lord, the brighter portion of the flock of Christ. The glorious fruitfulness of their mother the Church rejoices in them, and in them flourishes more abundantly; and in proportion as bright virginity adds to her numbers, in the same proportion does the mother’s joy increase. And at another place in the end of the epistle, ‘As we have borne,’ he says, ‘the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.’ Virginity bears this image, integrity bears it, holiness and truth bear it; they bear it who are mindful of the chastening of the Lord, who observe justice and piety, who are strong in faith, humble in fear, steadfast in the endurance of suffering, meek in the endurance of injury, ready to pity, of one mind and of one heart in brotherly peace. And every one of these things ought ye, holy virgins, to observe, to cherish, and fulfill, who having hearts at leisure for God and for Christ, and having chosen the greater and better part, lead and point the way to the Lord, to whom you have pledged your vows. You who are advanced in age, exercise control over the younger. You who are younger, wait upon the elders, and encourage your equals; stir up one another by mutual exhortations; provoke one another to glory by emulous examples of virtue; endure bravely, advance in spirituality, finish your course with joy; only be mindful of us when your virginity shall begin to reap its reward of honor.

And similarly in paragraph 48, St. Ambrose (Augustine’s father in the Faith):

Ambrose also uses the temperate and ornamented style when he is holding up before virgins who have made their profession a model for their imitation, and says: “She was a virgin not in body only, but also in mind; not mingling the purity of her affection with any dross of hypocrisy; serious in speech; prudent in disposition; sparing of words; delighting in study; not placing her confidence in uncertain riches, but in the prayer of the poor; diligent in labor; reverent in word; accustomed to look to God, not man, as the guide of her conscience; injuring no one, wishing well to all; dutiful to her elders, not envious of her equals; avoiding boastfulness, following reason, loving virtue. When did she wound her parents even by a look? When did she quarrel with her neighbors? When did she spurn the humble, laugh at the weak, or shun the indigent? She is accustomed to visit only those haunts of men that pity would not blush for, nor modesty pass by. There is nothing haughty in her eyes, nothing bold in her words, nothing wanton in her gestures: her bearing is not voluptuous, nor her gait too free, nor her voice petulant; so that her outward appearance is an image of her mind, and a picture of purity. For a good house ought to be known for such at the very threshold, and show at the very entrance that there is no dark recess within, as the light of a lamp set inside sheds its radiance on the outside. Why need I detail her sparingness in food, her superabundance in duty,— the one falling beneath the demands of nature, the other rising above its powers? The latter has no intervals of intermission, the former doubles the days by fasting; and when the desire for refreshment does arise, it is satisfied with food such as will support life, but not minister to appetite.” Now I have cited these latter passages as examples of the temperate style, because their purpose is not to induce those who have not yet devoted themselves to take the vows of virginity, but to show of what character those who have taken vows ought to be. To prevail on any one to take a step of such a nature and of so great importance, requires that the mind should be excited and set on fire by the majestic style. Cyprian the martyr, however, did not write about the duty of taking up the profession of virginity, but about the dress and deportment of virgins. Yet that great bishop urges them to their duty even in these respects by the power of a majestic eloquence.

We may safely infer Augustine’s agreement with these authorities when he says—without a hint of disapprobation—“have cited these latter passages as examples of the temperate style, because their purpose is not to induce those who have not yet devoted themselves to take the vows of virginity, but to show of what character those who have taken vows ought to be.” But if this is insufficient, he goes even further in paragraph 50:

Now in these two authors whom I have selected as specimens of the rest, and in other ecclesiastical writers who both speak the truth and speak it well—speak it, that is, judiciously, pointedly, and with beauty and power of expression—many examples may be found of the three styles of speech, scattered through their various writings and discourses; and the diligent student may by assiduous reading, intermingled with practice on his own part, become thoroughly imbued with them all. [Emphasis added]

So we see that St. Augustine’s judgment is that St. Cyprian and St. Ambrose speak the truth in the passages that he has quoted from them concerning the Eucharist and concerning consecrated virginity. But these are Catholic views, not Protestant. So once again we see that St. Augustine was a Catholic.

St. Augustine: Preaching Inspires Good Works in Hope of Reward

St. Augustine says that biblical preaching inspires men to good works, in hope of an eternal reward.

Of course, if we were giving men advice as to how they ought to conduct secular cases, either for themselves or for their connections, before the church courts, we would rightly advise them to conduct them quietly as matters of little moment. But we are treating of the manner of speech of the man who is to be a teacher of the truths which deliver us from eternal misery and bring us to eternal happiness; and wherever these truths are spoken of, whether in public or private, whether to one or many, whether to friends or enemies, whether in a continuous discourse or in conversation, whether in tracts, or in books, or in letters long or short, they are of great importance. Unless indeed we are prepared to say that, because a cup of cold water is a very trifling and common thing, the saying of our Lord that he who gives a cup of cold water to one of His disciples shall in no wise lose his reward, is very trivial and unimportant. Or that when a preacher takes this saying as his text, he should think his subject very unimportant, and therefore speak without either eloquence or power, but in a subdued and humble style. Is it not the case that when we happen to speak on this subject to the people, and the presence of God is with us, so that what we say is not altogether unworthy of the subject, a tongue of fire springs up out of that cold water which inflames even the cold hearts of men with a zeal for doing works of mercy in hope of an eternal reward? [On Christian Doctrine, IV.xviii.37]

The Protestant denies that we should do good works in hope of receiving an eternal reward, but St. Augustine affirms that it is a good thing—indeed, something that is to be expected as a result of good preaching. Once again we see that St. Augustine was a Catholic.

St. Augustine and the Public Teaching of the Bible

Sometimes it is better not to teach the Bible in public, says St. Augustine.

For there are some passages which are not understood in their proper force, or are understood with great difficulty, at whatever length, however clearly, or with whatever eloquence the speaker may expound them; and these should never be brought before the people at all, or only on rare occasions when there is some urgent reason. [On Christian Doctrine, IV.ix.23]

Clearly then St. Augustine is saying that prudence must rule with regard to the presentation of the Bible to people. Some parts of Scripture are apparently so likely to cause problems for others’ faith that it is best to avoid them in public. This insistence upon discretion with regard to God’s Word is really not so different in principle from the limitations that the Church placed upon access to the Scriptures in around the time of the Reformation, it seems to me. There were heretical translations from which the people needed to be protected. Even more importantly, most people lacked the tools (educationally and otherwise) to properly handle the Bible. Of course, this is still true even today, but I digress. The point is that St. Augustine placed a higher premium on the preservation of people’s faith than on the exposition of literally anything in Scripture. This is a Catholic attitude.

St. Augustine and Hermeneutics - Multiple Meanings are Providential

We have seen this before. St. Augustine absolutely believed that multiple meanings in Scripture were not simply legitimate, but a provision of the divine authorship. In fact, in his view this was more important than whether we can discern the human author’s intended meaning or not.

When, again, not some one interpretation, but two or more interpretations are put upon the same words of Scripture, even though the meaning the writer intended remain undiscovered, there is no danger if it can be shown from other passages of Scripture that any of the interpretations put on the words is in harmony with the truth. And if a man in searching the Scriptures endeavors to get at the intention of the author through whom the Holy Spirit spoke, whether he succeeds in this endeavor, or whether he draws a different meaning from the words, but one that is not opposed to sound doctrine, he is free from blame so long as he is supported by the testimony of some other passage of Scripture. For the author perhaps saw that this very meaning lay in the words which we are trying to interpret; and assuredly the Holy Spirit, who through him spoke these words, foresaw that this interpretation would occur to the reader, nay, made provision that it should occur to him, seeing that it too is founded on truth. For what more liberal and more fruitful provision could God have made in regard to the Sacred Scriptures than that the same words might be understood in several senses, all of which are sanctioned by the concurring testimony of other passages equally divine? [On Christian Doctrine, III.xxvii.38; emphasis added]

It seems clear that in the opinion of St. Augustine, to limit the legitimate meanings of the Bible solely to the one intended by the human author is the same as to completely discount the divine authorship. We might suppose that this is analogous to what Joseph told his brothers: “You intended evil against me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20, CCD). In that situation, God’s purposes were certainly distinct from those of the human actors. That is, we may have our own purposes and intentions in mind, but God has his own as well, and his purposes cannot be thwarted.

St. Augustine and the Goal of Hermeneutics

St. Augustine has this to say about the end of Bible interpretation:

Accordingly, in regard to figurative expressions, a rule such as the following will be observed, to carefully turn over in our minds and meditate upon what we read till an interpretation be found that tends to establish the reign of love. Now, if when taken literally it at once gives a meaning of this kind, the expression is not to be considered figurative. [On Christian Doctrine, III.xv.23]

Mere theology doesn’t even enter the picture; rather, he says that we should read the Bible in order to be able to fulfill the two greatest commandments.