The development of political Augustinism in the context of the conceptualization of the idea of a Christian state

Abstract

In the article on the theory of state and law, the development of political Augustinism is studied in the context of the conceptualization of the idea of a Christian state. When summarizing the philosophical and political thought of Augustinism as a development of the ideas of dualism of the idea of “two cities”, the following main points established during the study were noted: 1) in the theocratic concept of the work “On the City of God”, the author justifies the existence of the state as a system of subordination. For Augustine, man is by no means a political, but a social being. The need for submission arose due to the fall of man; by nature, man was created not to obey, but to communicate with other people at the social, and not at the political level of domination and subordination. God did not instill in people the necessity of subordinating some people to others; 2) developing the thought of Blessed Augustine, Pope Gregory the Great and other followers of political Augustinism came to the conclusion, quite obvious to them, that power originally came from God, existed from the moment the world was created, and was established as paternalistic. The concept of political Augustinism determines that people are inherently equal, and there is no need to use coercive mechanisms in relation to others. However, each society required the mechanisms of government necessary for its existence; This argument is supported by the fact that the angelic hierarchy, that is, the hierarchical model of the heavenly world, is based on similar principles. Sin, on the other hand, has influenced the fact that the need for coercion is inevitable and the force of coercion begins to act. Subsequently, the Augustinian idea of the supernatural city of heaven was distorted by the fact that it was associated with the earthly Church for the purpose of subordinating secular authority to the church, which led to the confrontation between the state and the Church in medieval Western Europe.