Augustinian Conception Research Articles

TWO CONCEPTIONS OF POLITICAL AUTHORITY: AUGUSTINE, DE CIVITATE DEl, XIX. 14–15, AND SOME THIRTEENTH-CENTURY INTERPRETATIONS

This chapter examines the use made by a number of thirteenth-century writers of Saint Augustine's statements about the origins and nature of political authority and subjection, mainly in the De civitate Dei, book xix, chapters 14 and 15. It also examine the meaning of Augustine's statements concerning the origins of political authority, obligation, and subordination in the two chapters of his De civitate Dei, in the light of other relevant passages. The chapter provides some thirteenth-century interpretations of the same chapters by a number of writers of both the Aristotelian and what is traditionally referred to as the 'Augustinian' schools. It discusses some light on the interpretation of Augustine's views primarily by St. Thomas Aquinas. The looseness of Augustine's conception of 'nature' is too notorious to require comment; and the extent to which one should speak of his conception of 'political' authority, and more of the 'state', is open to debate.

The Doctrine of Free Choice in Saint Bonaventure

THE DOCTRINE OF FREE CHOICE IN SAINT BONAVENTURE1 The doctrine of free choice as developed by St. Bonaventure gives us an example of the dialectical development of scholasticism in the Middle Ages. The Saint's exposition of this point includes a survey of all the previous doctrines and an attempt to reconcile as many of them as possible. The result is a doctrine of free choice which is much more comprehensive than the doctrines of his predecessors. To understand St. Bonaventure's doctrine of free choice it will first be necessary to consider the nature of the soul and its faculties of reason and will. For the Saint maintains that free choice is a habit of reason and will. I Like many of the scholastic writers, St. Bonaventure nowhere gives an explicit proof for the existence of the soul. Although it is the form of the body, it is also a spiritual substance, composed of spiritual matter and form, which are necessary to explain the soul's limitation and mutability.2 Spiritual matter, however, does not destroy the simplicity and immortality of the soul, since, unlike corporeal matter, it does not imply quantitative parts.3 In their metaphysical content spiritual and corporeal matter are essentially the same; but in its actual physical existence matter is either spiritual or corporeal depending upon the form which determines its mode of existence.4 The substantial unity of the soul also does not destroy the substantial unity of man, because body and soul have a mutual appetite and inclination toward each other which constitutes the bond of substantial unity.5 St. Bonaventure introduces his conception of faculties of the soul by stating that they are required to explain the operations of the soul. For if the soul did not have faculties through which it could operate, 1 The translation of liberum arbitrium as free choice seems preferable to free will or freedom of choice. As well as being a more accurate translation of the Latin, it does not prejudice the question as to the precise relationship of liberum arbitrium to the powers of reason and will. 2 In II Sent., d. 17, a. 1, q. 2, ad 5 (II, p. 415b). Anima autem non tantum est forma, immo etiam est hoc aliquid. 3 Ibid. (II, p. 415 a). 4 In II Sent., d. 3, p. 1, a. 1, q. 3 (II, p. ioob). 5 Breviloquium, p. 7, c. 5 (V, p. 286b). 1 Franciscan Studies, 1958I 2 W. G. THOMPSON then the operation of the soul would be identified with its existence; and since the soul always exists, it would always operate — which is clearly against common experience.6 These faculties are really distinct from the soul because they go out from the soul in their operations.7 But at the same time they are not essentially distinct from the soul, but rather cosubstantial with the soul, because they proceed immediately from the soul and do not require an accident added to the substance of the soul. They are essential to the soul because without them the soul could never exist in its fullest perfection.8 The spirituality of the soul explains how the faculties can proceed immediately from it without the intervention of an accident. Thus the Saint concludes that the faculties are cosubstantial with the soul, but not completely the same as the soul.9 He seems to be straining in an effort to express an Augustinian concept in the terminology of Aristotle. The real, though, non-essential, distinction between the soul and its faculties is the key to understanding the distinction which St. Bonaventure makes between the faculties themselves, especially between reason and will. He proves that reason and will must be distinct from the different operations of knowing and loving.10 But the real distinction between them is only in the genus of faculties, since both faculties are cosubstantial with the soul.11 St. Bonaventure has a hard time expressing this very close connection of the faculties with the soul, and hence with each other. Nevertheless it is an important point and contributes greatly toward an adequate understanding of free choice. St. Bonaventure divides the faculties of the soul according...

The Augustinian Conception of Beauty and Dante's Convivio

The Augustinian Conception of Beauty and Dante's Convivio

H. Hohensee: The Augustinian Concept of Authority. [Folia: Supplement ii.] Pp. 80. New York (R. F. Moloney, 2180 Ryer Ave., New York 57), 1955. Paper, $2.

H. Hohensee: The Augustinian Concept of Authority. [Folia: Supplement ii.] Pp. 80. New York (R. F. Moloney, 2180 Ryer Ave., New York 57), 1955. Paper, $2.

The Augustinian Concept of Authority. By H. Hohensee. (Folia, Supplement II). Pp. 79. Worcester, Mass. (U.S.A.): Holy Cross College, 1954. $2.00.

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.

The Augustinian Concept of Authority

The Augustinian Concept of Authority

St. Augustine's Conception of Time

St. Augustine's Conception of Time

St. Augustine's Conception of the State

In his celebrated lecture on the Confessions of St. Augustine the late Professor Adolf von Harnack declared: “Between St. Paul the Apostle and Luther the Reformer, the Christian Church has possessed no one who could measure him- self with Augustine; and in comprehensive influence no other is to be compared with him.” Not only was this North African bishop the chief luminary of Western Christendom in his own generation, but through his writings he fairly dominated the philosophy, the theology, and the ethics of the Middle Ages; he stimulated the medieval mystics, alike those who accepted and many of those who rejected the traditional dogmas; he inspired both the so-called forerunners of the Reformation and the leading humanists of the Renaissance; and in large measure he moulded the evangelical faith and piety of the Lutheran and especially of the Reformed churches from the days of their founders down to our own times. But in no realm of thought or life was his influence more potent or historically more significant than in that characteristic development of the relations of church and state that marked the millenial period beginning, less than half a century after his death, with the fall of the Western Empire in the year 476. He was the weightiest authority to whom emperors and popes could and did appeal for support in their age-long contest for the supreme power: the former to vindicate their independence in secular affairs, and the latter to prove their lordship over all other earthly potentates, whether temporal or spiritual.

The Genesis of St. Augustine's Idea of Original Sin

The thought of Augustine on the two ethical categories of sin and grace is of great importance in the history of Christian theology. His system of grace and predestination prevailed for many centuries, although not without strong opposition, and underwent, through scholastic elaboration, substantial changes in order to save the freedom of the will; and finally it reappeared in the conception of the spiritual life shaped by Luther and the other teachers of the Reformation. It is on account of his doctrine about grace and predestination that Protestant theologians like to call Augustine “der Paulus nach Paulus und der Luther vor Luther.” Whatever may be the exactness of this genealogy, it shows at least the value and efficacy of the Augustinian conception of the natural and supernatural life on the development of the European spirit. In the Catholic tradition this thought of Augustine is at the very basis of the ethical, ecclesiological, and sacramental systems; in the Christian but non-Catholic movements this doctrine, interpreted in a rather paradoxical way, gave a starting-point to the Reformation.