St. Augustine

Ernest L. Fortin’s contribution to History of Political Philosophy focuses on St. Augustine, the first Christian philosopher included in the book, thus representing a significant shift in the book’s progress as it goes from the original Greek and Roman philosophers to the Christian and Jewish ones that would later take and expand upon the ideas first presented by the Greeks and the Romans. For Fortin, St. Augustine is an important figure in that shift as he was the first philosopher to deal comprehensively with the subject of civil society in the light of the changes brought about by a revealed religion. St. Augustine thus combines the bible with classical philosophy. Although I feel he is oversimplifying things a bit, one of the important points Fortin brings up is that Christianity is distinct from both Judaism and Islam in that it sought to incorporate philosophy into its own system rather than reject it entirely or treat it as an outsider with limited use. What this did was assure that though significant changes in society came about due to Christianity, with much of the old Roman and Greek culture being destroyed, philosophy was not one of those things, as it was not only not destroyed, it also thrived under these new conditions. For St. Augustine as well as those that came after him, philosophy was a tool in which people could gain the truths on which revelation did not speak. Furthermore, St. Augustine does not see philosophy and theology as being self-contained, but rather as two subjects in the same realm as each other. Ultimately, St. Augustine comes to the same conclusion on philosophy and faith that Cicero did on philosophy and order for St. Augustine realizes that an unchecked philosophy will eventually serve to undermine faith, so for him the goal of the Christian philosopher must write in a way as to satisfy the curious without undermining faith. Accordingly, his primary audience is a Christian one.

Though the commonly thought of interpretation of St. Augustine as a Platonist is correct, it is important to note that due to the difficulty in finding Plato’s authentic work at the time, he was forced to rely upon the works of others to know what Plato said. Despite this handicap, he did gain a firm understanding of what Plato argued, and much like Plato, St. Augustine sees humans as a social animal that would have sought community eve had the fall never occurred. For St. Augustine, civil society is a commonwealth that requires justice and peace. So important is justice in the eyes of St. Augustine, he considers right by justice to be a more important element of a just order that right by law. And because of this conception of the just city, St. Augustine was greatly frustrated with the inability to bring the just city into reality, even while he stayed within the classical conception of justice. As St. Augustine noted, cities were often more defined by injustice than justice. But rather than just write off the conception of the just city as something that would be nice but could never happen in reality as others had done before him, St. Augustine the fact that such injustices were allowed to occur inexcusable. St. Augustine’s conception of justice is heavily rooted in the idea of natural law, and this natural brings about harmony. But because of sin, this harmony has become disrupted, and as a result, men now desire dominion over other men. And while this does have some parallels to modern political theories, as I explain more fully in my essay The Proto-Libertarianism of St. Augustine, this also created a new conception of injustice, as unjust rule was now a form of rebellion. The fall of man plays a central role in St. Augustine’s thought as the fall required people to now look to God and the Church in order to attain justice.

Natural law is also a major part of St. Augustine’s work and it plays a major role in how he conceives that the city should function in regards to its laws. First, while natural law is universal, this does not mean there can be no variation of law between two just cities as temporal law can differ in regards to time and place and still be within the realm of justice. What this means is that democracy is a just city or the rule of one just man in a corrupt city are both examples of just laws. What does need to be noted though is that St. Augustine rejects the idea that temporal law can make people just for two major reasons. The first reason is that many crimes go unpunished, while the second reason is that temporal law, by its nature can only deal with the external affairs of humans, not the internal ones. Thus, it is quite possible that a man could obey just laws for an unjust reason and still remain unjust. Mere compliance with the law is not enough to make a man just. Also important in understanding St. Augustine’s vision of justice is eternal law, which is much like natural law, but unlike natural law, eternal law is also concerned with the afterlife. In accordance with his belief in justice, St. Augustine believes people are free to act justly or unjustly. Though free will and the traditional Christian conception of God have been seen as incompatible, for St. Augustine they are not, and free will simply means that people will their acts.

St. Augustine is also quite critical of the Roman Empire of his day as he sees the injustice Rome showed in dealing with other nations as stemming from their internal corruption as no nation can be externally just and internally unjust. Furthermore, Rome’s power was not the result of Roman justice as the Romans themselves commonly believed, but rather came about from God’s plan as by uniting the world under Roman rule, it would be easier for the Gospel to spread. Part of the Roman’s problems according to St. Augustine was that they had the wrong conception of what a “hero” was as he saw the martyrs as being more heroic that any Roman warrior. A further problem for Rome was that its religion had been corrupted and used by the rulers as a method of getting and keeping power. But even beyond that, St. Augustine sees polytheism as being ultimately doomed as it can only give people plausible lies and as such can never be fully rationalized. As a result of this, there will come a day when the people can no longer believe in polytheism.

Perhaps the most famous Augustinian idea is the “City of God”, which stems from the vision that humanity is divided into two cities, the City of God and the City of Man. Residence in these two cities are not defined by birth, but rather by action. One thing that is important to note that while there is certainly overlap, the City of God should not be seen as synonymous with the Church as there are some Church members not in the City of God, and likewise there are some non-Christians who are unknowingly in the City of God. It should also be noted that membership in the City of God does not negate other human social relations. This does however create a sharp distinction between spiritual and temporal authority.

St. Augustine also spent some time arguing against certain pagan writers who blamed Rome’s decline on the spread of Christianity. Against these writers, St. Augustine noted that Roman history had always been highly violent, and thus Christianity was not to blame. Another argument the pagans offered was the Christianity caused people to turn from the supposed glory of war, which St. Augustine responded by noting that Christianity does not negate people’s civic duty, and it is not war as a whole that Christians reject, but rather unjust war. St. Augustine further responds by noting that war is a condition of fallen man, which is a far less glorious conception of war than the one that was found in the pagan societies of the time.       

Western Civilization has been described as the marriage between Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem What this means is that Western Civilization ultimately rests on three pillars; Greek philosophy (Athens), Roman legal ideas (Rome), and the Christian religion (Jerusalem). It is almost impossible to conceive of the West without these three pillars. It was St. Augustine who was highly influential in laying down the work in which these three differing ideas could be synthesized, thus leading to the formation of what we now call “Western Civilization.” By doing this, St. Augustine assured that Greek philosophy, Roman legal ideas, and the Christian religion would not only survive, but also thrive in the new world brought about by the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the beginning of the Middle Ages, both events which occurred only a few years after his death.