Saint Augustine, also called Saint Augustine of Hippo, original Latin name Aurelius

Augustinus (born Nov. 13, 354, Tagaste, Numidia [now Souk Ahras, Algeria]died Aug. 28, 430, Hippo
Regius [now Annaba, Algeria]) feast day August 28, bishop of Hippo from 396 to 430, one of the Latin
Fathers of the Church, one of the Doctors of the Church, and perhaps the most significant Christian
thinker after St. Paul. Augustines adaptation of classical thought to Christian teaching created a
theological system of great power and lasting influence. His numerous written works, the most important
of which are Confessions and City of God, shaped the practice of biblical exegesis and helped lay the
foundation for much of medieval and modern Christian thought.
Augustine is remarkable for what he did and extraordinary for what he wrote. If none of his written works
had survived, he would still have been a figure to be reckoned with, but his stature would have been more
nearly that of some of his contemporaries. However, more than five million words of his writings survive,
virtually all displaying the strength and sharpness of his mind (and some limitations of range and
learning) and some possessing the rare power to attract and hold the attention of readers in both his day
and ours. His distinctive theological style shaped Latin Christianity in a way surpassed only by scripture
itself. His work continues to hold contemporary relevance, in part because of his membership in a
religious group that was dominant in the West in his time and remains so today.
Intellectually, Augustine represents the most influential adaptation of the ancient Platonic tradition with
Christian ideas that ever occurred in the Latin Christian world. Augustine received the Platonic past in a
far more limited and diluted way than did many of his Greek-speaking contemporaries, but his writings
were so widely read and imitated throughout Latin Christendom that his particular synthesis of Christian,
Roman, and Platonic traditions defined the terms for much later tradition and debate. Both
modern Roman Catholic and Protestant Christianity owe much to Augustine, though in some ways each
community has at times been embarrassed to own up to that allegiance in the face of irreconcilable
elements in his thought. For example, Augustine has been cited as both a champion of human freedom
and an articulate defender of divine predestination, and his views on sexuality were humane in intent but
have often been received as oppressive in effect.

Introduction

St. Augustine of Hippo (A.D. 354 - 430) was an Algerian-Roman philosopher and theologian of the
late Roman / early Medieval period. He is one of the most important early figures in the development
of Western Christianity, and was a major figure in bringing Christianity to dominance in the
previously pagan Roman Empire. He is often considered the father of orthodox theology and the greatest
of the four great fathers of the Latin Church (along with St. Ambrose, St. Jerome and St. Gregory).
Unlike the later Scholastics who took Aristotle as the classical model to be integrated into Christian
thought, Augustine developed a philosophical and theological system which employed elements
of Plato and Neo-Platonism in support of Christian orthodoxy. His many works profoundly influenced
the medieval worldview.

Life
Aurelius Augustinus (usually known as simply Augustine) was born on 13 November 354
in Tagaste (or Thagaste), a provincial Roman city in Algeria, North Africa, and he was, by descent,
a Berber. His father Patricius was a pagan, but his mother Monica(or Monnica) was a
devout Catholic (and is herself revered as a Christian saint), so he was raised as a Catholic. At the age of
11, he was sent to school at Madaurus, an old Numidian town just south of Tagaste, famed both for
its schools and for its paganinfluence, where he became very familiar with Latin literature, as well
as pagan beliefs and practices. Later he read the "Hortensius", a dialogue by the Roman philosopher and
politician Cicero, which was largely responsible for sparking his interestin philosophy.
At the age of 17, he went to Carthage, Tunisia (the metropolis of Roman Africa) to continue his education
in rhetoric, and there he came under the influence of the controversial Persian religious cult
of Manichaeism, much to the despair of his mother. He lived a hedonistic lifestyle for a time, including
frequent visits to the brothels of Carthage, and developed a relationship with a young woman
named Floria Aemilia, who would be his concubine for over fifteen years, and who bore him a
son, Adeodatus.
After a year or two teaching grammar back in his home town, he returned to Carthage where he spent
nine years conducting a school of rhetoric, until, in 383 (at the age of 29), he moved to Rome to teach
rhetoric. However, he was disappointed with the apathetic and crooked Roman schools, and the next year
he accepted an appointment as professor of rhetoric for the imperial court at Milan, a highly visible and
influential academic chair.
During his time at Rome and Milan, he had moved away from Manichaeism, initially embracing
the Skepticism of the New Academy movement. A combination of his own studies in Neo-Platonism, his
reading of an account of the life of Saint Anthony of the Desert, and the combined influence of his
mother, his friend Simplicianus and, particularly, the influential bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose (338 397), gradually inclined Augustine towards Christianity. In the summer of 386, he officially converted to
Catholic Christianity, abandoned his career in rhetoric, quit his teaching position in Milan, and gave up
any ideas of the society marriage which had been arranged for him, and devoted himself entirely to
serving God, the priesthood and celibacy. He detailed this spiritual journey in his famous "Confessions",
which became a classic of both Christian theology and world literature.
In 388, he returned to Africa, although his mother died on the way there, and his son Adeodatus died soon
after, leaving him alone in the world, without family. He sold his patrimony, giving the money to the poor,
and converted the family house into a monastic foundation for himself and a group of friends. In 391, he
was ordained a priest (and later bishop) at Hippo Regiuson the Mediterranean coast of Algeria, and he
became a famous preacher, particularly noted for opposing Manichaeism and heresies such

as Donatism and Pelagianism. He remained in this position at Hippo until his death in 430, working
tirelessly to convert the diverse local racial and religious groups to the Catholic faith.
Augustine died on 28 August 430, aged 75, during the siege of Hippo by the Germanic Vandals, who
destroyed all of the city except Augustine's cathedral and library. His body was later moved to Pavia, Italy
(or, according to another account, to Cagliarion the island of Sardinia). Almost throughout his life he had
been a lonely, isolated figure, not attached to any intellectual or academic movement, and without any
university or institutional support for his work. At the time of his death, he was apparently the only person
in his whole town who possessed any books at all.
He was made a saint (patron saint of brewers, printers, sore eyes and theologians) of the Roman Catholic,
Anglican and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and among the Orthodox he is known as Blessed
Augustine or St. Augustine the Blessed. He is the patron of the Augustinian religious order (the Catholic
monastic order of both men and women living according to a guide to religious life known as the Rule of
Saint Augustine). In 1298, he was made a pre-eminent Doctor of the Church.

Work
Augustine wrote over 100 works in Latin, many of them texts on Christian doctrine and apologetic
works against various heresies. He is best known for the "Confessiones" ("Confessions", a personal
account of his early life, completed in about 397), "De civitate Dei" ("The City of God", consisting of 22
books started in 413 and finished in 426, dealing with God, martyrdom, Jews and other Christian
philosophies) and "De Trinitate" ("On the Trinity", consisting of 15 books written over the final 30 years
of his life, in which he developed the "psychological analogy" of the Trinity).
In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was
greatly influenced by Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-Platonism, particularly the "Enneads" of Plotinus (his
generally favourable view of Neo-Platonic thought contributed to its entrance into the Christian, and
subsequently the European, intellectual tradition). He was also influenced by the works of the Roman
poet Virgil (for his teaching on language), Cicero (for his teaching on argument)
and Aristotle (particularly his "Rhetoric" and "Poetics").
Augustine argued that Skeptics have no basis for claiming to know that there is no knowledge, and he
believed that genuine human knowledge can be established with certainty. He believed reason to be
a uniquely human cognitive capacity that comprehends deductive truths and logical necessity. In a proof
for existence similar to one later made famous by Descartes, Augustine claimed "Si fallor, sum" ("If I am
mistaken, I am). He also adopted a subjective view of time, arguing that time is nothing in reality but
exists only in the human minds apprehension of reality, and that time cannot be infinite because God
created it.
Augustine struggled to reconcile his beliefs about free will and his belief that humans are morally
responsible for their actions, with his belief that ones life is predestined and his belief in original
sin (which seems to make human moral behaviour nearly impossible). He held that, because human
beings begin with original sin and are therefore inherently evil (even if, as he believed, evil is not
anything real but merely the absence of good), then the classical attempts to achieve virtue by discipline,
training and reason are all bound to fail, and the redemptive action of God's grace alone offers hope. He
opined that "We are too weak to discover the truth by reason alone".
In his theological works, Augustine expounded on the concept of original sin (the guilt of Adam which all
human beings inherit) in his works against the Pelagian heretics, providing an important influence on St.

Thomas Aquinas. He helped formulate the theory of the just war, and advocated the use of force against
the Donatist heretics. He developed doctrines of predestination(the divine foreordaining of all that will
ever happen) and efficacious grace (the idea that God's salvation is granted to a fixed number of those
whom He has already determined to save), which later found eloquent expression in the works
of Reformationtheologians such as Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) and John Calvin (1509 - 1564), as well
as Cornelius Jansen (1585 - 1638) during the Counter-Reformation.
Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted literally if it contradicts what we
know from science and our God-given reason (e.g. he believed that God created the
world simultaneously and that the seven-day creation recorded in the Bible merely represents a logical
framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical way). Although he believed that God had chosen
the Jews as a special people, he considered the scattering of Jews by the Roman empire to be a fulfillment
of prophecy, and believed that the Jews would be converted at the end of time. He associated sexual
desire with the sin of Adam, and believed that it was still sinful, even though the Fall has made it part
of human nature.
In "The City of God", he conceived of the church as a heavenly city or kingdom, ruled by love, which
will ultimately triumph over all earthly empires which are self-indulgent and ruled by pride. He
emphasized the church's strict independence from, and its superiority over, the civil state. Begun in the
aftermath of the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, it was to some extent written as
a defence against those who blamed Christianity for the fall of Rome, and to restore the confidence of his
fellow Christians.

Philosophy and Christian Theology

In the history of Christian theology, philosophy has sometimes been seen as a natural
complement to theological reflection, whereas at other times practitioners of the two
disciplines have regarded each other as mortal enemies. Some early Christian thinkers such
as Tertullian were of the view that any intrusion of secular philosophical reason into
theological reflection was out of order. Thus, even if certain theological claims seemed to fly
in the face of the standards of reasoning defended by philosophers, the religious believer
should not flinch. Other early Christian thinkers, such as St. Augustine of Hippo, argued that
philosophical reflection complemented theology, but only when these philosophical
reflections were firmly grounded in a prior intellectual commitment to the underlying truth of
the Christian faith. Thus, the legitimacy of philosophy was derived from the legitimacy of the
underlying faith commitments.
Into the High Middle Ages, Augustine's views were widely defended. It was during this time
however that St. Thomas Aquinas offered yet another model for the relationship between
philosophy and theology. According to the Thomistic model, philosophy and theology are
distinct enterprises, differing primarily in their intellectual starting points. Philosophy takes
as its data the deliverances of our natural mental faculties: what we see, hear, taste, touch,
and smell. These data can be accepted on the basis of the reliability of our natural faculties
with respect to the natural world. Theology, on the other hand takes as its starting point the
divine revelations contained in the Bible. These data can be accepted on the basis of divine
authority, in a way analogous to the way in which we accept, for example, the claims made
by a physics professor about the basic facts of physics.

On this way of seeing the two disciplines, if at least one of the premises of an argument is
derived from revelation, the argument falls in the domain of theology; otherwise it falls into
philosophy's domain. Since this way of thinking about philosophy and theology sharply
demarcates the disciplines, it is possible in principle that the conclusions reached by one
might be contradicted by the other. According to advocates of this model, however, any such
conflict must be merely apparent. Since God both created the world which is accessible to
philosophy and revealed the texts accessible to theologians, the claims yielded by one cannot
conflict with the claims yielded by another unless the philosopher or theologian has made
some prior error.
Since the deliverances of the two disciplines must then coincide, philosophy can be put to the
service of theology (and perhaps vice-versa). How might philosophy play this
complementary role? First, philosophical reasoning might persuade some who do not accept
the authority of purported divine revelation of the claims contained in religious texts. Thus,
an atheist who is unwilling to accept the authority of religious texts might come to believe
that God exists on the basis of purely philosophical arguments. Second, distinctively
philosophical techniques might be brought to bear in helping the theologian clear up
imprecise or ambiguous theological claims. Thus, for example, theology might provide us
with information sufficient to conclude that Jesus Christ was a single person with two
natures, one human and one divine, but leave us in the dark about exactly how this
relationship between divine and human natures is to be understood. The philosopher can
provide some assistance here, since, among other things, he or she can help the theologian
discern which models are logically inconsistent and thus not viable candidates for
understanding the relationship between the divine and human natures in Christ.
For most of the twentieth century, the vast majority of English language philosophy
including philosophy of religionwent on without much interaction with theology at all.
While there are a number of complex reasons for this divorce, three are especially important.
The first reason is that atheism was the predominant opinion among English language
philosophers throughout much of that century. A second, quite related reason is that
philosophers in the twentieth century regarded theological language as either meaningless,
or, at best, subject to scrutiny only insofar as that language had a bearing on religious
practice. The former belief (i.e., that theological language was meaningless) was inspired by
a tenet of logical positivism, according to which any statement that lacks empirical content is
meaningless. Since much theological language, for example, language describing the
doctrine of the Trinity, lacks empirical content, such language must be meaningless. The
latter belief, inspired by Wittgenstein, holds that language itself only has meaning in specific
practical contexts, and thus that religious language was not aiming to express truths about the
world which could be subjected to objective philosophical scrutiny.
A third reason is that a great many academic theologians also became skeptical of our ability
to think and speak meaningfully about God; but, rather than simply abandon traditional
doctrines of Christianity, many of them turned away from more metaphysical and quasiscientific ways of doing theology, embracing instead a variety of alternative construals and
developments of these doctrinesincluding, but not limited to, metaphorical, existentialist,

and postmodern construals. This, we might add, seems to be one reason why the
methodological rift between so-called analytic and non-analytic philosophers has to
some extent been replicated as a rift between analytic philosophers of religion and their
counterparts in theology.
In the last forty years, however, philosophers of religion have returned to the business of
theorizing about many of the traditional doctrines of Christianity and have begun to apply the
tools of contemporary philosophy in ways that are somewhat more eclectic than what was
envisioned under the Augustinian or Thomistic models. In keeping with the recent academic
trend, contemporary philosophers of religion have been unwilling to maintain hard and fast
distinctions between the two disciplines. As a result, it is often difficult in reading recent
work to distinguish what the philosophers are doing from what the theologians (and
philosophers) of past centuries regarded as strictly within the theological domain. Indeed,
philosophers and theologians alike are now coming to use the term analytic theology to
refer to theological work that aims to explore and unpack theological doctrines in a way that
draws on the resources, methods, and relevant literature of contemporary analytic
philosophy. The use of this term reflects the heretofore largely unacknowledged reality that
the sort of work now being done under the label philosophical theology is as
much theology as it is philosophical.
In what follows, we provide a brief survey of work on the three topics in contemporary
philosophical theology thataside from general issues concerning the nature, attributes, and
providence of Godhave received the most attention from philosophers of religion over the
past quarter century. We thus leave aside such staple topics in philosophy of religion as
traditional arguments for the existence of God, the problem of evil, the epistemology of
religious belief, the nature and function of religious language. We also leave aside a variety
of important but less-discussed topics in philosophical theology, such as the nature of divine
revelation and scripture, original sin, the authority of tradition, and the like. (For discussions
of work falling under some of these topics, see the Related Entries section below, as well as
the works under the General heading in the bibliography.)
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/christiantheology-philosophy/