Agustín

According to Saint Augustine’s Doctrine of Original Sin, sin and evil exists because of Adam and
Eve’s defiance of God and since we are all descendants of Adam and eve, we are automatically
born into sin and are thus, evil choice. Since we are naturally evil, we as human beings can commit
evil just for the sake of committing evil, or even to attempt a taste of God’s powers (Duong, 2009).

In the view of St. Augustine, human beings converting evil into goodness have a bearing on two
points the free will of human beings and the grace of God. Free will which is the source of evil
signifies that in front of evil and goodness human beings have rights to choose. So, one can alter
good to live a moral life or continue to be evil. Goodness is the grace of God. “Ask, and it will be
given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you” (Holy Bible,
2004). Being good is not mandatory or peremptory; on the contrary, it depends on the awareness of
individuals. Good human nature never exists in human innate. Goodness is the privation of evil.
Because human beings cannot seek for goodness from inside, they turn to outside to pursue it. “It is
both the gift of God and free choice that some accept this word which not all accept” (Brown,
2005). Where do they seek for goodness? And what is outside? God, the answer to these two
questions is God. From the grace of God human beings can get their goodness, for God himself
being all-good and having powers to give goodness to human beings. Human beings use free will to
accept or reject goodness. If they use free will to reject the gift of God, evil will follow. To name
but one example, in the story of Holy Bible Adam and Eve do not resist the temptation from the
snake. It can be understood that Adam and Eve choose evil to eat forbidden fruit on wise tree. In
other words, although Adam and Eve have rights to be good, they choose evil instead following the
grace of God.

Concupiscence Uncontrolled desires and the nature of humankind being prone to sin.

Original Sin Human nature is corrupt and everyone has a tendency to sin; it is inherited from Adam
and passed on through the generations seminally.

Grace God’s generous, undeserved and free act of love for the world, particularly seen in Jesus. 2

Original Sin divided the will so that cupiditas (selfish love) ruled over caritas (generous, selfless
love), resulting in uncontrolled desires for power and wealth. For example, jealousy caused people
to steal others’ property, some were forced into slavery and people needed powerful leadership to
control their wayward tendencies.

Why?

1. Original Sin is like a disease that is passed on through the generations, so even newborn
babies are affected.
2. All suffer the consequences of double death – a broken relationship with God and mortal
death
3. No one can be good, illustrated by uncontrollable desires, such as lust

Initial investigations of Augustine’s view of human nature may suggest that moral goodness is an
impossible goal for humans. This would be disputed by scholars such as Rousseau and Pelagius,
who argue that humans are born with a good moral disposition but are detrimentally affected by
society. Others claim that humans are born like a blank slate (tabula rasa, as Locke suggests) or
morally neutral. This suggests that moral goodness would not be an impossible goal in theory,
although it will be questioned whether it is attainable in practice. It will be argued, therefore, that
Augustine’s assessment is stronger because, even if humans are inherently tainted and corrupt,
moral goodness is achievable with the help of God’s grace.

The human will once in harmony, was now divided, so cupiditas (selfish love) overrules caritas
(generous, selfless love). Effectively, free will is also now constrained as the will is weakened by
sin. Augustine uses Romans 7 to illustrate his personal struggles with concupiscence, where Paul
describes doing what he does not want to do, and not doing what he does want to do. Hobbes
provides further evidence of the lack of moral goodness in humans when he claimed ‘the life of
man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. These ideas support Augustine’s initial premise that,
since humans are characterised by animal-like and selfish motivation or behaviour, moral goodness
is an impossible goal. Left to their own devices, selfless principles are often defeated in the internal
moral struggle. There seems to be little hope of progress towards higher ideals

There are two cases of sinful choice that dramatize for Augustine the sheer willfulness of sin, the
Devil’s defection from the ranks of the angels and Adam and Eve’s choosing to eat the forbidden
fruit in the Garden of Eden. The Devil’s case serves as a template to which the psychology of many
human sins conforms. In answer to the question why the Devil rejected the blessed life open to all
angels, Augustine cites the motive of pride (superbia), which he defines as “the e of one’s own
excellence” (De Gen. ad litt. 11.14.18) and a “desire for perverse elevation” (De civ. Dei 14.13).
Pride is also the initial evil impulse behind the fall of Adam and Eve (De Gen. ad litt. 11.5.7; De
civ. Dei 14.13). The Devil’s tempting of Adam and Eve did not coerce their fall, for if the
temptation had been coercive, then their punishment would be unjust. Adam and Eve voluntarily
succumbed to the temptation because of their prideful fascination with the thought that they would
become like God. Augustine takes this similarity between the two cases to warrant the claim that sin
entered the created world through pride. At the same time he is careful to insist that pride is not a
component in all sins; as he points out, some sins are committed in ignorance or desperation (De
natura et gratia 29.33).4

Adam and Eve’s fall ushered into the world original sin, which is not an event but rather a condition
(De pecc. merit. et remis. 1.9.9–1.12.15). It is the condition imposed by God as punishment on
Adam and Eve for disobedience. According to Augustine the condition includes dispossession from
a naturally perfect environment, the loss of natural immortality and the acquisition of susceptibility
to physical pain, fatigue, disease, aging, and rebellious bodily disorders, especially sexual lust (De
Gen. ad litt. 11.32.42; De civ. Dei 14.16–19). The condition is not only pathological, it is inherited,
infecting every descendant of Adam and Eve. The condition is innate, not acquired; as Augustine
puts it, it is transmitted by propagation, not imitation (De pecc. merit. et remis. 1.9.9–1.12.15).
Augustine’s view, then, is that our first ancestors squandered their patrimony and our inheritance
and – as if that were not bad enough – thereby contracted a suite of infirmities that is passed on to
all their progeny

Predestination, Pelagianism, and foreknowledge

In De dono perseverantiae, he neatly reduces Pelagianism to three grave errors: to think that God
redeems according to some scale of human merit; to imagine that some human beings are actually
capable of a sinless life; to suppose that the descendants of the first human beings to sin are
themselves born innocent.1

 His conflict with the Pelagians is what marked the biggest shift of his theology.
 Pelagius was a Christian monk who disagreed with the original sin as he didn’t believe in it
as he believed that it caused universal guilt which only God could remove.
 Pelagius taught that even if Adam had not sinned he would have died. As well as that
Adams sin only affected himself and no one else. Moreover even before Christ there were
men who lived without sin.
Augustine otherwise disagreed and believes that Adams original sin is passed on from generation to
generation. This concludes that all humans are born with original sin and are incapable of choosing
to do good.

The will as love:

 The will is God-given and created human from nothing. We have free will so we can
choose whether we are good/bad or if we believe in God ire not.
 The will is synonymous with Love which is a force which pulls us in various directions.
We have self-love and generous love which are both necessary elements of the will.

Pride and disobedience:

 The problem which Augustine faced was what caused humans to reject their perfect
relationship with God. The answer is PRIDE.
 The reason why Adam and Eve ate from the tree is due to their desire of being similar to
God, knowing good, evil and its power.
 Pride causes them not to be able to have the harmonious relationship they had with God
before disobeying him. Augustine believes that Satan tempted Adam and eve to eat from
the tree. Satan was original an angle who fell form heaven.
The divided will:

 Due to the fall willing to do well is weakened by other desires.

 This problem is known as the weakened will (akarsia)
 Plato and Aristotle doubted the idea of a weakened will.
 Augustine realised that he couldn’t put behind his past relationships with women and
embrace calibvercy.
 Adams disobedience makes it impossible for humans to be surely good.
Concupiscence:

 In the fallen state a man cannot control his libido and his desires are dominated by
concupiscence which is sexual lust.
 The body cannot be sinful as it was created by God, but as the will is now weak and divided
so concupiscence dominates humans.
 The body mow craves money, food, power and sexual intercourse.
  Concupiscence is the most painful experience in friendship. Also people invest so much in
friendship that they forget God.

Original Sin:

 The post- lapsarian which is the world after the fall of Adam and Eve or simply the fallen
world.
 In the post lapsarian world the effects of Adam’s sin can be seen in the contused rebellious state
of the will.
 Everywhere one looks the effects of the fall on human nature can be seen
 Man has spontaneous erections, wet dreams and loss of rational control during sexual orgasm/
 The presence of concupiscence illustrates the lack of control that the rational soul has over sin
 The lack of libido is a sign that the uncontrolled body mocks the weak and divided will.
 Augustine has a very distinctive view of Original Sin, whereas other theologians took the phase
form St Paul that ‘son came into the world through one man’ (Roman 5:12) to describe that all
humans are inadequacies that all humans are prone to.
 Augustine made this sin an ontological condition of human existence, not just a description of
our behaviour on occasions.
 No one is truely good however virtuous they may appear to be.
 The chief characteristic of regional sin is that is passed on from the first or original moment to
all generations.
 Augustine describes original sin as:
Double death:
 The first death is caused by Adam’s rebellious will which kills he relationship of friendship
between humans and God
 This is symbolised between Adam and Eves’ embarrassment of their nakedness in front of
God (Genesis 3)
 The second death is the mortal state of very human and is God’s punishment of the first
disobedience (genesis 3)
Transmission of sin
 Tee original act of disobedience is transmitted by a ‘chin of disasters’.
 Adam’s children also bear his rebellious nature
 Every act of sexual intercourse is tainted by concupiscence, so very human is born in sin.
 With the expectation of Mary who gave birth to Jesus without lust then everyone else re
tinted with the original sin.
Grace:

 Grace is God’s generous, underserved and free act of love for the worlds expressed supremely
in the giving of his son Jesus Christ in order that humans might overcome their sinful nature.
 Human nature offers a tantalising possibility that with just a bit more effort we could achieve
the harmonious relationship with God.
 This would lead to summum bonus (the greatest good)
 His memories of the past pleasers which continued to haunt his dreams, led him frequently to
ask the question posed by St Paul ‘who will rescue me form this body of death?’ (roman 7:24)
 Only with God’s generosity can the damage of the human relationship with him can be healed.
 The wound is healed with God’s grace alone expressed in god’s gift of his only son Jesus was
the guilt and punishment removed.
 Augustine concludes that although he admires the philosophy of the Platonists and Stoic he
doesn’t accept their beliefs that humans gave a sufficient reason to live a god life.
 He believes the purpose of faith is to recognise the falling of human nature and to place ones
trust in god’s love and grace.
Crudely put, Augustine is interested not in a political institution, but in the rationale for a human
relationship. He observes that some human beings have the authority to govern or, better, to control
the actions of others by the use of coercion. This he regards as unnatural, at least outside the family.
He then asks how such an authority relationship came to be and what ends it serves. His answer is
that it exists only because human beings are sinful creatures who need to be humbled and restrained
by force and the threat of force. This conclusion depends crucially upon the fact that Augustine
does not distinguish clearly between a relationship which is specifically political and other
relationships of authority and subjection, especially the relationship between a master and slaves.

The qualified assimilation of political subjection to slavery is the key to Augustine’s views about
the purposes of political authority and its origins in human sinfulness. His argument that slavery is
unnatural and results from sin does not add significantly to views he inherited from the Patristic
tradition. He enjoins masters to treat their slaves kindly and reiterates St. Paul’s injunction that
slaves should obey their masters. What is significant is Augustine’s use of traditional ideas about
slavery to explain government. Augustine says that human beings are naturally social. They have a
common origin in Adam and because of this common origin they are naturally drawn together by
bonds of sympathy and kinship.28 Indeed he remarks that there is no species so naturally social as
humanity.29 Augustine also intimates that, had original sin not been committed, sinless human
beings would have reproduced and multiplied to fill the earth.30 Because of their natural sociability,
they would have lived in groups and those groups would presumably have needed direction. At
issue is whether that direction would most aptly be described as an exercise of political authority.
Analyzing the argument that it would not brings to light Augustine’s assimilation of political
authority to the mastership of slave

e. But the psychological disorder which is symptomatic of our sinfulness makes it difficult for any
of us to live in peace with ourselves and others.33 The human tendency to conflict is so strong that
peace could not be brought about if groups were governed only by parental power. After the
commission of original sin, political power is required. Because of the distorted loves of sinful
human beings and the conflicts that arise among them, the aims of political authority must be
limited. Augustine says “the earthly city . . . desires an earthly peace, and it limits the harmonious
agreement of citizens concerning the giving and obeying of orders to the establishment of a kind of
compromise between human wills about the things relevant to mortal life.”34

The answer is that for Augustine, the most salient feature of political authority is just that feature an
authority would have to have in order to govern a society of people all of whom are constitutionally
prone to conflict: the authority to coerce them. This authority is common to those in positions of
political power and the masters of slaves. Augustine also insists that subjection to political
authority, like the subjection to a slave-master, is morally improving because both foster humility,
particularly when the good are subjected to the bad.38 T