Abstract
Saint Augustine is sometimes introduced as the first theologian-philosopher, a founder of the Western theologico-philosophical tradition, and a figure who unites two historical times—the Late Antiquity with the Middle Ages—and two different major schools—the Hellenistic philosophy with Christianity. Augustine lives and writes in the era of eudaimonism, teleology and virtue ethics, and he accomplishes, as we will see, a clear shift in the context of these doctrines. In this paper, we reconstruct Augustine’s philosophical approach to human psychology, looking at the elements that bring together a philosophical anthropology, especially by focusing on human agency. Through an interpretative study of De libero arbitrio, we will address concepts such as the soul, freedom of choice, virtue, justice, faith and knowledge, seen as components of action, human freedom, intellect and the will. My main claim is that Augustinian thought and medieval philosophy generally can still offer arguments in practical philosophy as much as they can promote our understanding of moral agency. I intend to revive the interest both in this particular Augustinian work and in the forgotten concept of liberum arbitrium that is introduced and represents Augustine’s idea of a mediator, an arbitrator between reason and the will.
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Notes
Even though the question between analogia entis and analogia fidei is not explicitly posed before the thirteenth century, Augustine undoubtedly has two strong sources for playing with analogiae: the (neo)platonic hierarchy and divisions on the one hand and St. Paul’s references to the term, on the other hand, which implies of course the rule of faith. It’s well known that in De Trinintate (8.6.9; see Augustine, 2002) Augustine poses the analogy of spirits. If we consider the analogies drawn between man and god, or divine and human, or heavenly and earthly goods, it seems like Augustine also poses the subject of analogia entis, even if not in those words. For an analysis in this direction, see Anderson (1965: 61–65). For the use of analogies in Later Middle Ages, see Ashworth (2013). For the platonic roots of the question between analogia entis and analogia fidei, see Spencer (2015: 31–89).
Augustine uniquely combines the Hellenistic philosophy with Christianity. The Platonic, Neo-Platonic, and Stoic influences in the Augustinian work is a subject that still attracts the interest of many scholars. Augustine himself refers to the great influence that (Neo)Platonic philosophy had in his thought in the Confessions (see conf. 7.9.13–7.20.26). In fact, when Augustine was in Rome and Milan, the Latin translations of Plotinus’ and Porphyry’s works gradually appeared. As the bibliography on the matter is vast, I very selectively mention, for the Stoic and Platonic influences in the formation of Augustinian thought, see Rist (1994) and Rist (2006). For the Latin origins of Augustine’s work, see Shanzer (2012); for the philosophical influences in the Augustinian work, see Byers (2012a); for the idea of desiring things that one can lose against one’s own will and its Stoic origin, see Wetzel (1992); for the influence of Stoic ethics in the Augustinian ideas on agency, see Byers (2012b and 2013: 217–231); for a thorough overview of Varro’s and Augustine’s Disciplinarum Libri, see Shanzer (2005).
‘Hence the eternal law commands us to turn our love aside from temporal things and to turn it, purified, towards eternal things’ (lib. arb. 1.15.32.108); besides, the human law constrains through fear and it is designed to dominate all those who do not (voluntarily) subject themselves to the divine law.
For Augustinian influences on Hannah Arendt, see for example Irwin (2015), Scott (1988), and Tatman (2013). H. Arendt presents her understanding of the Augustinian will in Arendt (1978: 84–110). Another approach that focuses on the idea of freedom in Augustine can be found in D. C. Schindler (2002).
Augustine uses, and we follow here, the term ‘faculty’ (facultas) in his works (e.g. lib. arb. 2.18.49–2.19.52). Medieval philosophers, following the Hellenistic tradition in the beginning and the Aristotelian works later, used to refer to many faculties that characterised the living beings (Perler, 2015; Corcilius, 2015; Sharples, 1996: 59–81). So, as we saw, ‘plants have vegetative faculties only, enabling them to nourish and grow; animals have additional sensory faculties, making it possible for them to perceive and remember things; and human beings have on top of that rational faculties, allowing them to think and will’ (Perler, 2015: 97). In the present time, it is quite common to address the will as a faculty of the mind, though from a voluntaristic point of view that would be perplexing as the intellect would be associated with the rational faculty that leads to cognition, and the will would be associated with the volitional faculty, where choices and decision are made, that leads to human agency (see, for example, Stump, 2006: 126). Late antiquity and early medieval understanding of faculties is another interesting, understudied subject.
As Markus notes, in ancient Greek philosophy, it was quite common to endorse that man is part of the cosmic order, where every part relates to the other and all together create a system of continuous relations (Markus, 1697/2007: 382).
Everything has a shape, a form, and geometry; so, everything can be described in and understood by numbers. Mathematics, ‘the intelligible structure and truth of number [ratio et veritas numeri]’ is the first thing that we can know with certainty and know that it is valid (‘this incorruptible numerical truth is common to me and to any reasoning being’ [lib. arb. 2.8.21.83]). So, everything is enumerated and defined through reason (lib. arb. 2.3.9.31), and it is with reason that we can understand everything (lib. arb. 2.3.9.35).
Matthews probably disregards those references in De libero arbitrio as he holds that this line of argumentation is traced back to chapters 8 and 9 of De trinitate (Matthews, 2005: 53–64).
As H. Arendt insightfully notes: ‘Thus, from the outset in formal philosophy, thinking has been thought of in terms of seeing, and since thinking is the most fundamental and the most radical of mental activities. It is quite true that vision "has tended to serve as the model of perception in general and thus as the measure of the other senses". The predominance of sight is so deeply embedded in Creek speech and therefore in our conceptual language that we seldom find any consideration bestowed on it, as though it belonged amongst things too obvious to be noticed’ (1978: 110).
As D.C. Schindler insinuates here: ‘[D]ivergence from a good order is supposed to be an unmistakable sign of freedom, to reveal something about its essence. […] Augustine, with his great existential crisis, is offered as a kind of paradigm of freedom in its mature form, to such an extent that one defines freedom precisely as the capacity to sin’ (2017: 284-5); this signifies for him a very first imprint of what he call ‘a diabolical concept of freedom’.
Thus, in another Augustinian move that successfully matches philosophical and biblical ideas, it is not malice or vice that stands opposite to virtue, but lust, pleasures and desires (lib. arb. 1.12.24.28). The evil—malice or vice—comes next. The punishments that befall to humans when lust and desire dominate are graphically and studiously described; they entail uncertainty, relativity, falsehood, indecision, fear in front of sound argumentation, despair, foolishness, senselessness, exhaustion, fear, angst, futility, and so on. We underline here the causal connection between action and punishment/reward that instrumentalise morality at some degree.
For the idea of Christian eudaimonism, see Herdt (2019).
‘[T]he eternal law commands us to turn our love aside from temporal things and turn it, purified, towards eternal things’ (lib. arb. 1.15.32.108). According to Augustine, the secular law has been designed to control those who do not obey to the eternal law, and it does so through fear. For a general approach on retributive justice in the Scriptures, see Porter (2019).
The will sins when (a) is drawn away from the unchangeable, common goods; (b) turns towards private goods; or (c) external stimuli; or (d) towards something inferior (e.g. physical pleasure) (lib. arb. 2.19.53.199, 3.24.72.246).
I want to emphasise here, as I just mentioned earlier, the strong connection that runs through the entire text between evildoing and retributive justice. Even the mix of the words bonum and rectum that alternate in characterising the will as part of the higher goods is, in my opinion, indicative of the emergence of a moral substance that surpasses the self, and at the same time contributes in its constitution, and finally leads to the moral and/or rational prevalence of the ‘golden rule’.
Augustine, in later clarifications for the specific text, underlines that his analysis on agency concerns Adam and Eve, the chaste ancestors of mankind before the fall, that we have to look up to; it has nothing to do, he comments, with the fallen men, who are in constant internal tension, and who he usually describes as weak, stupid or foolish beings.
D.C. Schindler, in another context, offers a clear explanation that suits us here: ‘[T]he argument typically assumes that to be free means to have a power to determine ourselves as opposed to being determined by something outside the power of the self, and so one looks for evidence of a break with the given, evidence of this assertion of power over against the “heteronomous” causality’ (2017: 284).
Sinning entails the conscious act as much as the consequences of the act: the suffering of the agent as well as his punishment (lib. arb. 3.19.54.84). Divine interference (through grace and providence) for the punishment or the reward of the agent always has corrective character (lib. arb. 3.4.11.40).
Not all the sins are the same, but they all fall to the same category on account of the mixed intentions they conceal. Someone might do the right thing but for the wrong reason, and in cases like that intention is crucial. For this debate between Augustine and Donatists or Manicheans, see Rist (1994: 189).
One can sin before the acquisition of wisdom. In this case, he sins either because he is not ready to accept the moral precepts or because he ignores the moral precepts that he received (lib. arb. 3.24.72.246). The only way for someone to sin after the acquisition of wisdom is by drawing away from wisdom for the reasons we mentioned above.
For a contemporary approach to virtue ethics and the possibility of acting rightly, see Svensson (2009).
Which are ‘One should live justly; lesser things should be subordinate to better things; equals should be compared to equals; to each his own’ (lib. arb. 2.10.28.113). For the correlation between rational choice theory and virtue ethics, see Verbeek (2010).
‘But if there are one and six worlds, it is evident to me, no matter in what condition I may be, that there are seven worlds, and I am not rash in asserting that I know it. Therefore, show me either that this logical conclusion or those disjunctions mentioned above in regard to sleep or madness or unreliability of the senses can be false […]. For that three threes are nine and represent the square of intelligible numbers is necessary or would be true even though the human race were lying prostrate’ (Contra Academicos, 3.11.25; Augustine, 1957). For Augustine, analytical propositions, both in logic and in mathematics, cannot be wrong. Therefore, ‘I exist’, ‘I live’ or ‘I know that I exist and live’ are true. Additionally, abstract concepts that refer to the platonic ideas, like ‘unity’, are equally true and they belong to eternal and unchangeable things.
For the discussion of the distinction in later works, mainly in the City of God, see Byers (2012b).
Augustine prefers cases c and d, as he mentions them in other passages, where the main issue is not the origin of the soul. For example, ‘there is a deep question (and a deep mystery) whether the mind had lived some other kind of life before its partnership with the body, and whether it lived wisely at some point’ (lib. arb. 1.12.25).
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Tsevreni, M. An Early Medieval Account of the Human Condition: Augustine’s liberum arbitrium as a Mediator Between Reason and the Will. SOPHIA 62, 207–225 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-023-00973-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-023-00973-0