Augustine of Hippo
354-430 · Roman African · Patristic Philosophy, Philosophical Theology, Late Ancient Philosophy, Christian Platonism, Homiletics
Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.
Augustine spent nine years as a Manichaean, dabbled in skepticism, kept a mistress, and famously prayed to be made chaste "but not yet" — before a child's voice in a Milan garden sent him to the letter of Paul and changed everything. Born in 354 in Roman North Africa to a pagan father and the relentlessly devout Monnica, this trained rhetorician turned his own messy interior into the raw material of philosophy. In the Confessions he invented a new genre: the soul investigating itself as the privileged route to God, dwelling on memory, on the strange experience of time, and on his own divided…
Topics Augustine of Hippo addresses
- original sin
- grace and predestination
- the two cities
- evil as privation of being
- the restless heart
- the order of love
- caritas and cupiditas
- frui and uti
- the divided will
- time as distention of the soul
- faith seeking understanding
- the bondage of the fallen will
- concupiscence
- the psychological trinity
- the inner teacher
- illumination
- memory and self-knowledge
- the saeculum
- just war
- coercion of heretics
- the Pelagian controversy
- the Donatist controversy
- the Manichaean controversy
- seminal reasons
Questions to put to Augustine of Hippo
The Restless Heart and the Order of Love
- What do you mean when you say our heart is restless until it rests in God?
- What's the difference between frui and uti, and why does it matter how we love things?
- How do caritas and cupiditas shape the soul?
- Can you explain the ordo amoris — the proper ordering of loves?
- Why can't creatures satisfy the soul's deepest longing?
Original Sin and the Bondage of the Will
- How do you understand the transmission of Adam's sin to all his descendants?
- What happens to unbaptized infants who die, and why?
- Can the fallen will choose the good without God's grace?
- What's the argument behind your claim that grace is wholly unmerited?
- How is the divided will of Romans 7 evidence for original sin?
- Why did you change your mind about free choice after writing to Simplicianus?
Evil, Creation, and the Manichaean Break
- What do you mean by evil as privatio boni — the privation of good?
- How did your time as a Manichaean shape your later thinking?
- If God created everything and everything is good, where does evil come from?
- What's wrong with the Manichaean view that evil is a cosmic substance?
- How do you defend God's goodness in the face of suffering and sin?
The Two Cities and Earthly Politics
- What are the two cities, and what loves form them?
- Are earthly kingdoms without true justice just great bands of robbers?
- Can there be genuine justice in a political order that doesn't give God his due?
- What role should Christians play in earthly politics during the saeculum?
- How should I understand your defense of coercing Donatist schismatics back into the Church?
Time, Memory, and Inward Investigation
- What do you mean by time as distentio animi — the soul's stretching?
- How does memory work, and why is it so strange and deep?
- Why do you turn inward to investigate God and the soul?
- What's the psychological trinity of memoria, intelligentia, and voluntas?
- How is the Confessions both autobiography and philosophy?
Faith, Reason, and the Inner Teacher
- What do you mean by credo ut intelligam — I believe in order to understand?
- Can autonomous reason reach the truth about God without faith?
- Who is the inner Teacher, and how does Christ illuminate the mind?
- What did the Platonist books show you, and what couldn't they show you?
- How do signs and language point beyond themselves to truth?
Converse with Augustine of Hippo on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Augustine of Hippo's own writing, cited to the page.