Photograph: Boston’s Copley Library.
Theology 102: Augustine’s Impact
Augustine of Hippo
It may surprise you to learn that these problems were introduced a long time ago by Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430 AD). Historians and theologians are now seeing his influence as impressive but problematic.
What did Augustine teach?
Augustine made interpretive decisions in Latin that have been studiously questioned because he only knew limited Greek. He said that God predestined some people to heaven and others to hell, especially in his misunderstanding of Romans 9 - 11. See Peter Enns' short article on Augustine and Seraphim Rose's appreciation but criticism of Augustine also found in his letters now online.
As you will see in this trove of quotations, all Christian leaders before Augustine said that God is never coercive. Except for his influence via his disciple, Prosper of Aquitaine, who brought Augustine’s teaching into Southern Gaul, Christian leaders maintain that conviction. God’s grace, they said, empowers human free will to even reject Jesus. See our summary of the early Christian teaching on Romans 9 - 11, and our notes on Ephesians 1:1 - 14 for more about those passages.
Moreover, Augustine defined original sin as inherited guilt rather than inherited corruption, and said unbaptized infants went to hell for their sharing in Adam and Eve's guilt, unlike the Eastern Greek tradition which left the question uncertain. This created tensions with Ezekiel 18, which says God will not count the sins of the fathers against the sons, and vice versa, and later Western theology. How did Jesus acquire a fallen human nature to heal it, while not also acquiring the transmitted guilt of Adam and Eve?
In addition, Augustine proposed an analogy for the Trinity from human psychology and rationality. In this he differed from Irenaeus and the Cappadocians, who maintained the person-revealing model of God the Father revealing himself through his Son and Spirit.
Augustine’s analogy for God boomeranged back onto his views of humanity. He overemphasized rationality for humanity, and a hierarchy of rationality of men over women. Augustine’s stress on rationality continues to influence people today. As an example, see how John Piper claims that women are less logical than men.
Via his influence on the Protestant Reformers, Augustine paved the way for Western Christianity to see human beings very pessimistically, and to understand God as the cause of both good and evil, God's character as desiring retribution at least as much as expressing love, hell as a prison in which God keeps people who want to be reconciled, and salvation as legal pardon from guilt. He was also the first theologian to give a justification for state-sponsored religious persecution against heretics. These are some reasons why The Anástasis Center seeks to go back to Athanasius’ understanding of the Nicene Creed (325 AD), before Augustine.
We will say more later about Augustine’s teaching on Jewish exile as divine retribution, and other facets of Western theology.
What is Christian Theology from the Time of the Nicene Creed?
Nicene theology uses a medical and restorative framework still used in Eastern Orthodoxy and some Catholic circles, as opposed to a legal and punitive framework familiar to most Protestants. It says that Jesus reveals God's desire to lovingly unite Himself with every single person. He heals and transforms human nature, undoing the corruption of sin in it, first in Jesus, and then in us, as He shares Jesus with us by the Spirit. This understanding was the foundation stone for Christians to say that God is 100% good and loving, and even how we experience God as a Trinity. Here is our short Atonement Theology 101 and another article which explain it well.
Nicene theology comes from a time of intellectual excellence and church unity, even across multiple languages and cultures. Christian teachers and theologians read Scripture and affirmed:
Human nature as originally good and inclined towards God
Sin as a corruption of human nature that disorders desires God originally made good
Jesus redeems fallen human nature in his own body, then shares himself with us by his Spirit
Human free will as constantly upheld by God in grace; God is not coercive
Hell as a state of being in which the purifying love of God becomes torment to those who resist
Each church’s tradition is still dynamically engaged with Nicene theology.
Roman Catholic
Roman Catholic tradition considers both Athanasius (c.298 - 373 AD), an architect of the Nicene Creed, and Augustine (354 - 430 AD) to be “doctors of the church,” even though they represent different opinions and trajectories. Pictured (photo credit: Patrick Comerford) are seven "fathers of the church" above the south door of Lichfield Chapel, finished in 1340 AD. Athanasius is second from the right. Augustine is on the left.
Catholic theologians, such as Karl Rahner, Yves Congar, Henri de Lubac, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), John Courtney Murray, Thomas Weinandy, and others of the "New Theology," have questioned Thomistic scholasticism. They advocate a return to Athanasius, the Nicene era, reading Aquinas and Augustine without a scholastic lens, and greater appreciation of the Orthodox East.
For example, Ratzinger corrected Augustine about how much we know about the fate of unbelievers for portraying God as too limiting. He criticized Anselm's satisfaction theory of atonement for portraying God as prioritizing His own honor above His love for human beings. Of course, he disagreed with the Protestant view that God needed to pour out His wrath on Jesus for portraying God as dealing out infinite retribution. And the modern Catholic Catechism no longer teaches the Augustinian theory of inherited guilt, although, in this assessment, it does not resolve the differences between various Catholic schools of thought.
Protestant
Calvin, in his Institutes, drew on Augustine (for example, on most accounts, double predestination), but high federal Calvinists and evangelical Calvinists differ with each other because of ambiguities in John Calvin’s own writings, and questions about whether Calvin was moving in a certain direction (towards John Chrysostom as in his Commentaries rather than Augustine as in his Institutes).
For whom did Jesus die? High federal Calvinism is well known for supporting limited atonement (the L in TULIP), which says Jesus died only for the elect. But Calvin affirms universal atonement in his commentaries on the Gospels. Also under discussion is whether the Puritans' pietistic, individualistic Calvinism departed from Calvin himself in some significant ways, such as defining "the elect" in individualistic terms, rather than corporate or categorical.
How does Jesus save us? Although popular evangelical opinion focuses on the death of Christ alone as atoning, Calvin says in Institutes 2.16.5 that the earthly obedient life of Christ, and his very humanity, is part of the atonement, as the early theologians said.
One question then becomes: ‘Was Calvin a Calvinist?’ This is part of the dynamic, ongoing discussion among those who interpret and follow Calvin.
In the Lutheran tradition, a similar debate is happening now about Luther, since Luther, as an Augustinian monk, was also influenced by Augustine.
Orthodox
In the Orthodox community, the late Georges Florovsky (1893 - 1979), former Dean of St. Vladimir's Orthodox Seminary in New York from 1950 - 1955, called upon Orthodox scholars to sympathetically reevaluate the development of both Eastern and Western Churches in light of patristic sources. Since then, his students Alexander Schmemann and John Meyendorff, who each followed him into the position of Dean, have done so, along with Kallistos Ware and John Zizioulas. These efforts have contributed to a renewal of dialogue between East and West, and of interest in Christian theology from the Greek East. The resources below are provided in order of recommendation, for beginners.
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, On Augustine, Brad Jersak | YouTube, May 14, 2014. Puhalo is retired archbishop of the Orthodox Church of America and founding abbot of the Monastery of All Saints of North America, in Canada. Augustine was not embraced by the Popes of his own day; Puhalo critiques Augustine’s ideas of double predestination and transmission of Adamic guilt. Puhalo claims that Augustine’s views were “pure Neoplatonism” and points out that Mark of Ephesus warned against Augustine. See also Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, Theology Made Simple: The Meaning of the Fall, Lazar Puhalo | YouTube, Feb 5, 2011.
Seraphim Rose, The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church, Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood | Amazon page, August 1, 2007, third edition. Seraphim Rose gives us a very helpful and readable explanation of how Augustine's theology was received by the Greek East at the time, and is regarded today. Rose pays special attention to Augustine's teaching on double predestination. See also Father Seraphim’s letters, published online by James O’Donnell at Georgetown University, which are on the subject of Augustine, for those who would prefer to not order the book.
John Arakaki, Plucking the TULIP (1) – An Orthodox Critique of the Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. Orthodox-Reformed Bridge, Aug 12, 2012. Arakaki presents the first of a series of readable online articles. Arakaki contrasts Irenaeus’ moderate view of the fall with Augustine’s catastrophic view. Arakaki gives ample citations to Orthodox and Reformed sources.
John Strickland, The Rise of Anthropological Pessimism III. Paradise and Utopia Podcast | Ancient Faith Ministries, Dec 5, 2013. Strickland gives a podcast lecture with transcript which focuses on Augustine’s role in portraying humanity, the human condition, and human experience, as pessimistic. This influence later spread throughout Western theology, culture, and philosophy.
Bishop Photios Farrell, Reductio of the Hardened Augustinian Position: St. John Cassian. Energetic Procession blog, May 15, 2006. Farrell argues that Augustine’s teaching on double predestination — which eventuated in the Calvinist “limited atonement” — violates the Chalcedonian Definition, that Christ was consubstantial with all of us in our human nature.
David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? Eerdmans | Amazon page, March 15, 2011. In 2005, American Orthodox theologian and philosopher David Bentley Hart responded to the Asian tsunami of December 2004. Hart compares Eastern Orthodox and high federal Calvinist interpretations of this event, and shows the vast and important difference in dealing with God's character in the face of human suffering, natural disasters, and human moral evil.
David Bradshaw, Aristotle East and West: Metaphysics and the Division of Christendom. Cambridge University Press | Amazon page, December 27, 2004. A brilliant, dense, and authoritative account of how Augustine went wrong. Bradshaw examines Augustine’s lack of understanding the Greek term “energeia” and the Greek understanding of our ongoing participation in God’s “divine energies” by which we are already participating in God’s grace. Augustine thus developed a nature vs. grace distinction, an account of God showing grace to some and not others, and a monergism over synergism by which God deployed “double predestination.”
Matthew Baker and Todd Speidell, T.F. Torrance and Eastern Orthodoxy: Theology in Reconciliation. Wipf and Stock Publishers | Amazon page, November 5, 2015. This collection of essays is an excellent resource as various Orthodox scholars interact with, and constructively critique, the Scottish evangelical patristics scholar and theologian Thomas Forsyth Torrance who did much to advance Reformed and Orthodox dialogue.
Christos Yannaras, Person and Eros. Holy Cross Orthodox Press | Amazon page, April 1, 2008. Yannaras’ book is dense but rewarding; he insightfully critiques the development of theology and philosophy in the West.