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Predestination and Freedom in Augustine's Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2010

Gerard O'Daly
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Extract

In his great poem The Wreck of the Deutschland Gerard Manley Hopkins evokes the conversions of Paul and Augustine as two contrasting examples of the way in which God may intervene in human affairs:

With an anvil-ding

And with fire in him forge thy will

Or rather, rather then, stealing as Spring

Through him, melt him but master him still:

Whether at once, as once at a crash Paul,

Or as Austin, a lingering-out sweet skill…

Type
Papers
Information
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements , Volume 25 , March 1989 , pp. 85 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 1989

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References

1 The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, 4th edn, Gardner, W. H. and MacKenzie, N. H. (eds) (Oxford University Press, 1967), 54.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Acts 9, 22, and 26. For a perceptive discussion of these accounts, Pauline references to his conversion, and Augustine's exploitation of Paul see Fredriksen, P., ‘Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, Orthodox Traditions, and the Retrospecitve Self’, Journal of Theological Studies NS 37 (1986), 3–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 On the issues see the lucid account of Bonner, G., St Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, 2nd edn (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1986), 352–393.Google Scholar The progress of the controversy is described by Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (London: Faber & Faber, 1967), 340–407Google Scholar, and (with full documentation) by Wermelinger, O., Rom und Pelagius (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1975).Google Scholar See also Burns, J. P., The Development of Augustine's Doctrine of Operative Grace (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1980).Google Scholar

4 Evans, G. R., Augustine on Evil (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 168.Google Scholar

5 Ad Simplicianum 1.2.

6 Cf. De civitate Dei 14.26; De correptione et gratia 10.28–12.34. See Bonner, G., ‘Adam’, Augustinus-Lexikon 1, fasc. 1/2 (1986), 63–87Google Scholar, especially 78–80.

7 Cf. De civ. Dei 12.6; 14.13; Contra Iulianum opus imperfectum 5.39. See Bonner, op. cit. (above n. 3), 369.

8 Cf. especially Confessions 8.8.19–9.21, discussed later in this paper.

9 See Augustine's reaction to Pelagian views of De libero arbitrio in Retractationes 1.9. Cf. De natura et gratia 67.80–1.

10 Evans, R. F., Pelagius: Inquiries and Reappraisals (London: A. & C. Black, 1968), 87–88.Google Scholar

11 Or ‘a power to X or not-X’.

12 Rist, J. M., ‘Augustine on Free Will and Predestination’, Journal of Theological Studies NS 20 (1969), 421.Google Scholar

13 For the following see, apart from Bonner, op. cit. (above n. 3), 358–393, and Rist, art. cit. (above n. 12), 420–442, the classic account of Rottmanner, O., DerAugustinismus (Munich: Lentner, 1892)Google Scholar, reprinted in Geistesfrüchte aus der Klosterzelle (Munich: Lentner, 1908), 11–32.Google Scholar

14 Cf. Sage, A., ‘Praeparatur voluntas a Deo’, Revue des Etudes Augustiniennes 10 (1964), 1–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

15 See Sorabji, R., Time, Creation and the Continuum (London: Duckworth, 1983), 253–267.Google Scholar

16 Cf. In Iohannis evangelium tractatus CXXIV 48.4,6; 107.7; 111.5.

17 Cf. In Io. ev. tract 68.1; De Genesi ad litteram 6.11.19; De praedestinatione sanctorum 9.18.

18 Cf. Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum 2.5.9–6.12.

19 See Dihle, A., The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: California University Press, 1982), 123–132, 231–238.Google Scholar

20 See e.g. De lib. arb. 2.1.

21 Cf. O'Daly, G., Augustine's Philosophy of Mind (London: Duckworth, 1987), 43–45,84–87, 108–111, 132–133Google Scholar, for the role of intentio in perception and other mental activities.

22 Cf. De peccatorum meritis 2.19.32; Contra duas epist. Pelag. 1.2.5; 1.10.22; 1.13.27; 2.9.21.

23 Burnaby, J., Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St Augustine (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1938), 222.Google Scholar Burnaby's discussion of grace and reward in Augustine (op. cit., 219–252) is brilliantly perceptive.

24 Cf. Bonner, G., ‘Libido and Concupiscentia in St Augustine’, Studia Patristica 6 (=Texte und Untersuchungen 81) (1963), 303–314.Google Scholar

25 Burnaby, op. cit. (above n. 23), 231. Rist, art. cit. (above n. 12), 434–440, argues for the irresistible function of grace in Augustine's theory.

26 Mozley, J. B., A Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination (London: John Murray, 1855), 241.Google Scholar

27 Mozley, op. cit., 228.

28 Edwards, J., Freedom of the Will, Ramsey, P. (ed.) (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957), 190–212.Google Scholar

29 This and the following citations from the Confessions are in Sheed's, F. J. translation (London: Sheed & Ward, 1944), 135–139.Google Scholar

30 Cf. conf. 8.9.21: ‘… partly to will, partly not to will … a sickness of the soul to be so weighted down by custom that it cannot wholly rise even with the support of truth’. Weakness of will: Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 7.1–10; Ryle, G., The Concept of Mind (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1963), 67–72.Google Scholar

31 See Kenny, A., The God of the Philosophers (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 83–85Google Scholar, for a brief discussion of Edwards's arguments.

32 Mozley, op. cit. (above n. 26), 242, 244–245.

33 Rist, art. cit. (above n. 12), 440.

34 Kenny, A., Will, Freedom and Power (Oxford: Blackwell, 1975), 145–61Google Scholar; Kenny, op. cit. (above n. 31), 85–86, summarizes his argument.

35 Kenny, op. cit. (above n. 31), 86–87.