ST. AUGUSTINE

Augustine (Aurelius Augstinus) was born in 354 AD at Thagaste, now Algeria. He finished his higher education at Carthage, the capital of Roman Africa. His mother professed Christianity but the boy did not discover solace in the Christian doctrine and gave his adhesion to a domestic cult described Manichaeanism. But within a few years he broke with it and became a convert to Christianity under the inspiration of St. Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan, Returning to North Africa from Italy after his conversion he devoted his life to teaching and writing. He became the Bishop of Hippo and lived a monastic life. He died in 430 AD.

Augstine's mainly well-known writings are Civitas Dei and the Confessions. The Civitas Dei was written to refute the charge that Christianity was responsible for the fall of Rome in 410 AD at the hands of Visigoths under Alaric. The Confessions recount Augustine's early life of pleasure and indulgence and depicts his spiritual pilgrimage with great philosophic depth and emotional intensity.

Civitas Dei versus Civites Terrena

Augustine's answer to the critics of Christianity was in the form of enunciation of an evangelical eschatology presenting history as a constant thrash about flanked by the good and evil culminating in the ultimate victory of the good. Man's nature is twofold-he is spirit and body. Through virtue of this dual nature lie is a citizen of two municipalities, the Divine Municipality on behalf of heavenly peace and spiritual salvation and the earthly municipality centered on appetite and inclinations directed towards mundane objects and material happiness. "Two loves have created two municipalities: love of self, to the contempt of God the earthly municipality; love of God, to the contempt of self, the heavenly." The Divine Municipality, the Kingdom of God on earth, which was first embodied in the Hebrew nation is symbolized through tile Church and the Christianized Empire. The earthly municipality is the Kingdom of Satan exemplified in pagan empires. The pagan empires are ephemeral based as they are on the transient and mutable characteristics of human nature. Only the Christian state can withstand the vicissitudes of history and lead man to blessedness and eternal peace.

It necessity be remembered, though, that Augustine does not posit a complete separation flanked by the two municipalities in actual historical experience. These are theoretical constructs, ideal kinds devised to explain the nature of regimes which are always intermingled in history. No visible church is totally free from evil and no state is absolutely satanic. "The only foundation and bond of true municipality", says Augustine in one of his letters, "is that of faith and strong concord, when the substance of love is universal good, which is, in the highest and truest character, God himself, and men love one another, with full sincerity, in Him, and the ground of their love for one another is the love of Him from whose eyes they cannot conceal the Spirit of their love". "And these two municipalities, and these two loves, shall live jointly, face through face, and even intermix, until the last winnowing and the final separation shall come upon the earth on the Day of Judgment."

Justice and the State

A significant question closely related to the distinction flanked by the two municipalities is the connection flanked by justice and commonwealth, or res publica. Augustine refers to Cicero's view that the substance of the state is the realization of justice and himself says that people without law and justice are nothing but group of robbers. But he also contends that only a Christian state can be presently, for one cannot provide to man his due without giving to God what is due to Him. Love of man cannot be real without love of God. Augstine's comment on Cicero on this point has led some noted scholars like A.J. Carlyle and J,N. Figgis to conclude that just as to Augustine justice is not an essential characteristic of the state.

"It would appear that the political theory of St. Augustine is materially dissimilar in many characteristics from that of St, Ambrose and other Fathers, who symbolize the ancient custom that justice is the essential excellence, as it is also the end, of the slate". The argument is that since just as to Augustine only a Christian State can be really presently, a complete identification of state and justice would disqualify all pre-Christian states to be described states in any sense.

But this is certainly not a correct interpretation of St. Augustine's views. McIlwain and Sabiae have rightly taken exception to the interpretation of Augustine's point, quite in consonance with his unwilliligness to identify the earthly stale with the kingdom of Satan. Though only a Christian state call be presently in the absolute sense of the term, one cannot but attribute a type of relative justice to the non-Christian, or pre-Christian, states which seem after the worldly require of man and give means and opportunities for the farming of spiritual life. The distinction flanked by absolute justice and relative justice enables us to evaluate the states just as to the proportion in which they embody these two characteristics, always remembering: "Not from man but from above man, proceeded that which make a man live happily."

What Augustine's criticisti1 of Cicero amounts to be: "though a people may be a people without confessing the true God, no people can be a good people without that confession".

State, Property, War and Slavery

As we have already pointed out, Augustine does not regard the state as natural, though just as to him man has an innate disposition for social life. State as a repressive institution, as an instrument of coercion for enforcing order and peace is the product of sin and it was not establish in the primal state of innocence before the 'Fall' of man. This disparaging view of the state through no means implies that we have no moral duty of political obedience. Though the state is the result of sin, it is also a divine remedy for sin. Even the Christian subjects of a pagan king are under bounden duty to obey their ruler.

St. Augustine had no doubt that powers that be are ordained of God and even a wicked and sinful ruler has a right to full obedience. Any one who resists "duly constituted power" resists "the ordinance of God." So extensive as the rulers do not force their subjects into impiety and a conduct which violates spiritual injunctions and the will of God, they should be obeyed without reservation.

Though on the whole St. Augustine, like all Christian thinkers of his time, whispered in the doctrine of the Two Swords and the independence of the church and the state in their respective spheres, he was firmly of the view that heresy was a deadly sin and the state has a right to suppress it. The location of St. Augustine on religious toleration and freedom of conscience was not without contradiction. The argument offered through him proved a weapon in 'hands of Inquisitionists later on.

In relation to the property and slavery, Augustine's view marked a clear departure from Aristotle's. Both property and slavery, just as to the saint, are contrary to original human nature. But they become necessary in the actual condition of the fallen man.

In the natural condition property is held in general. After the 'Fall', in view of man's avarice and instinct of self-possession it becomes approximately impossible for general ownership to work satisfactorily. Therefore state manage and organization become necessary. In the languages of A.J. Carlyle: "Private property is so practically the creation of the state, and is defined, limited and changed through the State." But while the legal right to private property is recognized through the Fathers, "as an appropriate and necessary concession to human infirmity… the institution cannot override the natural right of a man to obtain what lie needs from the abundance of that which the earth brings forth".

Augustine's views on war and slavery are also explicated in the context of the sinful condition of man after Adam's Fall. In the ideal circumstances of idyllic in1locence and eternal peace, war would be unthinkable but in the present state of strife and insecurity war becomes a necessity, Even from tile moral and religious point of view, the state necessity wage war to protect the Empire and to destroy the heretics. St. Augastine, as against the early Christians, approves of military service for the Christians. He lays the base for the theory of "presently war" which was urbanized through medieval thinkers. Like war, enslavement of man through man is also not strictly in accordance with Eternal law. But it is also justified through what Troeltsch calls the Augustinian doctrine of "relative natural law". It is both a punishment and a corrective for the sinful act of men. St. Augustine's views on slavery are opposed to Aristotle's; they are more akin to Stoicism customized in the light of Christian theology, that is, the notion of the Fall of man.

THOUGHT

Anthropology

Augustine was one of the first Christian ancient Latin authors with extremely clear anthropological vision. He saw the human being as a perfect unity of two substances: soul and body. In his late treatise On Care to Be Had for the Dead, part 5 (420 AD) he exhorted to respect the body on the grounds that it belonged to the extremely nature of the human person. Augustine's favorite figure to describe body-soul unity is marriage: caro tua, coniunx tua — your body is your wife. Initially, the two elements were in perfect harmony. After the fall of humanity they are now experiencing dramatic combat flanked by one another. They are two categorically dissimilar things. The body is a three-dimensional substance composed of the four elements, whereas the soul has no spatial dimensions. Soul is a type of substance, participating in cause, fit for ruling the body. Augustine was not preoccupied, as Plato and Descartes were, with going too much into details in efforts to explain the metaphysics of the soul-body union. It suffices for him to admit that they are metaphysically separate; to be a human is to be a composite of soul and body, and that the soul is superior to the body. The latter statement is grounded in his hierarchical classification of things into those that merely exist, those that exist and live, and those that exist, live, and have intelligence or cause.

Like other Church Fathers such as Athenagoras, St. Augustine "vigorously condemned the practice of induced abortion" as a crime, in any stage of pregnancy, although he accepted the distinction flanked by "shaped" and "unformed" fetuses mentioned in the Septuagint translation of Exodus 21:22–23, a text that, he observed, did not classify as murder the abortion of an "unformed" fetus, since it could not be said with certainty that it had already received a soul.

Astrology

Augustine's contemporaries often whispered astrology to be an exact and genuine science. Its practitioners were regarded as true men of learning and described mathemathici. Astrology played a prominent part in Manichean doctrine, and Augustine himself was attracted through their books in his youth, being particularly fascinated through those who claimed to foretell the future. Later, as a bishop, he used to warn that one should avoid astrologers who combine science and horoscopes. Just as to Augustine, they were not genuine students of Hipparchus or Eratosthenes but "general swindlers":

Creation

In "Municipality of God", Augustine rejected both the immortality of the human race proposed through pagans, and modern thoughts of ages that differed from the Church's sacred writings. In "The Literal Interpretation of Genesis" Augustine took the view that everything in the universe was created simultaneously through God, and not in seven calendar days like a literal explanation of Genesis would require. He argued that the six-day structure of creation presented in the book of Genesis symbolizes a logical framework, rather than the passage of time in a physical method — it would bear a spiritual, rather than physical, meaning, which is no less literal. One cause for this interpretation is the passage in Sirach 18:1, creavit omni simul, which Augustine took as proof that the days of Genesis 1 had to be taken non-literally. Augustine also does not envision original sin as originating structural changes in the universe, and even suggests that the bodies of Adam and Eve were already created mortal before the Fall. Separately from his specific views, Augustine recognizes that the interpretation of the creation story is hard, and remarks that we should be willing to change our mind in relation to it as new information comes up.

Ecclesiology

Augustine urbanized his doctrine of the Church principally in reaction to the Donatist sect. He taught that there is one Church, but that within this Church there are two realities, namely, the visible aspect and the invisible. The former is the institutional body recognized through Christ on earth which proclaims salvation and administers the sacraments while the latter is the invisible body of the elect, made up of genuine believers from all ages, and who are recognized only to God. The Church, which is visible and societal, will be made up of "wheat" and "tares", that is, good and wicked people, until the end of time. This concept countered the Donatist claim that only those in a state of grace were the "true" or "pure" church on earth, and that priests and bishops who were not in a state of grace had no power or skill to confect the sacraments. Augustine's ecclesiology was more fully urbanized in Municipality of God. There he conceives of the church as a heavenly municipality or kingdom, ruled through love, which will ultimately triumph in excess of all earthly empires which are self-indulgent and ruled through pride. Augustine followed Cyprian in teaching that the bishops and priests of the Church are the successors of the Apostles, and that their power in the Church is God-given.

Eschatology

Augustine originally whispered that Christ would set up a literal 1,000-year kingdom prior to the common resurrection but rejected the system as carnal. He was the first theologian to systematically expound a doctrine of a millennialism, although some theologians and Christian historians consider his location was closer to that of contemporary postmillennialists. The mediaeval Catholic church built its system of eschatology on Augustinian a millennialism, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church. At the Reformation, theologians such as John Calvin accepted a millennialism. Augustine taught that the eternal fate of the soul is determined at death, and that purgatorial fires of the intermediate state purify only those that died in communion with the Church. His teaching provided fuel for later theology.

Epistemological Views

Augustine's intellectual development was shaped through epistemological concerns. His early dialogues both written shortly after his conversion to Christianity, reflect his engagement with skeptical arguments and illustrate the development of his doctrine of inner illumination. Augustine also posed the problem of other minds throughout dissimilar works, mainly famously perhaps in On the Trinity, and develops what has come to be a standard solution: the argument from analogy to other minds. In contrast to Plato and other earlier philosophers, Augustine recognizes the centrality of testimony to human knowledge and argues that what others tell us can give knowledge even if we don't have self-governing reasons to consider their testimonial reports.

Presently War

Augustine asserted that Christians should be pacifists as a personal, philosophical stance. Nonetheless, he asserted, peacefulness in the face of a grave wrong that could only be stopped through violence would be a sin. Protection of one's self or others could be a necessity, especially when authorized through a legitimate power. While not breaking down the circumstances necessary for war to be presently, Augustine nonetheless originated the extremely phrase, itself, in his work The Municipality of God. In essence, the pursuit of peace necessity contain the option of fighting to preserve it in the extensive-term. Such a war could not be preemptive, but suspicious, to restore peace. Thomas Aquinas, centuries later, used the power of Augustine's arguments in an effort to describe the circumstances under which a war could be presently.

Mariology

Although Augustine did not develop a self-governing Mariology, his statements on Mary surpass in number and depth those of other early writers. Even before the Council of Ephesus, he defended the ever Virgin Mary as the Mother of God, who, because of her virginity, is full of grace. Likewise, he affirmed that the Virgin Mary ―conceived as virgin, gave birth as virgin and stayed virgin forever.

Natural Knowledge and Biblical Interpretation

Augustine took the view that the Biblical text should not be interpreted as properly literal, but rather as metaphorical, if it contradicts what we know from science and our God-given cause. While each passage of Scripture has a literal sense, this "literal sense" does not always mean that the Scriptures are mere history; at times they are rather an extended metaphor.

Original Sin

Augustine taught that Original sin of Adam and Eve was either an act of foolishness followed through pride and disobedience to God or the opposite: pride came first. The first couple disobeyed God, who had told them not to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree was a symbol of the order of creation. Self-centeredness made Adam and Eve eat of it, therefore failing to acknowledge and respect the world as it was created through God, with its hierarchy of beings and values. They would not have fallen into pride and lack of wisdom, if Satan hadn't sown into their senses "the root of evil". Their nature was wounded through concupiscence or libido, which affected human intelligence and will, as well as affections and desires, including sexual desire. In conditions of Metaphysics, concupiscence is not a being but bad excellence, the privation of good or a wound.

Augustine's understanding of the consequences of the original sin and of necessity of the redeeming grace was urbanized in the thrash about against Pelagius and his Pelagian disciples, Caelestius and Julian of Eclanum, who had been inspired through Rufinus of Syria, a disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia. They refused to agree that libido wounded human will and mind, insisting that the human nature was given the power to act, to speak, and to think when God created it. Human nature cannot lose its moral capability for doing good, but a person is free to act or not to act in a righteous method. Pelagius gave an instance of eyes: they have capability for seeing, but a person can create either good or bad use of it. Like Jovinian, Pelagians insisted that human affections and desires were not touched through the fall either. Immorality, e.g. fornication, is exclusively a matter of will, i.e. a person does not use natural desires in a proper method. In opposition to that, Augustine pointed out to the apparent disobedience of the flesh to the spirit, and explained it as one of the results of original sin, punishment of Adam and Eve's disobedience to God.

Augustine had served as a "Hearer" for the Manicheans for in relation to the nine years, who taught that the original sin was carnal knowledge. But his thrash about to understand the cause of evil in the world started before that, at the age of nineteen. Through malum he understood mainly of all concupiscence, which he interpreted as a vice dominating person and causing in men and women moral disorder. A. Trapè insists that Augustine's personal experience cannot be credited for his doctrine in relation to the concupiscence. His marriage experience, though Christian marriage celebration was missing, was exemplary, extremely normal and through no means specifically sad. As J. Brachtendorf showed, Augustine used Ciceronian Stoic concept of passions, to interpret Paul's doctrine of universal sin and redemption.

The view that not only human soul but also senses were influenced through the fall of Adam and Eve was prevalent in Augustine's time in the middle of the Fathers of the Church. It is clear that the cause of Augustine's aloofness towards the affairs of the flesh was dissimilar than that of Plotinus, a neo-Platonist who taught that only through disdain for fleshly desire could one reach the ultimate state of mankind. Augustine taught the redemption, i.e. transformation and purification, of the body in the resurrection.

Some authors perceive Augustine's doctrine as directed against human sexuality and attribute his insistence on continence and devotion to God as coming from Augustine's require to reject his own highly sensual nature as described in the Confessions. But in view of his writings it is apparently a misunderstanding. Augustine teaches that human sexuality has been wounded, jointly with the whole of human nature, and requires redemption of Christ. That healing is a procedure realized in conjugal acts. The virtue of continence is achieved thanks to the grace of the sacrament of Christian marriage, which becomes so a remedium concupiscentiae - remedy of concupiscence. The redemption of human sexuality will be, though, fully accomplished only in the resurrection of the body.

The sin of Adam is inherited through all human beings. Already in his pre-Pelagian writings, Augustine taught that Original Sin was transmitted through concupiscence, which he regarded as the passion of both, soul and body, creation humanity a massa damnata and much enfeebling, though not destroying, the freedom of the will.

Augustine's formulation of the doctrine of original sin was confirmed at numerous councils, i.e. Carthage (418), Ephesus (431), Orange (529), Trent (1546) and through popes, i.e. Pope Innocent I (401–417) and Pope Zosimus (417–418). Anselm of Canterbury recognized in his Cur Deus Homo the definition that was followed through the great Schoolmen, namely that Original Sin is the "privation of the righteousness which every man ought to possess", therefore interpreting concupiscence as something more than mere sexual lust, with which some of Augustine's disciples had defined it as later did Luther and Calvin, a doctrine condemned in 1567 through Pope Pius V.

Augustine taught that some people are predestined through God to salvation through an eternal, sovereign decree which is not based on man's merit or will. The saving grace which God bestows is irresistible and unfailingly results in conversion. God also grants those whom he saves with the gift of perseverance so that none of those whom God has chosen may conceivably fall absent.

The Catholic Church considers Augustine's teaching to be constant with free will. He often said that any can be saved if they wish. While God knows who will be saved and who will not, with no possibility that one destined to be lost will be saved, this knowledge symbolizes God's perfect knowledge of how humans will freely choose their destinies.

Sacramental Theology

Also in reaction against the Donatists, Augustine urbanized a distinction flanked by the "regularity" and "validity" of the sacraments. Regular sacraments are performed through clergy of the Catholic Church while sacraments performed through schismatics are measured irregular. Nevertheless, the validity of the sacraments do not depend upon the holiness of the priests who perform them; so, irregular sacraments are still accepted as valid provided they are done in the name of Christ and in the manner prescribed through the Church. On this point Augustine departs from the earlier teaching of Cyprian, who taught that converts from schismatic movement‘s necessity be re-baptised. Augustine taught that sacraments administered outside the Catholic Church, though true sacraments, avail nothing. Though, he also stated that baptism, while it does not confer any grace when done outside the Church, does confer grace as soon as one is received into the Catholic Church.

Augustine upheld the early Christian understanding of the Real Attendance of Christ in the Eucharist, saying that Christ's statement, "This is my body" referred to the bread he accepted in his hands, and that Christians necessity have faith that the bread and wine are in information the body and blood of Christ, despite what they see with their eyes.

Against the Pelagians, Augustine strongly stressed the importance of infant baptism. In relation to the question whether baptism is an absolute necessity for salvation though, Augustine appears to have refined his beliefs throughout his lifetime, causing some confusion in the middle of later theologians in relation to the location. He said in one of his sermons that only the baptized are saved. This belief was shared through several early Christians. Though, a passage from his Municipality of God, concerning the Apocalypse, may indicate that Augustine did consider in an exception for children born to Christian parents.

Statements on Jews

Against sure Christian movements, some of which rejected the use of Hebrew Scripture, Augustine countered that God had chosen the Jews as a special people, and he measured the scattering of Jews through the Roman Empire to be a fulfillment of prophecy. Augustine also quotes part of the similar prophecy that says "Slay them not, lest they should at last forget Thy law". Augustine argued that God had allowed the Jews to survive this dispersion as a warning to Christians, therefore they were to be permitted to dwell in Christian lands. Augustine further argued that the Jews would be converted at the end of time.

Views on Sexuality

For Augustine, the evil of sexual immorality was not in the sexual act itself, but rather in the emotions that typically accompany it. In On Christian Doctrine Augustine contrasts love, which is enjoyment on explanation of God, and lust, which is not on explanation of God. For Augustine, proper love exercises a denial of selfish pleasure and the subjugation of corporeal desire to God. He wrote that the pious virgins raped throughout the sack of Rome, were innocent because they did not intend to sin.

Augustine's view of sexual feelings as sinful affected his view of women. For instance he measured a man‘s erection to be sinful, though involuntary, because it did not take lay under his conscious manage. His solution was to lay controls on women to limit their skill to power men. Augustine viewed women not only as threatening to men, but also as intellectually and morally inferior. He equated flesh with woman and spirit with man.

He whispered that the serpent approached Eve because she was less rational and lacked self-manage, while Adam's choice to eat was viewed as an act of kindness so that Eve would not be left alone. Augustine whispered sin entered the world because man did not exercise manage in excess of woman. Augustine's views on women were not all negative, though.

Just as to Raming, the power of the Decretum Gratiani, a collection of Roman Catholic canon law which prohibits women from leading, teaching, or being a witness, rests mainly on the views of the early church fathers—one of the mainly influential being St. Augustine, the Bishop of Hippo. The laws and traditions founded upon St. Augustine's views of sexuality and women continue to exercise considerable power in excess of church doctrinal positions concerning the role of women in the church.

Teaching Philosophy

Augustine is measured an influential figure in the history of education. A work early in Augustine's writings is De Magistro (the Teacher), which contains insights in relation to the education. Though, his thoughts changed as he establish better directions or better methods of expressing his thoughts. In the last years of his life Saint Augustine wrote his "Retractationes", reviewing his writings and improving specific texts. Henry Chadwick believes an accurate translation of "retractationes" may be "reconsiderations". Reconsiderations can be seen as an overarching theme of the method Saint Augustine learned. Augustine's understanding of the search for understanding/meaning/truth as a restless journey leaves room for doubt, development and change.

Dr. Gary N. McCloskey, O.S.A., discovers four "encounters of learning" in Augustine's approach to education: Through Transforming Experiences; as a Journey in Search of Understanding/ Meaning/ Truth; Learning with Others in Society; and Structure the Habits (Love) of Learning. His emphasis on the importance of society as a means of learning distinguishes his pedagogy from some others. Augustine whispered that dialogue/ dialectic/ discussion is the best means for learning, and this method should serve as a model for learning encounters flanked by teachers and students. Saint Augustine‘s dialogue writings model require for lively interactive dialogue in the middle of learners.

He introduced the theory of three dissimilar categories of students, and instructed teachers to adapt their teaching styles to each student's individual learning approach. The three dissimilar types of students are: the student who has been well-educated through knowledgeable teachers; the student who has had no education; and the student who has had a poor education, but believes himself to be well-educated. If a student has been well educated in a wide diversity of subjects, the teacher necessity be careful not to repeat what they have already learned, but to challenge the student with material which they do not yet know thoroughly. With the student who has had no education, the teacher necessity be patient, willing to repeat things until the student understands, and sympathetic. Perhaps the mainly hard student, though, is the one with an inferior education who believes he understands something when he does not. Augustine stressed the importance of showing this kind of student the variation flanked by "having languages and having understanding," and of helping the student to remain humble with his acquisition of knowledge.

Augustine introduced the thought of teachers responding positively to the questions they may receive from their students, no matter if the student interrupted his teacher. Augustine also founded the restrained approach of teaching. This teaching approach ensures the students' full understanding of a concept because the teacher does not bombard the student with too much material; focuses on one topic at a time; helps them discover what they don't understand, rather than moving on too quickly; anticipates questions; and helps them learn to solve difficulties and discover solutions to troubles. Yet another of Augustine's major contributions to education is his revise on the styles of teaching. He claimed there are two vital styles a teacher uses when speaking to the students. The mixed approach comprises intricate and sometimes showy language to help students see the beautiful artistry of the subject they are learning. The grand approach is not quite as elegant as the mixed approach, but is exciting and heartfelt, with the purpose of igniting the similar passion in the students' hearts. Augustine balanced his teaching philosophy with the traditional Bible-based practice of strict discipline.

Works

Augustine was one of the mainly prolific Latin authors in conditions of surviving works, and the list of his works consists of more than one hundred separate titles. They contain apologetic works against the heresies of the Arians, Donatists, Manichaeans and Pelagians; texts on Christian doctrine, notably De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine); exegetical works such as commentaries on Book of Genesis, the Psalms and Paul's Letter to the Romans; several sermons and letters; and the Retractationes, a review of his earlier works which he wrote close to the end of his life. Separately from those, Augustine is almost certainly best recognized for his Confessions), which is a personal explanation of his earlier life, and for De civitate dei (The Municipality of God, consisting of 22 books), which he wrote to restore the confidence of his fellow Christians, which was badly shaken through the sack of Rome through the Visigoths in 410. His On the Trinity, in which he urbanized what has become recognized as the 'psychological analogy' of the Trinity, is also in the middle of his masterpieces, and arguably one of the greatest theological works of all time. He also wrote On Free Choice Of The Will (De libero arbitrio), addressing why God provides humans free will that can be used for evil.

Power

Augustine is measured through contemporary historian Thomas Cahill to be the first medieval man and the last classical man. In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was greatly influenced through Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-platonism, particularly through the work of Plotinus, author of the Enneads, almost certainly through the mediation of Porphyry and Victorinus (as Pierre Hadot has argued). Although he later abandoned Neoplatonism, some thoughts are still visible in his early writings. His early and influential writing on the human will, a central topic in ethics, would become a focus for later philosophers such as Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. In addition, Augustine was influenced through the works of Virgil (recognized for his teaching on language), Cicero (recognized for his teaching on argument), and Aristotle (particularly his Rhetoric and Poetics).

Thomas Aquinas was influenced heavily through Augustine. On the topic of original sin, Aquinas proposed a more optimistic view of man than that of Augustine in that his conception leaves to the cause, will, and passions of fallen man their natural powers even after the Fall. Augustine's doctrine of efficacious grace establish eloquent expression in the works of Bernard of Clairvaux; also Reformation theologians such as Martin Luther and John Calvin would seem back to him as their inspiration.

Philosopher Bertrand Russell was impressed through Augustine's meditation on the nature of time in the Confessions, comparing it to Kant's subjective theory of time, which has been widely accepted since Kant. Catholic theologians usually subscribe to Augustine's belief that God exists outside of time in the "eternal present"; that time only exists within the created universe because only in legroom is time discernible through motion and change. His meditations on the nature of time are closely connected to his consideration of the human skill of memory. Frances Yates in her 1966 study The Art of Memory argues that a brief passage of the Confessions, 10.8.12, in which Augustine writes of walking up a flight of stairs and entering the vast meadows of memory clearly designates that the ancient Romans were aware of how to use explicit spatial and architectural metaphors as a mnemonic technique for organizing big amounts of information.

Augustine's philosophical method, especially demonstrated in his Confessions, had continuing power on Continental philosophy throughout the 20th century. His descriptive approach to intentionality, memory, and language as these phenomena are experienced within consciousness and time anticipated and inspired the insights of contemporary phenomenology and hermeneutics. Edmund Husserl writes: "The analysis of time-consciousness is an age-old crux of descriptive psychology and theory of knowledge. The first thinker to be deeply sensitive to the immense difficulties to be establish here was Augustine, who labored approximately to despair in excess of this problem." Martin Heidegger refers to Augustine's descriptive philosophy at many junctures in his influential work Being and Time. Hannah Arendt began her philosophical writing with a dissertation on Augustine's concept of love, Der Liebesbegriff bei Augustin (1929): "The young Arendt attempted to illustrate that the philosophical foundation for vita socialis in Augustine can be understood as residing in neighbourly love, grounded in his understanding of the general origin of humanity." Jean Bethke Elshtain in Augustine and the Limits of Politics discovers likeness flanked by Augustine and Arendt in their concepts of evil: "Augustine did not see evil as glamorously demonic but rather as absence of good, something which paradoxically is really nothing. Arendt... envisioned even the extreme evil which produced the Holocaust as merely banal." Augustine's philosophical legacy continues to power modern critical theory through the contributions and inheritors of these 20th-century figures.

Just as to Leo Ruickbie, Augustine's arguments against magic, differentiating it from miracle, were crucial in the early Church's fight against paganism and became a central thesis in the later denunciation of witches and witchcraft. Just as to Professor Deepak Lal, Augustine's vision of the heavenly municipality has influenced the secular projects and traditions of the Enlightenment, Marxism, Freudianism and Eco-fundamentalism. Post-Marxist philosophers Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt rely heavily on Augustine's thought, particularly The Municipality of God, in their book of political-philosophy "Empire."

While in his pre-Pelagian writings Augustine taught that Adam's guilt as transmitted to his descendants much enfeebles, though does not destroy, the freedom of their will, Protestant reformers Martin Luther and John Calvin affirmed that Original Sin totally destroyed liberty.

Augustine has influenced several contemporary-day theologians and authors such as John Piper. Hannah Arendt, an influential 20th century political theorist, wrote her doctoral dissertation in philosophy on St. Augustine, and sustained to rely on his thought throughout her career. In his autobiographical book Milestones, Pope Benedict XVI, claims St. Augustine as one of the deepest powers in his thought.