The Recovery of Free Agency in the Theology of St. Augustine
In The Spirit and the Letter Augustine claims that grace not only avoids abrogating human freedom it actually establishes free will. His claim raises some intriguing questions. What sort of freedom is it that can be established only by the influence of another agent—in this case, God—and what sort o...
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
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| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1987
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 1987, Volume: 80, Issue: 1, Pages: 101-126 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Parallel Edition: | Non-electronic
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| Summary: | In The Spirit and the Letter Augustine claims that grace not only avoids abrogating human freedom it actually establishes free will. His claim raises some intriguing questions. What sort of freedom is it that can be established only by the influence of another agent—in this case, God—and what sort of bondage is it that is overcome by grace? If we remain exclusively within Augustine's theological discourse, the answers come straightforwardly and by now have a ring of familiarity. The freedom in question is the state of loving God over and above his worldly and time-bound creations, fulfilling (with divine assistance) the demands of the Law, and finding one's happiness in reconciliation with the eternal through the mediation of Jesus Christ. Bondage is conversely the blindness and perversity of keeping one's attention fixed on creation apart from its relation to its Creator and of courting the satisfaction of only those desires which are framed independently of God's claims on every human being. Freedom is loving well or having a bona voluntas; bondage is loving aimlessly, unreflectively, and hence destructively. |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000023531 |