The City of God
My preferred way of engaging with books is reconstruction. These notes were created during my reading process to aid my own understanding and not written for the purpose of instruction. With that said, I’ve decided to share these unedited notes on the off chance they are helpful to other readers.
Augustine wrote the City of God in response to the fall of Rome and the doubt of and blame upon Christianity that ensued. The first part is a defense of Christianity and critique of the Pagan values, Gods, and philosophy. The second part of the book outlines two cities: the city of God or the city of Man. Everyone is a citizen of exclusively one city but it is impossible to know which one until judgement day. Tracing back biblical events, he provides a history of these two cities from genesis to their eventual end when the city of God triumphs over the city of Man.
Augustine is one of the important figures in combining Christian theology with ancient philosophy. While despising pagan philosophers in general, he praises Plato as the best pagan philosopher for his correspondence with Christianity. Plato's goal of imitating the highest good is similar to the Christian command of imitating Christ.
Implicitly, a dialogue is also formed with Aristotle who coined pride as the "crown of all virtues". It is clear that the Christian reversal of morality, with the sermon on the mount as an inflection point, has turned the Athenian value system on its head. Pride is now the root of all sin, and the main differentiator between the two cities:
Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former, in a word, glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men; but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory; the other says to its God, “Thou art my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.” In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers; the other says to its God, “I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.” And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls, or both, and those who have known God “glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened; professing themselves to be wise,”—that is, glorying in their own wisdom, and being possessed by pride,—'they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.'
On Existence of Evil
In Augustine's defense of Christianity, he must explain why God would allow so much evil in the world, on his own believers none-the-less! He provides the following arguments:
1. Even though outwardly evil may seem to have fallen on the Good and Evil alike, the former are not phased by it as the latter are:
Even though good and evil may fall on the good and wicked man equally, the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world's happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.
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For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers; and though exposed to the same anguish, virtue and vice are not the same thing. For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed; and as the lees are not mixed with the oil, though squeezed out of the vat by the same pressure, so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked. And thus it is that in the same affliction the wicked detest God and blaspheme, while the good pray and praise. So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.
2. Calamity is but an opportunity for us to test our strengths and improve upon our weaknesses:
When He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us an everlasting reward.
3. Anticipating Kant, Augustine argues that if good luck always followed God, then we wouldn't follow God for its own sake. Instead some of the rewards and punishments are saved for the end.
If he gave them to all who sought them, we would suppose that such were the only rewards of his service. Such a service would not make us godly, but greedy rather, and covetous. Instead he must save some for the final judgement.
4. What is blameworthy isn't only bad actions but also refraining to react to the bad actions of others in the right manner. If you yourself are righteous yet don't condemn others for the fear of your own interests, then you have sinned. This is why the seemingly good are punished alongside the wicked. This thread of thinking can be traced to modern laws which punishes people who don't report crime.
5. Even beyond all these reasons, the reasons for God's actions are far beyond the comprehension of us finite beings:
“Unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.”
On Pride:
It’s fascinating to see how our notions of virtue have changed throughout history. Pride once was, in the Aristotelean sense, “the crown of the virtues” and humility seen as a deficient vice. Yet, in the christian world view: “What is the origin of our evil will but pride? For ‘pride is the beginning of sin.’" The paragraph below is one of my favorite commentaries of all time, not only for its dialectic with Aristotle but for it's wisdom that is meaningful even for the non-Christian.
The secular interpretation of this paragraph is best viewed under the Beckerian model of death denial. Ernest Becker argues that one of our two fundamental drives is Agape: the need to bond and merge with something greater than ourselves. In this lens, humility exalts us through our humble submission to something greater (this can be a secular movement or an organization etc.). We transcend to the level of our merger. Pride, on the other hand, limits us in the small sphere of meaning only within our own lives.
Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted; for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For pride is the beginning of sin. Sirach 10:13 And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation, when the soul abandons Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous; for if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted; the woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then — that is to say, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit — was committed by persons who were already wicked. That evil fruit Matthew 7:18 could be brought forth only by a corrupt tree. But that the tree was evil was not the result of nature; for certainly it could become so only by the vice of the will, and vice is contrary to nature. Now, nature could not have been depraved by vice had it not been made out of nothing. Consequently, that it is a nature, this is because it is made by God; but that it falls away from Him, this is because it is made out of nothing. But man did not so fall away as to become absolutely nothing; but being turned towards himself, his being became more contracted than it was when he clave to Him who supremely is. Accordingly, to exist in himself, that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite to become a nonentity, but to approximate to that. And therefore the holy Scriptures designate the proud by another name, self-pleasers. For it is good to have the heart lifted up, yet not to one's self, for this is proud, but to the Lord, for this is obedient, and can be the act only of the humble. There is, therefore, something in humility which, strangely enough, exalts the heart, and something in pride which debases it. This seems, indeed, to be contradictory, that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us; and nothing is more exalted above us than God; and therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defect of nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolting from Him who is supreme, falls to a low condition; and then comes to pass what is written: You cast them down when they lifted up themselves. For he does not say, when they had been lifted up, as if first they were exalted, and then afterwards cast down; but when they lifted up themselves even then they were cast down — that is to say, the very lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as it sojourns in this world, and is specially exhibited in the city of God, and in the person of Christ its King; while the contrary vice of pride, according to the testimony of the sacred writings, specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God.
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The devil, then, would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden, had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, You shall be as gods, Genesis 3:5 which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true God. By craving to be more, man becomes less; and by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him. Accordingly, this wicked desire which prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light by which, had he followed it, he would himself have become light — this wicked desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open sin was but its consequence. For that is true which is written, Pride goes before destruction, and before honor is humility; Proverbs 18:12 that is to say, secret ruin precedes open ruin, while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner is the Highest forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize it as ruin, when there occurs an evident and indubitable transgression of the commandment? And consequently, God's prohibition had reference to such an act as, when committed, could not be defended on any pretense of doing what was righteous. And I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves, as already, by pleasing themselves, they had fallen. For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was dissatisfied with himself, than when he boldly presumed and satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred Psalmist when he says, Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O Lord; that is, that they who have pleased themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied with You in seeking Your glory.
Correspondence with Buddhism
Augustine's theology has many similarities with Buddhism:
Suffering comes from happiness, the wrongful pursuit of the latter causes the former: “For the good man is neither uplifted with the good things of time, nor broken by its ills; but the wicked man, because he is corrupted by this world’s happiness, feels himself punished by its unhappiness.”
What one experiences is highly malleable and subjective, dependent on character: "For even in the likeness of the sufferings, there remains an unlikeness in the sufferers."
Bad actions root not from Evil but delusion: “Abstain from finding fault with the wicked, because they fear their wiles and violence.”
Impermanence underlies all material phenomena: “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; as it pleased the Lord, so has it come to pass.”
The laws of cause and effect (karma in Buddhism) are deep and hard to comprehend: “Unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.”
Everything will be lost at the moment of death except for the practice you have done to improve your consciousness: “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. ”
Ever challenge is an opportunity for practice: "When He exposes us to adversities, it is either to prove our perfections or correct our imperfections; and in return for our patient endurance of the sufferings of time, He reserves for us an everlasting reward."
The New Testament God
Augustine's God is described as such:
Taketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and senders rain on the just and on the unjust.
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But as for the good things of this life, and its ills, God has willed that these should be common to both.
This is a very big shift from the Old Testament God who hardened the Pharaoh’s soul, parted seas, and brought destruction on the chosen people’s enemies. The New Testament God, by contrast, does not pick favorites.