The Augustinian person

3. The Stages in the Human Condition

        T H E S TAG E S I N T H E H U M A N C O N D I T I O N ;J. M. Rist has pointed out that as a result of the spiritual history of the human race Augustine gives “not one, but three accounts of the relationship between soul and body.”1 The reason is that in specifying human nature Augustine examines practical human experience rather than attempting definition in vacuo; yet he does not think our nature to be fully perceptible in its present condition, either, for that condition has thrown the nature itself into more or less violent disorder (e.g., CD ., .). Consequently, he brings into consideration (as therefore we must) the divine administratio of human life in its three main stages: the Garden, this world, and heaven (or its privation ). He does not, for the most part, give his three accounts separately but pieces together his delineation of our nature by constant reference to these starkly different phases of our condition (e.g., CD .–., .–, .–.). We must now consider what Augustine says of these phases, in particular of their two main turning points: the Fall and the action of divine grace. Our most comprehensive questions are: What, then, does he regard as specifically human about each phase of the human condition, and in that context, what do the Fall and divine grace consist in?—a very disputed area of his thought. Three sets of questions have been especially controversial. The first set concerns sin: Augustine’s gener-  . Rist, . al conception of that doctrine, in particular his notion of concupiscence (the Fall’s most immediate manifestation) and its moral consequences —original sin, original guilt, the two degrees of death, and what he thinks is the relationship of all these with one another. Here the pertinent modern discussions will be those of John Burnaby (on Augustine’s notion of desire and its relationship with reason as well as on whether Augustine thinks of God as positively punishing the damned) and of James Wetzel, K. E. Kirk, and Peter Brown (on the contentious Augustinian notion that even baptized Christians remain concupiscent). In the second set the general question is whether his doctrine on the matters just mentioned is coherent and consistent. There are numerous more particular questions: Does it make sense to say, as Augustine does in his late works, that all humanity since the Fall begins life lumped together in condemnation for Adam’s sin? (Does the idea imply, for example, that we all participated as agents in Adam’s sin? Or that the divine grace that gratuitously removes some from that morass overrides their free will?) Does grace, in its mode of choice, take any account of differences between individuals, or is it in human terms arbitrary, and does its dependency on sacramental baptism imply that infants who die unbaptized are victims of sheer bad luck? Finally , why, given the complete absence of independent merit in the massa damnata, is everybody not saved? The relevant modern interpretations here will be those of J. N. D. Kelly, Christopher Kirwan, and N. P. Williams (on what is implied by the notion that we all participate in Adam’s sin) and of John Rist (on infants who die unbaptized ). The third set of questions directly concerns what Augustine’s doctrine of sin and grace implies about human nature. Does the notion that those in heaven cannot sin contradict the notion—also Augustinian —that the ability to sin is an essential part of our nature? If, on the other hand, the heavenly impeccability is rather the culmination of human nature, why were we not created thus perfect in the first  ⁄   place? Here the criticisms discussed in most detail are Heidegger’s (on whether Augustine thinks fear extends into heaven) and Rist’s (on the problem of original peccability). Though the issue of consistency is prominent in this chapter, it remains important not to expect Augustine to write systematically (with strictly demarcated terminology, for example, or constant, explicit delimitation of one notion as against another). Rather, his context is usually polemical in some way. Yet his modern critics quite reasonably expect him not to contradict himself (except in the case of a change of mind) and that one group of notions should make sense in terms of another. It is with these expectations that we must approach this area of his thought. ; On our first...