St. Augustine

The Second Revelation —Part I

 

by Albert Camus

 

French thinker Albert Camus (1913-1960) was a major critic of the excesses of modernity in the post World War II era. This excerpt is taken from his book, Christian Metaphysics and Neoplantonism, which has been translated into English by Professor Ronald D. Srigley. Professor Srigley's newest book is Albert Camus' Critique of Modernity (2011). This excerpt appears with the permission of the publisher, the University of Missouri Press.

 

"[Sartre is] not interesting. He's not to be compared with Albert Camus; HE was a thinker!"  —Eric Voegelin  "In Search of the Ground" CW Vol 11

The Psychological Experience of St. Augustine 

 

Before demonstrating how the evolution that we have attempted to retrace finds in Augustinianism one of its most admirable formulas, it is necessary for us to consider the Neoplatonism of Saint Augustine.

 

Let us first state the problem: the new Platonic philosophy has exercised its influence over the great doctor. He cites several texts of the Enneads.¹ We can compare a certain number of Augustinian texts and Plotinian thoughts.

 

The most suggestive in this regard concern the nature of God. On God's ineffability: Sermon 117, 5; De civitate Dei IX, 16 with Enneads VI, 9, 5; De Trinitate, VIII, 2 and XV, 5 with Enneads V, 3, 13; on his eternity: Confessions XI, 13 and Enneads III, 6, 7; on his ubiquity: Sermon 277, 13 and 18 with Enneads VI, 4, 2; on his spirituality: De civ­itate Dei XIII, 5 and Enneads VI, 8, 11.

 

From this influence some have been able to draw excessive conclusions.² However, Saint Augustine's testimony is sufficiently explicit. And the celebrated passage of the Confessions on the "books of the Platonists" gives us a very clear account of the question.

 

 

 

Despite its length, permit us to quote the passage in full. Everything that follows will be instructive for us:

 

I read . . . that at the Beginning of time the Word already was; and God had the Word abid­ing with him, and the Word was God . . . [and that] the Word, who is him­self God, is the true Light, which enlightens every soul born into the world . . . . But I did not read in them that the Word was made flesh and came to dwell among us . . . [and] they do not say that he dispossessed him­self, and took on the nature of a slave, fashioned in the likeness of men, and presenting himself to us in human form; and then he lowered his own dignity, accepted an obedience that brought him to death.³

 

Opposing Incarnation to Contemplation, Saint Augustine had clarified for the first time the oppositions and similarities between these two forms of thought.

 

But at least how far does this influence reach? What is striking in Augustinian thought is that it gathers, in a few years,⁴ the hesitations and reversals of Christian thought. Highly passionate, sensual, the fear of not being able to maintain continence, all these delay Augustine's conversion for a long time.⁵ But he also has a taste for rational truths. It is this concern for reason that leads him to adhere to Manichaeanism, and even to Carthage, in the midst of an exuberant and voluptuous life.⁶

St. Ambrose and Plotinus

 

On many points, Manichaeanism merely continued Gnosticism, but it promised demonstrations. This is what attracted Saint Augustine.⁷ But the problem of evil obsessed him as well: "I was still trying to dis­cover the origin of evil, and I could find no solution."⁸ And he is haunted by the idea of death.

 

"[These were the thoughts which I turned over and over in my unhappy mind,] and my anxiety was all the more galling for the fear that death might come before I had found the truth."⁹ Greek in his need for coherence, Christian in the anxieties of his sensitivity, for a long time he remained on the periphery of Christianity.

 

It was both the allegori­cal method of Saint Ambrose and Neoplatonic thought that convinced Saint Augustine. But at the same time they did not persuade him. The conversion was delayed. From this it appeared to him that above all the solution was not in knowledge, that the way out of his doubts and his disgust for the flesh was not through intellectual escapism, but through a full awareness of his depravity and his misery.

 

To love these posses­sions that carried him so low: grace would raise him high above them. Saint Augustine found himself therefore at the crossroads of the influ­ences that we are here attempting to determine. But what is the precise extent of these influences? This is what must be defined.

 

What Saint Augustine demanded beside faith was truth, and be­side dogmas, metaphysics. And through Augustine, Christianity itself demanded it. But if one moment he adopts Neoplatonism, this was in order soon to transfigure it. And through Augustine, Christianity itself demanded it.¹⁰ Our task is to clarify the meaning of this transfiguration.

 

As we have seen, Plotinus provides Saint Augustine with a doctrine of the intermediate word and, what is more, a solution to the problem of evil. The hypostasized intelligence actually clarifies the destiny of Christ as the word of God. "We have learned from a divine source that the Son of God is none other than the Wisdom of God–and most certainly the Son of God is God . . . but what do you think the wisdom of God is if not truth. And indeed, it has been said: I am the truth" (De Beata Vita, ch. IV, no. 34, P.L.I. 32, col. 975).

 

As for evil, Plotinianism teaches Augustine that it is tied to matter and that its reality is entirely negative (Conf. VII, 12, VIII, 13). And by this all Saint Augustine's doubts seem to have van­ished. But for all that, conversion did not come.

 

There is this curiosity about the author of the Confessions, namely, that his experience remains the perpetual reference for his intellectual pursuits. Satisfied but uncon­vinced, he himself remarks that it is the Incarnation and its humility that Neoplatonism has been unable to offer to him. Only after having under­stood this did an outburst of tears and joy come to deliver him in the garden of his home. It was virtually a physical conversion, so total that Saint Augustine moves progressively toward renouncing all that was his life and to consecrating himself to God.

 

It is therefore this place, given to Christ and the Incarnation in Christianity's originality, that one must note in Augustine. These are the formulas and themes that he asked of Neoplatonism. The figure of Jesus and the problem of Redemption will transfigure everything. It is this conjunction of Greek themes and Christian dogmas that we must attempt to examine in a few points of Augustine's doctrine.

Hellenism and Christianity in Saint Augustine

 

 Evil, Grace, and Freedom. In the examination of such specifically Christian problems, our constant task will be to bring to light, in Augustinianism, the fundamental themes of Christianity. To tell the truth, a simple reminder will suffice, since we have already studied these themes.

 

We will not go back over the importance that the problem of evil assumes for Saint Augustine. However, it is necessary to note the extreme fecundity of this obsession. It is by beginning from this point that our author has been able to develop his most original doctrines. This same wealth will force us to divide our material. On the one hand, Saint Augustine's thought is maintained doctrinally; on the other, in reaction to Pelagius.

 

Let us examine first his general doctrine, and then the controversy with the Pelagians will clarify, under the harsher light of polemics, the profound tendencies of Augustinianism.

 

Neoplatonism maintains that evil is a privation and not a true reality. Saint Augustine agrees with this view.¹¹ But still it is necessary to distin­guish two types of evil: natural evil (the misery of our condition, the tragedy of human destinies) and moral evil, that is to say, Sin. The for­mer is explained to the extent that shadows are justified in a painting.¹² It serves the universal harmony.

 

Concerning the latter type, the ques­tion is more complex. How is it possible that God has endowed us with free will, that is to say, a will capable of doing evil: "Because [man] is what he now is, he is not good, nor is it in his power to become good, either because he does not see what he ought to be, or, seeing it, has not the power to be what he sees he ought to be."¹³ It is that sin, the consequence of original sin, is attributable to us.

 

God has given us the free will of Adam, but our will has acquired the desire to serve evil. And we are so pro­foundly corrupted that it is from God alone that comes all good use of free will. Left to himself, man would possess in himself only wickedness, falsehood, and sin: "No one has anything of his own except falsehood and sin."¹⁴ It is God who restores him when he deigns to do so.

 

This is why the virtues that reside in us only have meaning and value through God's assistance, special and suited to our weakness; namely, through his grace. Saint Augustine lays great stress upon the vanity of virtue itself. First grace, then virtue; here we recognize an Evangelical theme.

 

Thus it is that pagan virtues are ineffectual. God has given them virtues in order to urge us to acquire them if we lack them, and to hum­ble our pride if we possess them. In Christianity, virtue, in the Hellenic sense, was never so severely tried and never on such frequent occa­sions.¹⁵ Moreover, these natural virtues instead become vices when man glorifies himself through them.¹⁶ Pride is the sin of Satan. On the con­trary, our only legitimate end is God.

 

And the gift God makes of his grace is always the result of his generosity. This grace is free. Those who believe they can acquire it through good works take things the wrong way. Grace would not be free if it were possible to merit it. It is necessary to go even further. To believe in God is already to experience his grace. Faith begins with Grace.¹⁷

Free Will and Pelagianism

 

We see to what extremes Augustine can go in his thinking. He never spares himself any of the problem's difficulty. Of course, there is still no problem where there is only submission. Nevertheless, as is the rule in what concerns evil, this absolute dependence gives rise to great diffi­culties. Here divine grace is absolutely arbitrary: man must only have faith in God. How then can we speak of human freedom? But the diffi­culty is that our only freedom is precisely the freedom to do evil.¹⁸ Saint Augustine's final word on this question, vital for a Christian, is an admis­sion of ignorance. Divine arbitrariness remains intact.¹⁹

 

It is this theory that Saint Augustine has been led to develop in all its detail in the face of the Pelagian heresy. In this case, he has been able to surpass his own thought for the needs of the cause. But it is also that his pessimism and his renunciation have retained all their bitterness. It is in this way, then, that his doctrine of freedom takes shape.

 

The fierceness that Saint Augustine puts into his fight against Pelagianism will be explained if we summarize the latter's thought.²⁰ It is from his profound experience, from his acute awareness of the wickedness in man, that Saint Augustine was suffering.

 

A Breton monk, Pelagius feared at bottom a certain complacency in sin that can be drawn from the doctrine of predestination. A man of con­science rather than of ideas, these especially are his disciples: Celestius and Julian, who propagate his doctrines.

 

According to Pelagius, man had been created free. He can do good or evil as he pleases. This freedom is an emancipation from God. "Freedom of will, whereby a man was emancipated from God, consists of the abil­ity to commit sin or refrain from sin."²¹

 

The loss of this freedom was for Saint Augustine a consequence of original sin. On the contrary, the Pelagians thought that Freedom, being governed entirely by the will, implies that man could, if he desired it, avoid sin. "I say that it is possible for a man to be without sin."²²

 

But then the doctrine of original sin loses all significance. And the Pelagians reject this doctrine absolutely as leading to Manichean con­clusions. If Adam has injured us, it is only through his poor example. We must not even accept the secondary consequences of the fall, like the loss of the soul's immortality. According to Pelagius, Adam was born a mortal. Nothing of his error has been passed on to us. "New-born infants are in the same condition as Adam was before the fall."²³

 

If we sin easily, it is because sin has become in us a second nature.²⁴ As the Pelagians see it, and strictly speaking, grace is useless. But as always according to Pelagius, creation is already a form of grace. For all that, grace retains its usefulness not "in order to accomplish" but "in order to accomplish more easily [the works of God]."²⁵ It is an aid, a rec­ommendation with which God provides us.

 

This doctrine is found summarized in the nine points of accusation accepted by the Council of Carthage (April 29,418).²⁶ In a general way, it demonstrates confidence in man and rejects explanations by divine arbitrariness. It is also an act of faith in man's nature and independence. So many things that should make a man indignant fill the cry of Saint Paul: "Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?"²⁷

 

But graver consequences followed from this. The fall denied, Redemption lost its meaning. Grace was a pardon and not a type of pro­tection. Above all, this was to declare the independence of man in rela­tion to God and to deny that constant need of the creator that is at the heart of the Christian religion.

The Loss of the Freedom Not to Sin

 

Against this doctrine, Saint Augustine concluded his theories with a certain number of affirmations. Adam possessed immortality.²⁸ He was free in that he had the "ability not to sin"²⁹ and enjoyed already a cer­tain divine grace. Original sin came to destroy that happy state. Scripture is strict on this point, and Saint Augustine himself relies on it.³⁰ Our nature is tainted, and without baptism, man is destined for damnation (according to John II, 54). Saint Augustine sees proof of this in the uni­versal desolation of the world and in the misery of our condition, of which he paints a powerful picture.³¹

 

But these are the secondary effects of original sin. Others more inti­mate and more irremediable will indicate the extent of our misfortune. First, we have lost the freedom of the "ability not to sin."

 

We depend on divine grace. On the other hand, damnation is, in prin­ciple, universal. Humankind as a whole is doomed to the flames. Its only hope is divine mercy.³² From this, there follows another consequence: the damnation of unbaptized children.³³

 

Grace is then made more urgent. And we are dependent on this grace from three points of view: in order for us to preserve our tainted nature, in order to believe the truths of the supernatural order,³⁴ and in order to make us act according to those truths.³⁵ But this highest grace which is faith we do not merit by our works.

 

However, we can merit, to a cer­tain extent, that of beneficence.³⁶ In all cases, what determines our entire fate is Predestination. And Saint Augustine constantly returns to the gratuity of this doctrine.³⁷ The number of the chosen, just as that of the outcasts, is set once and for all and invariably. Only then does God consider our merits and demerits in order to determine the degree of our punishment.

 

What we cannot know is the reason why this is so. Our freedom is a freedom to refuse the highest graces on the one hand, and to merit the secondary graces on the other. Our spontaneity applies only to the interior of divine omnipotence.³⁸          

This is part 1 of a two part excerpt.  Part 2 may be read HERE.

Ronald D. Srigley is Professor of Religious Studies and coordinator of the Global Issues Program at the University of Prince Edward Island University, Ontario. He holds a Masters Degree in Voegelin studies and a Doctorate on the philosophy of Albert Camus. He has presented papers at the annual meetings of the Eric Voegelin Society. He is also author of Eric Voegelin's Platonic Theology: Philosophy of consciousness and Symbolization in a New Perspective.

 

 

NOTES