Augustine Goes Postmodern

7/27/2019 Augustine Goes Postmodern

1/14

16/10/13 First Principles - Augustine Goes Postmodern

www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/print.aspx?article=1531&loc=b&type=cbtp 1/14

The Home of American Intellectual Conservatism First Principles October 15, 2013

Augustine Goes PostmodernCurtis L. Hancock - 01/01/08

Many biographies of St. Augustine exist. James O'Donnell adds another that is interesting, dis tinctive, andlively. Time devoted to reading it is well s pent, if for no other reason than to enjoy O'Donnell's vivid depictionof the late antique era in which Augustine lived. It is not a biographical novel, but it is a novel biography,attempting to break free of the obligatory veneration of Augustine. To make this break, one has to recognizethat there are two Augustines, "the one who lived and died a long time ago and the one who lives to beremade by us and is known from his works. It's imposs ible to tell the story of the one without the other."(ANB, 5) As biography, this book volunteers a bold revis ionism on grounds that "the s tudy of Augustinianchronology, and thus of all of Augustine's l ife, is built on shaky ground." (ANB, 34) After all these centuries ofresearch and biography, there is s till a need to "concentrate first on the Augustine who l ived long ago. He isless well known than his undying alter ego" (the Augustine "known from his works"). (ANB, 5)

O'Donnell concentrates anew on Augustine's life partly under the ins piration of Pierre-Marie Hombert'scontribution (published in 2000), Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne ("New Investigationsin Augustinian Chronology").1 This s tudy takes into account the recent discoveries of Johannes Divjak, whofound in Marsei lles , France, dozens of heretofore unknown letters by St. Augustine, and of FrancoisDolbeau, who discovered in a library in Mainz, Germany, dozens of sermons also unnoticed in history.Combined, these dis coveries "give us new light into his world." (ANB, 89) These discoveries makerevisionism obligatory.2

On account of this dis sent and revisionism, O'Donnell's book warrants detailed examination. He aims tobreak the mold into which the tradition has poured the sainted Augustine. Once broken, fragments of hislife, times, and writings remain. In O'Donnell's worldview fragments are surer s igns of truth. If one

determines to read the auguries of these fragments, one makes authentic biography possible. This soundslike deconstruction, a charge O'Donnell would not disavow. There is a palpable postmodernist sensibili ty inhis work. (ANB, 83, 144) "Breaking up that framework in order to see pieces of the man himsel f is a centraltask for the book." (ANB, 84) I will as ses s how successfully O'Donnell accomplishes this task. I will test thesoundness of his interpretations of key elements (dare we say "pieces") of Augustine's life.

Fun with Biography

I praise O'Donnell for his willingness to amuse us while he informs. You've got to indulge a fellow whomakes you laugh. The good humor in this biography is one of its attractive features. The ancient Greeksobserved that a researcher can bring one of two states of mind to a subject, a spirit of seriousness(spoudaios) or an attitude of playfulness (paideia). Johann Huizinga argues that this distinction is a

hallmark of Western civilization. As one of the architects of Christendom, perhaps Augustine des erves bothkinds of treatment. (Of course, O'Donnell can be somber when he wants, as we shall see later.) Augustinehas been under the specimen glass of serious examination for centuries. What is the harm in balancingserious biography with light-heartedness? Some m ay accuse O'Donnell of irreverence. True, humor cannotexcuse everything, but one person's whims y might be another's irreverence. Christian genius involves themystery of the human person, which includes the risible and the regard for the comic in life, even when ittouches on religion. As G. K. Chesterton said, "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."At any rate, O'Donnell 's pres entation bounces occasionally with humor and even frivolity. He gambolsthrough his text, sometimes "saying the darnedes t things." Let me set the context for a few droll examples:(1) speaking of the saint's struggle to convert: "Augustine falls back on his old pastimessex, drugs, androck 'n' roll, so to s peak" (ANB, 68); (2) making a curious comparis on: "As an orthodox Christian, Augustinediffered from m any of his contemporaries precisely because he had been a Manichee and couldn't let go.Ex-Stalinist neoconservatives are just as exciting among their new coreligionists, and just as out of place"(ANB, 50); (3) likening Augustine's Confessions to HuckleberryFinn, and speaking of the latter: "Perhaps,like me, you purchased a copy in a high school bookshop long ago because you had heard it had somesalacious things in it. (If they're there, I haven't found them yet)" (ANB, 35); (4) observing that the convertedAugus tine was conscious of the lifestyle he gave up: "As bishop and Chris tian, he was always a man who


2/14



used to have a very different future, and made sure that you remembered it" (ANB, 36; well, it s truck me asfunny); (5) musing on the relationship between Augustine and his mother, Monica: "as she weeps on theshore at Carthage while her son s ails off . . . Augustine s uddenly becoming Aeneas abandoning Dido. Wecan all connect the dots of that story" (ANB, 55); (6) alluding to Donatism : it was "light on credibili ty andheavy on mumbo-jumbo" (ANB, 56); (7) speaking of Augustine's standard for his own baptism: "Mostbaptismal candidates were satisfied to present themselves when they had acquired the good intention atmoral reform that marks New Year's resolutions or a decis ion to quit smoking or go on a diet. As long asthere was no dramatic relapse, a relatively normal future life was quite in order. But Augustine was m orecompetitive than most" (ANB, 60); (8) daring to bring up the Trinity: the "word 'person' was applied to the

'three-ishness ' of god . . . The word originally meant 'mask,' the thing you wore in a drama . . . but few nowwould try to represent Christian theology as being about the three masks of god or the three stage roles heplays, although it might be a fresh approach to a difficult subject" (ANB, 65; I like to think even Augustinewould chuckle at that one.); (9) speaking of Augustine's Platonism: he prefers "a perfect un-world over thisimperfect one" (ANB, 82); (10) thinking of that blustery day when the barbarians walked into Rome: "in 410he would have been ready to respond to the news from Rome with an Eeyorish 'I thought as much'" (ANB,228); (11) doubting whether Augustine is "a purveyor of mystic crystal revelations and the mind's trueliberation (though on s ome days that language would not have been foreign to him )." (ANB, 288)

I could go on. (Note his reference to "overweight middle-aged hippies playing bluegras s music," that is, "theGrateful Dead.") (ANB, 275) But I'll s top at the eleventh example. Anyway, I can appreciate O'Donnell'soccasional excursion into "hip" rhetoric. Still, there can be too much of a good thing. As one reviewer put it,

"the insouciance and irreverence begin to sound hollow after a while."3

The Augustine who Confesses

On to spoudaios. At some point, we seriously have to ask, "Does O'Donnell's postmodernis t biography of St.Augus tine succeed?" To respond, it is natural to begin with the Confessions. How does O'Donnell help us, ifat all, better capture the mind and heart that Augustine suffers to disclose in his own autobiography?Before I engage that question and volunteer some criticisms, I want to comm end O'Donnell for oneconspicuous success. He s potlights something that is sometimes not given its due in treatments of the lifeand thought of Augustine: the fact that he was a rhetorician. Rhetoric was no idle curios ity, nor merely a jobthat he happened to fall into at Carthage. He aspired and trained to be a rhetorician from his youth and heremained one throughout his adult life. Rhetoric was central to Augustine's identity. Even before his

chapters on the Confessions, O'Donnell brings this out effectively in his book's opening pages by asking usto imagine what it was like to be part of an audience hearing and witness ing one of Augustine's"performances ." True, these performances had a spiritual purpose. They were teaching lessons of a pastorand bishop. But we mus t not overlook that they were rhetoric. Rhetoric was a profession and a giftAugus tine brought to his Chris tian vocation which gave him opportunity to develop that gift further. It helpedhim navigate and ascend the intellectual culture of his day. The Confessions itself is the work of rhetoric.

The centrality of rhetoric enables O'Donnell to explain cleverly the relations hip of Augustine to St. Ambros e.Ambrose counseled Augustine in his desire for Chris tian conversion. But Augus tine surely was attracted toAmbrose also becaus e he was one of the great rhetoricians of the age. He was Augustine's m entor in faithand rhetoric. Here was a model for rhetorical power in service of Christian faith. He also modeled forAugus tine that rhetoric could be a means of exchange to mobil ize and advance a pers on's interes ts and

standing in the Mediterranean- Chris tian society of the fourth century. Because Ambrose and Augustine aresaints, biographers may be unwilling to emphas ize how well the gift and achievement of rhetoric served asa "worldly" tool for them. But men like Ambrose and Augustine were poli tically involved in eccles iastical andsocial events during their day. Such men, even if saints, have to be, at least, in the world, if not ofit. It is apositive Chris tian service to take God's gift and use it to persuade others of the Good News. Is it un-Christian that some personal benefit come from that?

Perhaps in Ambrose, Augustine saw the embodiment of a Christianized Cicero, whose influence inAugus tine's pilgrimage the Confessions stresses . Through the work of Ambros e and Augustine, thetradition of ancient oratory assimilates into Christian wisdom:

Christian preachers had always known and enacted this Role [as accomplished rhetoricians]. Whatwas different about Augustine, Ambrose, and their contemporary in Cons tantinople, John, calledChrysos tom ("golden mouth"), and other polished per formers of the age is that they sawthemselves in the tradition of the ancient orators as well. (ANB, 31)

Rhetoric was a way in which Roman Catholics were truly Roman, retrieving and applying a traditional


3/14



Roman value, forensics, to their Christian calling.

With this salute to O'Donnell now discharged, I return to our general question: does his postmodernis tbiography of Augustine succeed? To repeat the obvious, in order to pursue this question we mus t addressAugus tine's Confessions. No biography should ignore a subject's autobiography. A self-reflective, ipse dixitrecord of a life is indispensable for biography. Aware of this, O'Donnell devotes two early chapters of hisbiography, chapter two, "Augustine Confesses " and chapter three, "A Modern Class ic," to Augustine'sautobiography. When an autobiography comes down to us as one of the eminent achievements of Westernliterature, it requires the biographer to ask: (1) why does the autobiography still connect with people many

generations after its author has died? (2) does the autobiography indeed reveal the life of the author? Toanswer the first ques tion, O'Donnell writes the third chapter. Autobiography, especial ly one as private andintense as Augustine's, is unique in ancient literature. It is a way of writing that presages postmedievalconcerns with the self. "Privacy is a modern invention and depends on conditions of life and understandingof selfhood that were inaccess ible to ancient people." (ANB, 1067) Hence, it resonates with modernaudiences, with their interests in psychology, subjectivity, and emotions. In short, the Confessions is aheadof its time.

Presently, I would like to focus on the second question: does the autobiography (in this case, Augustine'sConfessions) successfully reveal the life of the author? To answer this ques tion, one mus t determinewhether the author of the autobiography is real ly aware of his or her own personality, character, andmotivations. One of the tasks of O'Donnell's biography is to show that, as an exercise in personal

psychoanalysis (ANB, 55); Augustine's autobiography does not succeed, or at bes t, only partly succeeds.He fails the "Oracle-of-Delphi Test," so to speak. He does not knowhimself. In other words, O'Donnell'sverdict is that Augustine thinks he is someone he is not. His self-disclosure in the Confessions is largely anexercise in rationalization, obfuscation, and self-aggrandizement. Unconscious motivations explain oursaint. Augustine's struggle for sincerity does not conceal what O'Donnell knows that Augustine does not.His sexual appetites may have been s ublimated, but the Augustine of the Confessions is still self servingand obsess ed with worldly interests. It is not just a matter of unconscious drives; character flaws alsoabound. "The intellectual arrogance that marked his youth had, he believed, also left him. (That argument isperhaps the most self-serving . . . and some of his contemporaries would have found it hard to take)." (ANB,36) "The light and obvious thread is the description of a life's career meant to impress i ts readers." (ANB,36) This is to be expected, since "Augustine never practiced the humili ty of the man who would escapeattention. In prostrating himself before the divine in the Confessions, Augustine performs an astonishing actof self-presentation and self-justification and, paradoxically, self-aggrandizement." (ANB, 36) According toO'Donnell, people tried to tell Augustine this at the time, but he did not listen. (ANB, 4546) The Confessionsis a product of self-creation, not selfdisclos ure.

The premise for this verdict is a view of enlightened, objective, or "scientific" history that O'Donnell assumesbut never actually justifies. Perhaps he thinks that the Dolbeau and Divjak discoveries justify it. "Hombertdigs deeper and finds that the foundations of Augustinian chronology are rotten, badly rotten. The mos tabundant texts, the sermons, were assigned a timeline generations ago by devout but relatively amateurishscholars ." (ANB, 33). Once we s upply a more convincing chronology of Augustine's s tages on life's way, wecan decipher better who Augustine is.

There is som e subs tance to this, but not nearly so much as O'Donnell thinks. O'Donnell thinks radical

reinterpretation of Augustine, the man and saint, follows as s oon as scholars hip (the recent discovery of theletters and sermons ) demands that we reject the traditionally accepted view that Augustine began to acquirenotoriety in North Africa as early as 395 and that we replace it with the judgm ent that only after 410 "the greatman" began to emerge. (ANB, 34) Prior to that time, he remained a sel fserving social climber. These vicesremained after 410, but they were not as evident. Once he arrived at his privileged station in life, he didn'thave to act on his character flaws so much.

What can I say to this? True, the scholarship of Dolbeau, Divjak, and Hombert justifies opening up newinvestigations into Augustine. But it does not justify revis ionism of the kind O'Donnell envisions. At somepoint, it is the content, what Augustine actually says in those sermons and letters, that dictates whether weaccept O'Donnell's conclusions. It turns out, unless one reads them with O'Donnell's suppositions alreadyin mind, his conclusions do not follow.

There are revis ions and then there is "revis ionis t history," which, for O'Donnell, means that when one isexamining a subject whose life is complex and ambiguous, responsible history must prefer darkpsychological motivations and social compromises as the real causes of this s ubject's beliefs andbehaviors. Augustine is eventually diced and s liced with this phi losophical, or perhaps, more accurately,


4/14



ideologicalconception of biography and his tory. Such an assum ption is not excused by the dis covery ofletters and sermons . For it to stand, O'Donnell must give it independent demons tration. It is an ideology ofdebunking and deconstruction. Of course, it has its ideological pay-off. For if one decons tructs Augustine,one debunks the Catholic Church as traditionally understood. This agenda should not be lost onO'Donnell's readers.

O'Donnell detracts and dis credits throughout the entire biography. It is evident in his interpretation of theConfessions. In his effort to write a biography that humanizes the saint, a description that includes "wartsand all" (a description any genuine s aint would endorse), O'Donnell has forgotten the "all" and has pretty

much left us wi th the "warts." O'Donnell's dis miss ive attitude says "never mind" to the thousand-plus yearsof biography that recounts Augustine's life as virtuous and, indeed, saintly. Those must be the biographiescoming from "the devout and amateurish." In our postmodern age, we have sat too long at the knee ofhistorical criticism to perpetuate naivet. We know that saints are too good to be true. If we study our subjectthrough the lens of his torical science, we will catalogue a different kind of specimen: a self-aggrandizer,bordering on narcissism, whose motivations are largely worldly; a figure whose own self-concept is sotortured by a sense of sin that he dare not face the reality of who he is . The Confessions provides Augustinethe opportunity to fabricate an image of hims elf that he can present as respectable to the world, the imageof the pilgrim progress ing, while simultaneously convincing himself that he is someone he is not.Accordingly, the Confessions is an exercise in "bad faith."

All of this adds up to a presumptive cynicis m in O'Donnell 's pres entation of Augustine's Confessions. He

turns innuendo and arbitrary accusation into art forms. Augustine's "one-man s how," his "virtuousoperformance" is a rationalization for his "own future authoritarianism." (ANB, 3637) If we avoid "the snareshe has la id for his biographers " (ANB, 37), we can cynically unmask this s ocial climber and power-seeker.

Motivations and Machinations

O'Donnell details specific ways in which Augustine manipulates his social circumstances, fabricates hisidentity for his times and pos terity, and arbitrarily demands his interpretation of Chris tian religion over allothers. Beyond what I've said above, which is specific to the Confessions, I will point out another way inwhich O'Donnell accuses Augustine of less than admirable motives for his life, work, and influence.It is fascinating to watch O'Donnell's s tudied efforts at innuendo and accusation, as well as his eccentricuse of evidence, which sometimes is not evidence at all, to make his case. A case in point is his treatment

of the relationship that Augustine develops with St. Jerome. In chapter four, with the provocative title"Augustine Unvarnished," O'Donnell alleges that in 394 the self-seeking Augustine conspired to writeJerome, who res ided in Bethlehem (having been asked to leave several earlier locations), "to attractattention." (ANB, 92) In his letter, Augustine criticizes some of Jerome's views, a ris ky enterprise for onewanting to ingratiate himself, since Jerome was known for his volatility. By accident, Augustine's letter didnot reach Jerome until years later. In the meantime, the letter went to Rome and circulated as a pamphlettitled "Agains t Jerome." Augustine protested that he never intended the letter to circulate in that fashion. Henever wanted a public attack on Jerome. But sus picion and cynicism are axiomatic in O'Donnell's account.Feigning reluctance, he concedes that "we should probably accept his protestations," and yet he quicklyadds "while perhaps paus ing to wonder why scholars have been so ready to accept them." (ANB, 93;O'Donnell's italics)

A fair and guarded interpretation would grant that Augus tine surely knew he might benefit from Jerome'srecognition but would also allow, lack of evidence to the contrary, that it is at bes t an accompanying motiveand not the primary one for Augustine's sending the letter. Surely it is reas onable to think that Augustine'spowerful mind is champing at the bit to dialogue with the greatest theologian of the age. That motive isplausible enough as to count agains t reducing Augustine to a "self-seeker" in his correspondence. ButO'Donnell's skepticism about Augustine's motives automatically trumps s uch cautions: "Augustine mayhave been distress ed that his letter did not make it directly to Jerome, but he was s urely delighted that it hadgone into circulation otherwise." (ANB, 93) Isn't this unfair speculation?

This pattern of interpretation persis ts throughout O'Donnell's biography. It seems to offend the norms ofcareful, objective biography, suggesting that O'Donnell has an agenda: to make ins inuation and defamationthe presumptive judgment of St. Augustine. In the spirit of this agenda, O'Donnell seems to ignore how

reason ought to judge the facts. He becomes prone to the fallacy ad ignorantiam (argument from ignorance)in his assessment of evidence. As a reminder: this fallacy is committed when one argues that somethingmus t be true because it has not been proven false, or that something mus t be false because it has notbeen proven true. O'Donnell commits this fallacy in the case at hand when he concludes: "NothingAugus tine says rules out the possibility that the rogue copy in circulation in Italy was not the original gone


5/14



astray but rather a s eparate copy somehow put into play by Augustine himself." (ANB, 93) How doesO'Donnell's inference differ from Joe McCarthy's argument on the Senate floor in 1950 that he had at last"penetrated Truman's iron curtain of secrecy"? Pointing to eighty-one "case his tories" of persons whom hesus pected were communists employed in the State Department, he singled out Case 40 and s aid, "I do nothave much information on this except the general statement of the agency that there is nothing in the files todisprove his Communist connections."4 O'Donnell's way of inference is the stuff of conspiracy theories.

Of course, O'Donnell would reply to what I've said above by resorting to a pos tmodernis t account of letterwriting. Musing about a letter Augustine received from his friend Paulinus, O'Donnell remarks:

Letter-writing is a complex social business , a way of making texts that pretend to be like speech.People may naively think they write letters to tell each other things, just as Augustine wrote (in hisbook The Teacher) that people use language to convey information. What we learn in the world of e-mail ought to be alerting us that the whole business of letter-writing and letterreading is far moreinteresting and complicated than most people ass ume. Letters like these made Augustine's namewhere his voice could not reach. (ANB, 98)

In this passage, O'Donnell recognizes that, independent of whether it is convincing or not as a theory oflanguage, knowledge, and correspondence, this postmodernist view is surely not Augustine's. But whatO'Donnell fails to see is that, since Augustine is one of those nave people (whos e nave ranks wouldnumber people l ike Plato, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas) who think language conveys information, it islikely that nobler motives than self-advancement are behind his correspondence. If Augustine believeswords convey truth, why wouldn't he write letters to engage wi th others the pursuit of truth? The quotedpassage then undermines rather than supports O'Donnell's own thesis about Augustine as schemer andself-promoter.

Saint Augustine: Christian Philosopher

One interesting feature of O'Donnell's biography is his handling of Augustine the philosopher. O'Donnellrecognizes the profundity of Augustine's philosophical views. Yet he does not give them the attention thatone might expect. In fairness , it is too much to ask a biographer to provide a s atisfactory, let aloneexhaustive, commentary of his subject's philosophical views. However, were Augustine's principlesexplored somewhat further, O'Donnell might better appreciate that ideas and philosophical debate arearguably more powerful motives in Augustine's li fe and work than self-interest and public visibil ity. Still, whatcommentary exists indicates that O'Donnell does understand Augustine's basic philosophical principlesand also recognizes some of their problematic consequences.Augus tine is philosophically a Platonist. Through reading the Neoplatonis t Plotinus, he realized thatspiritual realities exist. He credits this reading as a singular moment toward his conversion. He put awaymaterialis m and eventually Manichaeism. An unequivocal Platonism endures throughout all of Augustine'swritings.

While Platonism certainly gives Augustine a philosophical identity, it also creates problem s for hisphilosophical development. Platonism holds that to be real is to be immutable. Augustine accepts thismetaphysics and adapts it to his philosophy of God. God is perfect imm utable being whose divine mindknows the perfect imm utable intelligibles, the divine ideas , the universal exemplars of all created things.Hence, along with Plato's metaphysical principles, that to be real is to be immutable, Augustine alsoabsorbs Plato's es sentialism : immutable reality consis ts of Platonic Form, except now mutated into aDivine Mind and its contents.

Under the influence of Neoplatonis ts like Plotinus and Porphyry, it is understandable that Augustine wouldcome to this metaphysics. But it is nonetheless a source of difficulty for Augustine. If to be real is to be animm utable form, that which is not a form, matter, is unreal . This causes problems for Augustine's account ofcreation, matter, change, and the human condition.

God's creation becomes something akin to Plato's sensible world. Things are poor imitations of forms.Their reality lies elsewhere. Needless to say, this dim inishes the s ignificance of God's creation. Godcreated real creatures. Their reality has to be more than just the forms in God's mind that they represent.

The problem is compounded when one considers that physical things change. Change is part of the natureof physical things. But change is a s ign of unreali ty and unintelligibili ty in Platonic metaphysics. So,changing physical things demons trate that God's creation is unreal. Nor can changing things be the objectsof knowledge. Genuine knowledge requires permanence. Hence Augustine must resort to divine


6/14



illumination to explain and secure knowledge.

All of this combines to make Augus tine's physical cosmos radically contingent, unstable, and uncertain. Atleast, Plato's matter has the benefit of being eternal. In Augustine's metaphysics , matter is a created butchanging thing. It is insufficient in its own existence, existing only by God's grace, and unreal by virtue ofbeing changing matter. Material creation is in flux and constituted by that which is not form. On bothaccounts, the reality of creation is compromised. And yet, matter must be good. Augustine is self-consciousabout not repeating the error of Manichaeism, an issue O'Donnell d iscus ses in depth. (ANB, 47 54) Itappears Augustine doesn't realize how Platonism and essentialism have made problematic his Christian

metaphysics.

This of course is why Augustine does not have a doctrine of natural law. How can the instabili ty of naturefurnish evidences of universal scientific and moral principles? The natural order is a cosmos instead of achaos only by the continual effort of God's grace to cons erve things in existence. Each thing exists andbehaves by the unceasing work of divine wil l. Necess ity and law are not constitutive of it. This is a fact notlost on G. K. Chesterton, who conveyed effectively the fluid nature of Augustine's universe in these terms :

It is pos sible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again"to the moon. It may not be automatic necess ity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that Godmakes every daisy separately, but has never tired of making them. . . . The repetition in Nature maynot be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore. . . . Repetition may go on for millions ofyears, by mere choice, And at any instant it may stop.5

Of course, the unreal ity of changing matter leads to difficulties for Augustine's view of the humanperson. The human person, according to the incarnate theology of Christianity, is an em bodiedspirit. So important is the body in human nature that our afterlife requires the resurrection of ourbodies . St. Paul made that clear in II Corinthians. But if our bodies are unreal, why would this benecessary? This m etaphysics of matter is behind Augustine's tendency to describe the body asundesirable. Accordingly, O'Donnell observes:

Augus tine is reluctant to go as far as the Platonists in thinking any contact with a body wasitself polluting, but he often uses (particularly in his earlier career) language that points in thatdirection, and he never fully rejects the style. He certainly shares with them throughout apreference for a perfect un-world over this imperfect one, for the unseen over the seen. (ANB,82)

Yes, he often uses language s uggestive of Plato's description of the body in the Phaedo as a sourceof spiritual corruption. O'Donnell notes this fact:

The body rather will be for him a source of distraction and defilem ent: food, drink, sleep (anddreams ), sex (even in dreams ), and, most seductive of all, the wandering of the eyes. Allthese things are for him not part of himself, not his core inner self, the real Augustine, but arerather instruments of the bodily Augustine, the im perfectly spiritual Augustine, and vehicles bywhich temptationand worsepenetrate the person (ANB, 108109).

The debasement of the human body complements the metaphysical unreality of matter. Could thisbe the reason that Augustine principally speaks of immortality in spiritual terms, while makingperfunctory observance to resurrection in Scripture?

These are significant and compromising problems in Augustine's philosophy. Augustine himselfmay never have realized that his own firs t principles generated these complications. To O'Donnell'scredit, he grasps these difficulties. Moreover, he appreciates that Augustine wrote for a lifetime tryingto overcome perplexities that his philosophical assumptions spawn.

Another aspect of Augus tine's philosophy that O'Donnell unders tands is its as sociation with rhetoric.By Augustine's time, philos ophy had become a subset of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric).

In particular, it had become subordinate to the liberal art of rhetoric. Cicero looked upon philos ophyin this way. Since Augustine was ins pired to be a philosopher under Cicero's influence, it is notsurpris ing that he would regard philosophy as a kind of rhetoric.6

In Augustine's thought, philosophy plays out as a kind of rhetoric in connection with divineillumination. Because of the Fall, human nature is weakened in the exercise of its powers. The only


7/14



rescue from this impotence is divine grace. (ANB, 301) Through the soul 's soliloquy, through itsdiscourse with itself, it can recognize that it suffers multiple conflicts. These conflicts causeconfusions that impair the soul's ability under its own powers to obtain wisdom. The soul cannotacquire knowledge and wisdom until i t turns to God to resolve its conflicts. This turning to God hasepistemological and axiological significance. Truth and goodness do not come about as our sensepowers contact sens ible things in the external world, from which our intellects abs tract information.Such a realis t view of knowledge would be Aristotle's. For Augustine, knowledge cannot take placewith natural powers that are undermined by sin. Sense experience, imagination, and intellectualabstraction, judgment, and reasoning are bankrupted in Augustine's philosophy of the human

person. Knowledge takes place as a kind of redemption, as God empowers our intellects to gaintruth by glimpsing the contents, the divine ideas , of his own mind.

This is a kind of rhetoric, as the soul must persuade itself to encourage its conversation with God,as the soul pleads to God its s incere need for Him, without which it is nothing. The soul converseswith itself and with God. This account of knowledge is modeled in the Confessions, a runningdialogue between self and God.

I applaud O'Donnell's book for seeing these fine points. However, he overlooks that the inevitablefrustrations out of the application of Augustine's philosophical principles also impel Augustine toseek friendship, support, and counsel from his comrades in faith and wisdom. Accordingly,Augus tine's s earch for social connection and communication has surely a more wholesome

inspiration, at least to a s ignificant degree, than the cynical motives O'Donnell habitually attributes tohim.

I cannot leave this section of my review without commenting on O'Donnell's perception ofAugus tine's Just War doctrine. This doctrine is one of Augus tine's most conspicuous and enduringphilosophical contributions. O'Donnell's dismissive attitude about Augustine's handling of the issueis telling. He seems to think Augustine really does not take the doctrine seriously. (ANB, 4) HasO'Donnell prejudged that enlightened Christians know that pacifism is necessary? Should wepresume that Augustine would neversincerelyargue that war could be just? (ANB, 154, 259) Shouldwe presum e that no genuine Chris tian would ever sincerely so argue?

Without getting into the full debate, I would like to reinforce the conviction that Just War is

unequivocally a serious and jus tifiable concern for Augustine. One way of showing this is toreminisce briefly on why Just War is Christian. First, in my own research on how various Catholicthinkers have treated the ques tion of the Just War, I have dis covered that there is nobody who is botha saint and a doctor of the Church who holds the pacifist position. doctors of the Church, includingAugus tine, follow St. Ambrose, who, in his book, De Officiis Ministrorum ("On the Duties of PublicOfficials"), argued that it is one thing for an individual, in the pursuit of sanctity and self-sacrifice, notto resis t violence and willingly become the victim of it; it is quite another for an individual to invokeChristian love of peace as an excuse to stand by and let innocent people be harmed by aggressors.In other words, for the sake of testifying to higher spiritual perfection, I may be called to offer myselfas a victim of violence, but it would be unjus t and cowardly for me to offer up the welfare of others forwhom I am respons ible (as is a parent or a civic leader) to those who would harm them. To do so isto pervert the Christian principle of peace-making into something dishonorable. 7 Just War is a

subject on which Augustine was mentored by Ambros e. In turn, Augustine has mentoredgenerations of conscientious Christians on the issue.8

Accordingly, it is unfair for O'Donnell to remark that Augus tine's account of history leaves "the humanparticipants indis tinctly swarming together in a confusing world and left to bicker until the end oftime." (ANB, 307) Augustine's ethics of Jus t War is precisely his attempt to mitigate that state ofaffairs.

Secondly, there are reasons agains t the view that Scripture prescribes pacifism. Jesus seemed toallow the poss ibility that force, but not violence, could be used in a moral way. (On this distinction,violence, the unjus t use of force, is wrong; however, the use of force, under certain circums tances,may be morally permiss ible.) His words to the Centurion (Luke 7:110, which give him a perfect

opportunity to condemn all war on principle) indicate the moral permis sibility of being a soldier, notto mention Jesus' threat of force to run the money-changers out of the temple. Peter's meal at thehome of the centurion, Cornelius (Acts 10), shows a willingness to break bread with his host, not adesire to condemn him. To the soldiers who sought his advice, John the Baptist told them to restrainfrom certain activities within their m ilitary service, especial ly that they do not use violence to plunder


8/14



or steal and that they be content with their wages. He did not tell them that being a soldier in the firstplace is among the things they ought not to choose. While our contemporaries often regard pacifismas obligatory for Christian life, only a handful of Christians espoused it until the late Middle Ages.9

Love of peace ought not to nullify comm on sense. Gandhi himself wrote:

Even mans laughter may be necess ary in certain cases. Suppose a man runs amuck andgoes furiously about sword in hand, and killing anyone that comes in his way, and no onedares to capture him al ive. Anyone who dispatches this lunatic will earn the gratitude of thecommunity and be regarded as a benevolent man.10

These kinds of comments O'Donnell's biography should also take into account. To O'Donnell'scredit, he does attempt to nuance the discuss ion with reference to some of Augustine's remarks onpeace. (ANB, 259) Still, the subject of just war in Augustine cries out for more treatment thanO'Donnell's biography gives it.

Saint Augustine: Polemicist and Artificer of Catholicism

Fascinating passages occur in this biography dealing with Augustine's polemics, especially hisambivalence over Manichaeism and his debate with Donatism. On these subjects Augustine wroteextensively. O'Donnell's reaction to Augustine on these themes makes it clear that he does not

share Augustine's view of Christianity. Alternatively, O'Donnell prefers a view of Christianity that Iwould label "gnostic." This is a fashionable preference. Knowing this, O'Donnell seems more willingto presuppose this worldview than to actually argue for it. He assumes, probably with good reason,that many of his readers would prefer a gnostic conception of Christianity, a conception which is notAugus tine's."Gnosticism" can mean many things. In the past, it comm only signified that, if one could but discoverhis or her true self, one would realize he or she is divine. In a compelling article, "A New Gnosticism:An Old Threat to the Church," Timothy Luke Johnson argues that today gnos ticism shows up as acombination of this belief about the self with a kind of religious universalism.11 An enlightened mindknows (recall the Greek, gnosis) that salvation can be s ought and attained in any religion. In keepingwith this attitude, today's genuine Christian ought to regard his or her religion as just oneinterpretation of the divine and just one of many ways to salvation.

Exclusivists (those who bel ieve salvation exists only through Christianity) like Augustine are party-poopers who have soured Christianity, turning it from open pluralis m to narrow particularism.Augus tine's authority worked this i ll effect by reducing Christianity (1) to the only way of salvation, (2)to a body of doctrine, called "orthodoxy," that rejects a priorialternative interpretations of Christianbelief and experience (principally, interpretations that disagree with Augustine's), and (3) to a chronicstate of doubt and anxiety about our spiritual des tinies, so that we fail to find divinity within ourselves.All these failures O'Donnell lays on Augustine's doors tep. In his chapter "Augus tine and the Inventionof Christianity," O'Donnell argues that Augustine took a fledgling faith, one that was the model ofdiversity and that had the potential to liberate us from our fears and anxieties, and turned it into anonerous worldview. Augustine worked "obses sively, and dangerous ly . . . to advance the cause of hissect against that of the majority." (ANB, 14)

Augus tine's s o-called "theological maturation" toward "true,"particularreligion could be interpretedas a kind of regress ion. To protest this so-called "maturation" and to show s olidarity with diversecreeds, O'Donnell refuses to use "God" in the uppercase.

Augus tine's world s till knew lots of different kinds of gods, and ardent devotees of any one ofthem knew perfectly well what the competition was like and perhaps even sampled otherreligious products from time to time. Only the highest-minded had any idea of the identity of asingle divine principle crossing all religions. Augustine was not so high-minded . . . . (Byleaving the word "god" in lowercase, I hope to remind readers of this danger throughout thisbook). (ANB, 7)

If one escapes this implicit gnosticism, one can speak on Augustine's behalf, defending therequirements of Christianity agains t an uncritical universal ism. I say "uncritical" because Augustinecertainly was a universal ist in the sense that he was Catholic, a word taken from the Greek(katholon), meaning universal. St. Augustine enthusiastically supported and advanced St. Ignatius ofAntioch's vis ion of the Chris tian Church as "catholic." This fact O'Donnel l himself recognizes:


9/14



To be "catholic" for Augustine meant to be in communion with people he had never seen,people who lived across s eas one would never dare to cross . The idea was not original withAugus tine . . . . But what an idea it was. The Chris tianities of Augus tine's tim e had an intuitionof universal ity, an idea that they could claim to be true for all places and all times ."Catholicism" in the Latin west made that intuition concrete, and by 600 that notion of"catholicism" had undoubtedly prevailed. (ANB, 313)

"Catholic" means desire for a universal, but distinctly Christian, communion. Where Augustine wasnot universal is t (and on this m atter, the Catholic Church has agreed with him) is in the belief thatsalvation can be achieved outside Christian faith. That is to say, Augustine is not a pluralis t onsalvation: salvation is achieved through Jesus Christ alone. "No one comes to the Father exceptthrough me" (John 14:6). Salvation through diverse faithsa view I have called "gnostic," followingTimothy Luke Johnsonwas certainly not acceptable to Augustine. To the gnos tics

Christianity is . . . part of a more universal scheme of revelation and s alvation. What is truewithin it is universally available, with or without Jesus, for it is spirit. What is particular aboutJesus is false, for the particular is always material. In a very real sens e, Gnosticism was anargument for spirituality over religion.12

On issues not related to salvation, there could be truth and goodness in other faiths, Augustinesurely would admit. But the truths of non-Christian faiths could not include teachings about salvation.Nor could a Chris tian consis tently accept non- Christian beliefs that contradicted Chris tianteachings, what Johnson refers to above as "revelation." Hence, logic would force Augustine to rejectgnostic universalism (or pluralism) becaus e it believes (1) that salvation can come through any faithor interpretation of faith without Jesus , and (2) that doctrinal disagreements are not significant.

One may not like that this is Augustine's view. One may, like O'Donnell, prefer pluralism. But it iswrong to sugges t that Augustine arbitrarily particularized and dis criminated against versions ofChristianity he did not like. Augustine had reasons for separating "orthodox" Christianity fromalternative creeds and interpretations, interpretations he would regard as troubling. One may or maynot accept his reasons, but he s incerely advanced them, and wrote and wrote about them. O'Donnell

sometimes engages Augustine's arguments with some thoroughness, as in the case of hisinteresting treatment of traducianism and original s in. (ANB, 299) But even here O'Donnell does n'tconsider how later scholastics will follow Augustine's lead, amend his position, and provide a moreconvincing solution.

Too often O'Donnell asserts what he thinks Augustine ought to believe without recognizing whyAugus tine may be reluctant to believe it. Cons ider his treatment of Manichaeis m, the sect (foundedby the third century Persian, Mani) to which Augustine belonged in youth, which holds a dualis m ofspirit and matter, teaching the release of the spirit from m atter by heroic and ascetic efforts.Augus tine would have grounds to disagree when O'Donnel l says: "They [the Manichees] wereoutlaws to Christians, but Christians in some sense they certainly were. They shared ideas thathave been attributed variously to the Gnostics of Egypt, the Zoroastrians of Persia, and to Mani's

native Mesopotamia itself." (ANB, 39)

Augus tine would object, arguing that to expand Chris tianity to accomm odate such views turns theChristian faith into something incoherent and doctrinally anarchical. In other words, the pluralis tinterpretation of Christianity requires justification. Augustine argues that Christianity consis ts in anon-negotiable core of doctrines. One cannot abolish or ignore these doctrines jus t to satisfy theclimate of opinion that religion ought to be universal ist. Augustine spent his life's work as atheologian arguing that Christianity is not so indefinite as to embrace anything. He didn't "invent"Christianity, he argued for it. He convinced others by his arguments. One may not like hisconclusions; one may disagree with his arguments. But when those arguments are assessed, onesees why Augustine makes his case, a case one has to take seriously.

Consider again O'Donnell's remark above, referring to "the Gnostics of Egypt, the Zoroastrians ofPersia, and to Mani." (ANB, 39) To these creeds , Augustine would reply concisely: (1) gnosticismdoes not account for the infinite gulf between Creator and creature, a gulf only bridged by divinegrace. The gnostic bridges the gulf by making the creature divine, which the gnostic votary discoversin gnosis. (2) Zoroastrianis m errs by making the diabolical a co-eternal principle with God. There can


10/14



be only one infinite being; hence there is only one deity. Zoroastrian dualism, making the evil-deityequivalent in power to God, is unconvincing. (3) Manichaeism fails to grasp that evil can be realwithout being a substantial thing. Evil is a privation, not a thing, but a disorder or deficiency within athing. Things, substantial entities, are created by God. Hence, they are good. This distinctionpreserves the significance of evil in the human condition (allowing us to make sens e of Old andNew Testament) but avoids the dire theological consequences of Manichaeism. Moreover,Manichaeism is thrice problematic, since, as O'Donnell hims elf admits in the above quotation, itshares the claims of the gnostics and the Zoroastrians as well.

At any rate, this kind of argumentation reflects Augustine's approach to alternative interpretations ofChristianity. It's not whether one wants to be pluralistic, but whether pluralism can conform toChristian truth. It may be that to some people Chris tianity would be a s weeter, gentler, and lessdemanding religion if Augustine "hadn't mes sed things up." But Augustine is a philosopher; he'staking the argument to whatever conclusion i t leads.

O'Donnell faults him because he "insis ts that his way and his way alone shall prevail." (ANB, 4) ButAugus tine's "insistence" is a philosophical one, which removes arbitrariness from his polemicalwork. This is one of the most serious oversights in O'Donnell's book. The word "insis ts" may meanan emotional demand that another accept one's views, regardless of the rational basis for one'sviews. This seem s to be the way O'Donnell unders tands the verb. But this use of "insis ts" is notAugus tine's. In spite of the fact that Augus tine's philosophy is very rhetorical, he is stil l too good a

philosopher to be tarred with that brush. It is fairer and more in keeping with Augustine's writings thathe "insis ts" on his viewpoints over others because he believes he can vindicate them by reason andevidence. This is a judicious and moral insistence.

Moreover, it is logically compulsory. If som eone's views are justified, it follows that his views aremore reasonable than the views of those who contradict him. It is a matter of logic, of consis tency. Ifsomeone has attained the truth, it follows that he must hold that it is not jus t true for him but foranother rational mind. If reason and evidence objectivelypersuade, they persuade all rationalminds.

Furthermore, for Augustine, truth is ultimately anchored in divine il lumination; it exists eternally in themind of God. In light of this, a rational m ind must ins ist on the truth of his views for others, if he

believes they are really defensible. Others may disagree, but he cannot say their disagreementconsis ts of a truth that is equivalent to his unders tanding of the truth. To think of such equivalence iscontradictory. They may disagree, fair enough, but they mus t bear the burden to prove him wrong.They cannot hide behind plural is tic slogans to absolve themselves of that debate.

Accordingly, adherence to one's position, combined with polemics and jus tification, are not s igns ofa flawed character aiming to "impose one's views" on others. Such a person is just express ing thelogical requirements of justification. Once a person has justified a judgment of truth, logic requiresthat those who dis agree with him or her have mistaken views. This is not a matter of being narrow-minded or of being a bully. This is the nature of philosophical-theological debate, classicallyunderstood. It is a matter of the logic of truth as it applies to the consequences of making andjus tifying truth-claims.

One might wish that Augustine had a different, say, postmodern, relativist, subjective view of truth, aview of truth that O'Donnell seem s to prefer. But Augustine did not subs cribe to such a view of truth.He wrote a book, Contra Academicos ("Against the Academic Skeptics"), to overturn suchskepticism. By "truth" he meant what most ancient thinkers meant. Indeed, he meant by "truth" whatmos t people always mean: the agreement of our intellectual judgments with the facts, with what isthe case, even if for Augustine, in this fallen world, such truth in the end is secured only by God'sgrace.

To be saddened that this is Augustine's view, and to judge him morally because it is ancient andobjective, not postmodern and relativist, is anachronis tic and unfair. It is anachronistic in that itobscures Augustine's objective conception of truth anchored in reason and divine illumination, unfair

in that it takes what are natural logical outcomes of his argument and transforms them intodishonorable motives in debate.

Similarly, Augustine takes up his polemic with the Donatists and Pelagius . With the former,Augus tine dis puted whether sanctity was necessary for the administration of sacram ents and forchurch membership. With the latter, he disputed whether our free will s aves us . O'Donnell thinks that


11/14



Christendom would have been a happier place (1) if Augustine had followed his m other's originalreligious affiliation with the Donatists, and (2) if he had lis tened to Pelagius. Instead, he returnedfrom Europe a "belligerent Caecilianist," (the North African sect that took him as its bis hop), andbattled Pelagius for a less comfortable, more worrisom e kind of Christianity. Whether Christendomwould be "happier" is an interesting ques tion of "what if" history. But Augustine would remind us thatit's not about what we want. It's about what God wants and what doctrine requires. PerhapsChristendom would be happier but at what price?

Besides , one has to be careful when the word "happiness " (beatitudo, in Augustine's lexicon) is

being tossed about. Many church fathers, doctors of the church, and saints have argued thatChristianity is not about happiness in the commonly accepted sense of the term. Our ordinaryconception of happiness is too shallow to adapt to the supernatural depths of Christian happiness.Yet it is this baser sens e of the word, to be "comfortable" or "worry-free," that O'Donnellpresupposes. This coarser sense of the word lends easily to the therapeutic view of happiness,freedom from fear and anxiety, that O'Donnell anachronistically uses as his standard to criticize, ifnot condemn, Augustine.

Augus tine, on the other hand, would disabus e us of such a casual definition, reminding us that theultimate standard of happiness is the beatific vision. Happiness in this life is always qualified by sin,challenge, and doubt. Even St. Thomas Aquinas , who had a more optimis tic view of happiness inthis li fe than Augustine, recognized that our earthly happines s is imperfect because i t consists of

goods that can be lost at any mom ent. This real ism about happiness may be disagreeable, but it isnevertheless entailed, Augustine believes, by Chris tian truth. Additionally, how we feel abouthappiness, even which definition of happiness we prefer, is bes ide the point where doctrinaldisputes are concerned.

Having said this, I should add that some of Augustine's own admirers, such as the above-mentioned Thomas Aquinas, might disagree with him about the extent to which the Fall hassabotaged our natural inclination to happiness. But this is a debate about human ends that must betaken up in full before one dismis ses Augustine's account of the human condition, which account iscrucial to his treatment of Donatism and Pelagianis m. It is not enough to do what O'Donnell does :dismiss Augustine's view of happiness because it is unpalatable to contemporary tastes fortherapeutic happiness.

Once these observations are in place, then one can better appreciate, even if one in the enddisagrees with him, why Augustine argues against Donatism and Pelagianism. One can betterunderstand why Augustine is so concerned with original s in, infant baptism , and problems of freewill, salvation, and Predestination. If we have better solutions than Augustine to these problems,we're obligated to show why. We cannot toss his theology aside because we have an agenda.

The Perennial Augustine

Among the many achievements of O'Donnel l's biography is the mess age that, whether we likeAugus tine or not, we live in a world of his making. Augus tine speaks to modern peoples becaus etheir civilization continues to work out, or perhaps work away at, his assumptions, first principles,

and beliefs. O'Donnell address es this fact in two interesting closing chapters: chapter 11,"Augustine The Theologians," and chapter 12, "Who Was Augustine?" Augustine fashioned anAugus tinian world. We live in that world, or at least, the vestiges of that world. That is why he still hasthe power to move us across the centuries.In a compelling s tudy, Peter A. Redpath argues that modern culture is "secularizedAugus tinianism."13 Two hallmarks of modern thought are (1) that the universe is contingent and (2)that the knower must transcend the interior limits of consciousness, if he or she is to achieve realknowledge. These are foundational to Augustine's worldview as well. God is the sine qua non inAugus tine's ontology and epistemology. God provides stabili ty in a created or contingent, mutableworld. God supplies knowledge s ince our own cognitive powers are too impaired by sin to assureknowledge. Sense perception and intellectual abstraction cannot function reliably so as to acquaintus wi th extramental things.

Modern thought likewise struggles with instability and skepticism. Many prominent modernphilosophers tend to be Augustinian in the way they inherit, set up, and articulate the problems ofbeing and knowledge. But they cannot enjoy Augustine's solutions. As God has become increasinglymarginalized, ignored, or even eliminated from modern worldviews, modernis ts have had to seeksolutions suitable for an atheistic worldview. As Redpath puts it, their obligatory solutions are


12/14



"secularized." Even when atheism has been avoided (for there are indeed theistic currents inmodern and postmodern thought; O'Donnell himself still rides such a current), the result is a fideisticview of religion, according to which reason has little, if any, role to play in defending religious beliefs.Religious discourse becomes noncognitive: emotive, private, and non-rational.

Modern philosophies of knowledge tend toward anti-realism, the belief that the mind does notdirectly know real, extramental things. On account of this tendency, skepticism beleaguersmodernists . There is no rescue from their skepticism because (1) they have ruled out divineillumination and (2) they have dis counted cognitive contact with actual extramental things as the

contentdetermining cause of information in the human m ind. Augustine hims elf arguably ruled outthe second s olution: reliance on extramental things. But he could resort to the former: divineillumination. For modern epis temologies, neither is regarded as a live option. Postmodernism is themalaise (or despair) that results from the recognition of the inescapability of the modernist's plight.The postmodernist is an Augustinian whose epistemic heart cannot rest. He is left with atheism,agnosticism, or fideism.

Materialist science was the modernist's great hope. But such science is compromised byskepticism, hence all the nois e about constructivism today (even science is a "cultural" constructionto the postmodernists ). The contents of the mind irreducibly shape knowledge by virtue of their beingshaped by psychology or language or econom ics or culture.

Even if postmodern minds weren't so compromised, the postmodern world would never give upknowledge. The epistemological compromises are compounded by ontology. The postmodernist'sepistemic heart cannot rest; nor can its ontological yearning find satis faction. The universe isradically contingent, where all that exists is matter in motion. In such a world, there are not abidingobjects to give us genuine knowledge. It is a world that Sartre described as "gelatinous sli ther."Ironically, postmodernis ts come full circle back to Plato's time. They, as did he, have to confrontHeraclitus's worldview. O'Donnell is operating in this worldview (although he has pursued thefideist's option), trying to assay Augustine in its light. It is an interes ting thought experiment, if nothingelse.

In the last chapter of his book, O'Donnell reflects on Augustine's influence and speculates in afashion reminiscent of Sigmund Freud. In Future of an Il lusion and in Civilization and Its

Discontents, Freud wonders about the future of the West once atheism is the consensus . Oncepeople become sufficiently enlightened to recognize what Freud recognizes, that there is no God,civilization as we have known i t will change. Freud puzzles and even worries over these inevitableconsequences. O'Donnell has a sim ilar reverie in his closing chapters, although it concern thehuman person, not God (as I stated, O'Donnell applies the fideis t's option).

Since Augustinian anthropology has underpinned Western civilization, does the future of civilizationas we know it hinge on the fate of Augustine's philos ophy of the human person? Will it be that asAugus tine's Chris tian anthropology goes , so goes his civilization? Of course, his philosophy of thehuman person is his philosophy of soul. "Augustine writes and worries at length about the nature ofthe human soul because that soul is central to his understanding of himself, of humankind, andindeed of his god. If 'heart' was always metaphor, 'soul' was regularly insis ted on as standing for

something quite real." (ANB, 326)

O'Donnell s ees that it is on Augustine's view of the soul that those who envis ion a new phi losophy ofthe human pers on and a new s ociety and politics that follow upon it engage in a great debate. "If hisview of the human person and his narrative account of the inner l ife is supplanted by better science,then all that he has been to centuries of devout and not so devout heirs could crumble very quicklyinto irrelevance." (ANB, 327) In practice, this "better science" goes by the name "cognitive science." Inshort, it is the attempt to reduce the human person to an organic machine. This is an anthropologythat conforms to the physicalist monism of the scientific materialis t's worldview. O'Donnell is correctto draw our attention to it and to indicate that Augustine's philos ophy is still influential and at iss ue.His philosophy of soul is on trial in the scientific laboratory and in the philosopher's lecture hall.

But if there is no soul? If there is no soul substitute called "mind" or "personal ity"?Contemporary cognitive science challenges our deepest western assumptions about humanbeings and what they are. Attempt after attempt to locate a mental or s piritual unity in someconvincing relation with the brain and body of a mortal human fails , fails increasingly often inour times , to be replaced by a series of competing hypotheses about the loosely coupled


13/14



functioning of multiple systems distributed throughout the body. (ANB, 32627)

Yet it must be said that the death of Augustine's philosophy of soul is greatly exaggerated. Cognitivescience is not the threat O'Donnell thinks i t is. Once one engages the arguments, cognitive scienceis more a body of assertions and hypotheses than evidences and proofs. We are too prone to beintimidated by schools of thought that employ the nomenclature of "pioneering science." As JohnSearle says, an idea is likely to become a social movement if it excites the young and has funding.Cognitive science fits the bil l. That does not mean that Augustine's philos ophy of soul has lost or willlose the argument. We need Christian philosophers still brave enough to engage that demanding

debate.14

Summary and Conclusions

One time more I should say what I said. O'Donnell has written a clever, readable, enjoyablebiography, replete with many keen insights into the place and times of Augustine. He also has agrasp of the central principles of Augustine's theology and philosophy. However, his insufficientexploration of these principles causes him to misunderstand a drive force both in Augustine'spersonality and his character: the thirst for truth. Because of this oversight, he exaggerates othermotives in Augustine's l ife and work. In the end, the fun of his biography is at the expense of thecharacter of St. Augustine.After I finished and put down the book, I believed that Augus tine had been the victim of a mugging. I

resented the assault, because I had been mugged too. When O'Donnell attacks Augustine andcondemns his version of Christian faith, he is attacking me. When he attacks AugustinianCatholicism , he is attacking actual and would-be devout Catholics. Speaking of Augustine's God(that is , "god"), O'Donnell remarks with a hint of sarcasm:

His god is with us still. Lis ten attentively to people talking about "god" (or God or G-d or Allah)and observe how remarkably predictable the divine has become across religious traditions.The late-antique Christian mlange of biblical and Platonic qualities is perhaps the mostpowerful and las ting cultural creation in his tory. He may have died a hundred or more yearsago, but he is with us still, the undead deity for whom the zealots of many cultures compete.The jury is still out on the profit/loss ass ess ment of this god's impact on history. (ANB, 329)

In this respect, O'Donnell's biography reminds me of the work of Garry Wills, although Wills has amore congenial interpretation of Augustine. However, with regard to the church that came afterAugus tine, Wills and O'Donnell seem to agree: it is not authentic Christianity. Their difference lies inthe fact that O'Donnell blam es Augustine more for the failure of the Church than does Wills . But mypoint is that they ought not be dis ingenuous about whom they criticize when they condemn theChurch. Since the Church has members , when they imply that the Church is benighted, aren't theysaying that its members are backward too? Wills seem s to think he is toppling over only hierarchicalelites when he condem ns the Catholic Church. But he is also attacking the work of saints wholabored their lifetimes to deepen and explicate Catholic truth and wisdom. He forgets, as doesO'Donnell, that indirectly he is attacking flesh-and-blood Catholics who believe orthodox traditionsabout the Church and its history (many of which Augustine encouraged and validated), living souls

who take seriously a conception of the faith he regards as a counterfeit. By this comparison,O'Donnell's biography appears mean-spirited.

In his book The New Anti-Catholicism , Philip Jenkins has addressed critics of this kind. WhileO'Donnell's attack is not as explicit, his judgments about Augustine imply corresponding doubtsabout the church he advanced. Accordingly, I would as sociate him with critics of such a kind. Alongwith Wills, Jenkins includes James Carroll and John Cornwell among that ilk.

Another problem with Wills 's recent books is the Question of whom he is actually attacking.Throughout their ass aults on Church teaching, Wills , Carroll, and Cornwell all speak in termsof the "the Popes" or "the Vatican" and the wrongs that these elevated authorities havecommitted. This is rhetorically necess ary if they are to avoid an overt attack against thebeliefs and practice of ordinary Catholics, an assault that would certainly appear as sim plebigotry. Instead, they claim to be attacking papalism, Rom e, or the Vatican, but notCatholicism as such. The impression given is that through the centuries, Catholicism hasbeen shaped by orders from above, in which ordinary believers exercised only a passive role.In the modern context, it is almost as i f mains tream Catholicism is a bizarre, cult-like heresy


14/14


invented personally by John Paul II, and which nobody really believes in outside a narrowcircle of sycophants. For Wills , Carroll, and the rest, authentic Catholicism is the skepticalliberal variety of Faith Lite favored by American elites.15

O'Donnell's Augustine is not congenial to these elites. His portrait of Augustine's character oftencontains great insight but it is sometimes unfair and lacks objectivity. He mounts incrim ination ontop of speculation. His biography is partly driven by agenda and reproach. His agenda cons ists inseveral postmodern assumptions about historical criticism and the nature of enlightened religionand culture. This vision of religion and culture I have labeled "gnostic." These ass umptions are more

controversial than O'Donnell imagines. It is true that they are fashionable. But, as O'Donnell hims elfadmits, Augustine will be read after these fashions are forgotten. If I may redirect Gilson's famousquip from Aquinas to the Bishop of Hippo: Augustine will s urvive to bury undertakers.

Curtis L. HancockRockhurst University

NOTES

1. Pierre-Marie Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronolgieaugustinienne, Collection destudes Augustiniennes . Srie Antiquite 168, Institut d' etudes Augustiniennes , 2000.

2. Divjak Letters: Discovered 1975 by Johannes Divjak in the Bibliothque Municipale of Marseille.Oeuvres de Saint Augustine 46B: Lettres 1*29*, Bibliothque Augustinienne (Paris: Etudesaugustiniennes, 1987). Dolbeau Sermons: discovered 1990 by Francois Dolbeau ion theStadtbibliothek of Mainz.Augustin d' Hippone: Vingt-six Sermons au Peuple d'Afrique, ed.Francois Dolbeau (Paris: Institut d'tudes augus tiniennes, 1996).

3. G. W. Bowers ock, The New York Times, July 31, 2005.4. Irving Copi , Introduction to Logic, fourth edition (New York: Macmil lan Publishing Co., 1972), 88.5. G. K. Ches terton, Orthodoxy(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959), 6061.6. The relationship of philosophy to rhetoric in Hellenis tic and early Christian times has been

express ed clearly by Peter Redpath, Wisdom's Odyssey: From Philosophy to TranscendentalSophistry(Ams terdam: Editions Rodopi, 1997), 3162.

7. Ambrose, De officiis ministrorum, I, 36, 179.8. Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria, and Hugo Grotius (jus t to name a few) are all heavily

influenced by Augustine on Jus t War. For a helpful overview of this influence, see WilfredLaCroix, S.J., Just War and International Ethics (Washington, D.C.: University of America Press,1990). Also consult Darrell Cole, When God Says War Is Right(Colorado Springs, CO:Waterbrook Press, 2002.

9. Wilfred LaCroix, S.J., Just War and International Ethics, 20.10. Mahatma Gandhi, Young India, November 1926; quoted in Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and

Political Thought of MahatmaGandhi(New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), 207.11. Timothy Luke Johnson, "A New Gnosticism: An Old Threat to the Church," Commonweal,

November 5, 2004, 2831.12. Timothy Luke Johnson, "A New Gnosticism ," 29.13. Peter Redpath, The Masquerade of the Dream Walkers (Ams terdam: Editions Rodopi, 1998), 1

32.

14. Examples of Chris tian thinkers who criticize cognitive science are: Robert Geis, PersonalExistence After Death: ReductionistCircularities and the Evidence (Peru, IL: Sherwood Sugden& Co., 1995); David Brane, The Human Person: Animal and Sprit(South Bend, IN: University ofNotre Dame Press , 1992); Curtis Hancock and Brendan Sweetman, Truth and Religious Belief(Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1998).

15. Philip Jenkins, The New Anti-Catholicism: The Last AcceptablePrejudice (New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 2003), 20304. See also Edward T. Oakes, S.J., "A Jesus Just for Me," (areview of Wills's What Jesus Meant) First Things, March 2006, 4548.

Intercollegiate Studies Institute 3901 Centerville Rd. Wilmington, Delaw are 19807 w w w .isi.org

Please direct all inquiries regarding First Principles to [email protected].
mailto:[email protected]://home.isi.org/

Date post:	14-Apr-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	emmanuel-gleveau
View:	220 times
Download:	1 times

Augustine Goes Postmodern

Documents