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Augustine's Teaching on Human Nature Summary for A-Level Christian Thought
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Augustine's teaching on human natureWill The part of human nature that makes free choices
Sin Disobeying the will and commands of God
Grace God’s free and underserved love for humanity. Epitomised in the sacrifice of
Jesus
The Fall When Adam and Eve disobeyed God and ate the fruit from the forbidden tree
in the Garden of Eden
Neoplatonism Philosophical thinking arising from Plato
Redeemed ‘Saved’ from sin by the sacrifice of Christ
Concordia Human friendship
Cupiditas Selfish love
Caritas Generous love; love for others; the Latin equivalent of the Greek word agape
Concupiscence Uncontrollable desire for physical pleasures and material things
Ecclesia Heavenly society, in contrast to human society
Summum bonum The highest, most supreme good
The Bible portrays humanity as made by God for the purposes of ruling over the created world and
looking after it as stewards. However, the Genesis stories show that human free will gives the
capacity to sin and leads people to rebel against God and how this rebellion has led to a state of sin.
The state of sin brought by Adam and Eve broke the relationship that we could have had with God.
Through Christ, people can be saved from sin by the grace of God.
Augustine (354-430) was born in North Africa which was then part of the Roman Empire. His mother
was a devout Christian but his father was hostile towards the religion. He received an education and
his talents attracted the attention of patrons, so he moved to Carthage, then Rome, then Milan.
Augustine was a Manichee missionary for a time, who believed that people have two different souls;
one pulls the person into wrongdoing whereas the other wants to do good. Manichees taught that the
human soul is naturally inclined towards the good but does bad because of bodily appetites. He was
also interested in Plato’s ideas and was influenced by Neoplatonism. Neoplatonism disagreed with the
Manichees that there were two distinct realms of good and evil, instead there was only the Form of
the Good which people could come to understand through reflection. This led Augustine to disagree
with the Manichees and come to the conclusion that evil did not exist, it was simply a lack of good. He
eventually also came to disagree with Platonic ideas as he did not think that seeking a happy,
reasonably virtuous life was quite enough of a goal for human existence and he was also doubtful that
the human intellect was able to understand the nature of goodness on its own.
He eventually heard the preaching of St Ambrose and it renewed his interest in Christianity as a
possible answer to the search of certain truth. In particular, Paul’s letters to the Romans drew
Augustine to the conclusion that humans could not find this truth through their reason alone, but they
needed the grace of God and needed to turn away from bodily pleasures in order to concentrate on
the spiritual life. Augustine converted to Christianity when he was 32 and later became a priest then a
bishop. Before converting, he lived with a mistress and had a child with her, living as if they were a
family, but afterwards, his mother insisted that he marry someone else which was painful for everyone
involved. Even though he enjoyed the freedoms of fine living and sexual relationships, he became
convinced later in life that such freedoms were a barrier to spirituality and others should be restricted
from them. Also, he did not share Emperor Constantine’s religious tolerance once in a position of
power; he ordered the destruction of non-Christian places of worship and persecuted heretics –
ironically, most of these heretics are only remembered today because Augustine wrote so thoroughly
about them.
In ‘Confessions’ he writes about his life and the society that he lived in. He details his own
development as a thinker and as a Christian; reflecting on his pre-Christian life and habits. In
expressing repentance for past wrongs, reflecting on them and resolving to change through the grace
of God, Augustine laid the groundwork for Confession in the Catholic Church.
, Augustine’s teaching on human nature, the Fall and Original Sin
Is there a distinctively human nature? Is there a reason why we are here and if so, what is that
reason? Are we fundamentally good or evil or morally neutral beings? These are some of the
questions that Augustine pondered on throughout his life and he believed that answers could be found
in the teachings of the Bible and the Church.
Augustine’s ideas about human nature were all about the effects of the Fall on the human relationship
with God. For Augustine, the moment when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God was the turning
point for the whole of creation. According to Christianity, humanity is to be understood primarily in
terms of the human relationship with God. People are created by God; they are ‘fallen’ in nature; and
can be redeemed. Christianity teaches that humans were deliberately created by God, and are ‘made
in his image’ in order to rule over the earth. God’s purpose for humanity, therefore, is stewardship.
Christian teaching usually interprets ‘imago Dei’ to mean that people share something of the nature of
God, in that they have rationality, relationality, freedom and a moral nature. People are self-aware and
have freedom of choice; they also have the capacity for loving relationships. Perhaps there is also an
implicit idea that all people are equal, because they all share this aspect of being made in the image
of God.
In the second Genesis creation story, God creates a man from the dust on the ground, showing that
although people might have a special place in the universe, they are at the same time part of the
natural, physical world. God animates the man by breathing into his nostrils, with a life-giving force.
Once humanity is made, there are rules to follow: be stewards of the earth, be fruitful and multiply and
do not eat from the Tree of Knowledge. It is clear that people have not been programmed like
machine to behave in a way that God has fixed in them, but need to be told what is expected. They
have the potential to be obedient, but also the potential to disobey; they have free choices.
Humanity as fallen
Whether Christians believe that Adam and Eve were real people or whether they believe that the story
is mythical, it is a central belief that humanity is inclined to sin. Eve was tempted by the serpent to eat
the fruit; the serpent told her that she need not listen to God’s warnings, and she made the free choice
to give in to temptation. She then encouraged Adam to suit and so they both disobeyed God. This has
led some to believe that women are more likely to sin than men and sometimes, women are seen to
be inclined to lead men into wrongdoing.
As a result of the Fall, the serpent was made to crawl on its belly, a feeling of opposition was placed
between Adam and Eve, Eve was given the pain of childbirth, Adam was made to work hard for a
living and both lost their immortality. In the Garden, they can hear God ‘walking in the cool of the day’,
demonstrating that they were companions of God, but afterwards, they were banished where they can
no longer readily see God and where there is a barrier between them and God, guarded by angels
with swords. Although the Bible does not say much about what humans were like before the Fall,
Augustine used the Bible to create an idea of what they must have been like.
Human nature and will before and after the Fall
Augustine thought that, before the Fall, Adam and Eve must have lived in a spirit of loving friendship,
friends both with each other and with God. God had made them exactly the way he wanted to, and so
in Augustine’s view, they must have been in a ‘state of perfection’, living without sin in the way that
God had planned people to live. As God commanded to be ‘fruitful and multiply’, they must have had
a sexual relationship, but it would not have been governed by lust, because lust was part of the
punishment given to Eve after the Fall, so it must not have been present beforehand. After they sin,
they also realise that they are naked, so before the Fall they must have lived comfortably, without
being ashamed.
Augustine believed that the two things that are essential for humans was a healthy life and friendship;
he suggested that we are naturally sociable creatures and friendship is the highest form of that
sociable nature. He wrote of how friends can increase each other’s happiness and lessen each
other’s sadness, of how friends love each other for their own sakes and not for any ulterior motive. He
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