The Tranquillity of Order
“It is an insult to God, an accusation of the most absurd barbarity, to venture to say that he formed all the generations of mankind in order to torture them with eternal punishment, on the ground that their first ancestor ate a fruit in a garden…. (and) according to ….Genesis Adam lived for 930 years after his criminal lunch…. The Jews knew no more about Original Sin than about the ceremonies of the Chinese; and though theologians claim to find in Scripture whatever takes their fancy it is clear that no reasonable theologian could find this amazing doctrine therein…The truth is that St Augustine was the first to propound this strange idea, worthy of the warm and romantic imagination of an African who was both debauched and repentant, Manichaean and Christian,….who spent his whole life contradicting himself…..”
Thus did Voltaire write of St Augustine of Hippo in his entry under the heading. “Original Sin” in his great work known as the Philosophical Dictionary of 1767).
This ferocious repudiation of the great saint may seem rather jarring given the vast esteem in which Augustine is normally held and his status as a Doctor of the Church. Yet negative judgements are not entirely unknown, even among Christian writers, as the contention of Thomas Allin illustrates in his The Augustinian Revolution in Theology where he roundly judged that “This great man’s influence extended for evil, as his writings show, over practically the whole field of human activity,…”
Having recently visited the remains of Carthage in Tunis, the ancient city most associated with St Augustine and just celebrated his Feast Day this very week, such jarring sentiments can perhaps serve to make us dwell on why Augustine is so important.
Exploring this, will make it clear just why we should in fact expect that his teachings to the modern mind could only give offence.
In an age when, in the words of the late Professor Rowan Greer, “We are all Pelagians now”, we do well to remember that the notion of Predestination usually deemed peculiar to Calvin had its roots in Augustine. At its heart, his thought on this point stands to correct several errors. First, the idea that it is simply and entirely up to us whether we respond to God’s grace or not, with the consequence that life is seen as akin to an obstacle course where God in the end, wholly indifferent to every individual, awards prizes equally to all. On the other hand, are we really to suppose God’s love is something we can frustrate, as we descend into error, leaving God like so many modern parents merely to undertake ineffectual hand wringing in response?
Then again we have much to ponder in what Augustine had to say about the relations between the two worlds with which Christianity deals, namely that of God and man.
Whatever their religious allegiance, and whatever their standing in the eyes of God, all alike must seek that harmony of social relations and that stability of living conditions, without which life would descend into chaos. To this desirable state of affairs Augustine gives the simple name of “peace”, which he describes thus:
Peace between men is an ordered concord; the peace of a household is the ordered agreement about commanding and obeying among those living together. The peace of a city is the ordered agreement about commanding and obeying among fellow citizens…The peace of the whole universe is the tranquillity of order, and order is the arrangement of things equal and unequal in such a way that to each is assigned its proper place. (City of God, XIX, 13, 4-12)
These shared interests and shared values are of a kind that do not require agreement over religious belief, or even the ultimate good. And within this perspective, Augustine is able to make the case for a remarkably pragmatic position on the part of Christians faced with a secular world view that is alien and even potentially hostile. As he argues:
The earthly city which does not live from faith is in quest of an earthly peace and determines the agreement about commanding and obeying among its citizens in the same way, namely that there should be a certain compact between human wills concerning the things that pertain to this mortal life. But the heavenly city – or rather that part of it which is a stranger and sojourner in this mortal state and lives from faith – has of necessity to make use of this peace also, until this mortal condition, for which this kind of peace is essential, passes away; and therefore it leads in this earthly city the life of a sojourner in captivity.
Even though it has already received the promise of redemption and the gift of the Spirit as a pledge, it does not hesitate to conform to the laws of the earthly city by which are administered the things ordained for the support of this mortal life, the purpose being that, since this mortal condition is common to both cities, harmony may be preserved between them regarding what pertains to this condition.
(Ibid. XIX, 17, 1-25)
There is much here to ponder that is difficult, when we know (and the early Church had experienced very sharply) that the secular city may end up actively persecuting those who owe ultimate loyalty to the City of God. Nonetheless, what this points towards is the challenge of recognising that we live in the here and now in a world that is pluralist, which is to say a world with multiple and contending “codes of conduct”. Yet, as Christians, we are also committed to denying relativism. And here it is worth pointing out that, even those who pride themselves as liberal secularists above all, do well to remember that they are in a like position, for it is possible to be liberal or a pluralist, but not both.
What Augustine recognised and brought to bear at this point was a very radical claim, namely that we as Christians can never merely be engaged pragmatically with this world. As true citizens of the heavenly City of God, while we value peace on earth no less than the citizens of the earthly city, we do so for a different motive – not as part of the highest good, but simply a practical need during our earthly pilgrimage. Always above such considerations or practical expediency stands the gospel promise of the eschaton – of the return of Christ in glory, and the general resurrection, with the crowning of all the elect, at which time alone –uniquely and fully– shall we see what it is to be in a world made good and truly redeemed as only in Christ it can be.
Augustine thought we can neither hasten nor assist the coming of the that ultimate end, nor reduce that redeemed world to any interim state of worldly progress. This at least defines the profound tension within which we as Christians are obliged wrestle within this world, as we seek to work cooperatively for the common good on the one hand, while knowing too that as Christians we uphold and look forward to a summum bonumthat transcends, and must ever stand in critique of our merely human progress in this life.
Nonetheless, the challenge of asking what a world made good and redeemed would be like is one to which we may invite all to share, without foregoing the uniquely Christian claims of Revelation, in the hope that it can provide a goal for ever greater cooperation and peace in this world, as we await the greater glory of the world to come.
The Rev. Canon Alistair Macdonald-Radcliff
Rector