Human relationships pre- and post-Fall

The issue of what it means to be human is one which has concerned philosophers and theologians for centuries.

For Augustine, human nature has been fatally damaged by sin as a result of the fall. He argues consequentially that the only hope of salvation is through the grace of God, made available to humanity in the sacrifice of Christ, for the elect, as chosen by God.

Constantine

Emperor Constantine, leader of the Roman Empire had adopted Christianity as their official religion.

This meant that people were no longer being persecuted for being Christian, but, Constantine did not enforce that all people convert to Christianity. Augustine was born into the Roman Empire and grew up in an environment of religious pluralism that had been established.

Augustine's mother

Augustine's mother was a devout Christian who encouraged him to grow in the faith. Augustine himself was not sold on the idea of Christianity, because he felt it was an unintelligent view and he was therefore more interested in the philosophical ideas of the Manicheans

The Manichees

Augustine was very taken with the ideas of the Manichees who were a group of people who believed in the dualist idea of good and evil battling each other and creating internal struggles within people.

They believed in the soul and taught that it is part of the kingdom of light whereas the trappings of the world such as attachment and greed are part of the kingdom of darkness.

Plotinus – Neoplatonism

The main thing Augustine took from this is that Plotinus seemed almost ashamed of living in a human body.

He placed huge emphasis on the world of the forms and that people would be able to understand it through study and self-reflection.

This shows Augustine that there is not a world where good and evil are fighting against each other like the Manicheans suggested, this idea gave Augustine a moment of realisation that evil is not a substance but rather an absence of good.

From here, Augustine turned back to Christianity because he didn't fully agree with either of the other ideas and then he met St Ambrose.

Relationships pre and post-fall

For Augustine, the moment when Adam and Eve chose to disobey God was the turning point for the whole of creation.

• Lust and selfish desires were prominent after the fall Augustine's ideas about human nature are all about the effects of the fall on the human relationship with God.

• Before the fall, Augustine argues that humans lived in a state of perfection. In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve are presented as living in direct contact with God, this is shown through the commands that God gives them directly such as "be fruitful and multiply". The Bible itself does not give a full account of what humans were like before the fall, but, Augustine makes his own interpretations:

• He argues that Adam and Eve must have lived in a spirit of loving friendship, friends both with each other as partners, and with God.

• God had made humans exactly as he wanted to "imago Dei" therefore they must have been in a state of perfection living without sin, as God intended.

• Augustine believed that Adam and Eve would have had a sexual relationship, in order to fulfill God's command, but, that this was love-induced and not governed by lust.

• To describe their friendship, Augustine uses the term 'concordia' which means the easy, comfortable and understanding that good friends have with one another. Augustine held firmly that humans were given free will. This is what enabled them to submit to temptation and cause the fall.

Augustine outlined two different types of love that he believed influenced human nature: cupidity and Caritas: Cupiditas (self-love) is the love of impermanent earthly things. Love of self and selfish needs. Augustine claims it is an "error of will" to follow cupiditas and people who choose this path are ignorant and often unhappy. Caritas (selfless love) is the Latin word equivalent to 'agape'. This is a generous love of others, an expression of the will of God. Caritas is displayed by following the virtues of prudence (cautiousness), fortitude (courage), temperance (self-restraint), and justice (fairness).

As a result of the fall, the sin of pride has entered the world and this causes human nature to veer towards cupiditas (selfish love) and away from Caritas (selfless love).

✔️Augustine argues that there is a kind of civil war that happens within the human spirit as the two types of love battle with each other. It could be argued that this belief is influenced by the teachings of the Manichees who believed in a good and evil spirit fighting against each other.