St. Augustine of Hippo perhaps felt that light when sitting in a garden in Milan one afternoon in 386 AD. A nearby voice beckoned him to read the Bible sitting next to him. Augustine later wrote of the experience, �I snatched the book, opened it and read�put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh in concupiscence�.I had no wish to read further�For immediately I had reached the end of this sentence it was as though my heart was filled with a light of confidence and all the shadows of my doubt were swept away. � This conversion experience was the beginning leap of faith for one of the greatest figures in Christian history.
Augustine�s thoughts influenced three major areas of Christian thought. The three themes are part of one man�s ideas and thus hold a unifying interrelation. Augustine felt that �Humanity is not able not to sin. � He felt that man could not earn salvation and that it is dependent solely on the grace of God. The other two themes rest dependent in this understanding. Augustine felt that �faith must proceed understanding. � He developed much knowledge from platonic thought. �Augustine claimed that God could surpass human weakness in the sacraments. � He felt that a priest�s authority rest not on personal virtue, but instead on proper ordination.
Augustine�s essential point lie in his views on sin and grace. His view met opposition by a British monk named Pelagius. Pelagious was a moralist who was upset with the low moral standards of Christians in Rome. He felt that they did not even care about their faults. He felt that Augustine justified their laziness by telling them that he could not do anything about his sins until God seized him. Pelagious believed that humans had the power to stop sinning. Augustine disagreed feeling that salvation was rested in the grace of God. In his eyes, if human salvation was earned the result would be pride. He stated that if one was saved by grace, one could only be grateful. Pelagius felt that �God helps those who help themselves .� Augustine felt that �God helps those who cannot help themselves .�
Both Augustine and Pelagius agreed that Humans are created good by God and in the image of God, that they are distinct from God, and yet are in relationship with God. �They both agree that the relationship has been broken by sin .� But they differ in their understandings of what this involves. The Garden
The light of the 6th day came as �The Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed�(Gen 2:7). It is noteworthy that in this statement Eden was a place implied to exist before a garden was planted in it. Eden itself seems to denote more of a bright spiritual place or existence than a physical position. The word Eden means pleasure. The earthly garden of physical substance did not make Eden they were placed or grew in it. Man�s life emerged not from the dust or earthly substance either, but later from the �breath of God�(Gen 2:7). God formed man�s body from the dust. Distinctively, �God created man in his own image�(Gen 1:27). The word create is used seven times in the Genesis account displaying a perfection and purposeful distinction from other words such as form. Augustine stated that �the soul is that which God by his breathing, or better yet by his inspiration communicated meaning to the body of man .� He had also grown in the platonic tradition of �turning away from sensual pleasures to purify the soul. �
Augustine stated that �In God�s own being there is movement, life, personal relationship, and the giving and receiving of love .�At this time man rested in this spirit in an innocence of dependence and life. The spiritual dimension of man did not exist in the flesh at this time, but rather the flesh existed in it. Man�s body was formed first. Only later was it placed in Eden and given the breath of life. Adam was bright and clear. What kept man as a member of the community of Eden was not his physical location, but his spiritual condition. It existed in faith, trust, and a root confidence in its source, God�s spirit.. �Augustine saw man as utterly dependent on God .� As the soul was dependent on the source, so the body was dependent on the soul and it was all rooted in the light through confidence and trust in God. Augustine stated, �Will is therefore an intermediate good when it cleaves to the unchangeable good. �
Eden is mentioned in other Old Testament books as �a place of extreme fertility� (Isaiah 51:21, Ez 28:13). Pictures of open flowers found in Solomon�s temple are thought to represent the Garden of Eden. These opened flowers appear to represent a unrestrained, fully blossomed life. It appears to be a representation of a community free from barriers or petals of flesh, self, or dependencies to separate it from the light of God. There was no need to circumcise, for there was no flesh restricting the communion. But there was a little hole out of Eden through which man could exit.
Adam had free will, he could choose to leave the Edenic state of grace. Augustine said that Adam had a unique freedom in which he was �able not to sin. � He began in faith and innocence. He was rested in faith and dependence. However, he had the freedom to sin. God had told Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, �for when you eat of it, you will surely die�(Gen 3:17). The devil tempted man saying, � you will not surely die.. you will be like God knowing good and evil� Gen 3:4-5). Man moved out of faith to have knowledge apart from it. He moved from faith in God to pride and faith in himself. The petals of the self closed around the flower as he separated himself from the source of his life. In guilt he hid from God. Man was banished from the garden (earth perspective). Eve was named the mother of the living and the tree of life was guarded. Within closed petals man would now die.
The Aftermath
Augustine classified mankind as �a lump of sin .� He described Adam�s freedom unique in that it was �able not to sin. � This condition was permanently affected when Adam sinned. Because of Adam, mankind is now �not able not to sin .� Adam�s guilt was �forever passed on to all mankind through the �physical act of generation. � Augustine felt that the corruption of Adam and Eve�s souls affected their bodies and that human conception now passes the disease to their descendants. He felt that man was born into a state of sin but since an infant did not have the time to accumulate his own sin, he inherited the sin of Adam. Augustine further supported his argument saying that �even in infancy we are selfish, proud and unloving.� He saw proof of infant sin in the sacrament of infant baptism.
Pelagius thought that this was absurd. Pelagious argued that people were born good. He said human nature must be good because non-Christians do good acts. He believed that each soul is �created immediately by God,� and that �it cannot come into the world soiled by original sin transmitted from Adam. � Pelagius also believed that a forgiving and just God would not blame humanity for someone else�s sin. A later disciple of Pelagius proclaimed that �children were eligible for eternal life even without baptism. � A bishop named Julian also attacked Augustine�s views on predestination and original sin. Julian denounced the picture of a God holding infants guilty of sin. It is said that �Augustine never really knew how to answer. � I thought he had answered when he said that Adam�s only weakness was his creatureliness, which meant that he was changeable by nature and so liable to turn away from the transcendent good. � Augustine said that humanity is infected with �concupiscence or self-centered desire, which directs one toward the self as the center of attraction instead of toward God .�
One of the consequences of the fall is that Eve would have increased pains in childbirth(Gen 3:16). It is also after the fall that she is given her name Eve �because she would become the mother of the living (Gen 3:20).� When Adam was born he didn�t start with a mother. In natural birth after Adam, a child begins dependent on its mother. Its dependence on its mother is not rest in the transcendent good and relationship with God. It is a faith centered in human frailty. It is not faith in God. Its trust in its provider is broken with its emergence into the world. If not earlier, the cutting of the umbilical chord awakens the child to a broken trust and a realization of deception. The child enters the abyss. He hold�s a certain defiance towards that god which brought him to be. The child moves to self-reliance. It works to find some form of security. His perception is altered.
Another possible display is in evolution. Augustine said that after Adam sinned, �our soiled, corrupt nature was already present in the seed from which we were to spring. � �By Darwinian lights classic sins, such as gluttony, lust, greed and envy are the unchecked expressions of impulses that arose by natural selection. �
Augustine felt human will did not have the power to overcome sin without the �direct aid and grace of God. � Pelagius believed that �the human will was free by nature � and not bound by necessity to sin. Pelagious also �resisted the notion of any special pressure on man�s will to choose good. � Rather than by generation, he felt that Adam�s sin is passed on only by �custom or example. � Pelagius believed that human nature remained �able not to sin� and that this freedom lie within each man�s own being. He felt that doing good was hard for us only because of long custom of sinning which begins to effect us even in our childhood.
Augustine insisted that doubts and temptations never magically go away. Pelagius felt that this destroyed the human hope which was needed for morality. �Hope must serve as a guide and companion if we are to set out on the way to virtue; otherwise, despair of success will kill every effort to acquire the impossible. Showing a person that he can actually achieve what he desires provides the most effective incentives for the soul. Even in warfare, the best way to influence and encourage a soldier is to remind him of his own power. �
Pelagius pointed to examples of scripture to spurn man�s hope in his own moral strength. �As a matter of fact Scripture can point to many examples of blameless lives,� he claimed. �One such example was Job. � God begins by declaring Job �blameless and upright.� After God allowed Satan to perform his first act of torment on Job, Job�s righteousness is defined by his not charging God with �wrongdoing� (Job 1:22). Later, in defense of his own innocence Job declares, �Then let it be known that God has wronged me�(Job 19:15). �Augustine read the book as an example of God�s grace. � Job�s, righteousness did not have the strength in itself to overcome sin or the pit. God, however, could �pull the leviathan (chaos) in with a fishhook�(Job 41:1). Job�s righteousness depended on God�s provisional grace. Man�s righteousness as a being in himself eventually met a dead end. It could not exist.
Pelagius�s stance stemmed from his view that �humans are emancipated from God as children from parent. � Pelagius stated that �it is true that grace is necessary not only ever hour and every moment, but in every act. � He also admitted that grace is bestowed to make the fulfillment of God�s commands. However, in his understanding of grace, �It was not an internal relational grace. � The grace Pelagius defines, as Augustine put it, �is a grace consisting in law and teaching. � He continued by saying that �grace is, further, offered equally to all� by merit alone men advance in holiness. � Pelagius was promoting faith in man�s self and works.
Augustine saw the �child (man) as utterly dependent on God.� Augustine felt faith in works brought pride. Augustine was promoting faith in God. �Will is therefore an intermediate good when it cleaves to the unchangeable good as something that is common property and not its own private perspective�when will cleaves to this good, man attains the happy life. And the happy life, that is, the disposition of the soul cleaving to the unchangeable good, is the proper and first good of man. �
Developments
Augustine produced his doctrine of predestination. If human beings do not have the ability to earn salvation and it is purely of God�s grace, then God must have pre-determined who would be saved and who would be damned. This seemed unfair to Pelagius and many others. Pelagius said that Augustine�s expressions �turn humans into puppets with no freedom for themselves. � Is God partial in his election? Does he create people just to damn them? Why would he choose some instead of others? Is there no value in human works? These along with other unresolved issues continued in this debate throughout the centuries.
In the sixth century John Cassian claimed that grace and human efforts play an important role in salvation. He based his arguments on the assumptions that non-Christians do good deeds and that God died for all. Predestination would say he died only for some. He concluded that grace is important, yet people begin their advance toward salvation without grace and that while God offers grace to all some act to reject it. Caesarius replied saying that salvation with works would imply that God was not all powerful and could fulfill his desire to save all. He concluded that no one can resist grace if it is offered and without grace humans cannot truly do good. The Official decision of the Synod of Orange in 529 was that �undeserved grace precedes merited works. � and that one cannot truly do good without it. It left the issue of predestination alone.
In the early ninth century the issue of predestination arose again. Gottschalt stood in full support of predestination. He said that we can do good only when God takes control of our will and that some are damned and some saved and there is nothing we can do about it. This made God look cruel. Officially, the Council of Quiercy headed by Hicmar of Reims felt that Christ died for all. They declared that God predestined punishment, but not those who go there. They later sought understanding through John Scotus Eriugena who explained through platonic thought that evil is associated with non existence. It is a limitation. They said even non-Christians receive some grace because everyone does some good.
There was a confusion over what grace actually meant. The sacraments presented God�s grace in a real and practical way. In making Christ and his grace more real the Fourth Lateran council declared the doctrine of transubstantiation. Based in platonic thought this defined Christ�s real physical presence in the Eucharist. The church also brought the cult of the saints under institutional control by officially canonizing saint Ulrich of Augsburg. Under the theology of the time, Christ was looking more like a remote judge than sympathetic savior and people wanted someone more approachable. The saints especially Mary could intercede on their behalf. The adoption of the cult of the saints also served as a good method of weaning people away from pagan polytheism.
The institutionalization of the cult of the saints seems a tragic turn in Catholic history. It seems to move from faith in God and his grace to faith in the works of past humans enabling the continuation of man�s separation from actual rest in God. Augustine had emphasized the church authorities held the right to administer the sacraments despite their moral standing. He countered Donatist opposition with political force in defense of this. He felt this was best for maintaining unity. Augustine felt that God could still work through the sacrament despite a priests fallibility. He felt that receiving such sacraments was essential to the receiving of God�s grace. However, the institutionalization of the cult of the saints seems to be more than just protection of a fallible man�s ability to present a sacrament. It seems to be the dangerous creation of a sacrament by these fallible minds to maintain power or control. In his book �The City of God� Augustine was upset by the roman city of men depending on themselves in a quest for power.
The church ran into a similar problem with it�s development of the system of penance. If someone committed a major sin after baptism they were excluded from such activities as communion for a period of time. They were given tasks from the penitentials as appropriate penalties for their sins. This as well appeared to promote working ones way to grace. While Augustine had used force to push the Donatists back into the fold to receive grace, the church now seemed to be forcing people to work their way back to grace. Augustine had not used human authorities with the Donatists to judge who and how one could receive the church�s sacraments and grace. He was defending the right of a fallible priest to present it. The church seemed to becoming a faith in human intercessors, human control, and human works. Perhaps they stood in the way of the light the church possessed in the Eucharist and gospel preaching.
The church system began to display it�s fallibility in the 10th and 11th centuries. Man is weak and the pope and priests needed political protection to survive. With no central government the local priests sought protection from neighboring kings in return for loyalty. The local kings sought the aid of literate bishops. This resulted in abuses where the bishop could become more loyal to the noble than his church. Lay Investure gave bishops a government functions. Sidomy subjugated the bishop�s church to a human king�s power and control. At the same time Henry III found three popes. He threw out all three and selected his own. Henry took the power. When Pope Gregory VII took over he declared his absolute power in order to make needed reforms. Gregory forced Henry to agree to his authority by urging good Christians to rebel against him. The pope took the power. He did this in order to ensure the success of reforms intending to ending corrupt practices of the bishops while at the same time keeping society�s faith in the church. As the 14th arrived rival popes excommunicated each other� opponents. The popes and the council�s had disputes of power weakening society�s confidence that the church could convey Christ�s grace.
Luther
Scholasticism developed to try and deal with the problems of church and state and the church�s need for power in face of the ideal of poverty and self-sacrifice. As reason developed and the church�s efforts were at times disastrous, it is easy to see Martin Luther�s place in all of this. Studying Nominalist theology, Luther found it to teach that we earned our salvation. Seeing the church selling indulgences in Germany impelled Luther to think that the church was teaching that one earned their salvation. Church taxation dominating the scene in Germany led Luther to question this method of quest for power and security. Luther formed his idea that �insurrection lacks discernment. � He stressed obedience to authorities even in the face of injustice. Munzer disagreed and led the peasant revolts only to plummet to his death. Despite injustice a leap for power is pride which ends in strife. This same idea is the problem with liberation theology which moves into either the black Muslim movement, women claims that God the Father is a female, or even gay �pride.� Luther saw that both his own and humanities inability to overcome sin by human works and perhaps that such attempts would lead to pride. He felt the dependence on grace.
The dilemma of grace and works sent people in different directions. The Catholic church appeared to move towards the inclusion of works. Luther returned to Augustine�s ideas on grace. Yet Luther did not provide answers to the remaining dilemmas met in Augustine and Pelagius. Man does not have the ability to earn salvation. Grace is given without merit. How does one deal with the implication that God creates some creatures without hope for salvation? Calvin said that all deserved damnation, but that God is merciful in some cases. Such a view did not suffice in the enlightenment or subsequent days when all men�s goodness or at least value was seen. The Calvinist preacher Arminius sad that people were not able to do anything without grace, but they had the ability to deny grace.
Luther saw no room in theology for reason. He opposed the platonic interpretation of the Eucharist in presenting Christ�s true presence. He felt the new school of thought in Nominalism taught that one earned their salvation. The Augustinian tradition had believed that �faith precedes understanding.� Aquinas�s rediscovery of Aristotle and Nominalism brought reason in to new directions. Not only did it bring a distrust of the church�s hierarchy, but it asked how a non-Christian, such as Aristotle knew so much. Aquinas had decided that at times reason and revelation had separate spheres. He recognized that natural reason had limitations, however. Aquinas had believed that the world was eternal. This stood in contrast with the Christian view that God created the world. Bonaventure claimed that Aristotle brought basic ideas but he was off on certain basics. Aristotle presented a natural reasoning into religion which could be very beneficial to the work of an apologetic to a secular society, however it lacked in understanding or perception. The rediscovery of Aristotle and the developing Nominalism perhaps stand as the beginning of modern science and democracy. Yet how does natural reason fit in a world in which a providential God is active and existent? How does this influence one�s perception? What would prevent natural law from the merging with social Darwinism or find any universal appeal which held one to any accountability?
The notion that individuals outside of the community of the faithful held much understanding was not something new to this era. The book of proverbs held many natural common sense sayings which could be found in Egyptian wisdom literature. Following the publication of Instruction of Amenomoein in 1922, �ensuing studies established an indubitable relationship in favor of dependence of Hebrew upon the Egyptian sage. � However, there was one distinction between the natural knowledge of Egypt and that of the Hebrews. The book of Proverbs stated that �the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the lord� (Prov 9:10). The book of Proverbs God and wisdom appear to perform parallel tasks in protection and guidance.
Perhaps even non-Christians could be following. Despite belief in heaven or hell, the Egyptian community eventually died out. It met roadblocks in it�s reasoning which hampered progression in confronting why sometimes the good suffered or the evil perished. Such wisdom also ended in a retribution doctrine of works which made good deeds selfish. It was a view of self behind the petals of the flower, out of the heavenly Edenic perception. Proverbs states, �Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out its seven pillars. She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine..and she calls...Let all who are simple come in here� (Prov 9:1-6). Natural wisdom may have seen the outside of the house, but unlikely in proverbs one is called to enter inside the house. Perceptions can very depending on one�s position. Luther did not need to dismiss the role of reason just realize it�s perspective.
Proverbs stated, trust in the lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.� Luther was so sold on the idea of Grace as he saw it presented in Romans that he rebuked the book of James calling it an �espiscle straw. � Picking and choosing parts of the Bible makes it irrelevant. It could say anything. Perhaps it is in the book of James that one can find the answer to the dilemma of undeserved grace in the face of the hopelessly damned. In Eden, Man had grown as an open flower. In his �freedom to sin� the flower had become entrapped behind the walls of self. He grasped for security things outside of Augustine�s transcendent good seeking his security and survival in the world. Building securities and defenses is an action. When Christ reveals himself, rejecting him is an action. Perhaps, accepting grace is not an action but the negation of action. Is love an act? James conveys that our freedom or �salvation� is in removal of that �prison� or �rank growth and wickedness� (James 19:21) or our ambition and self desires which restricts an allowance of God�s righteousness� (James1:20) to work through the word �implanted� in us. It would not say we work for salvation, but that by not basing one�s security in works or anything of man efforts, God does the works.