Catch Hold Of On Free Choice Of The Will Crafted By Augustine Of Hippo Delivered In Leaflet
it's an interesting read, it's not a good resource on philosophy of the free will, It's a good reference to figure out why Christians used to blame poor people for being poor based on their virtue.
There's also a lot of blaming clinically depressed people for being depressed, I want to laugh about it, but Augustine was probably serious about his idea that sin and everything comes from free will and if it doesn't you should grin and bear it.
I does have interesting arguments on why sin exists at all, Usually people don't even try to answer that question, Excellent book from a great thinker, Augustine will force you to think in ways you've never considered about things you thought you had figured out.
Particularly helpful are his thoughts on the origin of evil and how free will cannot be a bad thing, even when God knew man would abuse it.
He also explains foreknowledge in a way that refutes fatalism and exonerates God from causing evil simply because he knew it would happen.
If you're interested in free will, evil, God's justice, and God's foreknowledge, this is a must read.
Esse eu tive que dar uma nota boa, Consigo me projetar pra época, e pensar como um crente, Dessa maneira o livro se torna algo sensacional, Cheio de malandragens para construção do convencimento das pessoas, ele realmente explica bem a origem do pecado, porque pecamos, a essência do livre arbítrio e até prova a Existência de Deus.
Mas como ele mesmo diz, tem que crer para entender, O eu de hoje, um descrente, não entende mesmo, E até ri de vários argumentos e das tais malandragens, A tal prova da existência de Deus começa com um malandrops pra cima do Evodio, que dá até dó.
A partedo livro, que fala sobre o pecado como desejo culpável é a parte mais bacana do livro.
A segunda e a prova da existência de Deus, relação com número e tal, tem seu valor.
A terceira, é aquela babação que encontramos lá nas confissões, É a bíblia escrita de maneira "filosófica",
Esse vale a leitura, Para crentes, um prato cheio, Para não crentes, um estudo de onde a ilusão pode chegar, I was so thrilled to discover that Augustine is a libertarian, and that his defense of sin included our power to turn to God and discover that God will help us when we do so.
I don't think this makes Augustine Arminian, but he's certainly no compatibilist or Calvinist in this book at least.
Writing a paper on this one, so hopefully I come up with a more powerful critique or support for a particular argument in here.
Second read: disagreed with a lot more in terms of arguments about superior/inferior things, but agreed a lot more with things where it was important to hold distinctions between bad and blameworthy actions.
I think one of his arguments that natures are necessarily good is defunct, but it might be better to press him more on what superiority means and why its easily counterexampleable.
After wading through pages and pages of weighty arguments about the problem of evil, the sovereignty of God, and human responsibility, I think these were my favorite quotes:
Augustine: I believe you also know that many human beings are foolish.
Evodius: That's obvious enough,
and,
Augustine: So tell me this: Do we have a will
Evodius: I don't know.
Augustine: Do you want to know
Evodius: I don't know that either,
Augustine: Then don't ask me any more questions,
: This is one of Augustine's early writings, from soon after his conversion, It records a conversation between himself and Evodius regarding free will, Augustine had very little access to Plato, and at this point in his life, probably nothing not quoted by another
source.
The dialogue is in fact based upon a real conversation, and not just a literary creation a result of the philosophical community that Augustine lived in for some time after his conversion.
However, Augustine edited it and added material most of Bk, III before publishing it.
The main things I thought a reader ought to note when reading this short work areThis is still the beginning of work on the will it was not a major issue in philosophy until Augustine, although bits and pieces may be found, e.
g. in CiceroAugustine's style is quite different from what most people are used to, especially since this is a record of an actual conversationthe problem of evil for Augustine is of a different nature then that promulgated in modern timesthe only two people who had a paradigmatically free will were Adam and Eve everyone else has a less than free will and requires God's grace to will effectively, even when they wish to do good.
It is an interesting work but still represents the early thought of Augustine, Those without a Neoplatonic background will find some of its arguments strange, There is no good introduction to Augustine in my experience, you have to read a great deal of him in order to understand the typical way he thinks and the concepts he relies upon implicitly.
Some Plotinus is probably useful, Love hate relationship with medieval philosophy, I've cried and laughed while reading this for different reasons, One of the best books I have read regarding free choice and free will, I have found that many people confuse these two concepts, Augustine of Hippo, a North African Bishop, argues that humans were created by God with free will, but this has been corrupted such that without God's intervention, humans do not choose what God would have us choose.
Those who believe in the libertarian view of human will should pay close attention both to the end of this dialogue and to his Reconsiderations about his book.
Augustine notes that when he wrote this dialog, he had Manichaean theology in mind regarding the origin of evil in the world.
However, he later refuted the Pelagians for their belief that humans can choose God without His intervention, and shows how his arguments are also found in On Free Choice of the Will.
Great book, incredibly difficult to read, Augustine is essentially talking to you almost like an interview in this book, Augustines books are harder reads, but some of the most thought provoking and convicting books Ive read, Contra Manichean Cosmology amp Anthropology
De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis is an early Platonic dialogue by Augustine as sophist with a student named Evodius written shortly after Augustine converted around.
There is no other work that puts on display so clearly his total dedication to Platonic rationalism and education.
The very structure is a pure Platonic dialogue using sequential rationality, Here he is attempting to refute the apologetics of Manicheanism, Throughout his life, Augustine balanced between the opposite heresies of Pelagianism and Manicheanism, These two Cosmologies which generate very different Anthropologies are still alive and well today in different versions of Protestantism.
The heresy of Manichean Dualistic Anthropology was resurrected in Calvin under a new name Unconditional Election, and Pelagian understanding of the Will was reborn in Antinominalist Protestantism that is still alive in some forms of Evangelicalism.
On Free choice of the Will is focused exclusively on Manicheanism, but Augustine tempers his simplistic statements about Free Will with his later antiPelagian works where he writes that the Grace of God proceeds the ability for the human soul to chose faith and good works, which is the doctrine of Catholicism, Orthodoxy and many later Protestant denominations.
This is a purely polemic work, and Augustine clearly overreacts in his refutation of heresy, but De Libero is still a critical work fully within the historic Orthodoxy of the Christian faith.
This dialogue is Augustine's counterargument against Mani from the perspective of the Privatio Boni: "Everything good is from God.
There is nothing of any kind that is not from God, Reason has shown that we commit Evil through the free choice of the will, " Book II Chapter XX This entire book, written soon after Augustine converted, attempts to oppose Manicheanism's Dualism and its subsequent belief in Predestination.
It was Augustine's reply to the Manichean apologetic claim against Christianity that God cannot be AllGood and AllPowerful.
To Augustine, Privatio Boni solves the conflict between Ex Nihlio and Omnibenevolence Theodicy by arguing that evil perpetrated by humans has no reality, ie, no form.
Thus, when we speak of the Providence and sovereignty of God, this does not include evil because it is shadow, a movement of Free will against Being itself.
Sin is Defectivus Motus, a vacuum of Goodness, and not a "thing" at all, Thus it is completely accurate to simultaneously state that God did not create nor cause evil, and at the same time, is the Omnipotent Sovereign over all existence.
In De dono perseverantiae, Augustine writes, "I showed that God should be praised for all things and that there are no grounds at all for their belief the Manichees that there exists two coeternal natures, one good, one evil, which coexist together.
" When the Pelagian heresy arose, Augustine wrote De natura et Gratia to prevent the work from justifying the opposite heresy of Pelagianism.
In Retractationes he writes: "unless the will is freed by the grace of God from the bondage through which it has become a slave of sin.
. . mortal men cannot live rightly and piously, " Augustine, swinging between the dual heresies of Manichaeism and Pelagianism, retains the Orthodox position across his works, although he naturally overcorrects when battling each of these heresies in specific works.
We see this exact same Cosmological debate raging in the,denominations of Protestantism, which began in Luther's day with the Antinominalists and Calvinists.
Calvinism/ Reformed Theology is a modern resurgence of Manichean Anthropology which selectively highlights Augustine's AntiPelagian writings to make it seem like he supported Predestination, which is balanced within Protestantism against the AntiNominalism NeoPelagianism found within Evangelicalism which emphasizes Augustine's AntiManichean works.
Later, in his forceful reproach against the British Monk Pelagius, Augustine places a strong emphasis on the Sovereign Grace of God.
These passages were taken out of context to prove other heresies he spent his life fighting against, namely the heresies of the Pagan Greek religion concerning the understanding of the Biblical concept of Predestination from a corporate, Apostolic lens to a Platonic, Individualistic lens.
He does "set the scene" for Western Christianity to reinterpret Election in the Torah, Nevi'im, and Pauline Epistles in terms of a Manichean Anthropology his introduction of Original Sin into Christendom, Rationalistic Epistemology and Individualism.
He was the first early church father who did not speak Greek, and his theology reflects this, Augustine made many mistakes in this linguistic vacuum, Later, his works would be cannibalized by Catholics and Protestants trying to superimpose a Pagan conceptualization of Predestination onto the Scriptures, twisting the words of Paul to fit the opinions of the original heretics the Early Church Fathers dedicated their lives and frequently, their deaths to erase.
Augustine is addressing the remnants of the Greek Religions Neopythagoreanism and NeoPlatonism, the various syncretic gnostic religions such as Manicheanism, Valentinianism, Marcionism and Sethianism as well as the heresies which developed within the church, most prominently Arianism and Pelagianism.
As such, De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis is a winding dialogue that explores many deadend ideas, including Dualism, In De dono perseverantiae, Augustine writes, "I showed that God should be praised for all things and that there are no grounds at all for their belief the Manichees that there exists two coeternal natures, one good, one evil, which coexist together.
"
In Book I, Augustine outlines basic Hamartiological concepts about the nature of sin and answers the basic question "Where does evil come from" Augustine clearly renounces the Pagan Platonic and Gnostic conceptions of Predestination/ Determinism, writing, "Reason has shown that we commit Evil through the free choice of the will.
" And since God gave mankind free will, it is understandable that God "may appear to be the cause of our evil deeds," as the Manichean heretics assert, but he promises to answer that question in the next book.
In Book II, Augustine answers the charge that God "should not" have given mankind Free Will, and that somehow he is morally culpable for the actions of mankind.
This accusation is a nonsequitur to a modern thinker, but to a NeoPlatonist, Manichean or Pelagian, this was a legitimate question.
Augustine dismantles this by expounding upon a bodyspirit internalexternal epistemological paradigm, arguing that the ability to reason is itself of divine origin and necessary for humans to understand common truths.
Augustine has a strong sense of the Self, arguing that to know oneself is to know God and viceversa.
Augustine touches on peripheral subjects to free will, including the punishment of crimes, If all people are predestined to commit murder, etc, how could one punish them He was not a fan of Capital Punishment, but doesn't specifically condemn it:
"The law which his made to govern states seems to you to make many concessions and to leave unpunished things which are avenged nonetheless by divine Providence and rightly so.
But because it does not do all things, it does not thereby follow that what it does do is to be condemned".
In book II Chapter XX he explicitly articulates the Privatio Boni argument: "Everything good is from God.
There is nothing of any kind that is not from God, " And he solves the conflict between Ex Nihlio and Omnibenevolence Theodicy by arguing that evil perpetrated by humans has no reality, ie, no form.
Thus, when we speak of the Providence and sovereignty of God, this does not include evil because it is shadow, a movement of Free will against Being itself.
Sin is Defectivus Motus, a vacuum of Goodness, and not a "thing" at all, Thus it is completely accurate to simultaneously state that God did not create nor cause evil, and at the same time, is the Omnipotent Sovereign over all existence.
In Part III, Augustine takes closer aim at the excuses that Determinists use to justify their creed.
The Platonic and Gnostic Determinists Augustine is replying to insist as do virtually all Determinists, that their philosophy does not negate moral responsibility and the agency of humankind.
Augustine takes aim at this dodge, stating that no denial of real free will can result in mankind being truly responsible for their own evil.
Hard Determinism Soteriological or Cosmological must result in God being inherently evil, which in the Christian tradition is blasphemy.
Manicheans argued this thoroughly, an argument still raging between Calvinists and HyperCalvinists, He writes in Book II, Chapter IV and in chapter XVII:
"God's knowledge that man will sin is not the cause of sin.
Hence punishment for sin is just, God's foreknowledge of future events does not compel them to take place, . . either the will is the first cause of sin, or there is no first cause, If someone says that a stone sins because it falls down through its weight, I will not say he is more senseless than a stone he is simply insane.
But we accuse a spirit of sin when we prove that it has preferred to enjoy lower goods and has abandoned higher ones No man is forced to sin, either by his nature or another's'.
. . If you wish to attribute sin to the Creator, you will acquit the sinner of his sin, Sin cannot be rightly imputed to anyone but the sinner, "
Augustine dogmatically upholds the Biblical teaching of Free Will, both cosmologically and Soteriological, at the individual level.
He later avoids SemiPelagianism by emphasizing that Free Will exists by the Grace of God, Millenia later, Luther, a student of the Augustinian school, would define sin both as original sin sin as pretemporal entity i.
e. , Being and as one's Act and inhereted guilt, However, even though he was eventually the cause of this new Anthropology in the West, Augustine clearly Predestination here in De Libero and warns about the Sociological ramifications of blaming God for the sins of the freewilled individual.
The Manicheans were correct on one thing: if there is no freedom in the human Nuos, then God cannot be allgood.
Cosmology is inextricably linked to Anthropology,
A few notable quotes:
"All sins are included under this one class: when someone is turned away from divine things that are truly everlasting, toward things that change and are uncertain"
"Thus is all good is removed Free Will being a 'good' , no vestige of reality persists indeed, nothing remains.
Every good is from God, There is nothing of any kind that is not from God, Therefore, since the movement of turning away from good, which we admit to be sin, is a defective movement defectivus motus and since, moreover, every defect comes from nothing, see where this movement belongs you may be sure it does not belong to God.
"
"What greater security can there be than to live a life where what you do not will cannot happen to you".