Augustine of Hippo lived from 354-430, he is famous
for many things and is one of
the most influential theologians
in the history of Western theology,
but one of the areas where he has had
an enormous influence is on what we mean by human nature.
The Augustinian legacy has been incredibly
important for Western Christianity and indeed western society.
With me is Dr. Meghan Loumagne,
who's a post-doctoral research fellow with us
and who has been working on Augustine and human nature.
First of all, Megan, you're very welcome.
Thank you. Tell us something about Augustine and human nature.
I think Augustine is one of
the reasons why we love him so much,
is just that he was
such a curious and inquisitive person about himself.
And so usually what I like to emphasize
with what Augustine thought about
human nature is that I think he,
he, he was always in pursuit of
that question and never fully arriving at an answer.
And so I think the first thing
that is good to remember when we're thinking about
Augustine and human nature is
the sense in which to be human is to be a mystery to ourselves.
And so Augustine says at one point in the Confessions
I've become a question to myself.
And so I think this is just the first thing to say that
he never arrives at kind of
a final complete answer about what it means to be human.
So, so that's, that's one thing to emphasize.
But he goes on to emphasize
a few other points that I think are also important to raise.
So he, he has
this idea of being created ex nihilo, or out of nothing.
And so that's, that sort of forms a foundation,
I think for a lot of other points then that he has to
say about human nature. So, to be created out of nothing
for Augustine means that we are
completely dependent upon God for our existence.
And then the extent to which we turn away from
God is to sort of start to slide back into nothingness.
And I think Augustine would say that we, we,
we are not in danger of ever sliding completely
back into nothingness because we're always held in God,
but that we find are being by abiding in God.
And so it's this,
this idea that we come from nothing.
And the only reason we can exist at all
is because God has brought us into being.
So creatio ex nihilo
or, being created out of nothing, is very
fundamental to what he thinks about human nature.
And I think it helps him to explain also
some of the really perplexing aspects of human nature about why,
why evil exists in the world.
Why do we have a tendency to sin?
So he'll talk about original sin as well.
But I think fundamental to
all of that is this notion that because we come from nothing,
we always have sort of little tendency
to slide back into nothingness.
And that we have to be held in being by God.
So that's the first thing I would emphasize.
[Tom] So for Augustine,
absolutely central to the human being.
The human being is dependent.
[Megan] Mmm, yes. [Tom] Right. Now let's move on from there.
[Megan] Okay. And I would emphasize
that, for Augustine, is to be dependent on God,
but also to be dependent on others.
And so he has also this notion that the primal sin
of Adam and Eve was that they
uses the phrase that they "failed to cling to one another."
And I think that's actually a really,
really powerful still for us today.
That it's to our own destruction that we
forget that we belong to each other and that we need each other.
And this is something that Augustine was very obsessed with.
This idea that we're so united all the way down
even to the basic material of what makes up our bodies.
That we, if we forget that,
then it's sort of a guarantee that we'll,
we'll find our own destruction.
And so remembering to cling to one another is also key,
I think, for what, how he understands what it means to be human.
[Tom] and that's what he would later develop
his whole theology of friendship.
[Megan] Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[Tom] And are there any other areas that we should think
about when we, when we think of Augustine and the human being?
[Megan] Another thing I would emphasize,
I think that's really central
to how he understands what it means to be
human is to be human is to exist in time.
And so God, God, for Augustine,
is outside of time and is therefore stable and unchanging.
And the human person is
he talks about being distended in time.
So we are sort of stretched out across time.
And because of this, it's part of the reason
why understanding what human nature is,
it's always kind of slippery for Augustine because
it's somewhat in our memory, it's in the past,
but then the present is constantly slipping away and,
and we, we reach out towards the future as well.
So this aspect also of being in
time is central for Augustine to be mutable,
mutable creature. Which also then means that
to be human is to be always changing and always in motion.
And that can become disorderly,
he would say, if you don't abide in God.
But if you abide in God,
then you can kind of join
the harmonious pattern of the divine life.
[Tom] So, for Augustine,
we're only having our being moment by moment,
we have a sort of a tenuous command on being.
And at the same time,
we are in an absolute dependence on God,
his famous use of this codeword, creatio ex nihilo.
But equally, this dependence on others for our own,
for our own existence,
on for our flourishing.
[Megan] Yes. Yeah. And I think this is important to emphasize
because sometimes people read the Confessions and they,
they think Augustine is
saying that in order to understand yourself,
you need to turn inwardly
and sort of by yourself in a room or something,
encounter God in the silence of yourself.
And I think that's an aspect of what he's saying.
But also, for Augustine, to find God and then to
find ourselves is to be immersed in the life of the church.
And so it's not then that kind of
solitary process of finding ourselves,
but we find ourselves by encountering God.
And that, that mainly happens, I think,
for Augustine, in the communal life of the church.
[Tom] Megan, thank you very much. [Megan] You're welcome.
>> Yeah.