Abstract

Augustine used different words for love: caritas, amor, bona voluntas. This chapter follows the sequence of his argument in City of God book 14. It asks whether these words mean different kinds of love; how Augustine understood voluntas, which is often translated “will” but is better translated as “wish” or “choice”; what he meant by saying that all emotions are voluntates; and why he said that all emotions are loves. Focusing on voluntas, the chapter shows how Augustine draws on Platonic and Stoic theory, inflecting them both toward a view of emotion that makes it central both to our lives as humans, with other humans, and to the other life we will enjoy if a bona voluntas leads us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves, according to God.