This essay explores Augustine philosophical conception of miracles in the context of a longstanding debate on the status of miracles expressed primarily in the De Genesi ad Litteram and De Trinitate. Over a half century ago P. D. Vooght remarked that Augustine “had opened up some profound and subtle views on the problem of miracles.” Dissatisfied with De Vooght’s conclusions, John Mourant and Leopold Tanganagba subsequently offered interpretations of their own on Augustine’s conception of miracles. Because Augustine’s conception of miracles (...) is complex, unsystematic, and open to further consideration, it deserves additional scrutiny as no satisfactory answer has yet been found. I begin the essay by briefly examining the significance of Augustine’s definition of a miracle in De utiltate credendi. This definition functions as a starting point for an exploration of the doctrine of seminal reasons and its relation to divine and natural causality. The difficulty of understanding Augustine’s philosophy of miracles against this background calis to mind four possible interpretations of miracles found in De Vooght’s article. These interpretations in turn provide the focal point for providing a new assessment of Augustine’s philosophy of miracles in the final section of the essay. (shrink)

While recent studies have illuminated the social and cultural realities underlying the cult of the saints in late antiquity, this communication focuses on Augustine’s beliefs regarding the metaphysical status of the saints’ humanity after death and the interaction between the saints and temporal human beings. Augustine’s representation of the lives of the saints in works such as his Sermons on the saints, On the care of the dead, the City of God, and On the predestination of the saints and On (...) perseverance at the end of his life reveals the dichotomies in his thinking on the saints with which both he and his reader must contend. The most striking dichotomies are those between popular, or lay, Christianity, and the intellectualized Christianity of a bishop like Augustine; the different historical periods to which Augustine’s works refer, namely, the persecution of the martyr-saints in the third century and faithful Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries; and the different metaphysical and spiritual frameworks of the here and now and the life to come. Against the background of these dichotomies that surface in Augustine’s writings on the saints, I explore the coherence of Augustine’s doctrine of the saints with respect to the following three concerns: a consideration of who the saints are, and what their status is after death, the relevance of the interaction between the saints and temporal human beings for living a good life now in preparation for death, and the effect that the doctrines of predestination and election have on Augustine’s determination of what can be known with respect to who is and is not saved among the saints. (shrink)

The article explores the idea that Augustine’s understanding of Christendom is compatible with the practice of the art of medicine, and that bodily health plays a more prominent role in his understanding of salvation than previously thought. The article addresses these concerns with reference to the different perspectives from which Augustine views the body from 386-395: metaphysical, biblical, and empirical. It examines three aspects of Augustine’s early works that pertain to the care of the body: his own experience of illness (...) and his acquaintance with doctors, his conception of the natural order and the art of medicine, and the extent of his knowledge of medicine. (shrink)

Para aclarar la importancia que los escritos antimaniqueos tienen en la evolución del pensamiento de Agustín sobre la dinámica de la conversión, el artículo destaca tres aspectos: El papel que Agustín le confiere a la razón y a la imaginación en el movimiento del intelecto de y hacia la verdad. La función que la voluntad juega en la conversión de la mente y las implicaciones de la caída para el correcto funcionamiento de la voluntad. El influjo de la comprensión de (...) Agustín de la dinámica de la conversión en relación con "Ad Simplicianum" y las "Confessiones". (shrink)

This inquiry focuses on the problem of human freedom in the thought of Augustine and two of his early critics, John Cassian and Faustus of Riez. Two issues are of primary importance: the issue concerning the nature of free choice of will, and the issue concerning how free choice of will is to be reconciled with divine election. These issues arise as a result of a change that occurred in Augustine's thinking on human freedom in 396, the year that he (...) grasped the true significance of Paul's doctrine of divine election. To Augustine that doctrine entailed that the will's movement towards the Good was only possible if divine Good Itself worked within the fallen will to make it good. Cassian and Faustus, however, questioned how Augustine could affirm the reality of free choice of will when he insisted that the fallen moral agent lacked the natural ability to do good. ;In order to come to terms with this dilemma, this inquiry views Augustine's later doctrine of human freedom as a form of classical Christian compatibilism. Beginning with H. A. Wolfson's observation that in the Pelagian Controversy Augustine Christianized the pagan Stoic doctrine of fate, the study seeks to develop the implications of this observation in the context of the semi-Augustinian Controversy . Thus it attempts to carry out a task that Wolfson himself had intended to undertake but had never in fact been able to accomplish. ;In keeping with this objective, the inquiry develops Wolfson's claim by situating Augustine's response to the semi-Augustinians against the background of two key texts: Cicero's De fato and Augustine's De civitate dei . A careful study of these texts indicates not only a remarkable similarity between Chrysippus' and Augustine's solution to the problem of human freedom but also Augustine's own awareness of his indebtedness to the Stoics. With this background in mind, the inquiry proceeds, initially, to unravel Augustine's doctrine of human freedom and, subsequently, to view it in relation to Cassian's and Faustus' doctrine of human freedom. After drawing out the implications of these three doctrines of human freedom, a concluding chapter calls attention to the fact that Stoicism exerted a much more pervasive influence on the development of Augustine's doctrine of human freedom than has hitherto been suspected. (shrink)