The Views of Augustine

Augustine's philosophy provides an introduction to the intellectual history of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. Throughout his commentary run two important theological elements: authority and the leap of faith, which are connected to his idealism. His approach to proving the existence of God is one aspect of this. Faith, and therefore God, precedes all understanding. "That one will I plainly acknowledge to be God, than whom it is proved nothing is superior. . . . When I shall have proved that what is above reason exists, it will be proved that God exists" (Augustine, in Fremantle 43). For Augustine, wisdom (ultimate knowledge, ultimate good) is the highest abstraction that reason can identify, although the possession of wisdom itself is elusive. There are individual instances of good, but for Augustine there is the highest good existing at the level of abstraction as the infinity of numbers, both apart from (prior to) and potentially in common with reason. That highest good, though incomprehensible, is God, and human reason must yield to it, i.e., acquiesce and embrace faith.

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, it follows that God's will has been made manifest in the decline of civilizations; Paolucci cites Augustine's assertion that "the rise and fall of nations is governed by God's will" (xiv). Embedded in that formulation, Bigongiari suggests (344), is Augustine's doctrine of predestination, which comes down to the assertion that a happy few will attain "salvation; the rest, the great majority, are to be damned." God, being almighty, has absolute foreknowledge of who will receive salvation and who will be damned. In the view of John Calvin, this was fully the content of the doctrine of predestination, or more exactly double predestination (Davies passim). Accordingly, Calvin "denies freedom to creatures, fallen or unfallen . . . God does not compel man to act by brute force, yet he determines irresistibly all we do, whether good or evil" (Barry). Calvinism conceives of God's role as one of supreme Lawgiver who decrees that some are destined for good and salvation and some for evil and damnation. For Calvin, that appears to be the end of the story, and Calvin appealed to the authority of Augustine in citing the "necessary servitude of sin" to which evil persons are subject. Calvin continues: When the will of a natural man is said t
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