This research examines the work of Augustine with a view toward determining whether it should be considered more consistent with Roman Catholic or Calvinist doctrine. The research will set forth the basis on which Augustine's views become an issue front in theological discourse and then discuss reasons that support classifying Augustine as falling firmly within the Catholic tradition.
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.
In the background of Augustinian articulations of theology and moral philosophy are his use of classical political and philosophical texts of Greece and Rome and close knowledge of Christian and non-Christian religious factions that grew up in the greater Mediterranean area in the post-apostolic period. The Confessions and The City of God offer a moral explanation of the state of human experience. In the latter work, Augustine offers a critique of Cicero's Commonwealt...