The City of God by Augustine - 14 - The Origins of Sin and its Nature
Book Fourteen
Quote
📝 Good and bad men alike desire, fear, rejoice, but the former in a good, the latter in a bad fashion, according as the will is right or wrong.
Notes
🔥 Adam and Eve's sin altered our nature and brought death. Now all the human race live in two cities: one where people love after the flesh, the other where people love after the spirit.
🔥 Augustine makes reference to Paul's list of the sins of the flesh: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, hatred, witchcraft, etc. This list of sins includes the pleasures of the flesh and more. Although, flesh itself is not sinful. It's putting flesh above the spirit that is sinful.
🔥 Man's will is central and sin comes from the will following after vice. Don't hate the man, says Augustine, hate the vice. And love the man.
🔥 "The right will is well-directed love, and the wrong will is ill-directed love." It isn't our emotions or passions themselves that are right or wrong, it is in how they are directed and oriented. Is God above all, or do we only serve ourselves?
🔥 Jesus himself lived a human life and experienced all the same emotions as us. But his heart was always directed toward God and the good.
🔥 Some of these emotions will no longer exist in the world to come. Fear may still exist, but a "clean fear" not coming from a place of anxiety, but one only deterring us from evil. Patience will no longer be necessary, since it's only for our current state, waiting to reunite with God.
🔥 God is supreme over evil, and can use it for his own good will. Evil is not in nature, but it is in our will. Our will is free when it is not slave to desire and vice. Therefore, Jesus is our liberator by freeing us from sin.
🔥 Sin ultimately comes from pride, which is self-exaltation. Humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. Pride makes us low.
🔥 The city of God is fashioned by the love of God. The city of earth is fashioned by the love of self. This is what underlies Adam's first sin, "by aspiring to be self-sufficing, he fell away from Him who truly suffices him."
🔥 God was acting justly in punishing man, condemning him to the liberty that he desired, though it's a false liberty.
🔥 Many of man's sins can be described as lusts. But lust for sex is the most powerful in possessing our minds. Augustine thinks it would be better if we could procreate with this feeling of lust.
🔥 Adam and Eve became ashamed by their nakedness after sin. This shame came from being aware that their flesh was now more powerful than their will.
🔥 Knowledge of good and evil is like how being sick makes you aware of health.
🔥 Sex makes us feel shame, too. Even appropriate sex is done in secret because of this. But God created us male and female and said to "be fruitful and multiply." Sex was meant to be good, but we feel shame because of how our body no longer serves the will. It overpowers our will with the feeling of lust.
🔥 There are lots of examples of how our will has power over all parts of our body. Augustine mentions one example of how "some have such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously and at pleasure, so as to produce the effect of singing." Okay...
🔥 God's will and order are not disturbed by our disobedience. God chose to leave the power of will in man's power, "and thus show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by His grace."
Reflection
💬 I'm still looking for how this book can be considered history. It seems like a bit of a stretch, especially how we understand history today. But in a way, history concerns itself with the nature of man. And this section is attempting to explain parts of our nature, but also how we should orient ourselves, serving God and not ourselves. Ultimately it doesn't seem like a discussion about sin is part of what we understand as history.