WHEATON COLLEGE

Plundering Augustine
An Interaction With Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity
Lane Severson 4/3/2008

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Introduction In Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Charles Taylor has tried to revive an understanding of the good that can bring clarity to our modern moral dilemma. The dilemma is that we generally agree on what is good but we have a variety of sources for these goods. For example, the dignity of every human being is a commonly accepted good in the West. But, we struggle to provide a concrete reason on which human dignity can be grounded. What is it that makes us believe every human being is dignified? Surely no modern Western person will deny this basic assumption. Taylor even reminds us that we get very angry when this dignity is not extended to all races, creeds, genders, etc. And yet, the vast majority of us are unwilling to commit to the source of this good. Taylor describes three sources that supply a framework for our modern notions of the good: theism, naturalism, and romantic expressivism.1 A theistic view of the good is that creation is good because God saw it as good. Taylor calls this seeing-good. This is a phrase he coins from his understanding of God seeing his creation and proclaiming it to be good. Theistically, dignity is not something that is simply in the mind of the subject and God. Neither is it something that is projected onto nature from the mind of the subject only. It is something that creation inherently is because God has declared it to be so. This seeing good is a result of Gods character and is imparted to us by means of his grace. The naturalist and Romantic sources of the good are within the subject. They certainly allow no room for a platonic view of the Good as an ultimate form, which stands behind everything giving it meaning. Instead it has located the good within the individual. For the naturalist this means
1

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), 314. Taylor summarizes this point in his conclusion when he sketches a map of moral sources. The map distributes the moral sources into three large domains: the original theistic grounding for these standards; a second one that centres on naturalism of disengaged reason, which in our day takes scientistic forms; and a third family of views which finds its sources in Romantic expressivism or in one of the modernist successor visions. (495)

that we project the idea of values onto a valueless world. And for the Romantic we find value by searching through our inner-depth. Taylor is not holding to a strictly singular view of the sources of the self. He admits that the reason we are faced with a dilemma is because each of these sources offers different goods that we recognize and value.2 He describes the positive effects that the secular has had on the religious citing a concern for the reduction of suffering, sexual equality, world economic opportunity, and a more universalistic view of salvation.3 But the thrust of his work seems to be in the opposite direction. He wants to remind secular sources of moral philosophy that they not only originated in a theistic worldview but that they have a continuing dependence on it.4 For Taylor this is not just an ethical dilemma. This is an issue of identity. He argues that the moral commitments we make cannot be divorced from our ideas of who we are. He points out that we are unable to answer the question who am I without giving an ethical response. WE locate ourselves within a moral framework. Outside of this framework we are unable to offer any description of our identity. Part of the difficulty we face today is that our framework is pluralistic: it gathers resources from pre-modern theism, early enlightenment deism, and a slew of romantic progressions. Being able to define what makes life meaningful is cumbersome because we acknowledge the value each of these positions holds. Having defined the modern dilemma, Taylor embarks on an investigation of the past views of the good. He has two goals. First, that by looking to history we will be able to gain a deeper understanding of our modern moral conflict. If we can locate the shifts in our thinking throughout history then we will have a better understanding of the real force of our modern
2 3

Taylor, Sources, 503. Ibid., 318. 4 Ibid., 319.

dilemma. Secondly, Taylor hopes to plunder buried treasures in order to restore an understanding of the good life.5 Although he is never explicit about it, the buried treasure Taylor finds is Augustinian theology. One way to describe Sources is a history of Augustines influence on Moral Philosophy. This is a simplification of course, but it is helpful. Taylor describes Augustine laying the foundation for what we understand as the modern individual. But he reminds us that all of Augustinian thought is firmly rooted in his theology. The fault of modern philosophy is that it no longer acknowledges the debt it owes to Augustinian theism and its continued dependence upon it. But for Taylor the blade cuts both ways. Theism too has a debt to pay to our other modern sources of good as described above. In this way Taylor attempts to maintain a pluralism that can continue to provide a description of the good life that is acceptable to our modern tendencies. He sees the different sources as corrective: where one wanders the other shepherds. The purpose of this paper is to investigate Taylors description of the role Augustine played in developing our modern notion of the self. This will focus primarily on the Augustinian move inward and the philosophical developments of that move. Drawing a sketch of the entire history of this development would be impossible so I will focus on the early philosophical moves and their modern equivalents. Once we understand Taylors picture of the modern dilemma in the context of its Augustinian heritage, I want to discuss the problem with which Taylor is faced. Or, If Taylor is right that we are inescapably pluralistic in refards to the good, the problem we

Says Taylor, We have read so many goods out of our official story, we have buried their power so deep beneath layers of philosophical rationale, that they are in danger of stifling. Or rather, since they are our goods, human goods, we are stifling. The intention of this work was one of retrieval, an attempt to uncover buried goods through rearticulationand thereby to make these sources again empower. (Taylor, Sources, 520)

are faced with when we read Augustine today. I will put the question this way: in which ways does Augustines vision of the good life still speak to us? Augustinian Inwardness Augustine provides the two primary pieces of our modern notion of the self: inwardness and the common life. Taylor doesnt believe that Augustine invented inwardness, only that he placed a new importance on the role inwardness played in daily life. He describes the difference between Augustines inwardness and previous concepts of the self as one that is radically reflexive. Reflexivity is common for humans. This is the ability we all have to understand the warning take care of yourself. We know that this means to slow down, get some rest, and reprioritize. The stance becomes radicalwhen what matters to us is the adoption of the first person standpoint.6 This is different than taking care of yourself, or even prioritizing the development of the spiritual over the physical. Both of these things are presented in platonic thought. Augustines inwardness is a shift from the object known to the activity itself of knowing.7 Augustine describes this move as something that belongs to its own nature, and that when the mind thinks about itself its view is drawn back to itself not through an interval of space, but by a kind of non-bodily turning round.8 Taylor uses evidence from three of Augustines books: One Free Will, Confessions, and The Trinity. Throughout his analysis, he reminds us that although our ideas of inwardness have been developed from Augustines, his were firmly rooted in his theism. Augustine makes the step to inwardness, as I said, because it is a step towards God. The truth dwells within, as we saw

6 7

Ibid., 130. Ibid. 8 Augustine, The Trinity, trans. Edmund Hill (New York: New City Press, 1991), 376.

above, and God is Truth.9 This has implications for how he understood the world. In brief, although Augustine makes a turn inward he is doing so to connect with God who is ultimately not just within him. Augustines view of truth and goodness is based on his knowledge of who God is. And, since everything that exists is sustained by God, everything that exists is good. This is to be contrasted with the modern view of things as either lacking meaning altogether, or being meaningful simply because they are important to the individual. Even theistic understanding where things are meaningful because they perform a function in the world God has created steps outside of the Augustinian view of goodness. This inherent goodness is grounded in the Christian understanding that human beings are made in the image of God. In The Trinity, Augustine shows that we image the trinity through the soul and its activities.10 He gives two examples of trinity: one of mind, knowledge, and love and the other of memory, intelligence and will.11 Taylor says, Man shows himself most clearly as the image of God in his inner self-presence and self-love. It is a kind of knowledge where knower and known are one, coupled with love, which reflects most fully God in our lives.12 Augustines Trinitarianism best displays his self reflexive move because it identifies the image of God as something within us that has a likeness of the trinity. Thus inwardness is a key concept for Augustines idea of the relation between man and God.13 Human beings are inherently worth respecting because they are the image of God. It is from this stance that Augustine values the inward move. When we think of moving inward to
Taylor, Sources, 132. Ibid., 136. 11 Says Augustine, *W+hen I name my memory, understanding, and will, each name refers to a single thing and yet each of these single names is the product of all three; there is not one of these three names which my memory and understanding and will have not produced together. So too the trinity together produced both the Fathers voice and the Sons flesh and the Holy Spirits dove. Augustine, The Trinity, 175-6. 12 Taylor, Sources, 136. 13 Ibid., 137.
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find the truth we think of ideas like authenticity, the quest for our own truth. Augustine saw the inward move as performed through confession whereby he presented himself to God and learned the true truth from God about his intention and will. The Augustinian idea of confession is that when our knowledge or understanding is transformed by God we are able to understand things about ourselves that were not clear to us in our previous life of sin. There are two key points here. One is that Augustine needs to find a way to explain how it is that there are things that we dont know about ourselves. This is a central epistemological problem in Confessions. The second is departure from Platonic view of the will as something that can be directed toward the good. Augustine states that the will is corrupted by sine and therefore depends on an outside action of grace to access the good. The problem of self-discovery is that if we know something then it should be apparent to us, but if it is unknown it is simply non-existent. Searching within ourselves would then seem like a worthless task. But throughout Confessions Augustine is concerned with understanding the reasons and motivations behind his actions. These were not explicit to him when he was doing them but after his conversion he has gained new insight. The fact that what he is learning is not in the external world only internal forces him to ask the question of where it could exist without being explicitly known. His answer is that it is present in his memory but it is forgotten or hidden. Taylor defines Augustines view that memory is the souls implicit knowledge of itself.14 Augustine discusses memory extensively in Book X of Confessions. For Augustine when ideas deteriorate a person forgets what he has learned. But, he asks, how can a person know that

14

Ibid., 136.

he has forgotten? If it was truly forgotten it would cease to exist as an idea and the memory would be unable to find the information, so the problem of self-discovery. In fact, when we think we have forgotten something, it is still being partially held within the memory. If it has been totally forgotten then the idea will have completely dissolved and the person will be like he was before: ignorant of his knowledge until something should draw the idea together again. The idea of forgetfulness leads into an understanding of why people hide the truth from themselves. Augustine shows that everyone desires a happy life but no one has a happy life. If this is an idea that exists in our memory then we must have known it at some point in the past even though no one can remember that moment now. Augustine believes that the happy life is found in knowledge of the truth and grounded in God. But people have chosen not to accept the truth. Instead they lie to themselves about what is truly true in order to maintain their current understanding of life. It is here that Taylor would remind us that Augustine is not saying that the truth is within us. In an important sense, the truth is not in me. I see the truth in GodGoing within memory takes me beyond.15 The truth is still something that is from God. God is the truth and knowledge of the truth means knowledge of God.16 Memory is simply a way of explaining how we can both know the truth and not know it at the same time. And so at the end of its search for itself, if it goes to the very end, the soul finds God.17

Ibid., 135. Says Taylor, it is here that our implicit grasp of what we are resides, which guides us as we move from our original self-ignorance and grievous self-misdescription to true self-knowledge. Taylor, Sources, 135. 17 Ibid.
16

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Whereas Plato and Augustine share the idea of the soul facing different directions towards the higher and immaterial, or towards the lower and sensible,18 Plato believes that we are attracted to the good the more we are exposed to it. He thinks that becoming more like the good is simply a matter of redirecting our gaze from worldly and fleshly pursuits for glory and honor to a pursuit of the Truth. It might seem that Augustine shares Platos stance when he speaks of looking on the light of God and being transformed. But for Augustine this is not an action that we can simply do by realizing the ordered goodness of the world.19 It is something that Adam could have done prior to the fall but because of original sin we are unable to use reason rightly.20 Our will is perverted. The will has a very important role in Augustines theology.21 But, as we mentioned, it was significantly different than the classical understanding of the will. That Augustine understood human will through the doctrine of original sin is a primary difference from Plato and the modern moralists. In fact, although Taylor never explicitly states it, this may be one of the first pieces of Augustinian theology that is left by the wayside.22 When Augustine is meditating on why people hide the truth from themselves he states that [t]hey love truth for the light it sheds, but hate it when it shows them as being wrong.23 Our ability to hate the truth is evidence that we have a perverse will. In Augustines Christian
Ibid., 137. We might say that were for Plato the eye already has the capacity to see, for Augustine it has lost this capacity. This must be restored by grace. And what grace does is to open the inward man to God, which makes able to see that the eyes vaunted power is really Gods. Taylor, Sources, 139. 20 This is what Taylor calls the central crisis of moral experience. (138) 21 Taylor reminds us that a focus on the will gives a central place to the human capacity to give or withhold assent, or to choose. And that *f+rom this, the idea can grow that moral perfection requires a personal adhesion to the good, a full commitment of the will. (137) 22 For all of Descartes disenchantments he is rather optimistic about the ability for a sinful being to use reason rightly and to direct the will. Locke certainly makes this move when he develops the modern notion of selfcontrol. 23 Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 200.
19 18

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outlook, as we say, the perversity in the will can never be sufficiently explained by our lack of insight into the good; on the contrary, it makes us act below and against our insight, and prevents this from becoming fuller and purer.24 So sin is the reason why we are unable to know the truth about ourselves even though this knowledge is available to us. Augustine sees most, if not all, sins as different types of pride. Or, at least, that pride is the beginning of all sin. Pride is knowing the truth of God and yet hating it for revealing our own truth as false. Taylor comments on this by saying that [e]vil is when this reflexivity is enclosed on itself. Healing comes when it is broken open, not in order to be abandoned, but in order to acknowledge its dependence on God.25 The language of dependence upon God is the foundation for Augustines inwardness. He is not simply searching for his own truth; this would be simply following the perversity of the will. He is searching for the truth of God, which is made known within the memory, but is not produced by it. The very essence of Christian piety is to sense this dependence of my inmost being on God.26 Augustines Prodigal In the first section of this paper we discussed how Augustine placed an importance on the radical reflexive stance but that this was motivated by his theological understanding and was not an attempt to view the good as contained by the self. This was based on his understanding of the human being made in the image of God, memory as a way of being able to access the truth of God, and the admitted limitations of the will as a result of original sin. Augustine turned inward in order that he might seek Gods face. We could characterize the modern development of the

24 25

Taylor, Sources, 138. Ibid., 139. 26 Ibid.

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identity by saying that it was a gradual reduction of Augustines theological foundation.27 Let us call this reduction secularization. This was not something that happened as soon as Descartes developed his idea of the disengaged self. It was a slow process that wasnt fully encapsulated by any one writer. Even philosophers like Locke, who displaced much of what was core to Christian beliefs, still depended on suppositions supplied by Christianity.28 Taylor identifies two major movements in secularization. The first is a regression in the central role of religion for western culture, from a public to a private practice.29 The second is that many good people go on believing in God, or in some higher reality, even though they engage in no formal religious practice.30 These were broad social changes that provide a background for the philosophical secularization of Augustines inwardness. They also illustrate the primary shift that happened in the modern era. There is an effort to maintain the dignity of man, which Augustine grounded in the image of God, without holding to his theology. As we will see, this becomes problematic. The starting point for this secularization is in the language of inwardness. For modern philosophers it represents a radically new doctrine of moral resources, one where the route to the higher passes within.31 But, the use of the word higher instead of God is a warning bell that we are no longer within Augustines theological framework. The initial moves in this direction are made by thinkers who would have still identified themselves as Christians. Taylor reminds us that Descartes dependence upon reason as the source of truth is still using an Augustinian understanding that reason is grounded in God. But Descartes does represent an
27

So Taylor, The awesome powers of human reason and will are God-made and part of Gods plan; more, they are what constitute the image of God in us. But insofar as the sources now lie within us, more particularly, within certain powers we posses, the basis is there for an independent, i.e., non-theistic morality. (315) 28 In fact, Taylor thinks that it is important to maintain Lockes Deistic Christianity, however reduced it might be. His views on the Low of nature are still based on the idea that they are Gods command. (235) 29 Ibid., 309. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 309.

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important change from the Augustinian understanding of inwardness. The change might be described by saying that Descartes situates the moral sources within us.32 While this sounds like Augustinian language because of the inward movement, Descartes is now locating the truth within the rational subject. Rationality is still valued because it is imaging God, but the truth that we are seeking is now located within us. Or, the truth is something that we can perceive in the ordered world through our powers of reason. For Augustine the truth was God. His inwardness was constantly seeking God. From Descartes to the present time [w]e go inward, but not necessarily to find God; we go to discover or impart some order, or some meaning or some justification, to our lives.33 Taylor reminds us that Augustine was not Cartesian. In fact, as I have been arguing, Descartes moves away from Augustines theological stance in favor of a philosophically defensible view of truth. Says Taylor: Augustinian inwardness stands behind the Cartesian turn, and the mechanistic universe was originally a demand of theology. The disengaged subject stands in the place already hollowed out for God; he takes a stance to the world which befits an image of the Deity.34 There is a significant discussion of the good here. In Augustinian language the understanding of the good is that it is from God and that things have an inherent goodness because they have been declared good by God. For Descartes the good is something that resides in the subject because he is a rational being, capable of understanding Gods ordering of the universe. But this ignores the view of original sin that states that human beings, although rational beings, are unable to perceive truth unless they are acted upon by God. Once this happens they are able to perceive the truth, which is in God.

32 33

Ibid. Ibid., 177. 34 Ibid., 315.

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There is a significant change in the localization of good and virtue once we make the Cartesian move. If rational control is a matter of mind dominating a disenchanted world of matter, then the sense of the superiority of the good life, and the inspiration to attain it, must come from the agents sense of his own dignity and as a rational being.35 This localization of good within the subject is an important part of Taylors description of the modern dilemma. [A] modern may think an object valuable because it fulfils a function in Gods design. The valuation is then objective. But it is not a significance expressed or embodied in the object in the way characteristic of theories of ontic logos. The valuation is now unambiguously not in the object but in minds, ours or Gods.36 This too is a move away from the Augustinian idea of the source of the good life, which was God alone.37 Writes Augustine, God is the only source to be found of any good things, but especially of those which make a man good and those which will make him happy; only from him do they come into a man and attach themselves to a man.38 The Cartesian turn produced the modern notion of self-control. Taylor attributes this move to Locke. Lock takes Descartes disengaged self a step further by showing that once you have become objective about yourself, you can change. To take this stance is to identity oneself with the power to objectify and remake, and by this act to distance oneself from all particular features which are objects of potential change.39 This mutation of the Augustinian idea develops an entirely new source for the good. Instead of Augustines theistic turning inward to find the good which is based in God because man is made in the image of God, man has dignity simply because he is a rational self-controled being. He takes, as taylor described, the objective stance
Ibid., 152. Ibid., 187. 37 Taylor explains, The shift from Platonic Ideas to Cartesian ideas is perhaps the most eloquent illustration of the change Ive been describing. For the first, Ideas are ontic, the basis of reality; for the second, they are contents of the mind. (188) 38 Augustine, The Trinity, 350. 39 Taylor, Sources, 171.
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previously reserved for God and is valuable in himself. [T]his dignity becomes itself a moral source.40 Taylor points to another primary mutation of the Augustinian notion of inwardness: the idea of self-exploration as exemplified through Montaigne.41 Once again the idea of inwardness as expressed in Augustine is put to new use. But Montaignes inward movement was not one of disengagement; rather he is interested in discovering the true self, the authentic self.42 A generalization of their differences would be to say that Descartes is interested in finding objective, provable truth, and Montaigne is interested in finding what is true for himself. Taylors description of Montaigne sounds like his description of Augustinian evil: reflexivity enclosed upon itself. Montaigne is searching for the truth within himself but in a different way that Descartes and Augustine. His truth is self-enclosed and subjective. Montaigne looks for the truth within himself but not in the confessional mode of Augustine. Later this move will develop into the expressivist notion of self, where the inward move is made not just to find a true understanding of self, but a true understanding of nature. The expressivist move imitates Augustines inwardness by looking inward for something that is ultimately not within us. But the expressivist discovers nature where Augustine found God. This produces a new source for morality, one that values self-articulation of inner depth.43 There is much more that could be said about the develpoment of Augustinian inwardness through the philosophical tradition. This section is meant to sketch a picture of two of the mutations of Augustinian inwardness and to show how they have developed radically different
Ibid., 315. Says Taylor, Montaigne served as a paradigm figure to illustrate another way in which Augustinian inwardness has entered modern life, and he helped to constitute our understanding of the self. (184) 42 Taylor, The Cartesian calls for a radical disengagement from ordinary experience; Montaigne requires a deeper engagement in our particularity. (182) 43 Ibid., 389-90.
41 40

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localizations of the good. Taylor draws attentio to the fact that these are reductions of Augustinian theology but he doesnt see this as essentially problematic. These are natural and needed developments, not simply from philosophical or theological levels, but from a societal one. The mutation became necessary when and to the extent that it seemed to the people that these moral sources could only be properly acknowledged, could only thusfully empower us, in their non-theistic form.44 WWAD: What Would Augustine Do Taylor highlights teo moral ideas essential for making modern life meaningful. These are goods that have developed outside of a theistic framework; or rather they dont require one: the significance of ordincary life and the idea of universal benevolence.45 These have been adopted by the church and produced a reduction of suffering, sexual equality, world economic opportunity, and a more univeralistic view of salvation. But, Taylor reminds us, these goods are a mutation of their theistic source. If they are going to be able to support themselves in the long run, they are going to need to acknowledge their dependance upon theism.46 High standards need strong sources? As Taylor says. His fear is that moral philosophy is so antagonistic towards theism that it has stifled the very spirit that gives it life. But this is not an inveitation for theism to step in and cancel the other sources of good that have developed during the modern era. Taylor is trying to invite these three warring parties to a peace talk. IT is through mutual dialogue and respect for the contribution each has made that we will be able to continue to maintain our modern notions of dignity and justice.

Ibid., 315. Taylor, 395. 46 The issue is what sources can support our far-reaching moral commitments to benevolence and justice. (Taylor, Sources, 515.)
45

44

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Having looked at the ways that theism, specifically Augustinian theology, has given birth to modern moral philosophy, how can we revive Augustine as a viable source for our pluralistic goods? There is a question behind this question. Does Augustine lend himself to this type of hermeneutic? Or, is his writing so entrenced in theism that it must be taken all or nothing? Or to return to the metephor of peace talks, would Augustine attend this dialogue, and if so, what would he say? This is the problem I want to address in the final section of this paper. First I want to make clear that it would be anachronistic to try and read Augustine as pluralistic. He was nothing if not a theist. His entire concept of reality and the cosmos is based on God as creator and redeemer. It would be easy, perhaps, even popular, to describe Augustine as at least latenly pluralistic because of the platonic influence on his work. The would be an exaggeration. To the extent that Augustine incorportated platonic ideas into his thought, and this is undoubtadly overemphasized, he did so with a priority on Christian theology. The source for Augustne is always God revealed through the bible, the life of his Son, and the church. He would be unable to conceive of a universe that was not made and ordered through Gods word.47 He decries even admitting that a single bug is evil for this can lead a man astray from the knowledge of God. This is vastly different than our modern concept of the universe.48 We do not instinctively bend towards Augustines ideas of privation or the importance he puts on never lying under any circumstance. Most of us find his sexual ethic neurotic and his views towards women and slaves intolerable. In large portions fo the modern Christian community there is a fear of radical Augustinian views of original sin and human depravity. Theis is all to say that
Augustine, Confessions, 224-5. Even those who hold to Augustines theological premise, that God created the world through his word, do not have a cosmology that is ontic logos. Most of us feel more comfortable in a Cartesian dualism between the physical world of matter and the mental understanding of it or a romantic expressivism where we can discuss how nature is meaningful to me. This is not to say that we cannot understand Augustines cosmology. The point is simply that we do not tend toward this position naturally because it is no longer part of our larger understanding of the world.
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Augustine existed in a a different framework from our own; even our theism has engaged in the modern pluralism and can no longer hold to all of Augusines ideas. Regardless of how unpalatable the modern finds Augustins in his fullness there is room for dialogue. This is not to say that we read Augustine in a mode of reductionism where we cut our the portions that we dont like. This would be to once again stifle the spirit that we so badly need. On the other hand we cannot simply stand in the presence of this ancient bishop and proclaim ourselves to be strict disciples following his every word. We need to be honest about the areas where we depart from his understanding of the world. In spite of these differences, I believe that Augustine has tools that are grounded in his theism that can still lead us to knowledge of the good life even in our plualisitic understanding of the world. When addressing Augusints view on the good, our ability to live the good life, it is impolssible to ignore his doctrine of original sin. As we mentioned previously this was one of the first aspects of Augustinian inwardness that was abandon. To tell a person that they are inherently sinful and unable to use their will correctly is offensive and unacceptable even in many moder theist circles. But there is a senses that we have there is something wrong with ouw own ability to make ourselves happy. The more people seek the happy life the more they realize that it is out of their reach. Of course the Augustinian doctrine of original sin has greater implications that this. Under UAgustines model we are unable to even know what is good outside of Gods grace. But I am not so optimistic as to assume that modern moralist will accept Augustines entire structure. My hope is that we can adapt the Augustinian grammar for a new situation. There is a modern disenchantment with the possibility of happiness because we realize how difficult it is to obtain. This makes sense to Augustine because of the way we seek the good. When Augustine looked for the good it was a good that was not in himself but in God. But it was

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God who even initiated this move. For Augustine there is a grace that is needed before we can even begin to direct our will toward happiness. The language of grace could provide us with a language for why we are unable to find happiness or even be truly benevolent. The Nietzshian and Dostoevskian critism of modern benevolence is that it can demean the needy and thus not be benevolent but spiteful. In the Nietzchian philosophy this is evil, in the Dostoevskian it can actually lead to violence. This is the case for beings that naturally seek their own happiness but are ironically inept. How can we pretend to be able to bring happiness to others if we are incapable of bringing it to ourselves? And how can we expect to respect the dignity of another if we feel that this is something that we bestow on them from our detached rational vantage point? But if we can speak of benevolence through a language of weak wills empowered by grace to love the other, then we have gound a vibrant new language that combat the critique. There is still the problem of where this grace would find its source. Augustine also offers direction here with his term good of every good. Taylors complaint against the modern sources is that they are all too myopic. None can accept the goods that the other brings to the table. On top of this they have stubbornly refused to see where the other view can offer helpful commentary that will give life and meaning to their understanding of the world. My thesis here is that Augustine has a more inclusive view of the good than his secular counterparts because he understands the good of God as the good of every good.49 Everything that is, is good. Not simply because it is a cog in the wheel, as the deist would claim. Or that it serves a right purpose in Gods ordered univers, as some modern theists would say, following the cartesian move. The problem with the Cartesian cosmology is not that

49

Augustine, The Trinity, 244.

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it sees the goodness of an ordered universe but that it restricts goodness to this one part of existence. Likewise, the problem with romantic expressivism is not that it looks inward for the meaning that is within all of nature and value the self-affirmation of these things. It is not aht it seeks to plumb the unknowable depth of the self; it is that it stops too soon. In Augustines description of loving God in the Confessions, one can hear similarities to the expressivist inwardness: Yet there is a light I love, and a good, and a kind of embrace when I love my Goda light, voice, odour, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses, where there is a taste for food that no amount of eatingcan lessen, and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.50 Augustines inwardness is not only hyper-spiritual; it is deeply physical. The inward turn finds God, but it is also illuminated by nature. He uses the language of the sense to describe the depths of his love for God. He is not just describing his love for all of creation and saying that it is God. He is using the natural as a way of desciribing the depths of his inward experience. Theism also has much to learn from Augustines generosity. The modern religious is just as hesitant to commit to a source of the good as anyone else. He is certainly unwilling to declare himself a pluralist, although as Taylor has shown this is almost inescapable. It is the nature of our age. None of us can claim to share a cosmology with Augustine. A select few have plundered ancient methods and developed a uniquely authentic understanding of the world, but a vast majority of us share the plualistic struggle. Theism has followed the Cartesian and romantic routes. It has not retained the depth and complecity of Augustinian theology. As I mentioned
50

Augustine, Confessions, 183.

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above, our modern sensibilities spurn it. But if theism is to continue to be a viable source for our modern goods it too needs to adopt a more generous approach to the good as something that is ontic logos. Regardless of the theological opinion of the creation of the world and the actual localization of the image of God, we must accept that we believe in a creator God who has declared the world and the people in it to have inherent worth simply because they share in the good of all good. Augustine is better equipped to sustain our modern values of benevolence and universal equality than our modern moralist because he is not stingy with goodness. His understanding of goodness is based on what Taylor has called seeing-good and on faith. Having discussed the first portion of this we will move onto the role faith plays in Augustines generous good. In The Trinity Book VIII Augustine explains how we can love God without seeing him.[S]omething can be loved which is unknown, provided it is believed.51 It is through faith that we are able to get beyond the confines of our own good and accept the ultimate good. Even if one does not accept the complete theism of Augustines stance, the importance at this point is the role of faith in the exercise of virtue. Even if as pluralistic moderns we areunwilling to name an ultimate good with the surety of Augustines theology, the importance of faith remains essential to holding a generous view of the good. Taylor reminds us often that the dilemma we face is from the multiplicity of goods we value. We are unable to take a stand on any one of the sources. It does not seem that naturalism or expressivism offer a way of incorporating the goods of their opponents. It is in this context that Augustinian theism once again offers a more inclusive vision of the good. Through faith we may be able to adopt a belief in the good of every good. If this is possible then we can see ourselves, as Augustine does, in relation to the good and
51

Augustine, The Trinity, 246.

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understand the dignity of man as being located in his being good or capability of being made good. 52 It is in this way that Augustines generous good can continue to offer support to our stifled sources. Lastly, in our acknowledgement of the good individuality, and the benefits that has produced for society, we cannot neglect the important of love. If I can make a final generalization, individualism has promoted a greater equality among people, but it has also promoted an idea of individual rights, which immediately cretes an isolated claim for respect and dignity.53 Within Augustinianism the value is always placed on loving God and loving your neighbor. It is out of this being love that individuals dignity and respect is preserved. Once again this is founded in the belief that God is love. Therefore [i]f a man loves his neighbor, it follows that above all he loves love itself.54 If we are plundering Augustine we will find that this love is the greatest good which binds together all of our other goods. It is withing the communal mode of loving God and loving neighbor that the true truth of our identity is made known.

52 53

Augustine, The Trinity, 251.. Taylor, Sources, 12. 54 Augustine, The Trinity, 252.