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Augustine: On Christian Formation

Ryan Huber
10/27/09
Submitted to Dr. Khaled Anatolios

The University is about unity in diversity. Various people from a multiplicity of cultural,

linguistic, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds come together to form a college or university.

Professors, students, other staff, parents, and the community at large exchange ideas and resources in

the hopes of creating something better. The product of the University is the graduate. We judge

graduates by their undergraduate school of origin, and we judge schools by their graduates. What about

colleges in the Christian tradition? Certainly most seek to provide an environment in which students are

formed, transformed, conformed to the image of Christ, the image of God and the new Way to be

human. Herein lies my interest. What are the central ideas, truths, and foci which will result in a real,

true, and good opportunity for students to engage and be engaged in their next steps in Christian

formation? What wisdom can we impart, what lessons can be learned, and from where should they be

derived? Who are the people who can assist those who would help students in their Christian journey?

Most certainly the Bishop of Hippo should be at the top of our list.

Augustine of Hippo is claimed by many as one of their own. Calvinists, Catholics, Platonists

and other philosophers, psychologists and priests. The incredible body of writings he left behind,

which has thankfully been so well preserved over the centuries, makes Augustine a prime candidate for

meaningful interaction and conversation. His position as bishop, his brilliant mind, and his propensity

for deep intellectual and existential query and reflection make him an even better consultant for an

undertaking such as this. His personal journey and relationship with the God he loved so dearly, which

his writings make so accessible, makes him the perfect guide for the seeker of an effective and

authentic curriculum for Christian Formation in the context of a Christian university.

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What does Augustine have to say to us regarding Christian formation? Far too much to capture

in such a modest paper as this. No, great care and selectivity must be utilized in highlighting the very

most important strands of Augustinian thought which apply to the subject of Christian formation.

Therefore, we will focus on the three most critical themes or ideas which Augustine can contribute to a

suggested curriculum of Christian formation or discipleship. Theses themes in my mind are caught up

in a picture of a totality vulnerable human being endlessly beholding the ultimate in captivating beauty-

the Triune God. In Augustine's thought, these things are indispensable in a journey of spiritual

formation. They include the rationality and sight of faith, the necessity of humility for the journey, and

the ultimacy (in the Christian life) of love. For Augustine, all of these can only be had by the

providential grace of God, but the focus of this exercise is on the life and activity of the human agent in

the process of Christian formation. Therefore, the context or application of these ideas will be in the

lived out lives of Christian young people and the teachers, mentors, pastors, and friends who help

students on their personal Christian journey.

Faith

In Augustinian thought, spiritual or Christian formation (although he wouldn't necessarily use

the phrase) could be defined as a personal story or drama in which a person sees or experiences God

more and more clearly and intimately through graciously given “eyes” of faith.1 This story is always,

whether the seeker knows it or not, a story predicated on the gift of Divine grace. Thus, from a human

perspective, it can seem as though a person is striving, seeking, asking, knocking, and ultimately

pursuing God with all that he or she has, but from a Divine or Heavenly perspective, the journey is a

matter of God guiding and seeking and revealing Himself to the person who lives out the drama. The

eyes of faith, then, are the means by which we see and properly behold the mystery of God who gives

Self revelation, and they can only be had as a gift or grace, freely given to us by the object of our

1 Augustine. De Trinitate, Book I, 3, (p 66)

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longing and affection.2

The grace given to a person by God to “see” Him is faith, but not simply faith as the ability to

believe certain truths about God, although believing is an important part of faith. It is a faith that is

scripturally based and which purifies the souls of those who partake in it, leading them to a higher level

of reasoning and spiritual maturity of vision.

So the free gift of faith is a means of a person being formed spiritually, and the mold of that

formation in faith is primarily that of holy scripture. It is scripture that catalyzes Augustine's own

conversion in the garden, and it is scripture that under-girds nearly every page of his writings, whether

polemical, pastoral, or reflective.3 We can gather from this assertion that no program or curriculum of

Christian formation, in Augustine's view, can take place without the grace of a God-oriented faith-sight

which is firmly rooted in and under-girded by scripture.

This faith-sight purifies the soul as it is fed by scripture and relationship with God through

Christ. This is important because to the extent that we can be purified, we can “see” and understand

God and His Truth, but the purification itself rests upon previous revelation of God primarily through

scripture and personal orientation toward God through Christ in the Spirit through spiritual disciplines

such as meditation on scripture. Therefore it is a spiral of sorts; with the faith-sight we have, we are led

to purification through the nourishment of the scriptures and presence of God which grants us even

greater understanding and faith and Divine sight than we had before. Reason can then follow in the

steps of faith as we contemplate the mystery of who God is.

In Augustine's view, once a certain level of personal spiritual maturity or purity is reached

through scriptural nourishment and revelation, the reason or capacity to see truth as it is or God as He is

increased, corresponding to the level of spiritual maturity the person has attained by God's grace. The

point is not how much philosophy a person has read, or how skilled they are at rhetoric, or how
2 Augustine. De Trinitate, Book IV, 2, (p 153)
3 Augustine. Confessions, VII, xii, 30, (p 153)
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intellectual they may be. The point is how holy a person is, how pure they have become through

experiencing the reality and beauty of God. Hence, if you cannot understand deep theology such as

Augustine writes, it is not because he is wrong or you are stupid, but because you cannot grasp the

truths he presents to you at your current stage or state of maturity or purification. This is a strong

argument for the importance of the ethical, moral, and personal/spiritual components of Christian

formation alongside the intellectual and philosophical elements celebrated by most universities and the

theological elements that are so often the focus of seminaries.

In order to undergo formation in a Christian sense, Augustine argues that you must have

received the gracious gift of faith. This faith-sight is absolutely necessary to “see” God, live an

increasingly mature and pure life according to holy scripture, and as a result more clearly understand

revelation such as holy scripture properly, which leads to even greater levels of faith-sight than before.

Students cannot experience Christian formation without “seeing” God, and they cannot “see” God

without a scriptural based, lived-out faith.

Humility

If faith is the only way to see God, then humility is the only way to approach Him. For

Augustine, the only way to “progress rather in his strength” is for God to bring us to “perfection in the

weakness of humility”.4 Like faith, this is only obtained by Divine grace, and the grace of humility

involves the destruction of false pride. Hence Augustine insists that we must be shown what kind of

people we really are, and we must be convinced that God loves us despite our depraved state. Like

everything else, God's love is a gift. In the words of the Apostle Paul, Augustine says, “what do you

have that you have not received?”5 So then, humility starts with the grace of realizing our poverty,

sickness, and depravity (by the awakening of the Holy Spirit), which causes us to cry out for the riches,

healing, and holiness of Christ, and we are comforted and strengthened by the gift of His love so that
4 Augustine. De Trinitate, Book IV, 1-2, (pp 152-153)
5 Augustine. Predestination of the Saints. 5, (9) (pp 228-229)
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we can approach and properly behold God.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit”, Jesus declared in the Sermon on the Mount. Augustine echoes

this sentiment in nearly all of his writings, and establishes poverty of spirit as a necessary precursor to

spiritual growth and maturity. A more contemporary understanding of “poor in spirit” is to realize or

see one's need for God. Augustine establishes a strong case for humans' need for God from scripture

and observation of the lives of people he knows, especially his own. He claims that without the grace of

God's help, as people we are bound to use our will only for evil choices.6 We can talk about our free

will and our own power and goodness as much as we want, but for Augustine, we can't do anything

apart from God and His grace. Coming to realize this truth is the very beginning of humility, and this

realization only comes as the special gift of the Holy Spirit, who enables a person to not only become

aware of sin, but to overcome that debilitating disease and freely choose the goodness that is God. This

is critical, because unless we realize our need for God, we can never see ourselves as we truly are, and

we can never cry out for the help we so desperately need to grow in God's grace. In other words,

without knowing what kind of people we are, we can never ask for the kind of humility it takes to

know, or even approach, a holy and mysterious and awe-inspiring God.

Having realized our need for grace by the gift of the Holy Spirit, we then cry out for God to

help us, and this is the very essence of humility. We gaze upon Christ, who is holy, and say with Isaiah

“Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips”. After the garden experience, as Augustine prepared for

Baptism, he would read scripture and cry out to God, allowing the Psalms to destroy any remnants of

pride in his heart. He felt ashamed for everything he had done and been before receiving the grace that

brought him to his knees. He wanted “to recite them, were it possible, to the entire world in protest

against the pride of the human race.”7 So for Augustine there is a link between realizing the low state of

humanity, being set on fire by scripture, and hating pride. When we cry out to God for love of Him and
6 Augustine. The Spirit and the Letter, 5 (iii), (p 197)
7 Augustine. Confessions, IX, iv, 8 (p 160)
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His grace and His love, we hate our previous state, especially the pride of our thoughts, all the more. In

this sense, humility begets humility. Like the spiral of faith-sight, the spiral of humility leads us ever

closer to truly beholding and loving God, and away from the people we were before we received God's

grace through the power of the Holy Spirit.

From this position of humble prostration, we can grow in our faith-sight and in our capacity to

reflect back the love that God has freely given us. The more clearly we see our desperate state, the

greater are our cries for God's help. As we cry for God's help, He reminds us of how much He loves us,

despite our depravity. As we grow in faith-sight, we grow in humility, and as we grow in humility, we

grow in love. Augustine said that “where there is humility, there is charity”.8 And it is only once we

experience the unmerited love of God in humility that we can live out a Christian life, the center and

ultimate virtue of which is true Divine love, or charity.

Love

Love can be quite an ambiguous word in the English language. When we speak of love here, we

mean agape, or caritas, which used to be translated into English as 'charity'. 'Charity' carries a

somewhat more limited connotation than it used to in English, so we will refer to caritas as 'Divine

love' or 'God's love', or simply 'love' for the the purposes of this project.

Augustine was not only a theologian but a pastor as well. He preached regularly as the Bishop

of Hippo, and he spoke movingly about the ultimacy of love in the lived-out daily faith of Christians.

In his “Ten Homilies on the Epistle of Saint John”, Augustine expounds scripture in order to highlight

the crucial importance of love in the living out of the Christian gospel. He expounds one section which

reads “'Hereby we know him, if we keep his commandments' Which commandments?..Maybe the

commandment itself is named love.”9 This brings to mind the discussion of the “greatest

commandment”, to love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. The second, we are
8 Augustine. Homilies on 1 John, prologue, (Augustine: Later Works, p 259 )
9 Augustine. Homilies on 1 John, First Homily, 9, (Augustine: Later Works, p 266 )
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reminded, is like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. This train of knowing God, being loved by God,

keeping His commandments by His love, and loving God and others as the greatest commandments is a

strong strand of Augustinian thought. Later in the homilies on 1 John, Augustine claims that “love is

the only final distinction between the sons of God and the sons of the devil.”10 In the same homily, he

highlights scriptural evidence to argue that love covers sin, sin is simply a violation of charity, and that

salvation is to be “filled full” with charity. For Augustine, as for Paul, Christ is the ultimate example of

charity, and the most important thing for Christ is that his disciples love God, one another, and even

their enemies. If faith is the precondition for our saving knowledge of God, and humility is the posture

we must have in order to approach and to know Him, then love, especially for Augustine, is the proof

or evidence that we actually do know and have been saved by God through Christ. It is not enough,

though, to say you love God or to claim love for your neighbor, this is a lived-out love in a real and

physical way.

If love is “made perfect” in the laying down of one's life for one's friends, then it begins in

sharing worldly goods with your brothers who are in need.11 Augustine argues that if you can't happily

give your worldly surplus to your brother who is in need, then the love of God is not in you, and you

are not born of God, regardless of the fact that you call yourself a Christian. There is a very important

point here to be made for Christian formation. Augustine will tell you that the only way you can prove

yourself a Christian is by your deeds, especially deeds of love directed toward those in need in the

name and love of Christ. Although Augustine is the theologian of freely given grace, and salvation by

faith, he requires that anyone who is truly a Christian verify their salvation and faith by observable acts

of divine love.

So love is not simple an affective phenomenon, a feeling that you conjure up for God or your

brother or your enemy, it is a willful act to meet the needs of other people out of a true God-given love
10 Augustine. Homilies on 1 John, Fifth Homily, 7, (Augustine: Later Works, p 298 )
11 Augustine. Homilies on 1 John, Fifth Homily, 12, (Augustine: Later Works, p 301 )
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for them. Love is obedience to the greatest commandments, love is the mark of a true Christian, and

love is the evidence of salvation by grace through faith, observably lived out in works of righteousness

by people “filled full” with charity from God. All that a Christian does is motivated and fueled by their

love of God, and Augustine is no exception. The fact that we have such treasures of wisdom is itself a

testament to Augustine's passion for his God. Arguably the most intimate and impactful work of

Augustine was his confessions, which were a gift of love to God and his fellow Christian, his

sacrament laid before God for the benefit of others. What motivated Augustine to bear his soul to God

and man? “It is from love of your love that I make the act of recollection.”12

Conclusion

If Augustine is our consultant in the project of a curriculum or theology of Christian formation

for the university student, then it is clear that no project or journey of spiritual formation in Augustine's

thought can take place without these three elements. Not only is it important to note the importance of

including all three elements in the teaching, preaching, and learning activities of spiritual formation,

but to know their relation to one another. Order is important in Augustine's thought, and the sequence

of these ideas or themes is crucial.

First, we must remember that the start of any true spiritual growth is grace. The first gift of

grace that is received is the sight of faith by the awakening or regeneration of the soul by the Holy

Spirit. This faith-sight allows us to “see” God, to begin to behold His beauty, to sit at the feet of Christ,

as it were, and to learn from Him. The scriptures are absolutely essential in this process of maturation

and purification. We are nourished and we grow by these gifts in a spiraling process which brings us

ever closer to true knowledge or sight of God.

Secondly, after receiving the gift of faith-sight,, we are empowered to see ourselves more and

more clearly for what we truly are; naked, poor, blind, sick, and powerless apart from God. This

12 Augustine. Confessions, II, i, 1, (p 24)

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realization enables us to see our desperate need for God, which brings about humility. We cry out to

God, ashamed of our pride and hateful of our previous state in which we glorified pride. In our cries,

we approach God for healing from our desperate state, and through humble prostration we are able to

receive that healing, the free gift of God's divine love.

The charity we receive through humility fills us to the full, transforming us and propelling us

the express the love we received and now possess. The expression of our love for God is not just

through praises and words of affection toward God, but real, substantial, compassionate acts of love

toward our brothers and sisters in Christ, our neighbors, and even our enemies, in whom we see the

potential to become our brothers and sisters.

In this grace, we see, we know God, we find ourselves humbled, and we are proven true

Christians through concrete expressions of love for God and our neighbor. For Augustine, grace is the

beginning of Christian formation, and love is the end. The bridge from this grace to this love is built on

faith-sight of God and the humility that follows our vision of His awesome, mysterious beauty.

Although not exhaustive of Augustine's ideas on discipleship (hope and longing come immediately to

mind), Christian formation, and spiritual maturation, these strands of Augustinian thought are certainly

central components to any curriculum of Christian formation influenced by consultation with the

Bishop of Hippo.