Augustine’s Legacy 14:00 - 16:00 Thursday, 22nd August, 2019 Room 8 Presentation type Short Communications Alison
263 Augustine of Hippo's Tenuous Tension between Stoic Providence and Christian Free Will
Kenneth Wilson Independent, Montgomery, USA
Abstract
Ancient Stoicism, Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism all propagated an ardently deterministic view of divine Providence. In contrast, beginning with the earliest apologists, Christians unanimously rejected this fatalistic view of micromanaging dictatorial sovereignty, holding that God foreordained only some things, not every detailed event in the universe. These early Christians taught divine foreknowledge of human choices was non-causative—including free will to exercise faith unto salvation—and was considered essential in identifying evil's origin and explaining divine-human interactions. However, this unanimous Christian defense against pagan fatalism fell when Augustine of Hippo broke rank and championed his Stoic, Neoplatonic, and Gnostic-Manichaean deterministic views to combat the Pelagians in 412 CE. This article proposes that Augustine held in tenuous tension his Stoic view of meticulous divine Providence together with his new Christian view of freedom of the will until 412 when pagan Providence triumphed over Christian free will when writing his polemics on paedobaptism against the Pelagians.
42 Augustine, Prosper, and the Stirrings of a Missionary Conscience
Samuel Cardwell University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Abstract
In the early fifth century, numerous Christian intellectuals (including Ambrose, Jerome, and Prudentius) believed that the task of spreading the gospel was already complete. Jerome, for instance, wrote that he did not think that ‘any nation remained which did not know the name of Christ’. The emperors Constantine and Theodosius had ushered in tempora christiana, leading to a widespread belief that the end of the world was imminent, in fulfilment of Christ’s promise in Matthew 24:14. However, Augustine of Hippo and his follower Prosper of Aquitaine knew better. Augustine, in a letter dated to 418-20, noted there were tribes outside of the Empire who had no knowledge whatsoever of Christ; he argued that Christ’s commission to be his witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8) applied not only to the Apostles but to all Christians. Prosper expanded on this in De vocatione omnium gentium ('On the Calling of All Nations'), asserting that ‘the gospel of the Cross of Christ was extended to all men without exception’, whether or not they happened to dwell within the limits of the Empire. This paper will argue that, in these texts, Augustine and Prosper began to develop a ‘theology of mission’, which ran counter to the theological mainstream of their era, but which would have a profound and far-reaching impact both theologically and historically. 134 Divine Attributes and the Notion of Atemporal Eternity in the Old English Boethius
Rūta Zukienė Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania. Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania
Abstract
The paper considers the notion of divine eternity in Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy and examines its rendering in the Old English translation of the Latin book. In the final part of his work, Boethius bequeaths to his medieval readers an important Neoplatonic doctrine of the simplicity of the divine mind. The superior power of intellect (intelegentia) depends on the simple nature of the divine being and its key attribute – the divine eternity. To explain the perfection of divine existence, Boethius examines the difference between temporal and timeless eternity. The author of the Old English Boethius retains the idea of two types of eternity, albeit with a few of modifications that obscure the original distinction. The study focuses on a specific fragment, the closing encomium on the divine nature that in the Old English translation replaces the final sections of Boethius’s book. The importance of the fragment stems from its succinct representation of a series of divine attributes that describe God’s nature along the lines of Neoplatonic thought. In the paper, I attempt to establish the philosophical context of the selected passage and demonstrate its close relationship to Augustine’s thought. I argue that the closing encomium evidences the Old English translator’s sound grasp of God’s simple and atemporal nature, which is revealed by a cluster of divine attributes that speak about God’s simplicity, immutability, impassibility and the absence of recollection in the divine mind.