Saint Augustine, by Antonello De Messina, Circa 1472. Galleria Regionale Della Sicilia, Italy
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ESSAY Caption?? Saint Augustine, by Antonello de Messina, circa 1472. Galleria Regionale della Sicilia, Italy. Source: Wikimedia Commons. 48 READING AUGUSTINE James Turner JoHnson ugustine’s influence runs deep and broad through Western Christian Adoctrine and ethics. This paper focuses on two particular examples of this influence: his thinking on political order and on just war. Augustine’s conception of political order and the Christian’s proper relation to it, developed most fully in his last and arguably most comprehensive theological work, The City of God, is central in both Catholic and mainline Protestant thinking on the political community and the proper exercise of government. Especially important in recent debate, the origins of the Christian idea of just war trace to Augustine. Exactly how Augustine has been read and understood on these topics, as well as others, has varied considerably depending on context, so the question in each and every context is how to read and understand Augustine. Paul Ramsey was right to insist, them as connected. When they fundamental problem for any in the process of developing are separated, one or another reading of Augustine on these his own understanding of just kind of distortion is the result. subjects. war, that in Christian thinking the idea of just war does not It is, of course, possible to ap- My discussion begins by exam- stand alone but is part of a com- proach either or both of these ining the use of Augustine by prehensive conception of good topics without taking account two prominent recent thinkers politics. This also describes of Augustine’s thinking or its on just war, Paul Ramsey and Augustine’s thinking. Those influence, or indeed any form Jean Bethke Elshtain, in the writers on just war who sepa- of Christian perspective at all. process of beginning to look rate it from the larger context My focus on Augustine here more closely at Augustine’s of good politics—and in recent reflects my judgment as to the thinking in his own context. debate there have been a good impossibility of doing full jus- Then I turn to a very different many of these—omit something tice to either without attend- way of reading Augustine and essential to both: for the just ing to his influence, so deeply examine the way his thought war idea, its direct connection imbedded is he on these top- was carried (and in the process, to political order, justice, and ics in Western experience and transformed) during the Middle peace, the three goods classi- ways of thinking. But to take Ages up to the coalescence of a cally defining the nature and account of his influence also systematic understanding of just purpose of politics; and for the requires recognizing and com- war in the twelfth and thirteenth sphere of government and state- ing to terms with the different centuries, again setting this over craft, the necessity of a just but ways Augustine’s thinking has against Augustine’s thought in limited role for the use of coer- been used in different contexts. its own context. Each of these cive force. To treat each of these How to make useful sense of historical contexts yields a dif- topics properly requires treating these differences? This is the ferent picture of Augustine’s 49 thinking, and so I conclude this the rest of his chapter to an towards it; its effect is present discussion by suggesting how to extended discussion focused even when unacknowledged. use these varied perspectives to on City of God XIX, develop- This understanding permeates shape a reading of Augustine ing Augustine’s concept of just Ramsey’s discussion through- and his influence for the present war as an element in his under- out his chapter on Augustine context. standing of political ethics and on just war, and he carries it particularly his conception of forward into his own conception justice. This choice is interest- of just war as centered on the PAUL RAMSEY’S READING OF ing because Augustine says rel- Christian responsibility of love AUGUSTINE atively little directly about war for the neighbor threatened or here, and he does not make the harmed by injustice. Ramsey’s Among recent thinkers on connection to divine charity that reading of Augustine is that of just war, Ramsey has a semi- Ramsey regards as central. So a theologian seeking to draw nal role. Not only did his two one must follow Ramsey’s rea- out the meaning of Augustine’s books from the 1960s War soning, not simply Augustine’s theology for the idea of just war. and the Christian Conscience words, to find this connection. and The Just War: Force and 1 Yet Ramsey the theologian was Political Responsibility take How Ramsey understands and also working out of his own the first major step in recov- draws out the connection to theological context, which was ering and redefining the just Augustine’s theology of chari- one in which the centrality of war idea for the context of con- ty is especially well illustrated love for Christian ethics was temporary warfare, but his use by his use of City of God XIX, defined in terms shaped by late of Augustine, especially in the chapter vii. Here Augustine di- nineteenth-century Protestant first of these books, set a pat- rectly discusses war, but his liberalism, the Social Gospel tern for later thinkers to build purpose is to show how war movement of the early twen- on. In chapter two of this book, contributes to the misery of tieth century with its drive to titled “The Just War According human life in sin. In this pas- transform society toward the to St. Augustine,” Ramsey un- sage, which Ramsey quotes at Kingdom of God on Earth, dertakes a theological exege- length, Augustine writes, “For and the influence of Reinhold sis of Augustine on Christian it is the wrongdoing of the op- Niebuhr, with his emphasis on love (which Ramsey here calls posing party which compels the love transforming justice. In this “charity,” following the King wise man to wage just wars.” context Augustine’s own focus James Version and reflecting Here the problem is sin, and on love was especially attractive. Augustine’s term caritas). From Augustine links the justification this he develops his own distinc- of opposing it to prudence, not But Ramsey’s reading of City tive conception of just war built charity. Yet Ramsey argues that of God XIX as an expression on the Christian’s obligation to charity is present nonetheless of a theology of love as one in love the neighbor, employing in that wisdom. His thinking which divine charity is drawing Augustine’s discussion of love here reflects the description of human justice towards it reflects in On the Morals of the Catholic Augustine’s overall methodol- Ramsey’s own theological con- Church XV, a passing reference ogy given by Ramsey’s doctoral text rather than Augustine’s to City of God V, and then, in mentor H. Richard Niebuhr in position. As R.A. Markus has numerous citations and at more his book Christ and Culture,3 observed,5 Augustine did in length, City of God XIX.2 where Augustine’s theology is fact hold a view something characterized as an example like this for a time during the Ramsey is not deterred by the of “Christ the transformer of middle period of his life, when fact that the first of these works culture.” Ramsey puts his own the imperial establishment of says nothing at all about just version of the idea this way: Christianity as Rome’s official war or the use of force as an “[S]ince the nature of that city in religion promised reforms that instrument of neighbor-love. which men together attain their would gradually change the na- His argument is rather that the final end is divine charity, as a ture of society towards the good. conception of love defined there consequence even earthly cities This changed in the last period serves as the theological basis began to be elevated and their of his life, when his duties as a for Augustine’s entire ethic. justice was infused and trans- bishop, his struggle against the After establishing the founda- formed by new perspectives, Donatists, a shift in the impe- tions of Augustine’s theology in limits, and principles.”4 That rial religious climate back to- this way, Ramsey then devotes is, charity draws human justice ward paganism, and finally the 50 A page from the City of God by Augustine of Hippo, originally published in 426 AD. This copy dates from 1475. Source: Wikimedia Commons. combined military-political-re- of the world, however fatal- Christian ideas in her work. ligious threat posed by the Arian ly marred by sin, until God’s This is especially true for her Vandals all fed a darkening of purposes for it had finally been thinking about just war, most his attitude toward the possi- realized. Again to cite Markus: fully given voice in Just War bilities of history. Peter Brown “[W]ar now became for him one Against Terror, chapters three calls this change in Augustine of the tragic necessities to which and seven.9 As she shows here, “the lost future.”6 By the time Christians must at times resort her understanding of just war he wrote the last books of City in order to check the savagery is fundamentally shaped by of God, including Book XIX, which is liable to break out be- Augustine, and two comments Augustine was thinking in terms tween, as well as within, polit- she makes—“The origins of this of this darker conception of ical societies.”8 This is a some- tradition are usually traced from human history, not his earlier what different understanding of St.