Religion in its broadest sense is the fact that everyone has at least one god which they worship through their daily actions. Augustine expands this to include that which we believe, hope for, and love, which thus includes chronology past (believe), present (love), and future (hope for). My formulation assumes all three, but having them a bit more explicit is helpful.

So what are we to believe? Who are we to love? What are we to hope for? Augustine lays it all out, both in philosophical and anti-philosophical ways. For the former, he elaborates on his conception of Evil being parasitic on Good and thus not existing in the strictest sense; for him, Good is That Which Exists (since existence comes from God and God always has existed, therefore all derivative existence is also good), and Evil is that which detracts from Good, who is the fullness of existence. Philosophically speaking, Good is substance while Evil is accident. All of this might be surprising for people who only know Augustine as the main proponent of Original Sin, but I think it provides a nice counterweight to Original Sin, helpfully preventing us from falling into body-hating gnosticism. This is one of the many places where Augustine tempers that which could run away into extremism. Another example: "Now what shall I say of love? Without it, faith profits nothing; and in its absence, hope cannot exist...And so the Apostle Paul approves and commends the 'faith that worketh by love;' and this certainly cannot exist without hope. Wherefore there is no love without hope, no hope without love, and neither love nor hope without faith."

For the anti-philosophical side of his argument, Augustine mercifully releases the average person from needing to do their own philosophical inquiry. Not only are most people uninterested or unprepared for such deep dives, but faith is the first step, the thing required before we can even do any philosophy. Though I don't think he uses the exact phrase, this echoes his notion of n  "Credo ut intelligam"n, or "I believe in order to understand." Trying to philosophically arrive at our starting assumptions assumes an antecedent starting assumption, namely that we can arrive at any starting assumptions rationally. No matter how much we want our worldviews to be philosophically airtight (whatever that means), they can never be: they must start somewhere, which in essence means they must start with some sort of unprovable faith.

Augustine dares to claim that this does not mean we can't know anything, nor have any certainty, as philosophers even back then regularly asserted. Below is how he approaches things:

...for all things, as they assert, are either unknown or uncertain. Now I wrote three volumes shortly after my conversion, to remove out of my way the objections which lie, as it were, on the very threshold of faith. And assuredly it was necessary at the very outset to remove this utter despair of reaching truth, which seems to be strengthened by the arguments of these philosophers. Now in their eyes every error is regarded as a sin, and they think that error can only be avoided by entirely suspending belief. For they say that the man who assents to what is uncertain falls into error; and they strive by the most acute, but most audacious arguments, to show that, even though a man’s opinion should by chance be true, yet that there is no certainty of its truth, owing to the impossibility of distinguishing truth from falsehood. But with us, “the just shall live by faith.”

...

But I am not sure whether one ought to argue with men who not only do not know that there is an eternal life before them, but do not know whether they are living at the present moment; nay, say that they do not know what it is impossible they can be ignorant of. For it is impossible that any one should be ignorant that he is alive...


The selfsame men who set up as a god their search for absolute philosophical/scientific truths must of necessity make absurd, obviously untrue statements, such as their conclusion that they can't even be sure they themselves exist. It seems that things alone and taken to extremes are the cause of folly: as with logos sans ethos and pathos, so also with faith without love or hope. In a way this echoes my lamenting of "scientia sine sapientia," knowledge without wisdom, which is so common today.

Even back in Augustine's day, we had the same problems. Ecclesiastes really is right: there's nothing new under the sun. Every time we think we've hit on something new, it has existed before, and it will exist again. All things are wearisome.

For example, Augustine brings up Kant's categorical imperative: "The question is this: whether at any time it can become the duty of a good man to tell a lie?" The conclusion he comes to is that yes it is always a sin to lie, but the amount of blame varies widely depending on your level of ignorance and your intentions. He gives an interesting example when he was accidentally told the wrong directions to get somewhere, but it actually saved his life, because he avoided some bandits on the road he was supposed to travel.

Another example which hits closer to home:

Whence also the expression in Genesis: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,” because in these cities crimes were not only not punished, but were openly committed, as if under the protection of the law. And so in our own times: many forms of sin, though not just the same as those of Sodom and Gomorrah, are now so openly and habitually practised, that not only dare we not ex-communicate a layman, we dare not even degrade a clergyman, for the commission of them... “Woe to the sins of men! for it is only when we are not accustomed to them that we shrink from them: when once we are accustomed to them, though the blood of the Son of God was poured out to wash them away, though they are so great that the kingdom of God is wholly shut against them, constant familiarity leads to the toleration of them all, and habitual toleration leads to the practice of many of them. And grant, O Lord, that we may not come to practise all that we have not the power to hinder.”


Contemporary examples are nearly too numerous to comment on. As I've theorized elsewhere, there's never a net increase or decrease in taboos, only a shifting of which ones go in and out of vogue. It's the same with sins that we put up with. We're in an age where "justice," whatever that means, is righteously upheld as an important virtue, but myriad other issues are left in the mud. I remember the birth pains of 2014 when the gay marriage issue burst into the public discourse. Overnight everyone became an expert in Jewish law and the various relevant scriptures. Something which had never existed in the history of the world (gay marriage) was suddenly not only debatable, but had such momentum behind it that those who knew which way the wind blew got behind it. The same happened with the trans debate in the last couple years, but here it was so abbreviated that there was no debate: almost instantaneously, like God's own creation, people said it and it was so.

Despite all the "changes" happening today, none of this is really new. All of us know what is right and wrong, and if we claim we don't, we at the very least know what is selfish versus selfless, in other words what is Godly (exalts God) versus godless (makes us a god). There's really no excuse for any of us ever. I think Augustine might be too lenient when he argues there are either sins of ignorance or sins of not performing the duty we know. I guess I'm more Kierkegaardian. For even pre-literate children know what is right and wrong, you can see it in their eyes when they do something mischevious, when they think they can get away with evil, and when they get caught in their evil (their eyes immediately well up with tears).

We can certainly debate the specifics of sin, but we need not get so hung up on distracting trends. Augustine spills considerable ink over the Antinomian dilemma, namely "Christians" who professes faith in God but who regularly act in absolute contradiction to that faith. To sum it all up, James already covered this: that profession is not faith, but rather a mockery of faith. Some try to use the obscure passage about "passing through fire" to argue that these people will just go to purgatory for a while, but Augustine is right to differentiate that that passage speaks of having Christ as their foundation, while the "Christian-in-name-only" person doesn't even have Christ as their foundation, as James points out. Faith without a change in actions is dead, i.e. is not faith. In other words, if you claim to hold Christian faith but are never faced with moral dilemmas, never have had to deny yourself, spoiler alert, you're not a Christian.

Building off of this discussion, I do find it shocking how us Protestants have run so far in the direction of the Solas that we have completely done away with and actively shun any sort of alms giving or other propitiation. Though yes, we Protestants follow the letter of scripture and say that such things are not "required" before we can be forgiven/justified, we often in speech and in action downplay them so significantly that we shut our ears and shout any time we hear someone speak about doing good works in the wake of sin. This is a theological travesty. Of course, this doesn't mean we should swing in the opposite extreme and literally worship Mary as the Papists do (curiously, Augustine contradicts a couple main Marian heresies: "the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who only has had power to be so born as not to need a second birth"), but it does mean we should amend our ways and be much more willing to do good. We should follow the example of the Tax Collector, rather than our usual posture of the Pharisee thanking ourselves that we're not like those filthy Catholics (I am using hyperbole here, I do not think Catholics are filthy).

I fear that without tying some sort of action to our propitiation, we risk not taking sin seriously enough. As Augustine writes: "For not only do they commit these sins, but they love them so much that they would like to go on forever committing them, if only they could do so with impunity. Now, he who loveth iniquity hateth his own soul; and he who hateth his own soul is not merciful but cruel towards it. For in loving it according to the world, he hateth it according to God."

This brings us back to all the debates about social trends I mentioned above. In the same way that we refuse to attach any sort of physicality to sins, so also do we risk abstracting them, and continuing them with impunity. As discussed in the more philosophical beginning of this work, that which is Good is that which leads us toward fullness of existence; the fullest existence is God's, and the farther we stray from that, the darker things get. Augustine leaves open the possibility of purgatory, but he doesn't outright teach it. He thinks it possible as an extrapolation of the propitiation, but doesn't make a dogmatic statement on it.

He speaks likewise about abortion, being unsure medically or philosophically when life begins in the womb. But he does come to the common-sense conclusion that "To deny that the young who are cut out limb by limb from the womb...have never been alive, seems too audacious." We can't deny the violence of such an act unless we are likewise willing to do violence to our consciences and to language; but the part I cut out (ha) about the possible endangering of the mother's life, that makes it a complicated issue, and Augustine grants that. Either way, however, "from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead."

In other words, we should take a keen interest in others and their faith, hope, and love. Unlike this supposedly "tolerant," libertarian, laissez-faire world we find ourselves in, we shouldn't be scared of engaging people on these important topics. But we must remember to do so with faith, hope, and love. I think the main thing to remember from this short book isn't just the doctrinal teachings, but the social aspect of life and morality. I'll end with a section where he speaks about one of the central aspects of Christianity: loving our enemies, which starts in forgiveness:

But none of those is greater than to forgive from the heart a sin that has been committed against us. For it is a comparatively small thing to wish well to, or even to do good to, a man who has done no evil to you. It is a much higher thing, and is the result of the most exalted goodness, to love your enemy, and always to wish well to, and when you have the opportunity, to do good to, the man who wishes you ill, and, when he can, does you harm. This is to obey the command of God: “Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which persecute you.” But seeing that this is a frame of mind only reached by the perfect sons of God, and that though every believer ought to strive after it, and by prayer to God and earnest struggling with himself endeavor to bring his soul up to this standard...it cannot be doubted that the implied undertaking is fulfilled if a man, though he has not yet attained to loving his enemy, yet, when asked by one who has sinned against him to forgive him his sin, does forgive him from his heart.

270

A lot of St. Augustine's methods of examining things are mind-blowing to me. The material is dense, and I had to read a lot of sentences 3 times before grasping them. But it's totally worth it. I love his outlook on evil: "Unless something is good, it cannot be corrupted, because corruption is nothing more than the deprivation of the good. Evils, therefore, have their source in the good, and unless they are parasitic on something good, they are not anything at all." This reminds me not to focus on the bad in things, but on the good that the bad depends on.

Excellent on faith, evil, forgiveness, resurrection.

Very few articulate the central truths of Christianity so beautifully as Augustine. It's an interesting approach to a catechism or condensed dogmatics text. However, despite the original intent, I wouldn't recommend it for newcomers to the faith since Augustine does get caught up in a lot of questions that we probably wouldn't consider part of the essential doctrine of salvation today (i.e. is lying always sinful?) Also, the absence of the Eucharist is very odd, especially considering the outstanding Baptismal emphasis.

Why read it? I was curious how much Christianity has changed in 1600 years. And whether the early church is closer to Paul, the synoptic gospels, John or some other brand of early Christianity. Are there any references to stoicism? Plenty of reasons to read it.

Copied parts I found interesting while reading:


On the very first page you get an on-one-leg-summary: "God should be worshiped in faith, hope, love". Very much in keeping with modern Christianity. Then Augustine specifies which questions he wants to answer: "What is to be sought after above all else? What, in view of the divers
heresies, is to be avoided above all else? How far does reason support religion; or
what happens to reason when the issues involved concern faith alone; what is the
beginning and end of our endeavor? What is the most comprehensive of all
explanations? What is the certain and distinctive foundation of the catholic faith?"

Science
"Wherefore, when it is asked what we ought to believe in matters of
religion, the answer is not to be sought in the exploration of the nature of things
[rerum natura], after the manner of those whom the Greeks called "physicists."20
Nor should we be dismayed if Christians are ignorant about the properties and the
number of the basic elements of nature, or about the motion, order, and deviations
of the stars, the map of the heavens, the kinds and nature of animals, plants,
stones, springs, rivers, and mountains; about the divisions of space and time, about
the signs of impending storms, and the myriad other things which these "physicists"
have come to understand, or think they have. For even these men, gifted with such
superior insight, with their ardor in study and their abundant leisure, exploring
some of these matters by human conjecture and others through historical inquiry,
have not yet learned everything there is to know. For that matter, many of the
things they are so proud to have discovered are more often matters of opinion than
of verified knowledge.
For the Christian, it is enough to believe that the cause of all created things,
whether in heaven or on earth, whether visible or invisible, is nothing other than
the goodness of the Creator, who is the one and the true God.21"

Goodness of the trinity
"10. By this Trinity, supremely and equally and immutably good, were all
things created. But they were not created supremely, equally, nor immutably good.
Still, each single created thing is good, and taken as a whole they are very good,
because together they constitute a universe of admirable beauty"

Was not certain a priori that he would say Jesus was immutably good. That takes away something from Christ becoming man. That's not the Jesus of the gospels. It also makes it less probable he interpreted the OT literally, because God is not immutably good in there.

Theodicy
"11. In this universe, even what is called evil, when it is rightly ordered and
kept in its place, commends the good more eminently, since good things yield
greater pleasure and praise when compared to the bad things. For the Omnipotent
God, whom even the heathen acknowledge as the Supreme Power over all, would
not allow any evil in his works, unless in his omnipotence and goodness, as the
Supreme Good, he is able to bring forth good out of evil. What, after all, is anything
we call evil except the privation of good? In animal bodies, for instance, sickness and
wounds are nothing but the privation of health. When a cure is effected, the evils
which were present (i.e., the sickness and the wounds) do not retreat and go
elsewhere. Rather, they simply do not exist any more. For such evil is not a
substance; the wound or the disease is a defect of the bodily substance which, as a
substance, is good. Evil, then, is an accident, i.e., a privation of that good which is
called health. Thus, whatever defects there are in a soul are privations of a natural
good. When a cure takes place, they are not transferred elsewhere but, since they
are no longer present in the state of health, they no longer exist at all.22"

I wonder if he means this literally, or if it is a stoic take on the ills of life. Can't think of discussions of theodicy in the NT on the top of my hat.

Lying
He has a chapter on lying :). He's against it:
"Some go so far as to contend that in cases concerning the
worship of God or even the nature of God, it is sometimes a good and pious deed to
speak falsely. It seems to me, however, that every lie is a sin, albeit there is a great
difference depending on the intention and the topic of the lie. He does not sin as
much who lies in the attempt (...)"

In a later chapter:
"Every lie, then, must be called a sin, because every man ought to speak
38This refers to one of the first of the Cassiciacum dialogues, Contra Academicos. The gist of
Augustine's refutation of skepticism is in III, 23ff. Throughout his whole career he continued to
maintain this position: that certain knowledge begins with self-knowledge. Cf. Confessions, Bk. V,
Ch. X, 19; see also City of God, XI, xxvii.
39Hab. 2:4; Rom. 1:17.
40A direct contrast between suspensus assenso--the watchword of the Academics--and assensio, the
badge of Christian certitude.
41See above, VII, 90.
12
what is in his heart--not only when he himself knows the truth, but even when he
errs and is deceived, as a man may be. This is so whether it be true or is only
supposed to be true when it is not. But a man who lies says the opposite of what is
in his heart, with the deliberate intent to deceive. Now clearly, language, in its
proper function, was developed not as a means whereby men could deceive one
another, but as a medium through which a man could communicate his thought to
others. Wherefore to use language in order to deceive, and not as it was designed to
be used, is a sin" (Platonic, right?)
"Nor should we suppose that there is any such thing as a lie that is not a sin,
just because we suppose that we can sometimes help somebody by lying. For we
could also do this by stealing, as when a secret theft from a rich man who does not
feel the loss is openly given to a pauper who greatly appreciates the gain. Yet no one
would say that such a theft was not a sin. Or again, we could also "help" by
committing adultery, if someone appeared to be dying for love if we would not
consent to her desire and who, if she lived, might be purified by repentance. But it
cannot be denied that such an adultery would be a sin. If, then, we hold chastity in
such high regard, wherein has truth offended us so that although chastity must not
be violated by adultery, even for the sake of some other good, yet truth may be
violated by lying? That men have made progress toward the good, when they will
not lie save for the sake of human values, is not to be denied. But what is rightly
praised in such a forward step, and perhaps even rewarded, is their good will and
not their deceit. The deceit may be pardoned, but certainly ought not to be praised,
especially among the heirs of the New Covenant to whom it has been said, "Let your
speech be yes, yes; no, no: for what is more than this comes from evil."42 Yet because
of what this evil does, never ceasing to subvert this mortality of ours, even the joint
heirs of Christ themselves pray, "Forgive us our debts."43"

Primitive

Angels and the devil
28. While some of the angels deserted God in impious pride and were cast
into the lowest darkness from the brightness of their heavenly home, the remaining
number of the angels persevered in eternal bliss and holiness with God. For these
faithful angels were not descended from a single angel, lapsed and damned. Hence,
the original evil did not bind them in the fetters of inherited guilt, nor did it hand
the whole company over to a deserved punishment, as is the human lot. Instead,
when he who became the devil first rose in rebellion with his impious company and
was then with them prostrated, the rest of the angels stood fast in pious obedience
to the Lord and so received what the others had not had--a sure knowledge of their
everlasting security in his unfailing steadfastness.


Scepticism
"Nor am I at the moment trying to deal with that knottiest of questions which
baffled the most acute men of the Academy, whether a wise man ought ever to
affirm anything positively lest he be involved in the error of affirming as true what
may be false, since all questions, as they assert, are either mysterious [occulta] or
36Cf. Acts 12:9.
37Virgil, Aeneid, X, 392.
11
uncertain. On these points I wrote three books in the early stages of my conversion
because my further progress was being blocked by objections like this which stood at
the very threshold of my understanding.38 It was necessary to overcome the despair
of being unable to attain to truth, which is what their arguments seemed to lead one
to. Among them every error is deemed a sin, and this can be warded off only by a
systematic suspension of positive assent. Indeed they say it is an error if someone
believes in what is uncertain. For them, however, nothing is certain in human
experience, because of the deceitful likeness of falsehood to the truth, so that even if
what appears to be true turns out to be true indeed, they will still dispute it with
the most acute and even shameless arguments."

Cogito ergo sum
"no one can "not know" that he himself is alive. If he
is not alive, he cannot "not know" about it or anything else at all, because either to
know or to "not know" implies a living subject"

His references
Augustine never refers to Stoicism, Epictetus, Seneca, Aurelius, Musonius Rufus, Epicurus, Socrates or Plato. Aristotle is referenced once as are Virgil and Lucretius. Almost all references are to canonical biblical texts. There is a mention of the Academy, I don't know if its as in a platonic academy. See the previous heading scepticism

Enjoyed a second read of this book. It is a great resource to explore Augustine’s thought on various topics. Some of the sections were pure gold (privation of evil; incarnation; the will of God in election; charity) and some of them were not so much (angels, baptismal regeneration). A great read nonetheless.

“But when our sins had separated the human race far from God, it was necessary for us to be reconciled to God for the resurrection of our flesh to eternal life by the mediator who alone was born, lived and was killed without sin, that human pride might be rebuked and healed by the humility of God and that man might be shown how far he had wondered from God when he was called back by God-incarnate, and example of obedience was offered to rebellious man by the man who is God, and, when the only-begotten took the form of a slave which had previously deserved nothing…”

The great theologian of grace marks out the shape of the Christian life: faith that, in hope, works through love and ends with the vision of God.

Good read to begin during Lent.

Augustine is a stud. Lots of great content in this book. You can clearly see how he is claimed as founder of both the Eastern and Western church. Catholic leaning views may start with Augustine but are taken way farther such as infant baptism and alms. However, he is clearly the founder of “Reformed Doctrine”. Calvin and the reformers are all deeply indebted to his work on Gods Sovereignty in salvation and its relation to human will. He masterfully raises and addresses many important questions like the question of evil, Gods free grace in salvation, and man’s will. His theology is precise and doxological in nature as is typical of Augustine. Great book.

This is one of Augustine's shorter and probably simpler works. Catechism is a misleading title, though the original title, Enchiridion, is a meaningless word to most today. Well worth the read. Augustine never disappoints.

While I have engaged with Augustine’s theological thought often, I haven’t read many of his actual works. This little “handbook” on faith, hope, and love is an excellent place to start. He wrote it for a friend as a summary of the Christian faith.

There is gold here if you are willing to mine it. As he addresses complex topics such as original sin, predestination, Christ as our mediator, salvation by grace, etc., you get to witness a master theologian at work. The brevity and clarity with which he is able to explain such topics is astounding. That doesn’t mean that you will always agree with all of his conclusions, but you can’t just run past them with modern arrogance. Even in this short work, it is easy to see why Augustine is the fountainhead of western theology.

Of course, as a Credobaptist, there were some things I didn’t fully agree with. And I struggled to understand what he was getting at on some issues such as the unborn. But I was edified, challenged, and inspired by this book on the Christian faith.