Scribd
Upload
582 views

Saint Augustine On: Justice and Peace

Augustine views justice as existing in relationship to peace and order. For Augustine, justice is discovered through practicing virtue and obedience to God's eternal law, which leads one to find peace. Three fundamental issues of justice for Augustine are how to coordinate virtue with pleasure, bring order to one's life, and live with certainty. Augustine's view of justice is rooted in his own conversion experience and struggle to find stability, order, and peace within.

Uploaded by

Rose Corpuz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
582 views

Saint Augustine On: Justice and Peace

Augustine views justice as existing in relationship to peace and order. For Augustine, justice is discovered through practicing virtue and obedience to God's eternal law, which leads one to find peace. Three fundamental issues of justice for Augustine are how to coordinate virtue with pleasure, bring order to one's life, and live with certainty. Augustine's view of justice is rooted in his own conversion experience and struggle to find stability, order, and peace within.

Uploaded by

Rose Corpuz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 12

Saint Augustine

On
Justice and Peace
Saint Augustine on Justice
and Peace
• Augustine’s City of God • At the same time,
was written in the wake these people had to deal
of Constantine’s Edict of with a most dreadful
Milan issued in 315. This event, the sack of Rome
world-changing event led by Alaric’s Goths on
many people to the deep August 24, 410. This
conviction that “only a tragedy put the question
strong government can of justice, order, and
assure people of peace peace crucially to the
and enable them to live test.
without fear of social
disorder”
• Its impact may be • Augustine’s magnum opus et
compared to the arduum presents humankind as
belonging either to the earthly
impact on the modern city, symbolised by Babylon, or to
world of the terrorist the City of God, represented by the
assault of Sept. 11, heavenly Jerusalem.
2001: the fall of Rome •Throughout human history both
marked the first wholly cities develop and increase when
man acts either moved by selfish or
successful attack upon sacrificial love (De Civ. Dei, XIV, 28).
a civilization that had Both cities struggle with justice,
existed for more than order and peace, and this struggle is
1,000 years. particularly complex given the fact
that the cities are intertwined in this
world.
At the same time, this struggle for clarity is
similar to the one Augustine himself underwent at
the time of his conversion.
The question was how to put right order or
justice in one’s life, or how to live according to
wisdom which leads to an everlasting happiness
or peace (Conf. VII, 3, 7-8, 10).
 The City of God is for Augustine a new occasion
to reflect on the same issues made of man’s
instability and uncertainty, signs of imbalance and
injustice, applied to the political and religious
societies of his time.
Augustine’s view of “justice” rooted in his
conversion experience
This great variety of solutions is a sign of instability
which deeply affects man’s heart.
Man is hesitant about how to coordinate the duty of
virtue with pleasure.
 Consequently, he is marked by a great uncertainty,
which is a source of bitter inward
struggles (De Civ. Dei XIX, 1-3).
Three fundamental issues of justice
Augustine does not
consider justice as an
absolute norm of human
ethics. Justice exists only
in relationship to peace
and order. “Peace of all
things is the tranquillity
of the order” and
“order is the distribution
which allots things equal
and unequal (like body,
soul, reason, God),
each to its own place”
(De Civ. Dei XIX, 13).
After a long struggle within himself,
Augustine discovers in the practice of justice
as a virtue God’s providential tool given to
man in order to reach what Augustine
expressed in his most famous exclamation
found at the beginning of his Confessions:
“Thou movest us to delight in praising You;
for You have formed us for Yourself, and our
hearts are restless till they find rest in You”
(Conf. I,1).
The dynamic principle of Augustine’s ethics is this
peace that he termed beatitude revealed by God
as realized in the Heavenly City. The practice of
justice only leads to this peace through the well-
ordered obedience of faith to eternal law (De Civ.
Dei XIX, 13).
By doing so, the righteous live already in this
world beyond the desires and capacities of mortal
mankind.
In this world, the righteous walk with God, a God
who reveals his justice by humbling himself, by
becoming man’s “assistant”, and by making
himself present to a mortal man’s conscience
(Conf. VII, 10).
Here, in the secret of man’s heart God,
the Interior Master, urges man to act
righteously not by means of evidence
caused by tangible facts, but by means
of faith and hope that carry a mortal man
beyond the evidence of claims made by
human justice incapable of
realizing and reaching eternal peace.

You might also like