A Seminar Paper on Augustinian Understanding of Anthropology

Sub: Major Figures in Theology – Classical and Medieval

Introduction
St. Augustine is a towering figure in Western philosophy. He was one of the first four official
“doctors of the Church,” a canonized saint in Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Orthodoxy, and
supposedly revered in Reformed Protestantism – in the history of Christian philosophy
Augustine looms large as probably the most important Christian philosopher to have ever lived.
If Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato, Augustine is not far behind;
Christian philosophy is certainly a series of footnotes to Augustine. Within the story of the
history of Western philosophy Augustine is among the most influential because of his
integration of (neo-) Platonic, Aristotelian, and Roman Stoic philosophy with Hebraic
philosophy and theology. Augustine’s most important legacy is the inauguration of
anthropological philosophy, or the turn toward a preoccupied study of the human being and the
self. In this paper we would be discussing Augustinian understanding of Anthropology. For a
clearer understanding we would first look on Anthropological Philosophy, Humanism and then
move towards Augustine’s Anthropology.
Anthropological Philosophy
Anthropological philosophy is the philosophical study of the human being. What does it mean
to be human? What is our relationship to will and desire? What is our relationship to wisdom
reason? What is human nature? What is humanity’s end (telos)? How, exactly, do humans
attain happiness since happiness is humanity’s end? Christian philosophy, while interested in
questions of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics/political philosophy (the three cores that
dominate the concern of Greek and Roman philosophy), primarily is concerned with ontology
and aesthetics because of its significant concentration on anthropology.
Humanism, in philosophy, is the belief in human nature – that is, humanism asserts that there
is a definitive and fixed human nature. Humanism also asserts that, as a result of human nature,
humanity has a natural end or purpose. This is called teleology in philosophy (telos = end).
And lastly, humanism maintained (in its original incarnation) that this end was happiness. All
humans desire happiness and all human action is our attempt to attain happiness (this often
fails miserably according to Augustine, or, from Aristotle, few people actually consummate the
happiness that they seek).
Augustine’s Anthropology
Augustine’s anthropology is pluralistic in the hylomorphic tradition of Aristotle. Therefore,
human nature is also pluralistic. In a way, Augustine follows from the Apostle Paul who wrote,
in his Epistle to the Romans, that humans are essentially at war between the desire of the flesh
and desire of the soul. It is not that the two desire different ends, but it is that the desires of the
body and the desires of the intellect, in seeking the same end (happiness) are not in sync with
each other. Augustine’s pluralistic/holomorphic account of anthropology is that we are beings

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of desire and wisdom (or rationality) tied as one. More explicitly, in Book XIII of Confessions,
he explains the pluralism as a harmony of “existence (being), knowledge (rationality), and will
(desire).”1
Augustine’s Anthropology on Creation (Imagio-Dei)
Anthropology for Augustine was based on the truth that humanity was created in the image of
God. Augustine affirms that the world was created by God out of nothing, through a free act of
God. He then affirms the absolute unity and the spiritual nature of the human soul. He affirms
that the soul is simple and immortal. The soul has three functions: being, understanding, and
loving, corresponding to three faculties: intellective memory, intelligence, and will.2
The primary place among these three faculties is given to the will, which in a human being
signifies love. The will of a human person is free. Even with free will, the soul is restless. This
prompts the soul to search for meaning, and ultimately for God. This divine spark in the human
race is the source of a spiritual unease (restlessness) that will remain until a person returns to
God after death. The opening lines in his Confessions announce the world view and the
anthropology of Augustine to all who read his words: “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord,
and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”3 After his search through various
philosophies and theologies, Augustine came to a view of human nature (an “anthropology”)
that was thoroughly Christian. For Augustine, therefore, anthropology had a spiritual role.
It was meant to discern way of using basic human nature most profitably in accord with what
God intended. He stated that by its own power the human species could not arrive at a correct
insight into human life because this required the light of Christian belief. Augustine accepted
a fallen and flawed human nature that was without hope if it did not have the grace of God.
The tolerance of Augustine for the weakness of human nature contrasted sharply with the Stoic
puritanism of Pelagianism which allowed no excuse for personal sin. For Augustine, true
freedom was achieved only through a long process by which the knowledge and will of an
individual are healed by the grace of God (gratia Dei, in Latin). This conforms to the world
view of Augustine regarding how the human race fitted into the Divine Plan.
For Augustine, humanity being “made in the image of God” (imago Dei) meant that humans
were made in love (eros) and for love, and made in reason and wisdom for reason and wisdom
– this also means that the fulfillment of desire comes with knowledge. God, as understood in
traditional Christian philosophical theology, is love and wisdom (eros and logos). Humanity,
as imago Dei, embodies the same want for love and reason that characterizes God. Right from
the start we see the harmony of desire (eros) and reason (logos) as the starting point for
humanity, for this harmony of desire and reason in man allows man to experience and enjoying
the enduring happiness of the beatification vision. While imago Dei in Christianity entails an
intrinsic dignity to humans, the reason for this dignity is because we are fundamentally rational
creatures with the capacity for knowing. (This does not mean people will know, but we have
the capacity for knowledge and knowing.)

1
“Augustine’s Anthropology – Hesiod’s Corner.” Hesiod’s Corner, hesiodscorner.wordpress.com, 11 Aug.
2017, https://hesiodscorner.wordpress.com/2017/08/11/augustines-anthropological-humanism/(Accessed on
05/08/2022).
2
“Anthropology.” AUGNET: 2302 Anthropology, www.augnet.org, http://www.augnet.org/en/works-of-
augustine/his-ideas/2302-anthropology/. (Accessed on 5/08/2022).
33
“Anthropology.” AUGNET: 2302 Anthropology, www.augnet.org, (Accessed on 5/08/2022).

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Furthermore, the imago Dei – because it has a loving and rational component to it – is also
relational. In Christianity, due to the importance on love, humans are not merely social animals
but are relational animals. Our love binds people together. Love brings people together
intellectually and bodily (since humans are also bodies). Humanity’s social animus is elevated
through relationships. It is not simply the case that humans seek community, protection in
community, life in community, and talk to people and work together with other people, the
social animus as tied to the relational animus truly binds people together and provides meaning
to everyone in relationships with others.
Soul as a Created Being
Augustine, like most ancient philosophers, thinks that a person is made up of a body and a soul,
and that the soul, which he sees as the source of life and the centre of consciousness, perception,
and thought, is or should be the most important part. The rational soul should control the
sensual desires and passions; it can become wise if it turns to God, who is at the same time the
Supreme Being and the Supreme Good. In his Manichean phase, he conceived of both God and
the soul as material entities, the soul being in fact a portion of God that had fallen into the
corporeal world where it remained a foreigner, even to its own body.4 After his Platonist
readings in Milan gave him the right philosophical tools to think about immaterial, non-spatial
reality, he replaced this view, which he later describes as a rather crude dualism, with an
ontological hierarchy in which the soul, which can change in time but not in space, is in the
middle between God, who is an immaterial being that can't change at all, and bodies. The soul
is of divine origin and even god-like; it is not divine itself but created by God. In De quantitate
animae, Augustine broadly argues that the “greatness” of the soul does not refer to spatial
extension but to its vivifying, perceptive, rational and contemplative powers that enable it to
move close to God and are compatible with and even presuppose immateriality.5
An early definition of soul as “a rational substance fitted for rule over a body” echoes Platonic
views. Later on, when the resurrection of the body becomes more important to him, Augustine
emphasizes—against Porphyry’s alleged claim that in order to be happy, the soul must free
itself from anything corporeal—that it is natural and even desirable for a soul to govern a body,
but he nevertheless remains convinced that soul is an incorporeal and immortal substance that
can, in principle, exist independently of a body.6 In the Soliloquia (2.24), following the tradition
of Plato and Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, he proposes a proof for the immortality of the
soul. It says that since truth is both eternal and found in the soul, then the soul, which is where
truth is found, must also be eternal.7 This is wrong, because if truth is eternal apart from the
soul, it can't be in the soul as in its subject (i.e., as a property), and if it is a property of the soul,
it can't make the soul eternal. So, in the unfinished draught of the third book of the Soliloquia,
which is called “De immortalitate animae” (On the immortality of the soul), Augustine changes
the proof and says that the soul is immortal because God (Truth) is always a cause in it.8 It
turns out, though, that even if this version of the proof works, it only proves the soul's eternal

4
Mathews, Charles T. “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior Intimo Meo.” Journal of Religious Ethics 27, no. 2
(Sum 1999): 195.
5
Francis Edward Tourcher, St. Augustine, De Quantitate Animae: The Measure of the Soul; Latin Text, with
English Translation and Notes (United Kingdom, Peter Reilly Company, 1933), 2-3.
6
Robert J. O’Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham University
Press,1987),88.
7
Gerard, O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (London: Duckworth,1987),58.
8
Mathews, Charles T. “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior Intimo Meo.” Journal of Religious Ethics…,198.

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existence as a (rational) soul, not its eternal wisdom, which is why the interlocutors wanted to
prove the soul's immortality in the first place. Augustine never went back to his proof after
writing De immortalitate animae. But he didn't deny it either. In De trinitate (13.12), he agrees
with the Platonic axiom that the soul is by nature immortal and that its immortality can, in
principle, be shown through philosophical means.9 He also sticks to his belief that being
immortal is a necessary condition for happiness, but not a sufficient one, because you can be
immortal and unhappy at the same time. True happiness can only be found in the afterlife,
thanks to God's grace, when the body is resurrected and the whole person lives forever, not just
the soul. The resurrection, on the other hand, can't be proven logically; it's a promise from God
that can only be believed based on what the Bible says.10
The Fall of Man
The “Fall of Man,” according to Augustine, was humanity’s “incurvatus in se” (the inward turn
to the self) – that is, humanity attempted to attain loving happiness (which is what we desire)
without the help of reason (which is a gift from God – which is why reason is really a form of
grace). Instead, we attempt to will our happiness. Insofar as we only will happiness without
reason, we will never satiate or find the happy end we desire. Just as it was this inward curve
to the self that leads to humanity’s alienation from itself, one must understand oneself to escape
the alienating outcome of desire being unordered by reason. The coming to understanding of
the self, and the needs and desires of the self, simultaneously leads to the realization that our
desire for love, beauty, and happiness requires reason to order the natural desires we have to
the end that it seeks. The inward curve to the self, where the self-attempts to derive happiness
and truth apart from logos, is what destroyed the imago Dei and led to our current state of
alienating concupiscence.11
According to Augustine it is wrong to claim that Christianity’s anthropological origo is sin;
this is a common mistake even among most sincere Christians. Instead, the origo of man is
the imago Dei, in the beatific communion between man and God, that is to say the harmony of
man’s eros and logos with the sources of eros and logos.12 Augustine reads Genesis 1-3 as an
anthropological and allegorical tale of humanity’s relationship with the logos that created it. It
is one of a good and beatific harmony in which enduring happiness, which is humanity’s telos,
is satisfied. It is only after the Fall that humanity has entered its state of sin. Thus, sin is not
the origo of Augustine’s anthropology. There is no “war of all against all,” no chaos, no
disordered desire, no separation of eros and logos, no continual fears and dangers in some “state
of nature,” or anything of the like. Instead, it is the hylomorphic harmony of matter and form,
to use Aristotelian language, with a neo-Platonic emphasis on the elevation and triumph of
logos.13

What is sin? Sin, as Augustine explained, is nothing more (or less) than misdirected desire (or
misdirected love). In Genesis 3, the sin of Adam and Eve is that they break the harmonious
relationship and communion with logos. The “Tree of Knowledge” is not what existentialist

9
Robert J. O’Connell, The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works (New York: Fordham University
Press,1987),90.
10
“Saint Augustine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).” Saint Augustine (Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy), plato.stanford.edu, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/. (Accessed on 05/08/2022).
11
Gerard, O’Daly, Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind (London: Duckworth,1987),61.
12
“Augustine: On the Fall of Man, Part I.” Hesiod’s Corner, hesiodscorner.wordpress.com, 1 Nov. 2017,
https://hesiodscorner.wordpress.com/2017/11/01/augustine-on-the-fall-of-man/ (Accessed on 05/08/2022).
13
“Augustine: On the Fall of Man, Part I.” Hesiod’s Corner, hesiodscorner.wordpress.com. (Accessed on
05/08/2022).

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theologians claimed it represented – that man and woman ate from the tree of knowledge and
suddenly gained “consciousness” and the capacity for self-reflection. Already, in Genesis 2,
Augustine notes that man has this capacity: man is lonely and he does not find belonging with
the animals, so God makes woman from man’s ribs because man was sad. This shows that
humans are animals of deep feeling, desires, and also insecurities (even well before “the
Fall”). As Augustine explained toward the end of City of God (22.17), man and woman are
co-equal (having been taken from man’s side symbolizes woman’s unity with man: side by
side, not below or from above), and that they are meant for each other in love and wisdom as
a miniature reflection of the beatific communion between humanity and God.14 Instead, the
sin from eating of the tree of knowledge represented man’s desire to judge for
himself, independent of logos, what was good and what was bad and what would bring
happiness and what would not.15 This is why Augustine describes sin as “misdirected desire”
or “misdirected love.” It is misdirected because of a deficiency of reasoning, which means sin
is really the error of reasoning since, in Augustine’s portrait, reason and desire are supposed to
go together. In fact, Augustine sees the story of Adam is being reminiscent of Protagoras’s
claim that “man is the measure of all things.”16
The Twofold Anthropology of Augustine
Augustine’s anthropology is twofold. First it is a systematic account of attempting to
understand what it means to be human – which Augustine ultimately concludes that humans
are hylomorphic beings that embody innate desire which is satisfied through wisdom. Second
is the attempt to (re)harmonize desire and reason, or to explain how humans satisfy this desire
through wisdom and why there is a disharmony between desire and wisdom. Only in this
harmony of desire and reason can humans finally attain the happiness that they seek17. But this
requires knowledge. Therefore, lack of rationality is a major stumbling block for our
endeavours at attaining happiness. We can see, here, Augustine’s treatment of Paul’s war
between flesh and spirit, but also his treatment of Plotinus. Flesh is unordered desire. Spirit is
knowledge. Ultimately, this harmonization of desire and reason is what Augustine called the
intentio-communis (intention of communion) and what later Latin theologians and
philosophers called intentio-unionis (intention of union). This all follows Plotinus’s concept
of henosis (union) with the One. This recourses back to the original state of communion of the
imago Dei and beatification vision – we desire to re-harmonize with the source of happiness
and wisdom.18
The pageant of Augustine’s anthropological philosophy is the contest between natural desire
and natural reason, which – because of the Fall – are out of order with each other. Reason
informs one that the fleeting happiness of bodily experience (hedonism) is nothing but
materialism without the Form which the body seeks. Thus, reason informs us of the truth of
ontological pluralism, but without reason understanding the nature of “the Forms” reason itself
cannot help desire. This requires reason to understand that which the body seeks. Only when
reason comes to understanding of the nature of beauty, serenity, happiness, belonging and

14
Gerard, O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God. A Reader’s Guide (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1999),121.
15
Gerard, O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God. A Reader’s Guide…,121.
16
“Augustine: On the Fall of Man, Part I.” Hesiod’s Corner, hesiodscorner.wordpress.com. (Accessed on
05/08/2022).
17
Gerard, O’Daly, Augustine’s City of God. A Reader’s Guide…,128.
18
Mathews, Charles T. “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior Intimo Meo.” Journal of Religious Ethics…,199.

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togetherness, friendship, etc., does desire finally become satisfied (content). This also requires,
as mentioned, an understanding of oneself and one’s own desires. Failure to not understand
oneself and one’s desires means one’s intellectual endeavours would be in vain since they don’t
satisfy desire.
At the same time, however, Augustine rejects the pure rationalism of Plato and Plotinus
because of the dangerous implications of reason abandoning desire, which is to say the flight
of the mind from the body. The body is good and desire is good, but the dignified body and
satisfied desire only comes about with reason and desire, “flesh and spirit,” working together.
Desire without reason ends in perpetual alienation and dissatisfaction, and reason without
desire “misses the mark” of what it means to be human and to understand creation (in other
words, reason without desire leads to misunderstanding). Desire is something good, but only
when it has its end in sight and attains that which it desires through understanding. (Wisdom
and desire are in harmony with each other, not in conflict or ablating each other.)
Desire is not bad. It is, properly speaking, something good. The problem, from Augustine’s
perspective, is desire “goes haywire,” to use contemporary language, because it is unordered
by reason. It is just pure desire without ordering rationality which is the other half our nature.
Thus, rationality and reason are ordering forces to desire and is meant to guide desire to its
ultimate end through the attainment of knowledge. This also follows from Plato who argued
the same thing throughout his various Dialogues and The Republic. Pure desire cannot satisfy
itself without being ordered to its end. This is what Logos achieves. Being made in the image
of God also ensures, necessarily, that there is a dignity to the human being because human
ontology reflects and embodies the being of God. By now one should see why all philosophers
know that Augustine and Augustinian Christianity is the true foundation for humanism – even
if “humanism” as it is widely (mis)understood today wants little to do with religion (e.g.
“secular humanism”) or even teleological anthropology.
Evaluation
When we evaluate Augustine’s anthropology and the understanding of the Fall in his
philosophy, we understand that Augustine is not the first to concern himself with the nature of
the Fall in Christian history. And neither is Augustine the creator of the doctrine of Original
Sin (St. Irenaeus is the first to explicitly use the phrase). In Christian anthropological
philosophy, the Fall was Christianity’s explanation for why desire and reason seem to be at war
with each other – desire seeks happiness but doesn’t actually attain the happiness it seeks, and
it doesn’t achieve what desire seeks precisely because it attempts to attain eros without logos.19
If human nature is a hylomorphic combination of desire and reason (which helps fulfill the
nature of our being/existence) then it logically follows that only a harmony of desire and reason
will achieve the consummation of the happiness that desire seeks. Original Sin, according to
him, is simply the doctrine that universalizes the friction between desire and reason that
necessarily follows from Christianity’s anthropology.
Readers of Plato and Plotinus can see their influence upon Augustine. While Augustine is not
a monist in the same manner that Plato and Plotinus were, Augustine’s understanding of mind
and desire is essentially neo-Platonic. We desire beauty, we desire happiness, we desire love,

19
John E. Rotelle, The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century (New York: New City
Press, 1991), 201.

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we desire belonging – this is what governs all human action according to Augustine (so
happiness is the natural law) – but without an understanding of “true” happiness, true love, true
beauty, and true belonging (e.g. “the Forms” to use Platonic language), we will constantly and
forever be disappointed at our failed attempts to attain the things that we seek. However,
Augustine rejects the pure rationalism of Plato and Plotinus because of the dangerous
implications of reason abandoning desire, which is to say the flight of the mind from the body.
Therefore, we can see the influence Plotinus and Aristotle upon Augustine here. Just as
Aristotle, in Metaphysics, asserted that the nature of man was one that desired knowledge,
Augustine maintains that in order to actually attain the happiness that we seek one must
cultivate their mind, know themselves and their will, and come to know the source of
happiness.20 Thus, wisdom plays that ordering – or guiding – role in shepherding desire to that
which it seeks.
Conclusion
In comparison with the times of Augustine and the other early Church Fathers (scholars),
people today can have an increasingly clearer perception of individual rights, and of the
autonomy of the created world from its Creator. In the time of Augustine, it was impossible for
him to speak of the human race or of a world view in any other way than by placing God at the
centre of the discussion. And such an anthropological view, which was common to all early
Fathers (scholars) of the Church, cannot be taken in isolation from Christian theology. This is
because it both colours and is coloured by the Christian doctrine about creation, original sin,
the relationship of soul and body, the grace (gratia) of God, sexual relationships, everyday
living, and death - to name but a few key areas.

20
John E. Rotelle, The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century (New York: New City
Press, 1991), 202.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Mathews, Charles T. “Augustinian Anthropology: Interior Intimo Meo.” Journal of Religious
Ethics 27, no. 2 (Sum 1999): 195-221.
O’Connell, Robert J. The Origin of the Soul in St. Augustine’s Later Works. New York:
Fordham University Press,1987.
O’Daly, Gerard. Augustine’s City of God. A Reader’s Guide. Oxford: Oxford University
Press,1999.
____________. Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind. London: Duckworth. 1987.
Rotelle, John E. The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century. New York:
New City Press,1991.
Tourscher, Francis Edward.St. Augustine’s De Quantitate Animae: The Measure of the Soul;
Latin Text, with English Translation and Notes. Peter Reilly Company, 1933.
WEBLIOGRAPHY

“Anthropology.” AUGNET: 2302 Anthropology, www.augnet.org, http://www.augnet.org/en

“Augustine: On the Fall of Man, Part I.” Hesiod’s Corner, 1 Nov. 2017, https://hesiodscorner.
wordpress .com/2017/11/01/augustine-on-the-fall-of-man/. (Accessed on 05/08/2022.)

“Augustine’s Anthropology – Hesiod’s Corner.” Hesiod’s Corner, hesiodscorner.wordpress

“Saint Augustine” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/

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