Asf 3 Module 8 Mans Ultimate End and Eschatology
Asf 3 Module 8 Mans Ultimate End and Eschatology
Asf 3 Module 8 Mans Ultimate End and Eschatology
INSTRUCTION: IF YOU ARE READY, YOU CAN NOW START WITH MODULE 8.
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
Consultation hours:
Phone/messenger:
Virtual time:
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
TIME TO
ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION OVERVIEW
COMPLETE
Opening Prayer 2 minutes
References
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
“You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it
rests in you” (Conf. 1.1). This famous Augustinian line presents to us
man’s ultimate end. Man desires eternal rest with God since only then
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
will man enjoy true and lasting happiness. It is a state of “Sabbath that
has no evening” (The City of God 22.30).
As man makes its way towards the ultimate end who is God, the
possession of whom alone can give man true and lasting happiness,
man must learn how to live well in the present world. Augustine
distinguishes between “uti” and “frui,” to remind us that the material
things of this world are meant to be only used in view of one’s ultimate
goal (cf. Arendt: 36-37), and not enjoyed in themselves (cf. The City of
God 19.2; also see 11.25; 15.7; 19.1; On Christian Teaching 1.22.20; On
the Lifestyle of the Catholic Church 20.37; On Music 6.14.46).
Evil is an act of injustice against God. Real evil is injustice seen in every
case where a man loves for their own sake things which are desirable
only as means to an end and seeks for the sake of something else
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
things which ought to be loved for themselves …. Man is just when one
seeks to use things only for the end for which God appointed them
and to enjoy God as the end of all, while one enjoys the “self” and
friends in God and for God. To love in a friend -the love of God is to
love the friend for God. Both justice and injustice, to be acts at all,
must be voluntary; otherwise, there can be no just rewards or
punishments” (Against Faustus 22.78).
1) Augustine’s on Immortality
13.24). The implication of all this is that while the death of our “animal
body” is inevitable, man will still enjoy immortality in virtue of his/her
possession of a “spiritual body.” Man, simply have to allow God to
breathe the life-giving Spirit into man and live according to God’s
standards instead of living in a carnal way or according to the
standards of man (cf. The City of God 14.4). The “animal body” is
identical to the “carnal body” (The City of God 14.4). Those who are
predestined to become citizens of the Heavenly City allow God’s spirit
to guide them while those of the earthly city subject themselves to
death.
Prior to the Fall, the human body would have operated in full
harmony with the human mind and in complete conformity with the
human will (Hunter: 358). Having been created by God as man’s
“natural substance,” the “flesh” is not evil in itself (cf. The City of God
14.5), contrary to what some might think (cf. The City of God 14.2). The
teachings of the Manichee’s identified the human body with evil since
they believed that everything made of the matter was intrinsically evil
(cf. The City of God 14.5). Augustine refuted such teachings and
affirmed that in the end the flesh would survive and be raised back to
life purified of any corruptible element. If ever man or his soul is
weighed down by the corruptible body, the cause of it is not to be
sought in the very substance of one’s body, but in its corruption (cf.
The City of God 14.3).
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
2) Augustine’s on Death
The second death is more grievous, “it is the worst of all evils,”
Augustine says (The City of God 13.11). Just as there are two types of
death, there are also two kinds of resurrection – a first and a second
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
one. The first is the resurrection of mercy, the other is the resurrection
of judgment” (The City of God 20.6). Corresponding with these two
resurrections are two judgments – the first one takes place at the
moment of a person’s death -a judgment “in the meantime,” while
the second one will take place at the end of the world – called the
“last” or “final” judgment (The City of God 20.1). All men will be
judged based on “the particular actions of individuals performed by
the decision of their will” (The City of God 20.1), whether one resisted
or obeyed the truth or participated or not in the “true religion” (The
City of God 20.3).
that they will experience a swift death, like in a blink of an eye in order
to be resurrected along with the rest.
desires of the body and true justice will prevail within man “by which
the soul is subordinated to God and the body to the soul, and both
body and soul are subordinated to God” (The City of God 19.4; 19.27;
cf. 14.19). “Our nature will be healed by immortality and incorruption
and will have no perverted elements” (The City of God 19.27; 20.16-
17).
Man’s flesh will be renewed and made exempt from decay (cf.
The City of God 20.5; 21.8; 22.24; 22.30). Man’s bodies will no longer
have any defects (cf. The City of God 22.17; cf. Ellingsen, 2005) and
will possess perfect beauty (cf. The City of God 22.19; 22.20). “It is not
necessary for the achievement of happiness to avoid every kind of
body, but only bodies which are corruptible, burdensome, and in a
dying state; not such bodies as the goodness of God created for the
first human beings but bodies in the condition which the punishment
for sin forced upon them” (The City of God 13.17). Real happiness
which all men desire – cannot be achieved in the present life (cf. The
City of God 19.4).
“All human beings will rise again with a body of the same size as
they had, or would have had, in the prime of life” (The City of God
22.16), possessing “the stature which one had in its prime” or “the
stature one would have attained” (The City of God 22.15), “that
maturity they would have attained by the slow lapse of time” (The City
of God 22.14). The bodies will retain their respective sexes but will all
be free of the necessity of intercourse and childbirth as the lust of the
present life will disappear (cf. The City of God 22.17). And all will be
fully satisfied notwithstanding the difference in merits, “just as in the
body the finger does not wish to be the eye” (The City of God 22.30).
This will not be the case in the future. The punishment of the
wicked will be both by “fire and worm” – that is, “the fire to the body
in the literal sense, and the worm to the soul in the metaphorical
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
sense” (The City of God 20.22; 21.9; Mt 9:42ff.). The African bishop is
convinced that the human body is capable of avoiding disintegration
by death and even persisting in fire (cf. The City of God 21.2).
Augustine cites examples from Nature. Augustine argues against
those who think that the experience of pain necessarily entails death
saying that the body can take only so much pain.
Augustine asserts: “the fact that the bodies of the damned will
feel pain does not entail that they will be capable of dying” (The City
of God 21.3); “not everything susceptible to pain is capable of death”
(The City of God 21.4) just as it is possible for living creatures to remain
alive in fire without being consumed (cf. The City of God 21.9).
Another argument Augustine uses is this: what one knows of the
human body in the present life does not exclude the possibility that it
will be of a totally different type in the future. The human “flesh” was
differently constituted before Adam’s Fall; it was then capable of not
dying. “By the same token at the resurrection of the dead it will be
differently constituted from the flesh as it is known to us” (The City of
God 21.8). It may be something incomprehensible to us at present,
Augustine explains: “the fact that a rational explanation cannot be
given for something does not mean that it could not have happened
in the past or that it could not happen in the future” (The City of God
21.5).
● Create your Road Map Life Journey and Thanksgiving Prayer. Post
it in NEO-LMS during the asynchronous class. Reflect the following
guided questions to come up with your output:
o What is your ultimate goal in life? How does your
intermediate (or short-term) goals in life contribute to the
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
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2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
MODULE 8. CONCLUSION
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
Human behavior or way of life is the defining factor for the attainment
of humanity’s final end, hence, the role where the Augustinian
Christian ethic comes in guiding the person’s way of behaving.
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES
MODULE 8. REFERENCES:
• Alvarez, Fr. Czar Emmanuel V., OSA and Cabahug, Fr. Reo G.,
OSA. (2021). Augustinian Ethics. ReSt 1: 72-117.
• Canning, R. “Uti/Frui” in Augustine through the Ages. An
Encyclopedia. Ed. Allan Fitzgerald. William Eerdmans Publishing
1999: 859-861.
• The Jerusalem Bible. (2005). Philippines: Philippine Bible Society.
2022-2023 Module Packet for ASF 3 (ST. AUGUSTINE ON ETHICS). Center for Religious SR. JEAN ALCAIN, LMSH 07/27/2022
Studies, University of San Agustin, Iloilo City, Philippines. DR. REYNOLD B. NAVARES