Confessions: Part 3

III.             Augustine’s Soteriology: Issues of (original) sin, human responsibility, the will, and salvation.

Having been exposed in class to the discrepancy between original sin and ancestral sin, I read intently seeking to grasp how Augustine understood this concept. Beginning with his understanding of sin, Augustine had at one time:

“thought it is not we who sin, but some alien nature which sins in us. It flatters my pride to be free of blame and, when I had done something wrong, not to make myself confess to you that you might heal my soul, for it was sinning against you (Ps. 40:5). I like to excuse myself and to accuse some unidentifiable power which was with me and yet not I (p. 84).”

This was a common misconception that Augustine returned to address often. He seemed to express that sin was not an external faculty, but rather something which we are. He addresses this, among other places, concerning astrologers who:

 “make a man not in the least responsible for his faults, but mere flesh and blood and putrid pride, so that the blame lies with the Creator and orderer of the heaven and stars (p. 54).”

The claim in Augustine’s day (one which I personally needed to hear and be challenged on) was that that which humanity did was a result of either external factors or the way in which they were simply created to be. This is much the same idiom of today, as Lady Gaga proclaims in her song that we are “Born this way.” If I am born a certain way, than I cannot argue with God for who I now am, and am simply responding to the circumstances that have been placed before me. Therefore, can I be held accountable for that which I did not create in myself? For Augustine, this is not an option.

On the origin of this sin, Augustine, in narrative of departing from his mother deceitfully for Rome and arriving there ill says:

“… I was on the way to the underworld, bearing all the evils I had committed against you, against myself, and against others – sins both numerous and serious, in addition to the chain of original sin by which ‘in Adam we die’ (1 Cor. 15:22). You had not yet forgave me in Christ for any of them, nor had he by his cross delivered me from the hostile disposition towards you which I had contracted by my sins (82).”

This understanding of sin also corresponds with Augustine’s understanding of atonement, for Christ “endured our death and slew it by the abundance of his life (64),” he “’abolished the account of debts which was reckoned against us’ (Col. 2:14). He triumphed over the enemy who counts up our sins, and searches for grounds of accusation, but who found no fault in him in whom we are conquerors (John 14:30; Rom. 8:37). Who will restore to him his innocent blood? Who will restore to him the price which he paid to buy us, so as to take us out of our adversary’s hands (178)?”  He “made void the death of justified sinners,” and God, having loved us, “did not ‘spare your only Son but delivered him up for us sinners (219).”

A very important part of Augustine’s soteriology comes out in his narrative, in that in every aspect of Augustine’s life, it is God who has orchestrated the events in order to bring about the final outcome. This is seen in such events as Augustine’s choice to study the liberal arts or his choice to leave for Rome against his Mother’s wishes, the circumstances of which God used mightily. Every event that Augustine recalls has been orchestrated in some way by God:

“You applied the pricks which made me tear myself away from Carthage, and you put before me the attractions of Rome to draw me there, using people who love a life of death, committing insane actions in this world, promising vain rewards to the next. To correct my ‘steps’ (Ps. 36:23; Prov. 20:20) you secretly made use of their and my perversity. For those who disturbed my serenity were blinded with a disgraceful frenzy (81).”

And concerning what led to a meeting with Ambrose, the bishop who brought about Augustine’s salvation:

“I was led to him by you, unaware that through him, in full awareness, I might be led to you (87,88).”