Augustine and the Ethical Person

View on Ethics
St. Augustine defines ethics as an enquiry into the Summum Bonum which refers to the supreme
good, that provides or gives the happiness that people seek. The supreme good is that which we
seek for its own sake, not as a means to some other end, and which makes us happy. Augustine
adds, as if this were an uncontroversial point, that happiness is the aim of philosophy in general.
And he also explains happiness as something which consists in the enjoyment of God and as a
reward granted in the afterlife in exchange for virtue in this life. Virtue itself is a gift of God, and
founded on love, not on the wisdom prized by philosophers (Kent, 2006). Since virtues are
supposed to and indeed lead us to the happy life, Augustine defines virtue as ‘the perfect love of
God’. Virtue is the love by which one desires that which should be loved whereas vice is the love
of moral evil. And while vice is the hideous expression of disorderly love, virtue is the beauty of
true love ordered toward God. Because to live virtuously is to evaluate and order loves in
accordance with their true worth, virtue is ‘the art of living well and rightly.’
The typical objects of desire which are wealth, earthly power, honors, physical beauty do not
guarantee happiness, much less moral goodness. Only the Supreme Wisdom, the Omniscient
God, provides ultimate contentment.
The importance of happiness in Augustine’s ethics can scarcely be overestimated. Of his
surviving works, the very first he completed is a dialogue entitled De beata vita – an early
indication of issues he continued to reflect upon to the very end of his career. On at least two
broad points he agrees with standard philosophical teachings. First, all human beings desire
happiness. Indeed, Augustine recognizes that the skeptical Cicero himself chose “We certainly
all want [or will] to be happy” when seeking an assertion that nobody doubts. Second, only
“people who like to argue” equate happiness with merely living as one wants. No serious
philosopher would take such a view, for who could be more miserable than someone who lives
as he wants but wants something inappropriate? Imagine wanting to live on a diet of gin and
chocolate, or any of the various self-destructive desires that people actually have. Augustine
again sides with Ciceroin claiming that we are often better off in failing to get something that we
want than we would be in simply wanting something inappropriate, because fortune does less to
make us happy than our own minds do to make us unhappy. For example, someone might buy
what turns out to be a losing lottery ticket week after week, year after year, without feeling
distressed at the failure to strike it rich. On the other hand, somebody with an excessive desire
for wealth might possess millions and still continue to labor, miserably and compulsively, at
acquiring even more. A radical decline in his wealth might likewise plunge such a person into
despair, as it did some of the millionaires who saw their investment portfolios devastated by the
US stock market crash of 1929. In Augustine’s view, wanting wealth is one thing, loving it another.
We must always be on guard against falling in love with objects unworthy of love.
In the basic principles of his moral doctrine Augustine referred to man’s innate inclination to
happiness. Considering the views of ancient philosophies who taught that happiness resides
either in the soul alone, in the body alone, or in the soul and the body, Augustine saw happiness
in then attainment of the fullness of the good, which he identified with the fullness of being . Since
God is the most perfect being, unchanging and limitless, God should be the only end of man’s
desires which he expressed in these words: “you (God) have created us for Yourself, and our
heart is unquiet until it rests in You”
According to Augustine, the guide and rule of moral life is the eternal law (the reason and will
of God); it is unchanging, transcends individuals, and is absolute. It commands us to observe
the natural order, which concerns relations among realities that are arranged in an hierarchy.
Man becomes aware of this law in his conscience as the natural law. Man knows moral truths,
just as he knows speculative truths, with the help of divine illumination He accepts the ontological
goodness of creatures and thinks that the order of being is strictly connected with the moral order.

God as the author of the world’s order has the right to demand that creatures respect this order.
Man may use all created good, but not in the same way, because not all goods are equal; he must
properly evaluate and choose these goods. He must subordinate external goods to the body, the
body to the soul, and the soul, and in the soul he must subordinate the senses to the reason, and
the reason to God. A violation of this order is an injustice to God, namely a sin that introduces a
rebellion of the body against the soul and gives birth to lust and ignorance whereby the soul as
the dwelling place of God is degraded.
Augustine attached a high rank to virginity by virtue of divine law. This virginity derives its value
from the virgin’s consecration to God. He regarded Mary as the model of virginity in the Church.
When she consecrated herself to God before the annunciation she became the model for all
virgins in the Church and showed that virginity is not reserved only to the Mother of the
Savior.
Augustine regarded all lies as sins. He was against homicide, even the slaying of an aggressor
to defend one’s personal goods or life. He strongly condemned suicide, arguing by deciding to
take his own life, a man deprives himself of the opportunity to acquire wisdom and virtue and
also robs society. Under no circumstances is suicide justified, even when a woman is threatened
with rape. The virgin martyrs who took their own lives to preserve their virginity had acted,
Augustine thought, under the influence of divine inspiration (like Samson), but others who under
similar circumstance refrained from suicide acted wisely. Virginity is virtue of the soul, not of the
body.

In the Christian philosophical system Augustine showed the connection between being and
obligation, between dogma and life, and between metaphysics and ethics. He drew out a profound
moral meaning from many previously known evangelical truths. He connected abstract
philosophical and moral ideas with these truths. He showed that the highest Truth and Good are
not inanimate, but they are life itself. God as the unchanging Good is man’s most perfect model,
norm, and good. Augustine’s multifaceted approach to the idea of God was particularly valuable
for later ethical thought. Although Augustine recognized the goodness of physical being and the
life of the senses, he was not able to explain in man the structure of the connection between the
sensual elements and spiritual elements in man’s complete organic whole.
For the overall, ethics for Augustine is the enjoyment of God, and virtuously living on earth has
significance not only to earthly existence but also in the after life. He believes that virtues
themselves are God’s grace, and founded on love, not on the self-assigned ends or wisdom
cherished by philosophers. Whereas ancient philosophers’ ethics are self-centered and tend to
stress the cognitive side of man’s nature, Augustine’s philosophy, especially the ‘double love’
command pronounces the moral importance of charity and loving one’s neighbors. For him, moral
deeds and virtues should be understood in terms of relationship to others and to God. And by
defining divine virtue as ‘the art of living well and rightly’, he also made ethically active man’s love
of God. Loving God is the main ingredient to be an ethical person. To love God therefore is not
just to emotionally love Him but also to desire to live virtuously according to His will.
Shared, flawed humanity
The consequences of Adam’s sin prove just as important as its cause to the development of
Augustine’s ethics. As we share in Adam’s humanity, so we share in his guilt and punishment.
Even when the guilt of original sin is forgiven in baptism, the punishment remains, particularly in
the form of concupiscence, a radical disorder in our desires alien to human nature in its original
condition. In his early works, Augustine confesses, he underestimated the extent of the damage
to human nature. His own thinking changed owing to continued reflection upon St. Paul’s lament
in Romans 7: I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want [or will],
but the evil that I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do
it, but sin which dwells within me . . . For I delight in the law of God, in my inmost self, but I see
in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and making captive to the law of sin
which dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of
death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
At first Augustine believed that Paul was describing how he felt before becoming a Christian.
Only gradually did he decide that Paul was speaking in his own voice, as a Christian with the gift
of God’s grace. Without grace, how could Paul delight in God’s law? Without such delight, how
could the very conflict he describes even be possible? Of course, Augustine does not think the
passage should be taken to mean that Paul continued to do wrong or that he even had sinful
intentions.
When Paul writes of “doing” the evil that he hates, all he means, says Augustine, is that he
continues to desire what he should not desire, a failing he abhors; but precisely because he
does not consent to the urgings of concupiscence, Paul can justifiably say, “It is no longer I that
do it.”Augustine’s new interpretation of Romans highlights the profound damage to human
nature by original sin and hence the continued, profound dependency on God’s grace, even by
the best of us.
The works of Pelagius and his followers declare it absurd to suggest that Adam’s sin damaged
anyone but himself, except in the trivial sense that Adam set a bad example. Every one of us, in
their view, is born in the same condition that Adam was before his fall, with a will entirely free and
no need of external aid in order to be good.
This holds for pagans no less than Christians. We have as evidence the injunction of Jesus: “You,
therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” How could anybody have an
obligation to be perfect if he lacks the ability to be? Could God justly command of us what we are
unable to do? If we ought to be perfect, Pelagians argue, it follows that we can be perfect, so that
we shall richly deserve the punishments of hell if we fail. As for Romans 7, Augustine’s
interpretation must be rejected. Writing in the voice of someone who has yet to convert, Paul
laments not the damage of original sin but only the necessity arising from his own individually
self-created bad habits.
Most modern readers, especially Americans, find the Pelagians’ teachings farmore appealing than
Augustine’s. Not only does Pelagian doctrine give full moral credit to persons of other faiths, even
of no faith at all, it also treats us all as individuals, individually responsible for our own fortunes.
Each of us is free to succeed or fail, depending entirely on his own efforts – a theological doctrine
later secularized and politicized by such authors as Andrew Carnegie and
Horatio Alger. Indeed, the Pelagian bishop Julian of Eclanum carried the defense of human
freedom so far as to pronounce us “emancipated from God.”In giving each of us the power of free
will, God grants us our independence, so that we need worry only about using the gift well enough
to “pass” when we must finally face God’s judgment.
Augustine’s reflections upon human imperfection ultimately led him to attack the inseparability of
the virtues, a doctrine central to ancient and Hellenistic ethics. His arguments on this topic are all
the more noteworthy because they were revived over eight centuries later by Christian
theologians concerned that Aristotle’s influence was inspiring a neo-pagan movement in the
universities
Friendship
Practical philosophy can be defined as the study of the bases of philosophy (metaphysics,
knowledge theory, logic) for "practical thinking", with the emphasis on values, attitudes to life and
norms of behaviour. Value theory and analysis of normative positions constitute the core of
practical philosophy. Augustine’s view on friendship emphasizes such values and attitudes to life,
how friendship affects the society as it is also a manifestation of an ethical person.
The early church theologian Augustine is well known for his theological contributions, but he is
also notable for his views on friendship. Friendship was very meaningful to Augustine. In fact, one
writer said that Augustine is the first person to think of and to give us a theology of friendship. He
often liked to quote the famous line from Cicero, who defined friendship as “agreement with
kindliness and affection about things human and divine.” Augustine believed this, and throughout
most of his life he would quote this when he was writing to good friends. Hus definition of true
friendship is that we are united to one another as friends through our union with Christ. And
ultimately, Augustine says, the friendship that matters for us is our friendship with God.
Fr. Michael Morahan O.S.A. of the Australian Province discusses the view of Augustine on
friendship as well as Augustine’s experiences with relate to that. Friendship is something very
important to most people. In fact, St Augustine believed that in this world two things are essential:
life and friendship. God created people to breathe and be alive. But mere life is not enough: if a
human being is to be a real person then there must be friendship.
Augustine warned his monks from being so devoted to study and prayer that they forgot the needs
of the brothers (City of God, Bk XIX, 19). His idea for a 'monk' was unlike that of his time. He did
not see the monk as one who went out alone into the desert but one who sought God with his
brothers and was one with them.

He further explains that we often think we understand concepts which are familiar to us as
sometimes we do not give them a thought precisely because they are so familiar. Sometimes
these familiar concepts need turning over like soil before seeds are planted. Friendship is one of
these: it is so common and yet it really deserves reflection.

Augustine himself did this. He read what others such as Cicero had to say about friendship. He
reflected on friendship but not merely in an intellectual manner. Friendship was so important a
part of his life.

Augustine tells about his friendships at three stages in his life: adolescence, early adulthood and
adulthood.
1: Adolescence: self-centred friendship
There is a kind of friendship which is based on solely on companionship. It involves getting
along with someone. It may often involve taking advantage of someone. We can indeed
find companions whose company we enjoy very much or who gives us something - access
to things we may not have -such a friendship can be our downfall. In fact it is not true
friendship. It can lead us in the wrong direction. We may even end up giving up what we
really believe in just to please the other person and maintain our own enjoyment and the
approval of so-called friends. This kind of friendship really focuses on ourselves and what
we are getting out of our so called friend.

Augustine tells us about this kind of friendship. It was the kind of friendship he sought in
adolescence. He says he was more in love with love than with any one: The single desire
that dominated my search for delight was simply to love and to be loved. Confessions Bk
II Ch I (Para 2)

His focus is on himself. Who or what he loves is not important. His friendship that involved
him in a gang was of this kind. He wanted to be accepted. Read the story of the stealing
of the pears later and think about the question 'When are my friendships like those of his
adolescence?'

He says that he was encouraged to boast about his own sexual pursuits (even when they
were imaginary) and the actual pursuit of sexual deeds by this kind of friendship. (see
Confessions Bk II para7.)

2: Young Adulthood: Love is the basis of Friendship

True friendship is not based on thinking about ourselves and what the other person can
do for us. It is based on common concerns and values. We know we can share what we
really feel, what we really are and what we really care about with true friends. Thus we
can really only be true friends to each other in so far as we can share some common
commitments.
Real friendship has a different direction to that of the adolescent since it takes us out of
ourselves and gives us a sense of freedom. In his young adulthood Augustine experienced
this new kind of friendship based on love. In particular he had one friend who was his own
age and also a teacher. We do not know the name of the friend but we know that he was
very dear to Augustine. They had grown up together as children and when Augustine
returned to his home town, Tagaste, to teach they became close friends. Let us hear what
Augustine says about friendship as he experienced with this friend and others at that time:
Friendship had other attractions which were very important to me - we could talk and laugh
- help each other in small ways - we enjoyed doing lots of things together - reading some
book - going somewhere -sometimes we would be very serious together - sometimes we
were able to act the fool together. Sometimes when we argued with each other it was not
a bitter argument but like the kind of argument you might have with yourself. In fact
sometimes the argument was the kind only friends can have when they have some
disagreement - it sometimes made our usual harmony more meaningful. Each of us had
something to learn ' from each other and something to each in return. If someone was
absent for some time they were missed and we welcomed them back warmly.
(Confessions Bk IV Ch viii Para 14)

The measure of a true friendship is not what we can get out of it but whether it leads us to
the appreciation of our friends in their totality. St Augustine believed that in our deeper
friendships our interest must be in all of the other person. What does that mean? Well we
are not just interested in that woman because she is very attractive or in some man
because he has lots of spare money which he spreads around. Instead we are interested
in all aspects of them.

When we take the whole person into account we may find that friendship really is not
possible. This person might be a great musician and that is what has attracted me but if I
take into account how he or she is otherwise I may find that's where my interest stops. If
that is so, we need to realise that we are not a true friend to that person and maybe we
cannot be. Our interest might only be selfish. It often is if our friendship is one-dimensional.

This friend of Augustine died suddenly. His death is so traumatic for Augustine that he
could not stay in his home town of Tagaste since he saw his friend everywhere he goes.
So much so that Augustine had to move to Carthage and begin teaching there instead.
With that begins a long path to his conversion and another transformation in his
understanding of friendship. As Augustine says, he loved his friend as though he would
never die and when he did die, he was distraught. Even reading what he wrote twenty
years after it happened we sense his agony. We will see that as yet there is still something
missing from his understanding of friendship. In fact he leaves Tagaste 'in a state of
complete dejection. Friendship is an enigma to him. He could not live without it, yet its
transitory nature filled him with despair.' (McNamara1964, 118)

3. Adulthood - Friends in Christ

In adulthood, Augustine's life was transformed by his conversion to faith in Jesus Christ
and trust in God. He no longer sees the world as purely material. True reality is only
understood when we know of God who is transcendent. Once converted he seeks to
gather his friends together so that they can seek God together.
First at Cassiacum then on his return to Africa at Tagaste and eventually at Hippo he
draws others together in friendship so that they might seek God together. They are to be
friends in Christ: 'Love has drawn you here; but love of what: If of me, this too is good, for
I desire to be loved by you, but not for myself. Since, therefore, I love you in Christ, do you
in return love me in Christ, and let our love for each other sigh and groan to God.' ( In Jo.
Ev. VI, 1)
At Cassiacum, in Italy, and then when he returns to Tagaste the group was primarily the
friends he knows. As Tagaste and then especially at Hippo, Augustine invites others to
join him who were not already his friends. But he invites them to friendship in the
monastery. His concept of friendship is changing again. For he now understands that all
Christian people are called to be 'friends in Christ'. He works to build up a spirit of fraternal
affection and support in the monastery and invites all there to share in that friendship which
seeks God together. Christ is the first brother. His dream is that in the end there be but
one Christ loving himself. This is his dream for his monastic community, for his diocese,
for the Church and for the world. Therefore his friendship is not confined to the monastery.
 In fact, he has many friends: 'bishops and lay people, men and women, those who are his
own age and those who are much older and much younger.
While he greatly loves the presence of his close friends he in now ready to part with them
for the greater good of Christ. Alypius, his close friend, who is by his side in the garden in
Milan at his conversion follows him to Tagaste and to Hippo. Augustine calls him 'the
brother of his heart'. (Ep 22, 1) (see McNamara 1964, 129) Finally Alypius is also called
to be bishop. Though it means losing him as a day to day companion, Augustine is now
happy to let him go for he sees the goal of their friendship as sharing the love of Christ
between all people. By being a bishop Alypius will bring this about even if it means his
absence.

Conclusions drawn by Morahan from Augustine’s experience in friendship

Love as basis of friendship

The main conclusion we can draw from St Augustine is that friendship is based on love. It is not
based on self interest. Ultimately for Christians in is based on the love of Christ. Augustine, with
St John the Evangelist, believes that the way we make our love of God real is by loving. Our
friendships are part of our loving God and our way to salvation.

Frankness as part of real friendship

There are a lot of misconceptions about friendship. One is that we should only praise and express
our appreciation of our friends. But real friends are those we can trust, those with whom we can
be sincere, not those we need to flatter all the time. If they are true friends we must be able to
point out their faults or mistakes, not to score a point or to make my own life more comfortable,
but so that they can gain by our insight. This is something others may not be able to do because
they do not know them as well as we do. St Augustine says I true friend is not one who flatters,
by who dares to tell us the truth. People sometimes do one another a great deal of harm, because
they are afraid to displease. In this respect it is often our enemies who occasionally in a burst of
anger who may tell us the truth about something. Unfortunately we may find it too easy to brush
aside what someone we do not like tells us.

Prayer
It the heart of friendship is wishing the other well. That is that all that is good will happen to them.
Part of friendship then is that prayer for our friends. Augustine frequently wrote to his friends and
often completed his letters asking for their prayers in particular situations. These are not empty
formulas to end a letter but are heart-felt pleas. Sometimes we find friends are in particular
difficulties and we do not know how to help them. This can often be the case if they find
themselves in moral difficulties or in problems with other relationships in their lives. In these cases
we may need to simply entrust them to God. God who knows the true needs of our friends far
better than we will do what is best for them.

Openness to the World

Morahan concludes that one of the reasons why friendship greatly impact the life of Augustine
and our lives too is that life without friends is like crawling through a dark narrow and twisting
tunnel. All you see is what is in front of you. If you have true friends you can share what happens
to you. Even familiar things come alive sometimes when you share them with friends. It is more
like walking along a broad highway were you can see all the countryside around you.

References:
Augustine's Moral Philosophy: An Analysis. Retrieved from
https://ourhappyschool.com/philosophy/augustines-moral-philosophy-analysis
Augustine on Friendship. Retrieved from https://www.5minutesinchurchhistory.com/augustine-
on-friendship/
Kent, B. (2006). Augustine’s ethics. Retrieved from
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://mcdonaldcentre.files.wordpress.
com/2010/04/kent-augustines-
ethics.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiWnfvVhpLhAhUs6XMBHfp1CigQFjAAegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3O25a
_B517UazBf6zVHH6N
St. Augustime and Friendship. Retrieved from http://www.osa.org.au/en/organisations/friends-of-
st-augustine/st-augustine-and-friendship/