On Augustine
Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2010 8:11 pm
Some interesting comments on Augustine.
"1. That Augustine was the first (or the last) word in spirituality. While not decrying the stature of Augustine and the immensity of his thought, I do regret his influence. It is due to him, above all, that the albatross of Neoplatonism still weighs so heavily about our necks. His dualistic psychology should be seen for what it is: a put-down of the "inferior" human activities of the body, time and multiplicity by the "superior" activities of intellect, will and memory. Augustine, writing as he did at the collapse of the Roman Empire and the dawning of the church’s empire, removed sin from the body politic (he justified war in the name of the empire) to the body (sex is a duty -- and then only for the weak). He also raised realized eschatology to a political triumphalism: the church was God’s kingdom on earth.
No serious student of spirituality can deny that Augustine’s has been a weighty influence in the spiritualizing of spirituality. There will be no spiritual renewal without going back to pre-Augustiflian sources, especially to Jewish, biblical thinking. Augustine’s psychologizing of love, removing it from biblical, prophetic justice, has done the West more harm than good in the long run. Jose Miranda puts the results bluntly: "One of the most disastrous errors in the history of Christianity is to have tried -- under the influence of Greek definitions -- to differentiate between love and justice" (Marx and the Bible, p. 6i).
I am continually amazed at how many Christians (Protestant and Catholic alike) come out of the woodwork at any threat to their Augustinian non-biblical categories. It is almost as though they had taken a vow to remain true to Augustine’s psychology and sociology instead of to the death and rebirth of Jesus. A spiritual renewal requires that we practice some of the detachment that Neoplatonists are so fond of preaching about: in this case, a detachment from the dualisms and Neoplatonic flights of Augustine’s spirituality." Matthew Fox.
Sorry for the length but it is important to our understanding of thinking today.
It is a good example is why the church needs to change.
????????
"1. That Augustine was the first (or the last) word in spirituality. While not decrying the stature of Augustine and the immensity of his thought, I do regret his influence. It is due to him, above all, that the albatross of Neoplatonism still weighs so heavily about our necks. His dualistic psychology should be seen for what it is: a put-down of the "inferior" human activities of the body, time and multiplicity by the "superior" activities of intellect, will and memory. Augustine, writing as he did at the collapse of the Roman Empire and the dawning of the church’s empire, removed sin from the body politic (he justified war in the name of the empire) to the body (sex is a duty -- and then only for the weak). He also raised realized eschatology to a political triumphalism: the church was God’s kingdom on earth.
No serious student of spirituality can deny that Augustine’s has been a weighty influence in the spiritualizing of spirituality. There will be no spiritual renewal without going back to pre-Augustiflian sources, especially to Jewish, biblical thinking. Augustine’s psychologizing of love, removing it from biblical, prophetic justice, has done the West more harm than good in the long run. Jose Miranda puts the results bluntly: "One of the most disastrous errors in the history of Christianity is to have tried -- under the influence of Greek definitions -- to differentiate between love and justice" (Marx and the Bible, p. 6i).
I am continually amazed at how many Christians (Protestant and Catholic alike) come out of the woodwork at any threat to their Augustinian non-biblical categories. It is almost as though they had taken a vow to remain true to Augustine’s psychology and sociology instead of to the death and rebirth of Jesus. A spiritual renewal requires that we practice some of the detachment that Neoplatonists are so fond of preaching about: in this case, a detachment from the dualisms and Neoplatonic flights of Augustine’s spirituality." Matthew Fox.
Sorry for the length but it is important to our understanding of thinking today.
It is a good example is why the church needs to change.
????????