Augustine & Aquinas: Medieval Political Philosophy
Summary
TLDRThis lecture discusses two prominent figures of Christian philosophy: Augustine and Aquinas. It explores Augustine's pessimistic view of politics and humanity, emphasizing original sin, human evil, and the necessity of strong coercive authority. In contrast, Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, views politics as integral to human flourishing, advocating for a harmony between material prosperity, moral virtue, and spiritual salvation. The lecture touches on their differing attitudes towards tyranny and authority, setting the stage for later political philosophy discussions, such as those by Hobbes and Locke.
Takeaways
- đ° Augustine and Aquinas stand at two extremes of the Middle Ages, representing different periods and philosophical ideas.
- đ Augustine was an important early Christian philosopher, influenced by Neoplatonism, especially through Plato and Cicero.
- đ Augustine emphasized the concept of original sin, viewing humanity as inherently sinful and deserving of hell.
- đĄ Augustine argued that governments are based on coercion, resembling bands of robbers, and saw politics as a necessary evil.
- đ Augustine believed that Christians should accept their fate under tyranny and martyrdom rather than resist through violence.
- đ§ Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, emphasized the importance of politics and saw it as integral to human flourishing.
- â Aquinas introduced the idea of natural law, suggesting that moral truths are accessible to all rational beings through reason.
- đ„ Unlike Augustine, Aquinas allowed for the possibility of resistance against tyrants, though in a limited and structured way.
- đ Aquinas supported monarchy as the best form of government but with checks and balances, resembling a mixed regime.
- đ The ideas of both Augustine and Aquinas influenced later political thought, notably Hobbes' realism and Locke's natural law.
Q & A
Who are the two key philosophers discussed in the script?
-The two key philosophers discussed are Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, who represent two extremes of the Christian Middle Ages.
How did Augustine initially view Christianity?
-Augustine initially found Christianity to be intellectually unsophisticated and was influenced by the works of Cicero and Neoplatonism before fully accepting Christian doctrine.
What is Augustine's view on original sin and human nature?
-Augustine believed that humanity is inherently sinful due to the original sin of Adam, and that everyone deserves to go to hell unless saved by God's inscrutable mercy.
How does Augustine view politics and government?
-Augustine sees politics as a necessary evil. He believes that governments are fundamentally coercive and that there is little difference between a government and a band of robbers.
What is Augustine's stance on resistance to tyrants?
-Augustine believed that Christians must submit to authority and only offer non-violent, passive resistance if commanded to act against their faith, such as being forced to sacrifice to pagan deities.
How does Aquinas' view of politics differ from Augustine's?
-Aquinas viewed political engagement as integral to human flourishing, unlike Augustine, who was anti-political. Aquinas believed in the possibility of harmony between material prosperity, virtuous character, and spiritual salvation.
What role does natural law play in Aquinas' philosophy?
-Aquinas believed that natural law, knowable through reason, governs universal moral truths. This law applies to all rational human beings, regardless of whether they are Christian.
Does Aquinas believe in the right to resist tyranny?
-Yes, Aquinas suggests that if positive laws conflict with natural law, they are not legitimate, and there may be a right of revolution, though likely through the actions of inferior magistrates rather than individuals.
What form of government does Aquinas support?
-Aquinas favored monarchy, arguing that one ruler mirrors the singular authority of God, though he also advocated for a mixed regime with elements of aristocracy and possibly democratic representation.
What connection is drawn between Augustine, Aquinas, and later philosophers?
-The script highlights Augustineâs influence on thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, especially in the realist tradition, and Aquinasâ influence on philosophers like John Locke, particularly regarding natural law.
Outlines
âł Rushing through the Christian Middle Ages: Augustine and Aquinas
The speaker introduces the need to briefly cover centuries of Christian Middle Ages history, focusing on two influential figuresâAugustine and Aquinas. Augustine, a major early Christian philosopher, initially viewed the gospel as intellectually unsophisticated. His ideas were heavily influenced by Neoplatonism, especially Plotinus. Augustine's philosophy reflects a pessimistic view of humanity, marred by original sin, where everyone deserves to go to hell, and God's mercy alone decides salvation. His ideas on politics equate governments with bands of robbers, emphasizing the harsh necessity of coercion to govern a fundamentally evil human nature.
đĄ Augustine's Stance on Tyranny and Heresy
This paragraph delves into Augustineâs harsh stance on heretics and his justification for coercive power. Augustine justifies the use of imperial power against Christian sects that do not align with the Bishop of Rome. He also discusses tyranny, emphasizing that Christians should obey authority as all power comes from God, except when commanded to do something against their faith. In such cases, Augustine advocates for passive resistance and martyrdom, believing that eternal rewards in the afterlife outweigh any earthly suffering.
â Augustine vs. Aquinas: A Shift in Political Thought
The speaker contrasts Augustine's and Aquinas's political philosophies. While Augustine sees politics as a necessary evil, Aquinas, influenced by Aristotle, rehabilitates political life as integral to human flourishing. Augustineâs strict dichotomy of loving God versus loving oneself is replaced by Aquinasâs belief in the possibility of harmony between material prosperity, virtue, and salvation. Aquinas also promotes the idea that reason and natural law can guide humanity, regardless of religion, and that revelation complements rather than contradicts natural law.
đ Aquinas and Natural Law: Universal Morality and the Right to Resist Tyranny
Aquinas argues that universal norms of morality, or natural law, can be established by reason alone, accessible to all people, regardless of their faith. He believes natural law forms the foundation of a harmonious society, supplemented by divine commandments. Aquinasâs approach to tyranny is also different from Augustineâs; he suggests that unjust laws conflicting with natural law can be resisted, and there is a limited right to revolution, especially by magistrates or princes, although not fully fleshed out in his work.
đ Monarchy and Mixed Regime: Aquinasâs Ideal Government
Aquinas, drawing from Aristotle, supports monarchy as the best form of government, though his concept is more aligned with a mixed regime, similar to the rule of Moses in the Bible. The speaker reflects on how Aquinasâs preference for monarchy might seem antiquated but invites students to consider how future generations might view modern political ideas as equally outdated. Aquinas's monarchy includes elements of checks and balances, such as an aristocratic council and some democratic representation, blending various forms of governance.
đ Revisiting Realism and Natural Law: Themes for the Future
The speaker briefly concludes by noting the importance of revisiting Augustine's pessimistic realism, especially in thinkers like Thomas Hobbes, and Aquinasâs concept of natural law, which will appear later in thinkers like John Locke. Locke borrows from Aquinasâs idea that natural law is knowable through reason, influencing later political and philosophical discussions.
Mindmap
Keywords
đĄAugustine
đĄOriginal Sin
đĄNeoplatonism
đĄCoercion and Politics
đĄCity of God vs. City of Man
đĄThomas Aquinas
đĄNatural Law
đĄTyranny
đĄFaith and Reason
đĄMartyrdom
Highlights
Augustine begins his education as an academic skeptic by reading Cicero, finding Christianity initially intellectually unsophisticated.
Augustine embraces Christianity through the influence of Neoplatonism, particularly the work of Plotinus.
A central question about Augustine's philosophy is how much he owes to the Bible versus how much he owes to Plato.
Augustine views politics as a necessary evil, with humanity inherently infected by original sin.
Augustine argues that all human beings, including saints and newborns, deserve damnation because of original sin, and salvation is only possible through God's inscrutable mercy.
In Augustine's view, governments resemble bands of robbers, as both rely on coercion and violence.
Augustine sees life as a 'veil of tears,' and this world as merely a preparation for the afterlife, with no expectation of justice on earth.
Christians in positions of power, according to Augustine, must exercise coercive force to curb human evil.
Augustine controversially defends the use of violent coercion against heretics to preserve orthodoxy.
Despite his pessimism about earthly life, Augustine advises Christians to accept martyrdom when resisting tyranny.
Aquinas, in contrast, sees political participation as integral to human flourishing, aligning more with Aristotelian philosophy.
Aquinas rehabilitates political life, seeing it as compatible with virtue and material prosperity, in contrast to Augustine's anti-political stance.
Aquinas argues that natural law, knowable by reason alone, provides a moral foundation for all human beings, regardless of religion.
For Aquinas, human laws must conform to natural law; if they conflict, they are unjust and may be resisted.
Aquinas advocates monarchy as the best form of government but acknowledges the importance of checks and balances, resembling Aristotle's mixed regime.
Transcripts
[Music]
alas
time is short
and so lamentably we're going to have to
rush
through several centuries of the
christian middle ages but
as an example we're going to talk about
again two figures who stand at the
roughly speaking at the two extremes of
the middle ages augustine in the fourth
and fifth centuries and aquinas in the
13th century
so um
as always i'm brief and brief and
superficial presentation but still
um
augustine
is a very important uh um philosopher of
uh of early christianity and again to
continue this
um discussion of of difference between
christianity of jesus and christianity
in rome right
lamentably i have to i have to mention
this right
augustine uh um begins his education as
an as an academic skeptic by reading
cicero and i guess augustine's mother is
a christian but he finds the christian
gospel to be let's say intellectually
unsophisticated
so augustine cannot really become a
christian before he goes through a stage
he reads neoplatonists and only through
the prism of neoplateness first and
foremost presumably platinus he then
comes to accept the
uh the christian doctrine but a big
question you know how much does
augustine owe to the bible and how much
does he owe to plato
anyway
still sort of within this uh uh broad
and superficial comparison augustine
should remind us of plato or at least of
a certain neoplatonic version of plato
with this insistence that
politics is a necessary evil
and in general augustine's outlook is
deeply deeply pessimistic in this notion
that humanity is infected with original
sin the original sin of adam and so
human beings are by nature evil
and in fact augustine is very adamant
that everybody deserves to go to hell
because of this original sin um even the
same tastes of saints even the newborn
babies deserve to go to hell and god
only by his infinite mercy completely
undeservedly decides to save uh certain
people now god's reasons are inscrutable
to us so god is just in the end but
we cannot even predict who's going to be
saved because technically speaking
everybody deserves to go to hell right
and so again so original sin the the
evil of human nature and so augustine in
a move which is actually reminiscent of
the sophists
talks maybe of thrasymachus he talks
about how there is no justice on this
earth
and governments at best can resemble a
band of robbers there's no there is you
know
politics is based on coercion violence
and there is no interesting difference
in principle between governments and the
band of robbers both are based on on
coercion
um at the same time um
augustine
so i mean like in in general his general
attitude to to life is that this life
again is a veil of tears or a welter of
sorrow so
again in this anti-political fashion um
christians have nothing to gain in this
life this is this life is only a short
preparation for judgment and eternal
life after death which is now understood
in terms of not in terms of the physical
resurrection of the body but in terms of
the neoplatonic immortal soul
right but um
still to the extent to the extent that
some people some christians can find
themselves in a position of power and
authority
um christians have to exercise this
power and authority in harsh and
coercive ways
again human beings are bad and so uh
governments through harsh coercive
action have to try to make them less bad
and this is actually again
augustine is a deeply deeply
controversial
uh thinker
throughout the rest of the history of
western philosophy and especially this
idea of original sin many later
philosophers will find this to be a
terrible doctrine and you know
linked to this also is going to be
augustine's attitude towards heretics
because within the catholic tradition
augustine
serves as the most important defender of
the practice of violent coercion of
heretics
this this notion that human beings are
sinful so
um even though technically speaking
people
believe with their heart and um in this
in this sense like it should be like
it's theoretically i guess impossible to
force people into the right kind of
belief however there is a role of for
violence and coercion in putting down
heresies and again this uh again
augustine serves as the justification of
the
centralized imperial power being
deployed against um christian
monasteries again versions of
christianity which do not subscribe to
the bishop of rome
to the ideas of the bishop of rome who
gradually over time acquires the status
as the pope status which is not really
found in early christian communities or
for that matter
in the christian scripture
so maybe to try to illustrate
augustine's position maybe with a
slightly more vivid example so if you
talk about tyranny or tyrants again in
general augustine places places very low
value on this life
and so
uh in principle again all power comes
from god we are not supposed to resist
evil so
and again all power is from god so
christians always have to obey however
if the tyrant forces you to do something
completely antithetical to your faith
like for example um sacrifice to the
pagan deities which incidentally was the
uh um original problem that the roman
empire had with the christians roman
empire in general was very tolerant of
many different faiths against idea of
syncretism let's just add on
different gods to the pantheon however
the christian refusal to sacrifice to
the statue of the emperor the christian
refusal to sacrifice to the statue of
the emperor this was seen
as political treason and this is
basically why christians were persecuted
not necessarily for their religious
ideas so again so augustine would say
that christians always have to submit
but if they are forced to do something
which is completely against their faith
then
um they can only offer a non-violent
passive resistance and accept their just
punishment so basically martyr them so
the answer to the problem of tyranny in
augustine is martyrdom you accept the
death of the martyr and you hope that
god will reward you in the afterlife
again this is augustine and although
it's very important that augustine is
not plato and i think that the very
there are very clear uh differences
between pagustine worldview and platonic
worldview even if we talk about the um
republic right so um
plato or socrates and plato's republic
talks about this intellectual
contemplation of the forms and maybe
the form of the good which seems to be
impersonal
right but in in augustine uh we're not
we're no longer talking about this form
of the good now we're talking about a
personal god and so in in general
there's a basic compatibility between
philosophy and religion in august and
augustine has this very famous phrase
we do philosophy because faith is
seeking understanding but again
again in the skeptical move
reason establishes its own boundaries
reason establishes its own limitation
and we have to refer to revelation to
supplement reason
so this this is augustine
and again i hope you can see platonic
elements in augustine's doctrine
so rushing through the centuries now we
get to aquinas
um
aristotle's works are actually
rediscovered reintroduced into europe uh
by way of the islamic world and by way
of
islamic arabic and jewish commentators
on aristotle it's a whole separate story
unfortunately we have to
gloss over uh uh but again you can see
aquinas's uh um
attitude to politics and to life in
general is very different right so
whereas again augustine in this somewhat
platonic fashion talks about politics as
necessary evil aquinas in aristotelian
fashion is going to say that engaging in
politics
is integral to human flourishing so
augustine is deeply anti-political and
in aquinas we see a certain
rehabilitation of political life this is
later going to be important for the
republican tradition
uh uh republican in a sense of the word
republicanism has different meanings in
this context we mean the value of
political political participation in and
of itself
um so so whereas for augustine augustine
has this very radical formulation he
talks about these two cities the earthly
city and the heavenly city and augustine
basically says you either have to love
god and hate yourself this notion of
original sin or you have to if you love
yourself then you have to hate god
augustine is very uncompromising in this
in the sense
aquinas does not see this as a conflict
he's going to say
look
the task of the good life is to be
prosperous including presumably having
some measure of property or maybe luxury
so this material prosperity and also
virtual and excellence of character
and salvation of your soul and there's
there's a possibility of harmony between
all three of these at the same time
right and in general when aquinas talks
about reason and revelation aquinas
writes extensively to the gentiles
mostly meaning
jews and muslims but aquinas imagines
again in this quasi-aristotelian fashion
which should be reminiscent also of the
stoics that reason establishes universal
norms of morality that there is a
natural law and this natural law is
clear and knowable to all rational human
beings regardless of whether they are
christians or not and yes in addition to
this natural law
the yahweh also reveals particular
commandments
but
first they do not
contradict mature law in any fashion and
in fact they sort of complete and
supplement the natural law but there is
a basis for
good and harmonious existence for all
peoples in some sense regardless of
whether they're christians or not and
again in aquinas there's this deep
commitment
to the fact that the basic truths
of life can be established through
reason alone to reason alone now
reason alone or philosophy alone will
not get you all the way and in order to
be perfectly virtuous in order to be
perfectly happy and in order to go to
paradise or to heaven after you die you
also need the benefit of revelation but
again uh these two these two work much
more um
together in in in concert and again we
asked this question about tyranny and
tyrants in augustine the only suggestion
the only advice that augustine gives is
except the death of the martyr and
aquinas is different in aquinas is
different aquinas is going to say that
the positive laws of society
if they conflict with the natural laws
then there are no no laws at all now
aquinas doesn't have a fully fledged
political philosophy but in general
there is something like an intimation to
the right of revolution now
we have to be careful um
this is probably not the right of
individuals to resist uh the governments
right because at the sa at the uh you
know at the end of the day all power
comes from god but there's a certain
notion that maybe inferior magistrates
inferior magistrates maybe not private
individuals but let's say princes
can uh legitimately
uh
resist you know even violently resist uh
um you know a king who has become a
tyrant
right so so so again whereas augustine
simply enjoins us to accept our fate uh
um aquinas actually has
uh a limited defense of again
um
right you revolution violent resistance
overthrow of tyrants although again
although it's not it's not really
perfectly fleshed out now one last thing
i want to mention that you will remember
when we talked about aristotle there was
a typology of regimes
and um again i think it's a very
interesting intellectual exercise
for us to look at
what was considered the best regime
throughout the ages now for aquinas in
the middle ages it's very clear that of
course the best regime and again i
remind you aquinas is reading aristotle
and he's trying to base his philosophy
aristotle aquinas is going to say that
the best regime is monarchy
right and this
sounds preposterous to many students and
aquinas gives some arguments he says
there's only one god therefore
there should be one king
right but i think there's a there's a
deeply you know there's a very important
intellectual exercise in us looking at
what aquinas is saying no
this should teach us a little bit of
humility right i i i believe i don't
want to say i believe but i invite you
colleagues to think about uh the
medieval prejudice about monarchy being
the best form of government and also to
think of what we today think are the
best forms of government could it be
that future generations will regard our
political ideas as preposterous right as
the ideas people had in the middle ages
now to be perfectly to be perfectly fair
to aquinas his um
idea of the virtuous monarchy is
actually closer to aristotle's mixed
regime aquinas's own example would be
moses
who rules moses in the hebrew bible who
rules as a single king
but
relying on the council of the elders so
there is some
some intimation of you know separation
of powers or at least
something like checks and balances
between the monarch the uh uh you know
the aristocratic you know the single
monarch the aristocratic assembly of the
elders and then maybe even um in some
form the democratic representation of
the people so
not necessarily monarchy in its pure
form but something closer to a mixed
regime
unfortunately on this note we're going
to have to finish our extremely brief
discussion of these
uh two profound thinkers however uh let
me just allude to the fact that we're
going to return to these ideas again
this uh
realist tradition in politics how
human beings are by nature evil in
augustine and therefore
society has to be based on a strong
coercive authority
especially in the philosophy of thomas
hobbs we'll see something similar and
likewise a different perspective in
aquinas especially this notion of
natural law which is knowable through
reason and available to all rational
human beings again this is an idea we'll
return back to especially in the in the
works of
uh john locke who i think quite
explicitly
borrows many of his ideas from the
legacy of thomas aquinas
[Music]
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