Augustine is arguably the most influential theologian in Western Christianity. Within Catholicism, Augustine is, of course, Saint Augustine. His writings are a foundational part of Catholic tradition. Yet, Augustine has been highly influential in Lutheran and Reformed (or Calvinist) traditions. Augustine’s writings helped Martin Luther formulate the Reformation doctrine of justification by faith. John Calvin’s Institutes of Christian Religion relies heavily on citations from Augustine. In its prefatory address to French King Francis, it was to Augustine (and other church fathers) that Calvin appealed to defend the Reformation against charges of novelty or departing from church tradition. In keeping with Augustine’s broad influence, The Enchiridion includes Protestant and Catholic theology and some doctrines unique to Catholicism. While the Enchiridion is primarily a handbook of theology, it also showcases Augustine’s technical ability in philosophy.
The Nature of Evil
Augustine developed the idea that evil has no existence in and of itself. Evil can only exist as a parasite in something good. “What are called vices in the soul are nothing but privations [absences of] of natural good. And when they are cured, they are not transferred elsewhere: when they cease to exist in the healthy soul, they cannot exist anywhere else.” (1) Furthermore, psychologically, evil has a deceptive nature. “When the mind attains the objects of its desire, however hurtful or empty they may be, error prevents it from perceiving their true nature.” This error produces a “foolish joy” (italics in the original) concerning evil. (2) Similarly, Simone Weil captured the sense in which evil is a delusional enjoyment in this thought, “Two conceptions of hell: the ordinary one (suffering without consolation); mine (false beatitude, mistakenly thinking oneself to be in paradise).” (3)
Creation and the Fall
Augustine emphasizes the unchangeable nature of God as the creator in contrast to creation, which is good but not “unchangeably good.” The changeability of creation became apparent in “some of the angels” who “rebelled against God, and were cast down from their heavenly abode.” (4) Likewise, humanity rebelled against God by disobeying his command for them in the Garden of Eden. Death and judgment for all humanity (present and future) resulted from humanity’s rebellion.
Salvation through Christ
Because of his virgin birth, Christ did not carry the guilt of death and judgment. Yet he was fully man and God in that he experienced the full range of human emotions and temptations, but as God, he could not sin. Through his death and resurrection, Christ made salvation possible for humanity. At the same time, death and judgment are still the ends awaiting every human being, “unless he be new born in Christ” through faith. (5) The certainty of death and judgment apart from Christ is difficult to accept, and clearly, many people disbelieve it. But as Pascal remarked, “Let us put on as bold a face as we like: that is the end awaiting the world's most illustrious life.” (6)
The Nature of Christian Righteousness
Augustine underscores broad areas of agreement between Catholic and Protestant Christianity regarding grace, faith, and good works performed after conversion. There is agreement that faith is a gift of God granted by grace and not based on good works performed before conversion. There is also unanimity on the truths that the Christian faith, without good works, is dead and that God’s forgiveness in no way excuses habitual wrongdoing or a lack of ongoing growth in grace as a Christian.
During and after the Reformation, differences emerged between Catholics and Protestants regarding the nature of Christian righteousness. In Catholicism, when a person becomes a Christian, a “righteousness” is conferred upon him that is “merited by Christ.” At the same time, a person receives “an interior sanctifying quality” existing “in the soul itself, which makes it truly just and holy in the sight of God.” (7) The interior sanctifying quality that a person receives is a Christian but also a human righteousness. Because it is a human righteousness, it can be increased. By contrast, Luther's formulation best characterizes the Protestant position: when a person becomes a Christian, the individual is “at once righteous and a sinner.” The person is “righteous in God’s sight because of Christ” and simultaneously “a sinner as measured according to his own merits.” (8) Because a person is declared to be righteous because of the righteousness of Christ, that individual has divine righteousness. Because it is divine, it is impossible to humanly increase it.
While the above discussion may seem like splitting hairs, it can have practical and dramatic implications. Before the Reformation, Luther was a zealous Catholic monk yet still found himself unable to obtain a clear conscience or to believe that he was forgiven as a Christian. Only by studying Scripture did he reach an epiphany that he was forgiven based on Christ’s righteousness and not his own.
The Nature of Baptism
In Augustine’s time and for many Christians throughout history (and today), baptism was the entry point into Christianity. As Augustine describes it, baptism “indicates our death with Christ to sin, and our resurrection with him to newness of life.” (9) On this point, there is general agreement throughout Christianity. Beyond this, however, there are divergent beliefs regarding baptism.
According to the Catholic understanding of baptism, as Augustine notes, “Infants die only to original sin; those who are older also die to all the sins which their evil lives have added to the sin which they brought with them.” (10)
Lutherans retained baptism's sacramental nature for the forgiveness of sins. However, they did so in keeping with the at-once-righteous-and-a-sinner theology that applied to Lutheran beliefs in general. For Lutherans, “baptism forgives the guilt of original sin, but the sinful nature that remains is real sin.” (11)
In the Reformed tradition, infant baptism is also sacramental but is a sign and a seal of future faith brought to fruition later in life. For adults, Reformed baptism is a sign and a seal of faith already granted.
The Anabaptists emerged during the Reformation as a challenge to Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed traditions. They agreed with the Reformers on the issue of justification by faith. However, they believed that adults baptized as infants should be rebaptized as adults. They held this belief based on Christ’s baptism as an adult and that the baptisms recorded in the New Testament are of adults. Reformers countered these arguments with the argument that whole families were baptized in the New Testament and that it’s reasonable to conclude that infants were included.
The Reformers rejected the Anabaptists' baptismal beliefs based on Scripture and church tradition. However, the Anabaptists' beliefs were also likely dismissed for other reasons. As the Reformation advanced, national governments (and eventually whole countries) declared themselves Catholic, Lutheran, or Reformed. In these Christian societies, where everyone was baptized as an infant, baptism was an important organizing function. In this societal context, the Anabaptists’ rejection of infant baptism was anarchical.
Stages of the Christian Life
When Christianity first emerged, as recorded in the New Testament, it was to people hearing the message of the Gospel for the first time. There was an eagerness and urgency to listen and also share the message of this new faith. As Christian history progressed, the problem of passing on the faith to the next generation emerged. This has taken the form of catechism or Sunday school classes in early childhood and young adulthood. The problem is that children brought to church since infancy have never known a life outside a church and its influence. In approaching Christianity and conversion at a young age, they are not making a clean break with a non-Christian life in the way that the earliest Christians did or in the way that adult converts today do.
Augustine speaks of a second stage in the Christian life when a person first becomes aware of sin and plunges headlong into it instead of avoiding it. In the third stage, a person turns to Christ in faith and “lives the life of the just by faith.” Augustine also speaks of those who “have never known the second stage.” Instead, they pass through it and receive “the divine assistance” of faith as soon as they receive knowledge of sin. This is a helpful way of resolving how those raised in a Christian home establish a lasting faith without ever living a life of sin. (12)
Storms Within and Without Will Someday Be Silenced
Rob Norris, a retired Presbyterian pastor in the Washington D.C. area, told a story in a sermon drawn from Victor Hugo’s novel Ninety-Three. At one point in the novel, men are aboard a ship during a violent thunderstorm when a cannon comes loose below deck. The cannon careens back and forth, smashing into the ship’s sides before finally being secured. Applying this story to life, Rob made the point that in our lives, it is sometimes necessary to calm the story raging inside of us in order to face the storm raging outside of us. Augustine points us to a time and place where this will no longer be necessary. In heaven, “no part of our nature shall be in discord with another; but as we shall be free from enemies without, so we shall not have ourselves for enemies within.” (13)
I hope this brief look at Augustine’s Enchiridion was helpful on some level. As mentioned, my next review will be of Substack author ARX-Han’s novel INCEL. This is an important and timely topic that needs attention.
Notes
St. Augustine. The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love. Translated by J.B. Shaw. Regnery Publishing, 1961, pp. 11-12.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 31.
Quoted from Simone Weil’s Gravity and Grace.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 34.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 61.
Quoted from Pascal’s Pensées.
“Justification.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08573a.htm
Muller, Richard. “simul iustus et peccator” Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms. Baker Books, 2004, p. 283.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 52.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 53.
“Baptism and Original Sin.” Taken from https://wels.net/faq/baptism-and-original-sin/. Accessed 29 June 2024.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, pp. 137-138.
Augustine, The Enchiridion, p. 106
My favorite part of the Enchridion consists on St. Augustine musing on the nature of the General Resurrection—and that if we retained all matter from our corporeal lives our fingernails would be outrageously long! I’m paraphrasing from memory, so I don’t have the exact quote, but it was amusing.
I used the Enchridion once for an Advent piece some years ago when writing of the Four Last Things. The theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Love must be present within the Christian soul who gazes on the Eternal Beatitude (God).
https://meaningofcatholic.com/2019/12/04/that-which-abides-the-end-of-all-things-and-what-lasts/
Interesting. If evil can only exist in something good, does that mean that people are inherently good or at least always have 'some' good in them?