It now becomes time to pick on Augustine, which action causes no small amount of angst and anger towards me from my devout Roman Catholic friends. Criticism of a one who bears the title “Doctor of the Church” is not well received by those who have bestowed that title. Nonetheless, despite admiration for much of his writing, the Orthodox East considers several of his ideas to be erroneous. There is a significant difference in the soteriologies of the Orthodox East and the Roman Catholic West, and Augustine’s musings in this area are responsible for that. What was once a unified church began to separate, inch by painful inch, with these writings, as Augustine pondered the Christian faith. I have no doubt that some of his ideas about God came not so much from the Sacred Scriptures as they did from his own view of his relationship to God and the Neo-platonic influences which colored his life.

The Western view of man took a decided turn for the worse with Augustine’s declarations – that mankind is a “massa damnata,” that God predesitines only some to salvation, and that because we are this “damned mass,” God is perfectly just in sending as many as He wishes into the fiery torments of hell forever.

From this point onward, I will cite the work of men greater than I who have done much research valuable to our discussion.  The following citations are from a wonderful paper at Academia.edu.  In the introduction, the paper states that it is, for personal reasons, published anonymously.  We shall respect that anonymity. I strongly suggest a thorough reading of this paper to see where Augustine’s anthropology and soteriology ran right off the rails, resulting in a disaster for Western theological thought.

What was typical for the days of the early Church was that many honourable and highly respected church fathers had the tendency of incorporating culturally accepted  philosophical concepts into their ways of looking at the Bible. Augustine stated concerning the advantageous Christians to incorporate Platonic concepts into the early church,

“We are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful  possession of it”

This is an incredible statement, and it bolsters my opinion that  Western theology, far from having pure and pristine soteriological statements as is claimed by the Roman Catholic Church, are instead deeply influenced by the cultural milieu in which Augustine lived. In the Roman Empire, the Roman Courtroom mentality pervaded the daily lives of Augustine’s time. Great value was placed upon the law and the proper exercise of it.  In short, rather than taking the Scriptures at face value (if such a thing exists), the understanding of the Bible in the West was influenced by the culture in which Christianity grew – the Roman Empire with its extreme emphasis on juridical precison and the enforcement of the law.

Augustine’s dreadful view of humanity. along with his wrong view of Original Sin, makes mankind guilty even before having the cognizant ability to willfully commit evil. The child in the womb is no less guilty than the man who has committed a hundred unrepentant fornications, and therefore equally deserves to suffer eternally. In Augustine’s view mankind is not sick and needing a physican, but a lawbreaker – filthy in sin, worthless, having no good thing within him, and deserving only punishment. This is the juridical view of the West, as opposed to the medicinal view of the East. In the West, mankind no longer bears the image of God. It is effaced and in its place there is only the sinner – totally depraved and only capable of sin.

Furtherermore, according to Augustine, because of this stain of original sin, these infants belong to the whole mass of humanity (massa damnata), which was under condemnation and on its way to the lake of fire. The logical conclusion of this theory was that deceased, unbaptized babies were damned to the lake of fire. Because of original sin only, they were part of the massa damnata. “Infants who perish because they die without baptism are kept bound by original sin alone, and for this alone they go into condemnation.”

Research into the writings of the Early Fathers shows that men such as Ignatius,  St. John Chrysostom, Justin Martyr, and Iranaeus had no such opinion. The concept of Original Sin, and the epistemological end which comes from it, i.e., that all mankind is a “damned mass” worthy only of destruction, must be laid squarely at the feet of Augustine as its creator.

Of course, if mankind is nothing more than a massa damnata, if all that he does is to sin, even from his mother’s womb, then he must be treated as such. No more a child of God because of the Fall in Eden, man is now worthy of damnation. And if worthy only of damnation, then damnation – eternal hell – he shall have!

Not only was Augustine somewhat the champion of the hell doctrine in the Western Church, he also had a major influence on the onset of religious bigotry and hate campaigns in the following centuries.

In the 1907 book, Lives of the Fathers: Sketches of Church History in Biography, written by Frederick D. Farrar, who was Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen of England, we read about Augustine:

The advocacy of hell came primarily on the scene with Augustine: In no other respect did Augustine differ more widely from Origen and the Alexandrians [Eastern Church] than in his intolerant spirit. Even Tertullian conceded to all the right of opinion.[Augustine] was the first in the long line of Christian persecutors, and illustrates the character of the theology that swayed him in the wicked spirit that impelled him to advocate the right to persecute Christians who differ from those in power. The dark pages that bear the record of subsequent centuries are a damning witness to the cruel spirit that actuated Christians, and the cruel theology that impelled it. Augustine was the first and ablest asserter of the principle which led to Albigensian crusades, Spanish armadas, Netherland’s butcheries, St. Bartholomew massacres, the accursed infamies of the Inquisition, the vile espionage, the hideous bale fires of Seville and Smithfield, the racks, the gibbets, the thumbscrews, and the subterranean torture-chambers used by churchly torturers.[v]

And herein lies the problem with Augustine: Roman Catholics and Protestants treat his musings as if they have the imprimatur of divine infallibility. The idea that Augustine could be, like any other layman or cleric, influenced by external and internal events and thinking which could cloud his reasoning simply does not make sense to them, and to suggest in conversations that Augustine erred — wow!  It brings out the beast in some Western apologists! Augustine is a Doctor of the Church and therefore, every word from his mouth and every stroke of his pen is golden truth not to be questioned!

Unfortunately, bad theology always turns into bad praxis somewhere down the road. Let’s take Augustine’s views on God and man as an example. If God is the Punishing Judge who sends men into an eternal hell of torment for their sins, then it should be clear to any rational person that God is no respecter of persons, and freely torments them without the slightest qualms of either conscience or mercy.

THOMAS AQUINAS
In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. So that they may be urged the more to praise God. The saints in heaven know distinctly all that happens to the damned. [Summa Theologica, Third Part, Supplement, Question XCIV, “Of the Relations of the Saints Towards the Damned,” First Article, “Whether the Blessed in Heaven Will See the Sufferings of the Damned?”]

JONATHAN EDWARDS
The sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever. Can the believing father in Heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in Hell? I tell you, yea! Such will be his sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish his bliss. [“The Eternity of Hell Torments” (Sermon), April 1739 & Discourses on Various Important Subjects, 1738]

I don’t know about you, but my understanding of someone who delights in the pain and suffering of another is that this person is not a saint, but a sociopath! If this is a correct vision of God, and for far too many people it is, it then becomes but a small step for  a leader in the Church (pope, metropolitan, bishop, etc.) to follow God’s actions in eternity by ordaining as correct similar treatment of heretics here on earth. After all, if they are not “one of the elect of God,” then they are God’s enemy, and since God burns His enemies for all eternity, we should treat them in similar manner here on earth. Killing those who do not follow our interpretation of God or the Scriptures, i.e,  God’s enemies who are going to go to an eternal hell of fire anyway,  is not seen as violating the commandments of Christ to love our enemies, but rather is commended as “protecting the flock from error” or “saving souls from hellfire.”

Can you see just how far this view is from seeing God as chastizing in love and healing the obstinate sinner through those chastisements? It is the difference between seeing God as ever-angry, ready to condemn, quite willing to eternally torment, and seeing Him as Father who is ready to forgive, and but willing to chastize His wicked child for a while until that child comes to his senses and turns his heart towards Home.

In PART FOUR of this blog piece, I will take this idea down to particular men and particular teachings which created a theological hotbed of abuse by which the Church has come to rule over people.