I found this summary on an online chart:http://pk.b5z.net/i/u/2167316/i/Chart_on_Augustine_s_Free_Will.cwk.pdf
A. HOW TO OBTAIN HAPPINESS:
Morality is the path to Happiness:
Everything culminates in morality, in clarifying for humanity
the sure road to happiness, which is the goal of human
behavior.
Happiness is found in God:
Whereas Aristotle believed happiness to be achieved when a
person fulfills natural functions through a well-balanced life
(eudaimonia: “human flourishing” or “successful living”),
Augustine held that happiness required that a person go
beyond the natural to the supernatural: “Our hearts are restless
until they find rest in Thee.”
We are Designed to Love:
a. We bear God’s signature:
Why? Because God made us; thus we bear the mark of His
creation. Some of the marks include permanent relations, actual
and possible, between us & God. It is not by accident that we
even seek happiness. It is a consequence of our
incompleteness, our finitude.
b. We inevitably love:
To love is to go beyond oneself & to
fasten one’s affection upon an object of love. What makes it
inevitable that people will love is, again, incompleteness.
c. Wide range of objects we can choose to love, reflecting the
variety of ways in which we are incomplete:
(1) physical objects; (2) other persons, or (3) even oneself.
From those we can derive satisfaction for some desires &
passions. Why? All things in the world are good because all
things come from God, who is goodness itself. Consequently,
all things are legitimate objects of love. Everything that people
love will provide them with some measure of satisfaction and
happiness.
Our moral problem is attachment & expectations to
Disorderd Love:
Our moral problem consists not so much in loving or in the
objects we love as in the manner in which we attach themselves
to these objects of love & in our expectations regarding the
outcome of this love.
We expect to achieve happiness &
fulfillment from love, yet we are miserable, unhappy, & restless.
Why? He places blame on “disordered” love. Disordered love
consists in expecting more from an object of love than it is
capable of providing. Disordered love produces all forms of
pathology in human behavior. For example, the essence of
pride is the assumption of self-sufficiency.
Only God can Satisfy our Need for Love:
Our basic need for human affections can’t be satisfied by things
made to love God. Because only God, who is infinite,
can satisfy that peculiar need in us.
B. THE CAPACITY OF
OUR WILL
Predicament is both our free will
& the presence of alternatives
1. The cause of evil is not
ignorance; Our predicament is
that they stand in the presence of
alternatives. We are free to turn
toward God or way from God.
But whichever way a person
chooses, it is with the hope of
finding happiness. Said
differently, we are capable of
directing our affections
exclusively toward finite things,
persons, ourselves, & away from
God.
“This turning away and this
turning to are not forced but
voluntary acts.”
Evil is the product of a free will:
It is not ignorance, nor the work
of the principle of darkness
permeating the body as the
Manicheans said. In spite of
original sin, all humanity
possesses the freedom of the will.
Freedom of the will is not true
liberty:
True spiritual liberty is no
longer possible in its fullness in
this life in view of original sin.
Freedom to do good requires
God’s grace:
We use free will to choose
wrongly, but even when we
choose rightly, they do not
possess the spiritual power to do
the good we have chosen; we
Virtue is the product of God’s
grace not act of free will whereas
evil is caused by an act of free
will.
Moral Law:
The moral law tells us what we
must do, but in the end it really
shows us what we can’t do.
FIRST BOOK:
Where does evil come from?
Problem: how can these affirmations be reconciled?
(1) God is good; (2) God is the creator of all things; (3) There is
evil in the world
God does not cause any moral evil; he does however cause the
evil of punishment (but that does not contradict his goodness)
(1.1, p. 1).
. Can moral evil be traced to God, so that he is indirectly the cause
of evil, mediated by evil creatures? What is it to do evil? (1.3, p.
4) To act against the eternal law (1.5.6, pp. 8.11).
.
What does the eternal law command? That all things be perfectly
ordered (1.6, p. 11)
. What does it mean for a human being to be perfectly ordered?
. That reason rules the irrational part of the soul (1.8, p. 14)
. Thus, when the mind or reason doesn’t rule the irrational part,
this is sin; when inordinate desire enslaves the mind, this is sin
(e.g. adultery).
. How is it possible that inordinate desire may enslave the mind?
(cf. 1.10) What makes the mind subject to inordinate desire? (What
makes a good person do evil?) Is inordinate desire more
powerful than the mind. No, because the weaker does not
control the stronger; The mind must be more powerful
than cupidity precisely because it is right & just for the mind to
rule over cupidity; Every virtue is superior to every vice (1.10, p.
16).
.
Is an evil spirit [ex. the devil, or a wicked person who tempts
others to sin] more powerful than the mind? No: since virtue is
superior to vice & stronger than vice, vicious spirit can’t defeat
spirit armed with virtue (1.10, p. 16).
Is a material object more powerful than the mind? (e.g., delicious
cake, money, the beauty of a woman. No, because a spirit is better
& more powerful than any material object (1.10, p. 16). Can a just
spirit subject another mind to inordinate desire? (1.10, p. 16.17).
No, because: a just spirit possesses excellence,
& it would become vicious and thus weaker than the mind (1.10,
p. 17).
Answer (1.11, p. 17):
The conclusions that we have reached thus far indicate that a
mind that is in control, one that possesses virtue, cannot be
made slave to inordinate desire by anything equal or superior to
it, because such a thing would be just, or by anything inferior to
it, because such a thing would be too weak.[O]nly its own will &
free choice can make the mind a companion of cupidity. Would
it have been better if God had not given man free will?
(If yes, then God must be blamed for the moral evil committed
by man after all.) If we had not received a free will, we could not
have done moral evil, but we could not do any moral good
either. (2.1, p. 3
SECOND BOOK:
How do we know we derive our origin from God?
A structured argument for God’s existence.
Augustine wants to change Evodius, from the
position of a simple believer who accepts the existence
of God as a believer from one of mere belief to one of
knowledge (2.1.5).
Augustine’s strategy is to build up a hierarchy of
beings of different kinds: We can divide things in the
world into 3 classes:
(1) Lifeless things that merely exist (e.g., stones);
(2) Living
things that have sensation & not intelligence (e.g., dumb
animals);
(3) Things that have existence, life, & intelligence
(e.g., rational humans).
We share with animals the 5 senses & we share with
them also an inner sense. By this sense animals are
aware of the operation of other senses & by it they feel
pleasure & pain. But the highest thing in us is a “kind
of head or eye of our soul [software]”
We grade these different faculties in a hierarchy:
a. Inner sense is superior to outer senses; b. Reason is superior
to inner sense. c. But if we find something outside ourselves
superior to reason [hardware], then Augustine asks, shall we
call that God? (2.6.14).
Among highest things in human mind are knowledge
of numbers & judgments of value. Math is
unchangeable, unlike fragile human bodies, & they are
common to all educated people, unlike the private
objects of sensation. 7+3=10 makes ten forever & for
everyone.
Like math, there are ethical truths that are common
property to all people. Wisdom is knowledge about
supreme good: everyone wishes to be happy, & so
everyone wishes to be wise, since that is
indispensable for happiness. Though people may
disagree about nature of the supreme good, they all
agree on such judgments as that we ought to live
justly, that the worse should be
subject to the better, and that each man should be
given his due (2.10.28).
These rules and guiding lights of virtue are true,
unchangeable, & available for the common contemplation of
every mind & reason.
The truth is not the property of any one person; it is
shareable to everyone. Now is this truth superior, to
or equal to, or inferior to our minds?
(a). If it were inferior to our minds, we would pass judgments
about it, as we may judge that a wall is not as white as it
should be, or that a box is not as
square as it should be. (b). If it were equal to our minds, we
would likewise pass judgment on it: we say, for instance, that
we understand less than we ought: But we do not pass
judgment on the rules of virtue or the rules of arithmetic. We
say that the eternal is superior to the temporal and that seven
and tree are ten. We do not say these things ought to be so.
(c). So, the immutable truth is not eternal to our minds or
equal to them: it is superior to them and sets the standard by
which we judge them (2.12.34). (d). If there is something
more excellent than truth, then that is God; if not,then truth
itself is God. Whether there is or is not such a higher thing,
we must agree that God exists (2.15.39).
I. Contextual Information:
In sum, Augustine’s De libero arbitrio, books 1-3 offers a comprehensive view of our in relation to God. The dialogue begins with Evodus, friend &
future bishop of Uzalis, but the dialogue is soon replaced by a continuous discourse.
Third Book: a. Returns to the movement by which the will turns away from God and asks how it is that we do not sin necessarily if God foreknows what we will do. b. He claims: God’s foreknowledge of our free acts
guarantees our freedom rather than destroys it. c. He then attempts to show God is not to be blamed for evil in the world. d. The tenor changes in 3.18.50 with the introduction of the penal conditions of ignorance and the
difficulty under which we now labor as a result of Adam’s sin. e. In 3.19.54 Augustine distinguishes the nature with which we are now born from the nature in which Adam was created.
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