Transcripts

The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. Lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the Institute: to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.

This course of four lectures is entitled "Augustine’s City of God." A more fitting title would be "A Few Reflections About Ourselves and Our Age" induced by Augustine's City of God. This would be a more fitting title, or perhaps a soft title: "A Few Reflections About Ourselves and Our Age" induced by Augustine's City of God.

Augustine wrote this great classic not subjectively, not poetically. "Mott's self was drawn into the privacy of his own soul. Mott in a cloister all by himself, away from the actual happenings of the world. And a cloister, you know, could be either a sheltered physical hideout or a private imaginary personal experience." He wrote it over a period of 13 years as he was totally immersed as an actor and as a spectator in some of the most momentous events, both secret and secular, in all history.

And if you happen to be a believing and practicing Christian, immerse yourself in the momentous political, intellectual, moral, and spiritual events of our times—how numerous and marvelous and instructive and inspiring the thoughts, the reading of Augustine's City of God will call forth in you. These lectures attempt to reflect some of these thoughts.

Thus, the aim of the lectures is clearly not to master this great work. How can we accomplish that in four lectures? Much less to grasp the whole of Augustine. How can we do that in even four years? Neither is the purpose a critical examination of the text as to the accuracy or inaccuracy of Augustine's scholarly knowledge and history, or as to his encounter with other philosophers, or as to his points of doctrine. Such approaches are, of course, legitimate, but they are not worth our time here. Besides, literally thousands upon thousands of studies have been made on precisely these themes, and the extensive bibliography I am distributing among you could guide you on all these matters.

The aim of this course, then, is fivefold. First, to afford ourselves a preliminary exposure to the thought and spirit of St. Augustine via this, his probably greatest work. If I were to name the thirty greatest thinkers of history, Augustine would be one of them. If I were to name ten, he would still be one of them, one of the ten. He is one of the giants of Western thought, and all Western Christian theology, both Catholic and Protestant, is influenced by St. Augustine to a greater or lesser extent and in one way or another. And what's ridiculous at times is to meet students of theology in some seminary—I wouldn't name them—who haven't heard of the name of Augustine. Neither is it our task in these lectures to demonstrate this.

He is a member of that very rare species of men who are at once great philosophers, great theologians, and great saints. Not everywhere does this species flourish. In the history of the Eastern Mediterranean, for instance, you would find very great saints. In fact, it is the very land of the fathers. But the East in general is not given to great theology, much less to great philosophers. The East is primarily interested in absorption in God. When we say theology and philosophy, we at once mean the Greek spirit.

And when we say the Greek spirit, we at once mean the West. It is interesting to note in this connection that the Westernmost part of the West—it is interesting to note in this connection that the Westernmost part of the West, namely America, and the Easternmost part of the West, of the Christian East—namely Russia—are both somewhat akin to the Eastern Mediterranean. But while there are certainly saints in America and Russia, neither land is exactly renowned for great philosophy or great theology.

Saint Augustine combines all three greatnesses in his own person: great philosophy, great theology, and great sanctity. Add to these three greatnesses the fact that he was also a bishop responsible for a whole diocese, the diocese of Hippo, and you have a unique combination, unequaled in all history. Aquinas later certainly was a great philosopher, a great theologian, and a great saint, but he was not a bishop.

No philosopher and no theologian makes you cry and fall on your knees, but Saint Augustine makes you do just that. And he throws you on your knees, crying, not because he's a great philosopher (which he is), nor because he's a great theologian (which he most certainly is), but because he's a great saint.

To be exposed, therefore, to such a unique combination, absolutely unique in history, is to stand before one of the rare and most priceless specimens of mankind. I doubt that you can have such an experience with any other man in history. To meet Saint Augustine should be, therefore—if we meet him in the right way—an outstanding event in your life. And I trust that this event will cause you to spend the coming two years reading and pondering most carefully this book, The City of God, and the rest of your life reading the other works of Saint Augustine. I cannot think of any other reading outside the Bible more worth your time and thought. We waste our time reading what we are reading these days. If this should be the only outcome of this course, it would have amply justified itself, and you might live to be thankful for it.

These lectures, then, are not the course. The course is to lead you, indeed to force you, to read and imbibe Augustine. The lectures are only the means, the invitation, the enticement to that end. If I simply tell you—believe me—this is a tremendous work, a very timely work, although it was written fifteen centuries and a half ago. And it is very worthwhile reading it and going deeply into it. If I tell you this and you believe me (and you have no right to believe me only on my telling you this), if I tell you this and you believe me from the generosity of your heart, and you go ahead and read it, then that is the end of the matter so far as I am concerned. The lectures are only a device for making you believe me. I will take you by the hand and introduce you to Augustine and then leave you to converse with him alone. Of course, I love to converse with you about your conversation with him. Both the Course and I, to boot, are wholly ancillary to your direct acquaintance with the man. The Course vanishes, and I vanish, when you sit down and converse with Augustine.

Second, to introduce you to an authentic Christian interpretation of history—Christian, not just any interpretation. To introduce you to an authentic Christian interpretation of history. How do we interpret history in this brave age of ours?

You have been students of history. You have read works on history in your schools and colleges. How do we interpret history in this brave age of ours? We interpret it first and foremost, indeed more and more exclusively, in terms of economics, politics, and social relations. And now and then, of course, we throw in a naturalist factor.

This socio-economic, political, naturalist interpretation is neither Biblical nor, therefore, Christian. History is holy in the hands of God, and He is its ultimate sole determiner. Events do not happen by accident nor only by the compulsion of politics, economics, and nature. Events answer to the overview and providence of God. Why did this or that nation arise? Because it somehow conformed to the will and law of God. Why did it decay and disappear? Because it somehow rebelled against God. This is how events are seen and understood on every page of the Bible.

Not a single course on history—not one—not a single course on history in any of the great universities of Europe and America. Not a single treatise on history would dare think in these terms. To the exclusive social, economic, political, naturalist determinism of history, which you read in every historical tome today, Augustine opposes the intellectual, more spiritual, personal determinism of history. Man's character and mind and spirit are, under God, wholly and exclusively responsible for all that happens in history.

When we say responsible under God, what do we mean? We mean God lets man decide events in total freedom, but always subject to the judgment of God. Freedom determines history and must not adopt compulsive historical determinism, but always freedom before and under and responsible to God. This view is strictly biblical, and I'm so happy—I think I'm talking to ladies and gentlemen who really love the Bible. And therefore, you ought to understand what I'm talking about. This view was strictly biblical, and no man in history was more strictly biblical than Augustine. This view was strictly biblical. The Bible knows no other determinism than that of the mind and spirit and will.

Even Aristotle, with his distinctive teleology, which understands God to be at once the efficient, the formal, and the final cause of the world process, would never admit—never admit what you take for granted these days—that economics, politics, social relations, and natural factors are the ultimate determiners of events. Economic, political, social, and natural factors are what he calls proximate causes. But behind them, and determining and controlling them, is an invisible—we don't believe in the invisible these days. And this is one of the things I'm going to stress in these lectures—is an invisible, immaterial, moral, spiritual order which he calls God. This is Aristotle. Aristotle, like all the Greeks, was not historically minded. But at least he saw so much about the formation of events.

Historical mindedness was the invention, if I may use the term, of the Jews, and the Christian and Muslim minds simply inherited it from them. Now, all this talk of teleology and God and an invisible, moral, spiritual order determining ultimately the course of events is so alien to the radical immanentism and monism of the age that I would be surprised if some of you at some stage would not just get up and walk out. Augustine offends the sensibilities of the secular mind, but he offends in exactly the same manner in which the Bible offends, and in no other.

Which only means that God, the spirit, the Bible are extruded from the mind of the age. In allowing the life of the Bible and of Christian faith to fall upon and illumine the history of the Roman Empire, probably the greatest empire in universal history. And especially its fall in August of the year 410 in the hands of the Visigothic King Alaric and his men. And for 800 years Rome had never been invaded by alien hordes.

And it's interesting, when I speak of 800 years, that the Anglo-Saxon world, the English-speaking world, had never been invaded since 1066—900 years. This is one of the mysteries of the present moment and a fact that explains many things about the English-speaking mentality in the present world. For 800 years Rome had never been invaded by alien hordes.

By doing this, Augustine provides us with a contrasting model to the inanity of the current immanentist interpretation of history. This course is to introduce you to how this greatest Christian philosopher of history of all time understood and interpreted those momentous events. Here you will hear, by extension, how we would interpret the very events of our time.

Third, having taken in this contrasting model of historical interpretation—a model wholly biblically grounded, wholly alien and unintelligible to the mentality of this age (and we all belong to this age)—we may then be able to draw cautiously and with the appropriate reserve certain parallels between that age and ours. And I just mentioned one: the fact that Rome was not touched for 800 years, the fact that the English-speaking world had not been invaded from outside since 1066.

And let me stress one point here. In Augustine, we are not before some latter-day apocalyptic sectarian-millenarianism. Father, there are many such sects or fantasies around these days. I am sure you have known or heard of some of them. And they are sure that Christ is returning at 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. And such sects have arisen many times since the days of Christ. Recall what the apostles and the Christians shortly after the ascension of our Lord said about them. I say have arisen only soon to disappear, which probably is the fate of present-day sects, millenarian sects.

In Augustine, we are before an intellectual and spiritual giant who successfully formed all this sectarianism, including the millenarianism of his age, who made universally recognized original contributions not only in matters relating to the Christian interpretation of history but in every aspect of Latin and Church order, who has been universally acclaimed and, as it were, voted on by the ages, who flourished more than six centuries before the great schism between East and West and a thousand years before the Reformation, and who therefore speaks within the original pristine unity of the Church.

And in perceiving parallels between his days and ours—and that is a very legitimate exercise that is properly pursued—please beware of indulging in any extravagances of comparison. The fall of the Roman Empire is one thing, and the contemporary crisis of Western civilization—and believe me, there is a crisis in it. And one of the things that I will have to tell you is that one proof of the crisis is that many of you don't know that there is a crisis.

The fall of the Roman Empire is one thing, and the contemporary crisis of Western civilization is quite another. The times are different, the concrete world conditions are different, and yet there are in the spiritual order—which is what finally defines me—and yet there are in the spiritual order telling similarities, which I am sure will not escape the perspicacious mind.

Our primary duty is to fasten on the actual historical events unfolding before Augustine's eyes in his own actual world, and to grasp the full range of theological presuppositions operating in his mind as he saw, understood, and interpreted those events, and then, as it were, incidentally, and as an afterthought—but a compelling and most valuable afterthought—to wonder whether these interpretative presuppositions do not apply to us as well, and the extent to which they apply. But beware of extravagant fantasies nervously determined.

For a Christian, therefore—I am talking about Christians—for a Christian, therefore, who knows and loves Jesus Christ, who seeks daily to live in his practice, who firmly holds the basic tenets of the Christian faith, who is living and suffering some of the great problems of this age (and by living and suffering, I do not mean just existing; I do not mean living on the surface of the pages of the newspapers, which is where most of us live, and I wish we read more than the headlines; I do not mean living on the surface of the pages of the newspapers; I do not mean living at the periphery of events, but living at the heart of them, or as close to that heart as possible, and bearing in his own person some responsibility for them)—such a Christian must wonder what the thrust of the whole thing comes to. Whether in the light of Christ there is a meaning to the great challenges of the day, and what that meaning is, or whether vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

It follows that the statesmen of the world, especially the statesmen of this capital, who in the providence of God carry a major portion of responsibility for the entire world (and there are Christians among them), need the recreation, the regeneration, which St. Augustine, with his immense experience and authority, can be the instrument of "for them" more than anything else. I must re-read the sentence: It follows that the statesmen of the world, especially the statesmen of this capital, who in the providence of God carry a major portion of responsibility for the entire world (and there are Christians among them), need the recreation, the regeneration, which St. Augustine, with his immense experience and authority, can be the instrument of "for them" more than anything else.

Fourth, to select a few characteristic passages from the text illustrating his basic positions and focus on them. This is the method of letting Augustine himself speak, with little or no interpretation on our part. And then, as he speaks and we listen to contemplate, absorbingly, what he says, to stand before the man with due respect—and what a man!—and to wonder at his being—and what a being!—provided, of course, we understand correctly what he says, is more important than to tear him to pieces with counter-arguments the way the analysts and nihilists of our day are wont to do. It were better not to touch the man at all than to approach him with the a priori intention, for whatever be the reason, to demolish him regardless of what he says. Such a negative predetermination sometimes allows existence.

People sit down and listen, but all is in the back of their mind; they find all kinds of reasons to criticize what is being said or what the man is saying. This is not the approach of law, or eagles to understand. Such a negative predetermination sometimes allows existence. And when we are at a loss for the reason, when the reason appears to be wholly irrational, we sometimes say the man is possessed. And when we know or get correctly the reason, we become all the more convinced that the devil had a hand in it.

Of course, when I say these things, I think of more specific persons who sit down and have at the back of their mind destructive thoughts about everything that is being said. Understanding, my friends, precedes criticism. Construction, or at least the intention to construct, precedes destruction. And to oppose him with secularist—and to oppose him, name the oldest theme, with secularist, humanist, naturalist, rationalist, immanentist interpretation of history—is pointless because the man makes no attempt on every page to hide the fact that his piece is from the standpoint strictly of Christianity.

And this is very important, what I am about to say. If we had an alternative Christian interpretation—if we had an alternative Christian interpretation of history—only if we had an alternative Christian interpretation of history could we really creatively oppose all this. In that case, we would complement, not oppose each other. In that case, we would converse with one another as friends and not as enemies. In that case, we would be joined together in the bond of love.

We are saying then that Augustine is a masterful Christian interpretation of history. That if it is not a subjectivist interpretation—that it is not a subjectivist interpretation, but a biblically grounded one—that we had better listen to him in his own words before we charge at him. That Christians, if they really believe, as they should if they are real Christians, that history—they really believe that history—the history of the Roman Empire, the history of Europe, the history of the United States, the history of the Soviet Union, the history of China and India and Africa and the Middle East and Islam, does not unfold itself or by itself in a corner of existence. If they exist outside the providence of God, then they should welcome their brother Augustine, who labored to produce for them this magnificent Christian interpretation of the origin and course and consummation of human history. And that they have no right to slip into their criticism of him alien, secularist, immanentist, purely humanist elements because their ground then would not be the given objective data of revelation, while the ground on which Augustine firmly and unwaveringly stands is only the given revelation of God. It is their faith then that is put to the test. It is they who are put on the spot.

In fact, my dear friend, at every step in our life, our faith is being put to the test. That is why the prayer of all prayers is not "thank you for this and thank you for that and this and that." All that is actually to do. But the prayer of all prayers is four words: "Lord, strengthen my faith." This is the most fundamental prayer that can be offered. You have no idea how little faith we really have.

I repeat, a Christian can only criticize Augustine on the basis of an alternative Christian interpretation. And even then, he must first go to him directly and hear him express himself in his own way and in his own words. And this is what we propose to do with respect to some of his most central positions.

Fifth and last, a principal aim of introducing this audience to Saint Augustine is to afford you the opportunity of tasting what it means to consort with giant minds—all the opportunity of tasting what it means to consort with giant minds. No experience is more worthwhile, more rewarding, more enriching, more conducive to spiritual growth than to read the great, the real great, and persist in reading them. The giant spiritual ages sum up—sum up in their own life and experience a whole tradition and project a whole new age. Such precisely is Saint Augustine of Hippo.

There are people, my friends, beyond our comprehension, and yet they are not mythological figures like the heroes of Greek mythology, nor figments of the imagination like the characters of Shakespeare. They are real, existing people. The miracle is that they are so great and yet they exist. Can such greatness really exist? We ask ourselves. There are people blessed with the capacity of godly suffering, who therefore penetrated way beyond what the common and ordinary could possibly see or care to see. People who battle us every time we meet them and bask in their light. People whom we do not understand at first, and yet we seem to have the sweetest ground to believe that they are saying something very important, although we do not understand it. And the more they defy our understanding, the more they persist in intriguing us, the more we feel impelled—they propel—to seek to understand them. They radiate a mysterious quality of challenge and power. Nothing great, nothing great in all history is ever achieved in life except through trial and suffering.