Augustinian Studies

published on August 1, 2017

Reimagining Human Personhood within the Body of Christ

This article addresses the question of human and divine agency in Augustine’s later writings through the Trinitarian lens that shapes his understanding of salvation and the human person (i.e., the divine image). It focuses on the way Augustine draws on Christological and pneumatological claims to structure the relation between human and divine agency within his totus christus model. Here I examine how the relation between human and divine agency can be grounded on and understood through the predestination of Christ. This leads into a consideration of how we participate in Christ’s body through the power of the Spirit. In this I think we can discern a nascent eschatological social ontology: the body of Christ is not only an ecclesiological but also an anthropological metaphor signaling a new form of corporate embodiment, not complete until the resurrection, from which to understand the reforming of human agency through divine grace.