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Faith and Philosophy

Volume 20, Issue 4, October 2003
Augustine

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Displaying: 1-12 of 12 documents


articles
1. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Scott MacDonald PETIT LARCENY, THE BEGINNING OF ALL SIN: AUGUSTINE’S THEFT OF THE PEARS
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In his reflections on his adolescent theft of a neighbor’s pears, Augustine first claims that he did it just because it was wicked. But he then worries that there is something unacceptable in that claim. Some readers have found in this account Augustine’s rejection of the principle that all voluntary action is done for the sake of some perceived good. I argue that Augustine intends his case to call the principle into question, but that he does not ultimately reject it. His careful and resourceful analysis of the motivations of his theft adds subtlety to his own understanding of voluntary action and allows hirn to introduce an important component of his general account of sin, namely, that it essentially involves prideful self-assertion in imitation of God.
2. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Gareth B. Matthews AUGUSTINE ON THE MIND’S SEARCH FOR ITSELF
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In De trinitate X Augustine seeks to discover the nature of mind (mens). As if recalling Plato’s Paradox of Inquiry, he wonders how such a search can be coherently understood. Rejecting the idea that the mind knows itself only indirectly, or partially, or by description, he insists that nothing is so present to the mind as itself. Yet it is open to the mind to perfect its knowledge of itself by coming to realize that its nature is to be only what it is certain that it is.
3. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
T.H. Irwin AUGUSTINE’S CRITICISMS OF THE STOIC THEORY OF PASSIONS
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Augustine defends three claims about the passions: (1) The Stoic position differs only verbally from the Platonic-Aristotelian position. (2) The Stoic positionis wrong and the Platonic-Aristotelian position is right. (3) The will is engaged in the different passions; indeed the different passions are different expressionsof the will. The first two claims, properly understood, are defensible. But the most plausible versions of them give us good reason to doubt the third claim.
4. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Paul Helm AUGUSTINE’S GRIEFS
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The paper begins by describing two episodes of personal grief recounted by Augustine in the Confessions, that at the death of an unnamed friend and thatat the death of his mother, Monica. It is argued that Augustine intended to show that the earlier fried, and an early phase of his grief for his mother, were sinful. However, contrary to arecent account of Augustine's grief, it is argued (by an examination of the later phase of his grief for his mother) that Augustine does not hold that it is wrong to grieve at the death of a loved one, provided that one grieves for the right reason.
5. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Lynne Rudder Baker WHY CHRISTIANS SHOULD NOT BE LIBERTARIANS: AN AUGUSTINIAN CHALLENGE
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The prevailing view of Christian philosophers today seems to be that Christianity requires a libertarian conception of free will. Focusing on Augustine’s mature anti-Pelagian works, I try to show that the prevailing view is in error. Specifically, I want to show that---on Augustine’s view of grace-a libertarian account of free will is irrelevant to salvation. On Augustine’s view, the grace of God through Christ is sufficient as weIl as necessary for salvation. Salvation is entirely in the hands of God, totally independent of anything that any human being might do. And faith, the human response to salvation, is best understood in terms of a compatibilist account of freedom.
6. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
William E. Mann TO CATCH A HERETIC: AUGUSTINE ON LYING
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Augustine devoted two treatises to the topic of lying, De Mendacio and Contra Mendacium ad Consentium. The treatises raise interesting questions about whatlying is while defending the thesis that all lies are sinful. The first part of this essay offers an interpretation of Augustine’s attempts at definition. The second part exanlines his argunlents for the sinfulness of lying used to trap heretics and for the more general thesis that all lying is sinful.
reviews
7. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Robert McKim Paul Griffiths: PROBLEMS OF RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY
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8. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
William J. Wainwright Robert McKim: RELIGIOUS AMBIGUITY AND RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY
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9. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Jeremy Pierce Gregory E. Ganssle, ed.: GOD AND TIME: FOUR VIEWS
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10. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Paul Coplan John M. Rist: REAL ETHICS: RETHINKING THE FOUNDATIONS OF MORALITY
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11. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Patricia Altenbernd Johnson Sarah Coakley: POWERS AND SUBMISSIONS
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notes and news
12. Faith and Philosophy: Volume > 20 > Issue: 4
Notes and News
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