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Augustine (On Christian Doctrine, Book 1 set text (All instruction is…
Augustine
On Christian Doctrine, Book 1 set text
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Some things are to be enjoyed, some used, some used and enjoyed CH3
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Wanderers in a strange country, determined to return home- there is some beauty in the country we are in so we become distracted from our true home where we would be truly happy. Our life of mortality is like this. It must be used, not enjoyed, in order that 'the invisible things of God may be clearly seen' CH4
Only true objects of enjoyment= Father, Son and Holy Spirit CH5
Soul must be purified that it might have power to see the light and rest in it. 'Let us look upon this purification as a king of journey or voyage to our native land' CH10
'The way' of the journey has been shown to us in Christ 'the way, the truth and the life' CH11
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We are things ourselves. Seems that we are to be loved for the sake of something else because enjoyment of something for its own sake consists the happy life. CH22
One must love Himself for the sake of Him who is the true object of enjoyment. If one enjoys himself, he does not enjoy himself as his best, because he is better when his mind is fully fixed upon the unchangeable good. CH22
If you ought not to love yourself for your own sake... no other man has a right to be angry if you love him too for God's sake. CH22
'Love thy neighbour as thyself' but 'love God with all thy heart...' meaning no part of one's life is to be occupied by enjoyment of anything else except for for God's own sake. CH22
4 kinds of things to be loved: 1) that which is above us 2) ourselves 3) that which is on a level with us 4) that which is beneath us CH23
On the commandments to love God and neighbour 'hang all the law and the prophets' includes a commandment to love ourselves, too CH26
A man of just and holy life loves/'keeps his affections' under strict control 'nor loves that more that ought to be loved less or more that ought to be loved equally' CH27
All men are to be loved equally but since we cannot do good to all, you pay special regard to those who are brought into closer connection with you CH28
Ought to desire that all should join with us in loving God. Our enemies cannot take away from us what we love- we should pity them as the more they hate, the more they are separated from Him CH29
ANGELS. If everyone whom we ought to show the offices of mercy is our neighbour- this includes the Holy Angels. On this ground, God Himself desired to be our neighbour CH30
If God enjoys us, He must be in need of a good and noone can say that. God uses us, then. 'For if He neither enjoys us nor uses, I am at a loss to discover in what way He can love us' CH31
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Interpreting scripture faultily but still drawing from it the building up of love is 'like going off the straight road but still reaching the destination CH36
Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est
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'eros' used only twice in the OT. 'Philia' used in Jn to describe Jesus' relationship with disciples. 'Agape' is preferred in NT
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In Song of Songs there are two Hebrew words used for 'love'- dodim = a searching and insecure kind of love and ahabà = real discovery, concern for the other (translated into similar sounding 'agape')
Separating Eros and Agape means the essence of Christianity 'would be detached from the vital relations fundamental to human existence'
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Aquinas, 2a2ae, 23
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Friendship extends two ways: in respect of himself and in respect of another 'for their sake we love all who belong to them'
Thus, we love our enemies, recognising that they, too, belong to God
faith and hope attain God for us in so far as we derive from Him knowledge of truth or the acquisition of good, whereas charity attains God Himself
Sarah Stewart-Kroeker
Enjoying the journey would be like becoming obsessed with your car that you spent all your time in it- to the detriment of your own health and relationships.
Augustine: 'men in their eagerness to enjoy creature instead of the Creator had grown into the likeness of this world' CH12
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If everyone has been made for heaven, then Christian hope lies in the idea that each of us will one day reach that place. We have to learn to have our sights on this, not just for ourselves but for others.
Story from Augustine's Confessions of his friend who converted before him and when he died, Augustine spiralled into grief. The proper order of loving our neighbours is as pilgrims, to be enjoyed in God in the hope of together reaching the homeland
Oliver O'Donovan
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'Use' in the eschatological sense (as found in Augustine) undermines 'use' in the ontological sense, which is a subordinate form of love
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Anders Nygren
The Agape Motif
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Takes expression in Paul- union of theology of the Cross and the thought of divine love = agape of the Cross
Jesus seeks to bring about a 'new fellowship with God'. Not governed by law but by love. It 'depends exclusively on God's agape' because it is His nature to love
Agape love is unmotivated love that does not depend on the value of the object but creates value in it
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Agape is initiator of fellowship with God- from man's side there is no way at all to God. God must be the initiator.
The Eros Motif
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'Order of importance' in Eros motif = Self-love, Love for God, Neighbourly love, God's Love. (It is the opposite, Nygren argues, for Agape)
Hannah Arendt
In The City of God, 'a brief and true definition of virtue is the order of love'
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Augustine cannot help but arrive at an ideal of absolute isolation and independence of the individual from everything outside
'The thing which constitutes a happy life is not yet at our disposal, although the hope for it consoles us in the present'
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'In so far as Augustine defines love as desire, he hardly speaks as a Christian'- his starting point is not God, but man's 'deplorable state' thus desire for God (caritas) is just as un-free as desire for the world (cupiditas)
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But not distinguishing these two major expressions of 'love' the two have, instead, been confused in Christian thought
Richard of St Victor: If God is love then the object of His love cannot be men (this would be disordered love)
This view, and that of Augustine's, takes into account the worth of the object of love (which is eros) and not agape which leaves out scale of values
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Gunnar Hultgren, made important use of this notion in putting an "ontological" conception of order against Nygren's "psychological" conception of Order’. ‘The subject-object polarity between love and value does not have to mean that the subject imposes his own teleological order upon the objective value he finds’
Our love for God should be more than our love for ourselves, however it can also include the love we have for ourselves and the love we recognise is shown to us by and from God. See essay for further comment