St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology
Free Will
Aku Visala
First published: 10 August 2022
https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/FreeWill
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Visala, Aku. 2022. 'Free Will', St Andrews Encyclopaedia of Theology. Edited by BrendanN. Wolfe et al. https://www.saet.ac.uk/Christianity/FreeWill Accessed: 3 June 2024
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Copyright © Aku Visala CC BY-NC
ISSN 2753-3492
Free Will
Aku Visala
Free will is a perennial theological and philosophical topic. As a central dogmatic locus, ithas been implicated in debates about core Christian doctrines, such as grace, salvation,sin, providence, evil, and predestination. Despite its venerable history in both philosophyand theology, it is not at all clear whether there actually is a single phenomenon of ‘thewill’ that multiple accounts seek to describe. Rather, we should acknowledge that differentauthors use the concepts of ‘will’ and ‘freedom of the will’ in somewhat different ways.Due to its elusive and multifaceted nature, free will has become a divisive topic amongChristian churches, denominations, and theological schools of thought. The doctrines mostshaped by assumptions about the will, such as sin, grace, and predestination, remain thesubjects of ecumenical disagreements even today.
The entry will begin by laying out some of the basic concepts that guide the free willdebate and introduce some of the basic models that have emerged in Christian theologyand philosophy. It will then provide brief overviews of different topics that have emerged inthe debates that continue into the present day. The approach taken is more philosophicalthan theological, because philosophy has played a significant part in the theologicaldebate. Ancient and medieval theologizing was deeply influenced by ancient philosophy,especially Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. From the seventeenth century onwards,the natural sciences have also played a significant part in motivating the debate. Theentry adopts a contemporary, philosophical perspective and does not seek to providea thorough historical narrative of the development of the concept of free will. However,most contemporary debates on free will have deep historical roots: for instance, theproblem of God’s foreknowledge and free will was already identified by pre-ChristianGreek philosophers.
Keywords: Free will, Philosophy, Human will, Providence, Predestination, Evil, Freedom,Moral responsibility
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Table of contents
1 Basic concepts and accounts
1.1 Theological compatibility problems
1.2 Sourcehood, intellectualism, freedom of choice, voluntarism
1.3 Divine determinism and theological compatibilism
1.4 Divine openness and theological incompatibilism
2 Contemporary debates and issues
2.1 Foreknowledge, providence, and free will
2.2 Sin, grace, and free will
2.3 Evil, theodicy, and hell
2.4 Divine will
2.5 Scientific challenges to free will
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1 Basic concepts and accounts
Christian theology formulated its views of free will and moral responsibility against thebackground of Greek and Roman philosophy. Philosophical accounts of action, fate,freedom, and morality provided the early Christian theologians the tools to develop theirown views in conversation with biblical material and the life of the church. Christiantheologians inherit two central motives from the scriptures. On the one hand, Christiantheologians want to hold onto human moral responsibility. In the Christian story, humansare accountable for their actions in the eyes of God and their fellow humans. On the otherhand, it is also widely acknowledged that God is in charitable providential control over hiscreation and is the ultimate source of salvation. Combined, these raise questions of thepossibility of human moral responsibility. Furthermore, God’s goodness and providentialcontrol over creation form a very powerful problem of evil: if God is the creator of the worldand has providential control over it, it seems that God is also the source of evil and deathin the created world. One attractive way to solve these tensions is to assume the existenceof a robust human free will. If humans have free will, God cannot determine what humansfreely do in moral and spiritual matters. Humans are morally responsible because theymake their own choices. God is not responsible for evil and sin, because they are thedoing of humans, whose actions are not forced by God.
1.1 Theological compatibility problems
In philosophy and theology, moral responsibility motivates the debate around free will.The core issue is the compatibility of responsibility and freedom with other beliefs aboutnature, God, and the universe. It seems obvious that humans make choices betweenoptions and can make a difference with respect to their moral character. At least some ofour actions are ‘up to us’. We can preliminarily define ‘free will’ as this ‘up-to-usness’, thatis, the agent’s capacity to control her actions via decisions and choices that are based onreason. Moreover, free will is often associated with self-control: we exercise some degreeof self-control over our emotions, desires, and intentions.
In this context, agential terminology is used: act/acting, choice/choosing, will/willing,and decision/deciding. The Greek terminology of Plato and Aristotle was quite varied: tohekousion (voluntariness), boulesis (wish), and prohairesis (choice). It is far from clear thatthese terms cover the same territory as the later Latin notions of voluntas (the will) andliberum arbitrium (free will or free choice, especially as it relates to the issue of salvation).The ‘up-to-usness’ condition seems central to our practices of moral judgment and moralresponsibility. Only actions that the agent controls – those that are ‘up to the agent’ –are suitable for moral assessment and can thereby ground moral judgments about thepraiseworthiness or blameworthiness of the agent. Without some degree of control, it isdifficult to see how any agent could be blamed or praised for an action.
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There are two kinds of challenges to this kind of control. First, there are challengesthat emerge from some universal feature of our cosmos, mainly because of the controlthat God, gods, nature, or fate exercise over human lives. Here, the features that castdoubt on action control come from the outside, as it were. Second, there are mental orpsychological challenges that have to do with the internal structure of the agent herself.Here, the threats to the ability of the agent to control herself and her actions come fromthe inside and take the form of irrational desires, emotions, or some other incontrollablepsychological failure (like original sin), for instance.
Universal or external compatibility problems emerge when some general beliefs aboutnature, gods, or God seem to clash with the human ability to exercise control over theiractions or self-control over their conflicting desires, intentions, and emotions. This clashcasts doubt on whether humans in general can be blamed and praised for their actionsand whether they are in control of their lives. For instance, if one believes that God, gods,or fate ultimately controls the destiny of the individual agent, the agent’s control overher actions and herself is called into question. When accused of an evil deed, someonemight say, ‘it is not my fault, it wasn’t up to me: God/fate/destiny made me do it’. Similarproblems arise on some accounts of nature as well. If we believe that nature ultimatelyconsists of non-rational physical particles that collide randomly in the void and we are apart of that nature, there seems to be no sense in which we can exercise control over ouractions. Such ‘metaphysical issues’ are very well represented in Christian theology. Theyoften arise from God’s purported foreknowledge, omniscience, election, and providentialcontrol over creation.
Another set of issues has more to do with human psychology and philosophy of mind.If free will means that I control my actions, and myself, it immediately raises furtherquestions: what am I and which part of me should be in control – my reason, my will, ormy emotions? This is why free will debates are closely related to philosophy of mind. Aswe will soon see, the traditional ideal was a psyche guided by reason: the agent controlsher actions when the actions have their roots in the agent’s reason. In Christian theology,such an account faces various compatibility problems. The problem of free will, sin,and grace is a good example. Many accounts of original sin claim that there are certainpsychological defects that render humans incapable of controlling some of their morallyand spiritually significant actions. This raises immediate questions about blameworthiness:how can humans be blamed for their sinful actions if they do not exercise control overthose actions?
Both external and internal compatibility problems have their roots in the scriptures. Neitherthe Hebrew nor the Christian scriptures offer a systematic treatment of free will and moralresponsibility. It can be argued, however, that a basic notion of human moral responsibilityand the accompanying human freedom is clearly (but not uncontroversially) assumed.
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This assumption is reflected in how God chooses to relate to humans. This is especiallyapparent in the Hebrew scriptures, where the core narrative is that of God’s election ofthe people of Israel and Israel’s response to this election in various circumstances. God’scovenant with Israel calls out for a response: Israel expresses willingness to remain inthe covenant by following God’s law. In this relationship, some measure of autonomyon the part of Israel is clearly assumed (e.g. Deut 30:15–20). While God sometimesunilaterally elects certain individuals and groups for special treatment, God neverthelesstreats humans as responsible agents. He promises to reward those who do his will andpunish those who do not. He issues commandments, expresses his will to people, andexpects them to comply. God also calls people, persuades them, and makes promises tothem. If human beings were assumed to be mere automata, such actions on God’s partwould make very little sense.
Christian scriptures of the New Testament give more reasons to assume that humansare free, responsible agents. This is especially pertinent when considering the increasedstakes in one’s relationship to God. Rather than just secular success and failure, one’searthly life determines how one spends one’s eternal afterlife. In other words, one’s actionsin this life – especially accepting God’s gracious offer of mercy or rejecting it – have eternalimplications (e.g. Matt 23:37). Given this, it is very difficult for Christian theologians tocompletely reject human moral responsibility. Humans are agents, who are accountablefor their actions in the eyes of God and their fellow humans. Not only are humans aptsubjects of ordinary praise and blame for their moral actions, but they are also accountablein the ultimate sense to God. This sense of responsibility in the eyes of God forms thebackground for most Christian discussions on free will.
However, human moral responsibility is called into question because of other tendenciesapparent in Christian and Jewish scriptures. Some facts about God and his actions seemto undermine human free will. In the Hebrew scriptures, we can observe the theme ofGod’s unilateral and sovereign action towards his creation and his people. One centraltheme is the election of Israel in relation to God’s providence. First, God chooses a specialpeople for his purposes, and this choosing is not based on any kind of merit on the partof Israel. Second, the fate of the chosen people depends on God’s active providence andgoals. Lives of individuals and groups have roles to play in God’s plans. Third, there arecases where God seems to act in such a way as to unilaterally elect some individuals forsuffering and evil. Such actions seem somewhat surprising, since God is supposed to beperfect love, but both Christian and Jewish scriptures contain examples of this. The mostfamous example is the hardening of the heart of the Pharaoh in (Exod 10:12), where Godseems to intentionally cause the Pharaoh to have an evil will. The theme also emerges inPaul as an explanation for why Jews refused to believe in Christ (Rom 9).
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In the New Testament, the themes of providence and election are similarly important.A central assumption is that God’s providential plan underlies the events in history andindividual lives. Again, there are events in salvation history that are unilaterally God’s work:Jesus calls Israel to repentance and renewal of their relationship with God in the comingkingdom; the coming of the kingdom depends on God only, not on humans. Moreover,Paul emphasizes God’s giving of grace and liberation from sin through the work of Christ.Paul highlights God’s agency in providing salvation. Faith in Christ is a gift from God forwhich the faithful receive no merit or credit (Rom 9; Eph 1:11).
1.2 Sourcehood, intellectualism, freedom of choice,voluntarism
Before we can examine how various compatibility problems could be solved, we need tolook more carefully at the notions of the will and free will. Contemporary philosophers haveusefully drawn a distinction between two types of control (Timpe 2017). ‘Leeway’ accountslocate the ‘up-to-usness’ condition in the human ability to choose between alternatives.An agent controls an action when the agent can act or refrain from acting. We might callthis kind of control the freedom of choice, or the freedom of indifference. Another type ofcontrol is that of ‘origination’ or ‘sourcehood’. Here, control is defined in terms of the freeaction having its roots in the agent’s desires, intentions, and volitions. An agent controlsher actions when those actions have their origins in the agent’s will and reason, ratherthan originating outside the agent. In the contemporary context, this kind of control is oftencalled sourcehood, but traditionally it was associated with the freedom of spontaneity:namely, the ability to do what one wants without external constraint.
Both sourcehood and the freedom of choice emerge in Greek philosophy. Later on,Christian theologians inherited these notions and made extensive use of them. Actionsare goal-directed movements. They can be understood in the light of some goal, or telos.Many animals have the capacity for basic agency in this sense: to act in goal-directedways. They are driven by various desires and yearn to fulfil those desires. Both animalsand humans have the basic capacity to will: to have a will is to act in pursuit of some goal,which is governed by some ‘internal principle’ rather than some ‘external principle’, likecoercion or other outside force.
Aristotle and others acknowledged that many non-human biological organisms are capableof acting from internal rather than external impetus in pursuit of some goal. However,this is not free will. The extra ingredient for responsibility-allowing action control is thesupposedly uniquely human capacity of reason and intellect (Nielsen 2011). Aristotle seeshuman actions as products of practical reasoning and various other, non-rational desiresand emotions (Nichomachean Ethics, Book III). Reason has some measure of control overthe extent to which non-rational desires and emotions trigger actions, but there seems to
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be no one, single psychological system responsible for bringing actions about. Reasonallows for agent to identify and evaluate various possible goals, which, for Aristotle, isthe process of practical deliberation and reasoning. Whereas a non-rational agent simplyacts on its desires, a rational agent can deliberate between different desires and ways ofreaching goals. So, here we have a core notion of rational action control: the agent is incontrol of those actions that are guided by the agent’s rational evaluations and practicalreasoning.
Plato, Aristotle, and other ancient philosophers had a strong interest in the psychologicalfeatures of action control and self-control, because they were central in their account of the‘good life’. Both Aristotle and Plato took the life of virtue and wisdom as the best possiblelife for a human being. Achieving such a life requires a significant degree of self-control.For Plato (The Republic, Book IV), freedom is an achievement that comes through a lifeof virtue and reason. Freedom is a state where the agent has little or no inner conflictsbetween various desires, which are outputs of the intellect and emotions. The ideal life isa life where one has developed virtues and learned to control one’s impulses and desiresaccording to the outputs of reason. So, the higher part of the soul (reason) subdues ordirects the lower parts (desires).
Aristotle emphasized the role of human choices in developing virtues (NichomacheanEthics, Book III). Non-rational agents cannot make moral choices that in time createhabits and shape the agent’s moral character. Rational beings such as humans, however,are capable of living a moral life and striving towards happiness, which is the telos of allrational beings. Through self-control the agent can resist conflicting desires and developvirtues, like justice, courage, and wisdom. A virtue is a consistent set of dispositions toact and feel in a way that is conducive to human happiness. However, if an agent doesnot use her powers of deliberation and choice consistently, she will develop various vicesthat hinder her happiness and lead to undesired consequences. In this way, reason-guided action will also shape the individual moral agent herself. A wise and happy personis psychologically well integrated – an enkratic, strong-willed person as opposed to anakratic, weak-willed person who often succumbs to desires that are against her bestjudgment. An enkratic person does not suffer from the weakness of the will, but is themaster of her own soul and follows her own best, reasonable judgment.
Ancient and later Christian accounts of free will were nested in a larger network of ideasabout human nature and the human good. Although the idea is common to many ancientphilosophers, it was Aristotle who had the lasting influence. The idea is that human beingsshare a nature that gives all humans a set of goals, sometimes identified with the good.Human reason is a rational desire: it is naturally directed towards the good even whenhumans fail to achieve the good or try to reach it in misguided ways. For human beings,this good is happiness (in Greek, eudaimonia). Freedom consists in being able to rationally
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identify what leads to happiness and act in such a way as to achieve it. In other words,proper action control is the condition in which the agent (or a group) can pursue the in-builtgoal of happiness unimpeded by outside or inside forces.
Aristotelian ideas are fully integrated into Christian theology by Thomas Aquinas. ForAquinas, human willing is a rational desire and directed towards what is perceived as thegood. In this sense, the will cannot act at random, but it can only act when reason haspresented something to it as good and attractive (Summa Theologiae I q. 80 a. 2). Whathumans take as good can vary from situation to situation, of course. Nevertheless, theultimate happiness, which is the telos of human nature, is God. God has created humanbeings such that they find ultimate fulfilment only in God. However, while the human willcannot choose its ultimate goal, it can choose between different means of reaching thegoal. No one way of reaching happiness appears to humans so appealing that it wouldautomatically command assent. So, it is up to the judgment of human reason to discernbetween them (Pope 2002).
Such accounts of the generation of action are rather intellectualist in nature. Free actionconsists of the agent acting rationally and the rule of reason in the agent’s soul. Rationalactions also have a goal that is not ultimately determined by the person. The will isautomatically directed towards the good or God. Moreover, intellectualism is evident inthe fact that ‘the will’ as a faculty of the soul has no independent role in action production.The properly-working will always follows the outputs of reason. The intellectualist thinksthat reason provides evaluations of the extent to which some intention or desire is inaccordance with the good. The will subsequently moves the person to action accordingto the final output of reason. While desires and emotion contribute to action, this happensin conjunction with reason. Some have even suggested that the notion of the will as anindependent faculty is an invention of Christian theology and have dubbed Augustine(354–430) as its father (Dihle 1982). Against this, others locate the emergence of the willas a central feature of Stoic moral philosophy and psychology (Frede 2011).
In the second and the third century, the will as an independent faculty took on a moreimportant role in both philosophy and Christian theology. During this era we begin to seethe emergence of leeway accounts of control and voluntarist accounts of the will. Thevoluntarist maintains that the will can also initiate spontaneous actions that are somewhatindependent from the outcomes of reason’s judgments. Free actions are not necessitatedby prior evaluations and reasons, but the will retains the ability to make spontaneous, non-determined choices between good and evil alternatives. Such choices are the grounds forjudgments about moral responsibility.
It is sometimes suggested that Christian thinkers introduced this idea of leeway freedom,the freedom of choice (Dihle 1982). It is true that some Christians assigned a larger role
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for the underdetermined choice of the will than some ancient philosophical schools. Origen(184–253), for instance, maintained that since the Church teaches the coming of finaljudgment, the existence of human moral responsibility is implied in this teaching (On FirstPrinciples). Because humans can only be praised and blamed for that which is undertheir control, this, in turn, implies that humans have free will – the choice between morallyrelevant actions is under their control.
However, Greek and Roman philosophers had extensively discussed leeway freedomlong before Origen and other Church Fathers. They were particularly cognizant of onevery basic compatibility problem: the problem of free will and God’s providence. Theuncompromising determinism of the Stoic philosophers drove this debate (Bobzien 1998).According to Stoicism, the fate of all humans is governed by the same rational, naturallaws as everything else in nature. As a consequence, humans have no control over thecircumstances of their lives. They can only control their psychological attitude towards it.Despite having no control over their fate, human individuals can still be morally responsiblefor their actions because they can be sources, originators of their own actions. Accordingto Chrysippus (279–206 BCE), for instance, humans can be responsible for their actions,because at least some human actions are not determined by external circumstances butrather by the rational process internal to the agent. Here the notion of assent played acentral role. An action is triggered by an impression of something desirable detected bythe senses. However, the agent’s intellect can assent to, or refrain from assenting to, theimpression. In the Stoic view, this assent is the locus of control and grounds responsibility.Later on, these accounts found their way into Christian theology, especially throughAugustine.
However, many resisted the compatibilism of the Stoics already in Hellenistic times.Alexander of Aphrodisias (c. 150–215) was a commentator of Aristotle who, in his closereadings of Aristotle’s texts, developed the philosopher’s notions further. Aristotle alreadymentions that a person can be held responsible for only those actions that the personcould have refrained from performing. However, he does not offer a clear analysis ofthis. Alexander, however, is probably the first to explicitly insist that such a power to ‘actotherwise’ – as it is now called – indeed requires that the agent have two metaphysicallypossible alternative courses of action available to her at the moment of action. This is whatcontemporary philosophers call leeway freedom, or the principle of alternative possibilities(van Inwagen 1983). Given this notion, a free action is incompatible with prior necessity,because it would rule out the possibility of leeway (an alternative choice) from the agent.In Alexander’s thought, we see the emergence of a libertarian conception of free will.Libertarians argue that humans have free will, and that free will is incompatible with therebeing sufficient prior causes to the agent’s actions. As such, they hold that determinismmust be false and indeterminism true.
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1.3 Divine determinism and theological compatibilism
The term ‘determinism’ emerges in the seventeenth century. Prior to that time,philosophers talked about various kinds of necessity, including necessities introduced bylogic, fate, laws of nature and God or gods. Above, our discussion identified a number ofphilosophical and theological compatibility problems that cast doubt on the possibility ofhuman action control. These challenges can come in the form of universal, metaphysicalnecessities or psychological necessities – both of which seem to constrain human actions.One appealing way to solve both external and internal compatibility problems is to arguethat human free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism.
Determinism can come in many different kinds. First, there is the idea of fatalism,according to which a person can contribute nothing to her future. The future will remainthe same regardless of what the person does. For the purposes of this article, theologicalfatalism is the most central issue. As we will see later, theological fatalism is whatproduces the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. According to theologicalfatalism, there are some facts about God’s knowledge that logically fix future events. Thisissue is independent from causal determination. While fatalism is often confused withdeterminism, it is important to keep these two notions apart.
Second, physical or causal determinism is a general metaphysical thesis that the totalityof the past up to the given moment, combined with the complete set of laws of nature,only allows for one unique future. Notice that determinism does not entail fatalism: it isperfectly possible to hold that determinism is true and that what the person does now hasan effect of how her future will turn out. Third, psychological determinism is the thesis thata particular act or a choice of an agent is determined by the prior mental fact that pertainsto the agent. So, if the agent’s reasons, desires, beliefs, and other relevant mental featuresare fixed, they always produce the same action.
Finally, Christian theologians have been particularly worried about a specific kind ofdeterminism known as divine determinism. The exact mechanism of divine determinismcan be understood in different ways (causal or logical, for instance), but the core ideais that all created events and facts are ultimately made necessary by God’s will, poweror knowledge, including the free acts of creatures (Furlong 2019). This necessity canbe a product of God’s complete and infallible foreknowledge or God’s comprehensiveprovidential control over creation. Divine determinism has been rather attractive in thehistory of Christian theology. Its proponents include Augustine, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Martin Luther (1483–1546), John Calvin (1509–1564), and Jonathan Edwards(1703–1752), just to mention a few.
Divine determinism might be an attractive position for Christian theologians for manyreasons. Many divine determinists invoke the scriptures as evidence for its truth. Some
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passages clearly imply that God is in full providential control over his creation (Ps 103:19;Dan 4:35; Matt 10:29). Second, the scriptures also seem to imply that God has perfectknowledge of the future, including human free actions (Isa 42:9; Acts 3:18). Because Godis necessarily infallible, it follows that human future (and present and past) actions are,in fact, not contingent but necessary. Aquinas and his followers argue that the truth ofdivine determinism is entailed by the very nature of God as the omnipotent and sovereigncreator of the universe. According to the classical theistic view, God is the source of everycontingent being and those contingent beings depend on God for their existence. It is Godwho is the only being that exists ‘by itself’ (Latin: a se). This aseity of God is often thoughtto lead to a radically unilateral causal relationship between the created and the creator.Like Aquinas maintains, God is the primary cause of everything in the created realm. Notonly does God constantly give being to the created world, but God also participates in allcreated causal relations. God is said to concur with creaturely causes (Latin: concursusDei). In contemporary debates, this divine property is often called God’s omnicausality.Combining the view of God’s aseity and omnicausality with his immutable will and hisatemporality, divine determinism becomes an almost unavoidable consequence.
Due to the fact that divine determinists have held onto human moral responsibility, theyhave been forced to provide accounts of responsibility in which determinism and humancontrol over actions are compatible. Incompatibility problems can arise in two ways thatcorrespond to the two kinds of control outlined above. On sourcehood or originationaccounts, determinism could be argued to rule out the possibility of an agent being thesource of her own actions. The truth of determinism rules out the possibility of ultimateself-control: if determinism is true, no human agent can be the source of his or her ownpsychology and moral character. Within leeway accounts, determinism can be arguedto rule out the possibility of choosing between alternative courses of action. Freedom ofchoice entails that a free action is such that an agent can either act or refrain from acting,while all the background conditions stay the same (the same psychological history, etc.).If determinism is true, it seems obvious that no human agent can make such choice:determinism entails that the past up to the given moment entails only one possible future.If one wants to defend the compatibility of free will and determinism, one must provide anaccount of control that avoids both compatibility problems.
Let us briefly examine two stereotypically compatibilist accounts emerging from Christiantheology. The first comes from the influential church father Augustine. Due to the greatsignificance of Augustine’s views of free will in theology up until today, there have beenmany interpretations of the details of Augustine’s account. There is disagreement overwhether Augustine was a compatibilist about free will and responsibility. Eleonore Stumpinterprets him as a sourcehood theorist and a libertarian incompatibilist (Stump 2001),whereas many others maintain that at least Augustine’s mature views were consistentwith compatibilism (Bonner 2007). The disagreements might be partly explained by
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the fact that Augustine’s views on free will seem to change over his lifetime and hetended to emphasize different aspects in changing contexts, especially in debates withdifferent adversaries. Despite various interpretations, it is safe to interpret Augustine’sview leaning towards intellectualism regarding the nature of the will and compatibilismregarding free will and divine determinism (Couenhoven 2017a). It also seems thatAugustine was committed to some form of compatibilism as far as divine foreknowledgewas concerned. However, Jesse Couenhoven (Couenhoven 2017a: 252) notes thatAugustine explicitly denied complete divine determinism (e.g. in Predestination of theSaints), since, according to him, God cannot be the ultimate cause of sin and evil. It wasvery important for Augustine that God does not cause or create evil. Thus, God cannotdetermine evil. Of course, this leaves Augustine in a precarious position: the ultimatesource of evil becomes a complete mystery. Some evils in the created world are due tohuman free will, not God. However, there still remains the question of how evil emergedin the first place. Nevertheless, for Augustine, divine necessity actually guarantees (ratherthan threatens) human freedom.
Augustine’s account of the will follows compatibilist and intellectualist lines. First,Augustine seems to accept something like rational self-control as the core of free will andto reject the notion of ultimate responsibility. This picture is complicated by Augustine’sview of ‘the fall’. Before the fall, Adam and Eve had the ability to choose between goodand evil. However, after the fall, all subsequent humans lack this capacity and are destinedto act in evil ways. While humans can shape their characters to some extent, their moralnature is beyond their control. Both saints and sinners do what they love, but have littlecontrol over the objects of their love. Second, true freedom consists in having the rightobjects of love, not in having access to alternative possibilities by themselves. So, whenGod heals the human soul from sin, God might actually narrow down the range of possiblehuman actions, but this is nevertheless agency enhancing: it becomes psychologicallyimpossible for the saint to love and do what is evil.
Finally, Augustine’s view on moral responsibility has some internal tensions. On the onehand, it seems that being under original sin is clearly out of the control of the individualperson. In their sinful state, humans have no control over their wills. Given Augustine’sinsistence that one can only be blamed about facts that are in one’s power to choose ornot to choose, it seems that sinful humans are not culpable for their sin. On the other hand,Augustine accepts that sinners are in fact morally accountable for their actions, becausethe scriptures say so. Sinners have no libertarian free will and no control over their moralnature. Nevertheless, sinners are responsible, because those actions emerge from theirwills, not out of external pressure or compulsion. Humans sin ‘according to their will’, not‘against their will’. This is enough for responsibility.
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Augustine’s views had an immense impact on later theology, in part because thechurch later followed his views on grace and original sin while rejecting his competitors,‘Pelagians’, as heretical (Council of Carthage 418). Not only were Augustine’s viewsfollowed and developed by medieval theologians, like Thomas Aquinas, but they werecrucial for many reformers of the sixteenth century.
Some scholars (Couenhoven 2013: 130–134) have suggested that what emerges herein Augustine’s thought is what contemporary philosophers call an attributionist theoryof moral responsibility. Here the locus of responsibility is not in controlling the relevantaction, but a form of ownership over action, where the responsible action can be properlyattributed to the agent. Even while the sinful agent lacks control over sources of heractions (will, character), she nevertheless acts out of deeply held attitudes and judgments.Her actions reflect her beliefs, desires, moral judgments, and character, thereby allowingan action to be attributed to the agent. This basic ownership, rather than control over theaction, is what grounds responsibility.
Another example of an explicitly compatibilist account of free will comes from the AmericanPuritan theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758). As Aristotelian natural philosophytransformed into modern physical science from the seventeenth century onwards,theologians had to deal with the mechanistic and physicalistic views of nature thatresulted from the shift from Aristotelian and Ptolemaic worldview to the mechanistic andCopernican one. One response to this development was to incorporate the deterministand mechanist view of nature into a thoroughgoing divine determinism and compatibilistaccount of free will. Edwards formulated a modern version of divine determinism andfree will in his treatise Freedom of the Will. His view is rather radical and some scholarssuggest that it is occasionalist (Crisp 2012). According to occasionalism, there really areno secondary causes in the created world at all. When water kettle boils, for instance, wevulgarly attribute this as the effect of physical laws and the essence of water. However,such explanations do not track the actual causes, or cause, which is God. The fact thatwater boils when it is heated is a result of God acting in predictable ways, not due to somenatural powers or inclinations of the water. Such a view also seems to lead Edwardstowards idealism: he seems to be rejecting the existence of matter altogether.
Edwards is known for his adamant critique of libertarian and voluntarist accounts of freewill. For Edwards, such views are ultimately incoherent, because they assume that thewill can be the cause of its own action. Free actions, according to the voluntarist, arespontaneous and independent from prior causes. This is incoherent, Edwards maintains,since nothing can be independent from prior causes: everything has a cause for itsexistence. There is no self-moving power of the will, as libertarians conceive it. If the willis truly supposed to be free in this sense, it should be preceded by a spontaneous choicethat has generated it. That choice should also come from a will shaped by spontaneous
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choice and so on, leading to infinite regress. Furthermore, Edwards asks, how can freeactions be, on the one hand, caused by the will, but on the other hand spontaneous?Again, the libertarian account seems incoherent. So, in order for any kind of humanfreedom to be possible, determinism must be true rather than false.
Edwards foreshadowed a debate that emerged in philosophy. In particular, the Scottishphilosopher David Hume (1711–1776) argued that the libertarian account of free will isincoherent, or at least implausible, because it entails that free actions are products ofchance. Indeterminism only undermines control, rather than enhancing it. The problemcan be stated as follows: it seems that choices between alternative possibilities seemfar from being free – rather, they are ultimately random. We make sense of the actionof an agent by invoking the agent’s reasons, desires, and deliberative process. Freeactions are controlled or guided by rational considerations. Only actions that are producedin such a way express our will. However, all this requires that there is a close causalconnection between an agent’s will and her actions. The more spontaneous the outputs ofthe will are, the less understandable and more inexplicable our actions become. If thereis indeterminism in the process that leads to action, that indeterminism can only add morerandomness and thereby loosen the agent’s control over the action and undermine moralresponsibility.
Edwards’ view of free will is clearly intellectualist and compatibilist in nature. For Edwards,free actions are caused by the prior outputs of the agent’s reasons and other faculties.The agent always does what she perceives as the best course of action. An agent can beheld morally responsible for her actions when those actions are caused by her choices.However, those choices have their roots in the agent’s will and reason, which are notunder the control of the agent.
The combination of divine determinism and theological compatibilism has to facesignificant challenges. These challenges will be examined in detail later in this article, butthey can be briefly summarized here. First, Augustine already struggled with the problemof evil: it is difficult to blame humans for evil and excuse God from blame, if human freewill is compatible with divine determinism. This is because the compatibility makes itpossible for God to determine what all humans want without overriding their freedom orundermining their responsibility. God could create a world in which every human onlywilled what is good. Second, one might raise the question whether compatibilism cansave human moral responsibility after all. Perhaps the notions of ownership and attributionare too slim to ground responsibility in the human case. Moreover, responsibility is nota zero-sum game: two agents can be simultaneously responsible for an action. So, itis not enough for a theological account of moral responsibility to defend human moralresponsibility. It must also provide a way to exculpate God from any evil and wrongdoing.This latter task is a challenge to theological compatibilists, because the view raises
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questions about divine manipulation. First, God determines that humans act in evil ways orrefuse to believe in him, and then he, nevertheless, judges them for their evil and unbelief.So, the ultimate control over a person’s faith and moral character rests with God. Thisseems to lead to a fully predestinarian account of grace and faith: as Augustine explicitlyargues, the eternal destiny of an individual is purely up to God. However, it seems to followfrom this claim that God, not the individual, is to blame for the individual’s unbelief. Howcan God blame the sinful human for his unbelief and sinfulness, if they are ultimately inGod’s own control?
1.4 Divine openness and theological incompatibilism
Another way to solve the theological compatibility problems is to reject divine determinismand accept a libertarian account of human freedom. On this account, human free will andmoral responsibility are considered incompatible with divine determinism. Such a viewwould provide a robust answer to the problem of evil: at least some evil in the world is dueto humans and God cannot control it. Similarly, it would explain why there is unbelief andsin in the world: humans choose to abuse their free will in such a way, and it is not up toGod. The obvious challenge here is to make sense of God’s providence, foreknowledge,grace and sin non-deterministically. These issues will be considered in the followingsection. First, let us briefly consider some examples of what a libertarian and indeterministtheology look like.
Incompatibilist accounts of the will emerged very early in Christian theology. Origenand his followers, for example, have already been mentioned above. Early medievaltheology saw many versions of explicitly voluntarist and libertarian accounts of free will.Not all medieval theologians followed Augustine in his intellectualist account of humanaction as closely as Aquinas. Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), for instance, offers anearly libertarian account of free will. According to Anselm, God gives free will as a giftto humans, because without free will humans can be neither just nor happy. Anselm isclearly a voluntarist and an incompatibilist: the will has the power to determine itself andto act spontaneously. Not even God can make the will of a human agent to will somethingnecessarily. This leads Anselm to reject the notion that salvation is completely up to God.He maintains that although God’s grace is necessary for a life pleasing to God, maintainingand preserving just moral and spiritual life requires the application of free choice (Rogers2008).
There is considerable debate whether Thomas Aquinas was a compatibilist or anincompatibilist. According to some scholars (e.g. Zoller 2004), Aquinas was a compatibilistand his account of the psychology of will and reason was deterministic: given the totalityof prior mental states, an agent is determined to will whatever she wills. The will makesno spontaneous choices, because practical reasoning is not under its control. However,
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a proper liberum arbitrium, Aquinas maintains, necessarily requires some independencefrom external secondary causes and influences. In other words, a free will is not causallydetermined by factors outside its own operations. Freedom of the will is not about havingalternative choices available, but rather being free from prior sufficient causes that wouldcompel the will. Against this, some scholars (e.g. Hoffman and Michon 2017) haveinsisted that Aquinas indeed argues for an incompatibilism and the alternative possibilitiescondition.
So, even if Aquinas offers a sourcehood-based account, it is unclear whether it iscompatible with thoroughgoing causal determinism. It is clear that some sourcehoodaccounts of free will are indeed compatible with determinism (Frankfurt 1971) –but Aquinas’ account might not be among them. Some contemporary philosophicaltheologians have been inspired by Aquinas’ approach (Stump 2003) and argue thatit represents what they call ‘source incompatibilism’. They argue that the alternativepossibilities condition (leeway) is not necessary for free will. In this sense, free will iscompatible with determinism. However, determinism might rule out free will in another way,by undermining the ability of the will to operate independently of prior causes external to it(sourcehood). So, a free will can be determined to act by prior mental conditions internalto the agent, stemming from the character, virtues, and reasons of the agent. However, theagent cannot be said to have freely acquired such features without some indeterminacy inthe world.
Despite the fact that Aquinas is working within the legacy of Augustinianism, his viewsof human sin might differ from Augustine. While Aquinas affirms the sinfulness of fallenhumans and the absolute requirement for God’s supernatural grace (Summa Theologiae I-II q. 85 a. 3), he also affirms that sinfulness does not necessitate the human will to makingonly evil choices (Summa Theologiae I-II q. 109 a. 2). Furthermore, if the libertariancommentators are correct about Aquinas’ source incompatibilism, Aquinas will ultimatelyreject all deterministic accounts of grace. According to some interpreters (Stump 2003),Aquinas maintains that the process of salvation requires something from the human sidethat God cannot control: namely, that the human agent ceases resisting grace. God is theonly cause of grace and salvation; but it is up to the human agent to bring her will into aquiescent state, where it is neutral with respect to God. Only then can God’s grace work onthe agent. So, the human agent is never the cause of her salvation, but she, nevertheless,exerts some control over it.
From the fourteenth century onwards, Franciscan theologians such as John Duns Scotus(1266–1308) and later William Ockham (1387–1447) develop powerful voluntarist andlibertarian accounts of free will. For Duns Scotus (Questions on the Metaphysics, IX), thewill is a faculty that is in principle independent from the outputs of reason. Indeed, genuinefreedom of the will consists of the power of the will to determine itself and even act against
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reason. In this sense, Scotus argues, human choices between alternative possibilitiescannot be determined by prior causes; nor can they be made necessary by any intra-mental states, like the outputs of reason. So, Scotus rejects both causal determinism andpsychological determinism. Instead, the will has an inexplicable power to choose: choicesare almost like brute facts that have no ultimate explanation apart from the will (Cross1999: 83–89).
Libertarian accounts also emerged in the aftermath of the Reformation in the seventeenthcentury. One example of this is the Calvinist/Arminian debate over grace and free will(Mueller 2017). The French-born Swiss reformed John Calvin (1505–1564) adopted aradical Augustinian view: uncompromising divine determinism accompanied by humanmoral responsibility. Calvin also developed an explicit account of double predestinationand limited atonement, where the atonement only pertains to those individuals thatGod has predetermined to save (Institutes of the Christian Religion). Following JacobArminius (1560-1609), a Dutch reformer, Arminians reacted against Calvin and defendeda libertarian – and thus an incompatibilist – notion of free will. While God’s providenceis affirmed, many Arminians maintain that God cannot make human choices necessaryand free simultaneously. Like other theological libertarians, Arminians also hold that,although salvation is impossible without God’s grace, there is always the possibility thata human person rejects the offer of faith. This possibility of rejection is such that Godcannot decree a person staying in faith, as it is ultimately a choice made by the humanwill. As a consequence, God can only free the human will from the bondage of sin; hecannot remove the possibility that humans might, nevertheless, resist God’s offer ofgrace. Through the teachings of John Wesley (1703–1791) and others, these ideas hada significant influence on many Protestant movements, such as Methodists and Baptists,especially in the United States.
2 Contemporary debates and issues
Theological and philosophical debates about free will show no signs of fading in thetwenty-first century. Actually, the opposite seems true: because of the intense work onfree will and moral responsibility in analytic philosophy since the 1960s, theologicaldebates have become more intense rather than anything else. Free will has alsoremained central in many other forms of twentieth-century philosophy, like existentialismand phenomenology. Contemporary social and psychological sciences, includingneurosciences, have also invigorated old debates. The centrality of free will and humanautonomy is probably also due to the emergence of Western liberal democracy and thenotion of human rights, which both seem to imply a very robust notion of human dignityand free will. Given these developments, there has been significant work on all traditionaltopics. This section highlights some themes and issues that have been discussed withincontemporary discourse on free will.
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2.1 Foreknowledge, providence, and free will
Ancient philosophers already knew the problem of divine foreknowledge and humanfreedom. Christian theologians took up this problem in their own context. If God hasperfect knowledge of the future, does this knowledge not make the future inevitable andhuman future actions unfree (Zagzebski 1991)? Even if God does not know the futurein the sense of providentially causing it, there is still the worry of fatalism. If God knowsall future truths, the things that make those truths true (human free actions, for instance)are logically necessary. A prominent attempt to solve this problem has been made bythose who insist that logical necessity, unlike causal necessity, does not hinder free will.Augustine already argued that God’s foreknowledge does not work in a causal way.Most famously, Boethius (477–524) argued that God’s foreknowledge is – like God –atemporal. Aquinas (Summa Theologiae I q. 14 a. 13) develops this idea: he arguesthat, because God is atemporal (has no temporal attributes), God knows all contingenttruths – including truths about human free actions – by having access to all past, presentand future contingent truths. God is outside time, so all created contingent events areconstantly present in God’s atemporal moment. God is like someone who stands on a cliffand watches over a large plain. He can see all the paths people in the plain can take. Thisatemporal access, in and of itself, does not amount to causal necessity, or so the argumentgoes (Goris 2005). Finally, accepting divine determinism and theological compatibilismalso provides a way out from the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. If humanmoral responsibility and free will are compatible with logical necessity, then foreknowledgedoes nothing to undermine them. While divine determinism and theological compatibilismhas its contemporary defenders (e.g. Helm 1994), it would be fair to say that contemporaryphilosophers and theologians have, on the whole, preferred other models of providence.
Because of the intense focus of the Reformers on divine determinism and the emphasisof the emerging Renaissance on individual agency, many Roman Catholic thinkersdeveloped libertarian and voluntarist accounts of free will as a response. Jesuit Luisde Molina (1535–1600) and his followers developed an ingenious way of combiningcomprehensive divine providence and foreknowledge with human libertarian free will.They attempted to offer an account of providence and foreknowledge that would meetthe requirements of a divine determinist, but without implicating God in human evils andmaintaining libertarian free will.
According to Molina (On Divine Foreknowledge), such an account is possible if we positthe existence of a very special form of knowledge he calls ‘middle knowledge’. Middleknowledge differs from God’s natural knowledge, which consists of God’s knowledgeof necessary truths (like those of mathematics), and free knowledge, which is based onGod’s creating the world and all the contingent facts therein. Middle knowledge pertainsto truths about various possibilities: that is, what would happen in different circumstances.
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For discussions of free will, the most important truths of this kind pertain to what libertarianfree agents would freely choose in different conditions. Knowledge of this kind is about thetruth of counterfactuals of freedom. Such counterfactuals are of the form: ‘if a person P isin conditions C, that person will freely choose to do A’. By having access to the truths ofthe counterfactuals of freedom before creation, God can choose to create that possibleworld where the created libertarian agents in that world act according to God’s will. Godcan guarantee a complete and comprehensive providence and foreknowledge withoutactually causing human actions or making them necessary as the divine determinist isforced to do. If coherent, Molinism looks like an effective and fruitful alternative to divinedeterminism as an account of freedom, providence, and foreknowledge. The theologicalusefulness of Molinism is highlighted by the fact that during the Jansenist disputes in theeighteenth century, Molinism was also applied to the problem of divine grace and free will.
Molinism has been extensively developed and debated in the contemporary context. Somesee it as a means to solve a host of vexing theological problems, including the problemswith hell, providence, and salvation (Flint 1998). A vast literature has been generateddefending and critiquing Molinism (Perzyk 2012). In brief, questions have been raisedabout the notion of middle knowledge itself (what makes it true, for instance), as wellas whether Molinism actually provides any benefits in solving, say, the problem of evil,compared to divine determinism.
There are some views according to which God’s foreknowledge and providence canbe conceived without a commitment to divine determinism. These views, which havehistorically been minority positions, were further developed in the twentieth century. Theyfocus on the ‘openness of God’s plans’: God’s providence might consist of directing theoverall course of history rather than determining all the details of it. To put it in terms of ametaphor, God would guide the story to the end he wanted but not determine each andevery twist along the way.
Such a view would have several benefits over divine determinism. First, it would make theproblem of evil easier to deal with. The divine determinist faces the rather difficult task ofexplaining why every single instance of evil is necessary, and how it is possible that Goddecrees evil but does not cause it or become culpable for it. If divine determinism wereabandoned, it could be argued that at least some amount of evil (usually moral evil) couldbe attributed to human free will and chance. Second, a world where divine determinismwere false would be much more hospitable to free will as libertarians construe it. In such aworld, created agents could choose between alternative options and develop their moralcharacters as they wished.
Such a view emerged in the late twentieth century, sometimes dubbed ‘open theism’.According to open theism, humans have libertarian free will, and it follows from this that
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God’s foreknowledge and providence cannot be as complete as Molinists and divinedeterminists have thought (Pinnock et al. 1994; Hasker 2004). In open theism, Godprovides a providential plan, or perhaps a great set of contingency plans, to preparehimself for the randomness, chance, and free choices of persons that come into existencein the created world. The future and the actual path of the created world is not completelyknown to God before creation and the created world could end up developing in ways thatGod has neither foreseen nor intended.
As critics of open theism often contend, it seems that if open theism is true, God takesrisks. Because of libertarian free will and the contingency of the created world, thingscould turn out in ways that God does not want. Defenders of open theism do not seethis as an insurmountable problem. First, they contend that even if God lacks completeforeknowledge, he has access to various probabilities. Because of God’s knowledgeof the past, he can form extremely accurate predictions and update his probabilities.Second, open theists often maintain that certain contingency and risk-taking characterizeGod as he is depicted in the scriptures. God’s interaction with the world is not strictlyunilateral, but instead dynamic and reactive. God is not the only ultimate cause of all in thecreated world, but instead he has given the created world significant causal independence.Here the open theist is motivated by God’s love rather than power and sovereignty: Godrespects the autonomy and freedom of created persons and the created world.
One criticism that Molinists and divine determinists might level against open theism is thatit denies God’s omniscience and foreknowledge. Open theists have a reply ready to thisand it relates to the tricky issue of what makes future propositions true in the first place.Consider this proposition: ‘Aku will jet ski tomorrow’. According to divine determinists,God knows this to be true simply by virtue of his will: he intends to cause it tomorrow (orcauses it eternally in his atemporal existence). On the Molinist account, God knows this tobe true, because he has access to counterfactuals of freedom regarding what Aku wouldor would not freely do in certain circumstances. Open theists deal with this problem indifferent ways. One possibility is to argue that propositions about future free actions haveno truth-value at all before the free agent actually makes her choice. In other words, ‘Akuwill jet ski tomorrow’ is neither true nor false right now. Its truth or falsity is determinedby Aku’s choice tomorrow. If there is no truth to be known regarding such a proposition,it takes nothing away from God’s omniscience if he does not know it. Indeed, it wouldbe impossible for God to know it, because it cannot be known. Open theists have alsoprovided other options: perhaps there are matters of fact about future contingencies, butthey cannot be known; or perhaps all future contingent statements are false right now. Bethat as it may, the open theist has multiple options at her disposal.
Another critical point that Molinists and divine determinists make against open theism isthat it leaves God’s plans vulnerable to contingency emerging from chance in nature and
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freedom of created persons. It might turn out that God’s plans will not be realised afterall. This worry concerns the central motivation behind divine determinism: in order forthe faithful to trust God, they must be able to believe that God is in ultimate control overeverything and nothing can stand in the way of God’s benevolent will. Open theists areforced to reject this view, at least to some extent. Because God’s plans involve beingswith libertarian free will, there is no way God can make the outcome certain. In this sense,God indeed takes risks and can fail to achieve to his purposes. However, this possibilityis only a metaphysical one, not necessarily actual. In the actual world, God has a planto counter any contingency introduced by chance or human free will. God is like a chessmaster playing against a novice player. The master cannot know how the novice will movethe pieces, but the master has a response to all possible moves. This enables the masterto win the game regardless of how the novice decides to move the pieces.
It is not difficult to see why open theism might be attractive to those who want to adopt afree will theodicy. Since humans have significant moral autonomy and libertarian free will, itis much easier to lay the responsibility for moral evil in human hands. Open theism makesit possible to invoke human moral autonomy as well as randomness and chance in naturein order to explain the existence of evil. Some evils might have no reason whatsoever fortheir existence (van Inwagen 2008). Open theism also makes sense of the problem of evilcreated by eternal punishment, as discussed further below.
There has been some debate about whether some form of open theism might becompatible with divine determinism after all. This would be a workable option, if wecould distinguish divine determinism, which preserves freedom and randomness (or soit is argued), from causal determinism, which apparently does not. Kathryn Tanner, forinstance, has argued that divine determinism functions in a non-causal way, so it is not athreat to human leeway freedom at all (Tanner 2005). The roots of this discussion can betraced back to Aquinas. Combining Aristotle’s philosophy to produce an account of Godand creation, Aquinas maintained that God is the primary cause (Latin: causa prima) ofevery contingent event. God is – in a very strong sense – the cause of everything elseapart from himself. Aquinas also puts forward an account of concurrence, where Godparticipates in all created causal relations. However, God’s causal activity in the createdworld is of a different nature than normal, ‘intra-world’, secondary causation (Latin: causasecunda). All contingent events, such as human free actions, have secondary causesthat are based on the created natures of substances that produce those events. Theprimary/secondary causation distinction is made to highlight the transcendence of Godand the difference between immanent causation and God’s transcendent causation. God’sactivity is not simply a link in a causal chain of other causes. It is transcendental, beyondthe created world and its system of causes (In I Perihermeneias 1. 14 nr. 22). Moreover,because of this omnicausality, the causal traffic between the creator God and the createdworld is radically unilateral. There is nothing that created substances can cause ‘on their
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own’; nor can they have an effect on God, since it is God who is the cause of everythingelse. Aquinas argues that God’s primary causality does not interfere with human freewill, because God’s ‘causation’ is transcendent, not a part of the network of secondarycausality (Summa contra Gentiles II c. 21).
If Aquinas is correct, the truth of divine determinism does not entail the truth of physicalcausal determinism. The created world could (arguably) have various contingencies andeven randomness while God’s primary causality would be the source of everything (Stump2003: ch. 9). For such reasons, divine determinism could be freedom-preserving whereasphysical determinism might not be. Following this idea, it could be argued that God’sconcurrence and omnicausality are compatible with robust libertarian accounts of freewill (Grant 2016). If God’s causal activity allows for secondary contingency, randomness,and indeterminacy in nature, it could allow for indeterminate choices between alternativepossibilities in the human case.
Finally, some theological views of providence and the God/world relationship have beeninspired by various developments in twentieth-century natural science and processphilosophy. Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)attempted to create a new metaphysic that would take into account the dynamic aspects ofnature that modern physics and biology had revealed. According to Whitehead, we shouldnot view the world as a collection of objects, substances, as most Western metaphysicshad done so far, but as processes. Whitehead’s ideas had a deep impact in theology,especially through the work of Charles Hartshorne (1897–2000) and John Cobb. On theRoman Catholic side, process thinking inspired Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s (1881–1955)views. According to process theology, God lacks the traditional attributes of omniscienceand omnipotence. God is neither in full providential control over creation nor has completeknowledge of the world’s future.
Process theologians also tend to reject the radical difference between God and the createdworld but without identifying God with the totality of created processes (panentheism). In away, God is a part of the process of the created world, ‘luring’ or ‘enticing’ it into followinghis will. Such an account of God would naturally make room for human free will andcontingency in the created world. It would also solve the problem of evil, at least to someextent: God does not have the power to remove all evil from the world. Finally, many haveargued that process theology as an account of human autonomy and God’s resistible loveis ethically preferable to that of traditional divine determinism. Recently, process theologyhas given rise to many modified versions of theism and panentheism (Oord 2015).
2.2 Sin, grace, and free will
The role of human agency in the process of salvation has emerged as one of the mostcentral contexts of the theological free will debate. While St Paul and other New Testament
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writers did not use the language of free will, they nevertheless put forward claims aboutthe extent to which humans can act in ways that please God. For Paul, these questionsare intertwined with his discussions on the relationship of the Christian gospel and the lifeaccording to Mosaic Law. The sinfulness of humans is such that no one can act in waysthat would merit salvation by God. Moreover, sin is such that humans have no ultimatecontrol over it. Humans are subject to evil forces that are beyond their abilities to overcome(Rom 1). These forces also exert influence on humans’ internal life: not only do theyoccasionally commit sins, but they also desire to commit sins and end up committing theminevitably.
The doctrines of grace and justification were central to the Pelagian controversies in thetime of Augustine and later the sixteenth-century Reformation. The main question was theextent to which sinful human individuals can contribute to their coming to saving faith andfulfil God’s righteous demands towards them. Augustine argued strongly against Pelagiusand others, who (apparently) held that human beings could, at least in principle, live alife pleasing to God without God’s supernatural gift of grace. For Augustine, medievaltheologians, and later theologians of the Protestant Reformation, this was ruled out asimpossible. Human beings in their sinful state cannot act in such a way as to preparefor or act in ways that would merit salvation. Augustine himself maintained that humans,nevertheless, have free will. While humans had a libertarian free will before the fall (howcould humans be culpable for sin otherwise?), sin subsequently corrupted human desiresand rational capacities such that humans are unable to resist acting sinfully (compatibilistfree will). However, through God’s unmerited grace, human mental capacities are purifiedso that they can once again function properly.
On the whole, it seems that the younger Augustine of On Free Choice of the Will (written inperiods between 387–395) was more optimistic about the power of human natural agencyto adhere to God’s will and resist sinful mental movements. Augustine maintains that theperson’s will can always either assent or resist the outputs of reason and perception.So, it seems that humans would have the power to choose between morally significantalternative courses of actions and they cannot be held accountable without it. Such aview certainly looks like a libertarian one. However, in the later parts of the book, he alsoargues that the assent has its source in the desires and outputs of the mind. One’s will(Latin: voluntas) is so essential to one’s nature that one has no power over its moral nature(Couenhoven 2017a).
Later on, Augustine had to revisit his views when he vigorously engaged Pelagius (c. 354–418) and others, whom he considered heretics (De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissionelibri III; Contra Julianum). While Augustine himself denied that he had changed his views(Retractiones), many scholars doubt this claim. The later writings of Augustine adopt amore pessimistic position: the human will in its sinful state is incapable of making morally
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relevant choices between good and evil actions. Without God’s intervention throughgrace, the human person is only capable of choosing evil actions. At this point, Augustinealso develops his influential notion of original sin as a corruption of the orders of humanlove. The root of sin is the inability of the sinful human person to put the love of God andother human beings above all else. The sinful will, however, loves itself too much, oftensuccumbing to pride and other vices.
The views of mature Augustine (which had the most influence in medieval andReformation thought) were formed against his very robust view of human sinfulness.Apparently, Pelagius and his followers argued that humans had the ability – if they decideto exercise their free will – to live a pure and sinless life (Letter to Demetrias). Augustineresponded to this by invoking St Paul, who especially in the letter of Romans seems tobe rather sceptical as to whether human moral agency could fulfil the law. Augustineargues that human moral agency is severely impaired: while humans have not lost thecapacity to make free choices, original sin prevents them from exercising this capacityproperly or rightly (Couenhoven 2005). Sin introduces conflicting desires in the humanmind, which lead to fragmentation. Sin is like a disease of human moral capacities thatGod’s action cures. God’s unilateral action, the gift of supernatural grace, is required inorder to free human agency from the grip of sin so that the power of free choice can yetagain be exercised in the right way (Nisula 2012).
An extension of the Pelagian controversy was the debate between Martin Luther andErasmus of Rotterdam in the sixteenth century. The Reformation brought traditionalAugustinian themes of sin, grace, predestination, and free will to the forefront again. Lutherhad reacted strongly against late medieval voluntarism of Gabriel Biel (1425–1495) andothers in his Assertio. Luther argued that the voluntarist account of the freedom of the willhad resulted in multiple spiritual and institutional wrongs in the Roman Catholic Church.Salvation, Luther maintained, was no longer a work of God but had become an affair of thehuman will. In 1524, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536) – a Dutch humanist sympatheticto the cause of the Reformation – wrote his De Libero Arbitrio Diatribe Sive Collatio asa response to the Assertio, criticizing its radical conclusions about the lack of free will. Ifhumans had no free will, there would be neither political peace, nor morality, nor the justpunishment of sinners and rewarding of saints by God. Luther then answered this in 1525with his hefty De Servo Arbitrio.
The contested issue was the role of human agency in salvation, but this is not the onlydisagreement (Visala and Vainio 2020). Erasmus and Luther disagree on the role ofbiblical interpretation in theological methods, as well as on the authority of the Church andits theological tradition. Treading in familiar territory already mapped out by Augustine,both Luther and Erasmus hold a strict Anti-Pelagian stance: salvation is the work of Godand grace is an unmerited gift that God gives to the sinner. Sinful humans cannot save
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themselves by means of their own meritorious actions, nor is there anything that thesinner can do without God’s help to move herself from the sinful state to that of godliness.Moreover, Luther and Erasmus both agree that humans are morally responsible agents inGod’s eyes. It is God’s right to punish sinners and reward the saints.
However, there is significant disagreement between Luther and Erasmus as to the roleof human will in the overall process of salvation and the grounding of human moralresponsibility. For Erasmus, some measure of undetermined active human contributionis required in the process. After God’s initial action towards the sinner, God works incooperation with the individual’s will in a way that cannot be preordained, predetermined,or otherwise made necessary by God. If God is the sole cause of salvation, there can beno liberum arbitrium (free will or free choice). Against this, Luther flatly denies any kind ofundetermined human contribution to the process of salvation. The will that cannot choosethe good in its sinful condition does not deserve the name of liberum arbitrium.
Erasmus presents a number of arguments for the conclusion that Christians should accepta libertarian account of free will. First, if humans had no choice as to whether they actedmorally or not, or whether they believe in God or not, it would undermine human moralresponsibility. Without the assumption that humans make undetermined choices betweenmorally and spiritually significant alternatives, it is difficult to justify God’s judgment and theblameworthiness of humans for their sins. But because God righteously rewards the saintsand punishes the sinners, humans must have free will. Otherwise God’s judgments wouldbe unjust. Furthermore, if humans had no libertarian free will, it seems that God would notonly be unrighteous in his judgment, but also the cause of evil and sin in the world. Withouthuman free will, the problem of evil would become intolerable.
Erasmus also invokes the language of the scriptures in defence of libertarian free will: Godtreats humans as moral agents by issuing commandments and laws, and occasionallycalling on them and persuading them. Such actions seem meaningless and irrational,Erasmus maintains, if there is nothing humans can do to respond to God. Interestingly,Erasmus also invokes the role of freedom of the will in moral and political affairs. If humanscease to believe in free will, they will also cease to strive to live better in moral and spiritualaffairs. Belief in free will serves an important social and moral function, and Erasmus isworried that Luther’s vehement criticisms of free will might lead to unwanted moral andpolitical consequences.
Luther’s reaction against Erasmus was strong in style and content (Kolb 2017). Lutherexplicitly denies any kind of human free will with respect to spiritual matters. For liberumarbitrium, a person needs to be able to choose between morally significant alternatives.With respect to faith in God, no human being has such ability, since coming to faithdepends on God only. In its sinful state, the human being cannot even will anything
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pleasing to God, not to mention generating salvific faith in God. In addition, Luther invokesa strong doctrine of original sin, according to which humans in their sinful state haveno control over their will. They cannot make spiritually and morally significant choices;moreover, they cannot shape their character or nature from which their actions emerge.Rather, the ultimate control over a person’s character resides either with the Devil or God.In this sense, the human will is always in bondage, a servant or a slave to good or evil.
Luther’s main reason for such a radical account of human sinfulness is that if humanshad even some power to act in such a way as to be pleasing to God, it would follow thatthe gospel, God’s unmerited gift of grace, would be in vain. If humans had free will, theycould – at least in principle – incur some merit from God for their good deeds. However,the gospel tells us that no human action whatsoever can earn merit in God’s eyes. So, it isthe truth of the gospel that compels Luther to reject any kind of human free will.
Finally, Luther also responds to Erasmus’ claim about human moral responsibilityand the need for theodicy. Luther argues that God is within his rights to hold humansresponsible for their actions even while humans lack free will. From a contemporaryperspective, Luther could perhaps be understood as semicompatibilist). According tosemicompatibilism (Fischer and Ravizza 1998), free will might not be compatible withdeterminism but human moral responsibility is. Following Augustine, Luther maintains thathumans need no ultimate control over their actions in order to be blameworthy. Instead,they can be blamed or praised by God because their actions have their sources in theirown intentions, desires, and wills. A sinful person does not act against her will, but simplyaccording to her will (her deep-seated values and judgments). Sinful natures are notGod’s fault (they are Adam’s fault), so God can judge the evil action stemming from them,even while he concurrently causes their evil actions. Luther maintains that God is notresponsible for evil in any sense while he participates in causing evil actions, so it is inGod’s rights to eternally damn the sinners and punish the saints.
The best way to characterize the differences between various accounts is to distinguishbetween deterministic and non-deterministic doctrines of grace (Timpe 2014: 51–52).According to deterministic doctrines of grace, like the one Luther defended, the necessaryand sufficient condition for an agent to come to faith and remain in faith is God’s act ofgiving and maintaining faith. In this sense, whether the human agent has faith or not iscompletely up to God. No human choice, decision, or any other kind of action (understoodin terms of incompatibilism) is necessary. Deterministic accounts of grace often emerge inthe Augustinian tradition, especially from Lutheran and Reformed theology. The doctrineof irresistible grace was accepted by the synod of Dort (1609) and, subsequently, manyReformed theologians (historically Edwards and others; also modern scholars suchas R. C. Sproul and J. R. Packer). Opposed to this is the non-deterministic doctrineof grace defended by Erasmus and Arminius, as well as most Catholic and Eastern
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Orthodox theologians. According to this view, God’s giving of grace is a necessary butnot a sufficient condition for salvation. In addition to God’s giving of grace, an additionalassent or act of human will is required. Here assent or act of will is understood in terms ofincompatibilism: hence it would be impossible for God to determine such assent or act ofwill.
Crucial for this discussion is the question of the effects of sin on human moral and spiritualcapacities. Most Christian theologians agree that sin has somehow corrupted or impairedhuman moral agency, as well as the way in which humans relate to one another and God.On the one hand, human culpability for sin needs to be maintained, so that evil actionsand sin can be, at least to some extent, attributed to humans themselves. If not, God’sfinal judgement seems to make no sense. On the other hand, an account of human sinand evil in general needs to be such that God remains blameless and faultless for sinand evil. Striking a balance between these two motives turns out to be rather difficult. Ifa libertarian account of free will and human original sinlesness are assumed, it is difficultto account for why humans made the first evil choice in the first place. If an agent has achoice and her cognitive system is such that it faultlessly identifies what is right and good,it seems perplexing that such an agent would make an evil choice. However, assuming acompatibilist account also leads to problems. If free human choices were compatible withGod’s necessitating activity, it would seem that God could have prevented the fall to sin, orthat God actually decreed it. In both cases, it seems that God is, at least to some extent,responsible for human sin and evil.
2.3 Evil, theodicy, and hell
As became clear above, free will has had a central role in debates about theodicy. Wehave seen three ways in which the problem of evil can be posed. First, there is thequestion of whether God is just in allowing the degree and amount of evil we see in theworld: is it not incompatible with God’s omnipotence and perfect goodness? Second, thereis the issue of God’s involvement in human evil and sin. If God is the cause of everythingelse outside of himself, is God not also the cause of human evil and sin as well? Again, anaccount must be offered where the evil and sinful aspects of human action are attributed tothe human agent, not God. Finally, there is the issue of whether God’s ultimate judgmentand the possibility of eternal retributive punishment is righteous.
A handy way to solve these problems would be to postulate the existence of humanlibertarian free will. Ever since Augustine suggested it, theologians argued that at leastsome cases of evil are explained by human free will. Libertarian free will could also explainhow the causes of evil and sinful human actions could be found in humans alone, notin God. Finally, libertarian free will would also explain God’s everlasting punishment ofsinners. Given the benefits of libertarian free will in solving the problem of evil, it is no
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surprise that so many twentieth-century theologians and philosophers have rejected divinedeterminism.
The argument that humans are responsible for evil, not God, because humans havefree will, can be traced back at least to Augustine (and probably even further). Incontemporary context, Alvin Plantinga developed on this basis his well-known free willdefence (Plantinga 1974). Plantinga tackles the logical problem of evil (Mackie 1955),according to which the claim ‘God is perfectly good, omnipotent and omniscient’ is logicallyinconsistent with the claim ‘evil exists’. Plantinga responds to this problem by arguingthat given human libertarian free will, there is a possible world in which there are evilsperpetrated by humans but, despite his perfect goodness, God allows those evils to takeplace. It is important to note that Plantinga’s counterargument need not be a full-blowntheodicy. It is merely what he calls a defence, that is, a demonstration that the existenceof an omnipotent and perfectly loving God is compossible with the existence of evil.Of course, it is possible to develop a more thorough theodicy on this basis. Many takePlantinga’s defence to be so successful that the focus of the debate about theodicy hassubsequently moved away from the logical problem of evil towards other versions, like thatof the evidential argument from evil. Nevertheless, there is still debate whether Plantinga’sdefence is successful.
Most contemporary theodicies, like the soul-making theodicy, assume the existence oflibertarian free will (Hick 2010). Plantinga’s free will defence, as well as other free willtheodicies, have resulted in widespread acceptance of libertarianism among English-speaking philosophical theologians, even while many come from theological traditions thathave largely rejected libertarianism, like Plantinga himself (Timpe and Speak 2016: 4–7).However, there are also philosophers who have argued that theological compatibilism canmake use of the free will defence (Turner 2013).
Free will is also central in debates about the problem of evil created by the prospect ofGod punishing some humans by eternal suffering. Despite a few dissenting voices, thedoctrine of eternal punishment has been a core part of Christian orthodoxy. From theeighteenth century onwards, the traditional doctrines of hell have come under heavyattack. Again, the roots of the classical doctrine of hell can be traced beyond Augustine,but it was Augustine that gave it its form. According to the classical doctrine of eternalpunishment, there are created persons who will exist eternally, are never saved, andeternally suffer from both the effects of their estrangement from God and additionaltorments as just punishments for their sins. Moreover, doctrines of predestination haveemerged on the basis of deterministic accounts of grace: if salvation is completely up toGod, it depends on nothing else than on God’s eternal will, or his decree to save somepeople and damn others (Couenhoven 2018). This set of doctrines creates a very difficultform of the problem of evil. God could, if he so wanted, give grace to everyone and make
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sure that they remain in faith. He does not do so. Why? It cannot be because of anybenefit for those who are damned, because they will remain infinitely in a state that isobjectively the worst possible for any human. Augustinian theologians sometimes suggestthat the benefit is the fulfilment of God’s glory and justice. Without the damnation of somehumans, God’s righteousness would not be displayed in creation.
At least two factors have driven the criticisms of the traditional doctrine of hell. First,libertarian accounts of free will have become increasingly attractive for understandingmoral responsibility. If an agent can do nothing to move herself towards faith and awayfrom sin, it seems natural to assume that the agent has no control whatsoever over hersinful state. Given this, it seems natural to claim that the agent cannot be culpable forsin in the eyes of God and should not be held accountable at all. The other critical pointagainst traditional doctrines of hell arises from theories of punishment. The account ofretributive punishment often assumed by defenders of traditional views of hell has alsobeen subjected to strong criticisms. According to the retributive theory, punishment canbe deserved simply through wrongdoing, even if the punishment has no benefits foranyone and serves no further purpose. Recently, many other theories of punishment haveemerged. These theories invoke various benefits of punishment (it deters future evildoers,it protects the public, and it might function as a corrective to those who are punished) orthe signalling effect of it (punishment signals that certain behaviours are unacceptable).
As a consequence of these developments, many (e.g. Walls 1992; Stump 1986) havedeveloped an alternative to the traditional doctrine. This is sometimes called the liberaldoctrine of hell or free will hell. This view does not take hell as a retributive punishmentthat God metes out to sinners, who cannot control their sinfulness, but rather as Godgiving to humans what they in fact want. The defender of free will hell argues thatlibertarian free will makes it impossible for God to guarantee the salvation of all humanpersons, and that it would be incompatible with God’s love of his creatures to override theirfree will. In both cases, ‘the doors of hell are locked from the inside’, as C. S. Lewis putsit. Indeed, God’s love for his creatures, according to this view, requires that God respecttheir autonomy and dignity. So, it is God’s love that creates the possibility for some of hiscreatures to willingly reject him forever. The possibility of hell is an expression of God’slove. Such an account of hell assumes a very robust view of human autonomy and assignsa very high value to it – so high that God is willing to allow humans to reject him infinitely.
Finally, free will has a central role in debates about the possibility of universal salvation.Although a minority view since the times of early Eastern Fathers, like Origen and Gregoryof Nyssa, universal salvation has gathered an increasing number of contemporarydefenders. Contemporary universalists often assume the existence of some purgatory-like post-mortem punishment and purification, but this is not considered infinite in duration.Given enough time, all humans will freely accept God’s grace and join the beatific vision
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(Kronen and Reitan 2013). From the point of view of free will hell, it could be argued thatuniversalists are no better guardians of human free will than divine determinists. It seemsthat in order to guarantee the salvation of all, God would have to make the salvation ofall humans necessary by some infallible decree. This, in turn, would entail the rejectionof libertarian freedom. While some universalists prefer compatibilist accounts of freedomfor such reasons (Hart 2019), others have offered arguments for the compatibility oflibertarianism and universalism. One possibility is to invoke Molinism: God can guaranteesalvation via his access to counterfactuals of freedom. Another option is to maintainthat while humans have libertarian free will, every single human will in fact turn to Godeventually, if God gives adequate knowledge about himself and enough time for purifyingcharacter development (Talbott 2014).
2.4 Divine will
Discussions and debates about the nature of God’s will and God’s freedom have deeproots in the Christian theological tradition. The reason for this is not difficult to understand:since God is supposed to be perfect, God’s agency should also be conceived of asperfectly as possible. So, whatever theologians write about God’s will and freedom, itrepresents a form of ideal agency – it is the standard against which limited and finitehuman agency is contrasted. God is the ultimate free agent; but what does this mean?
Here, the debate between intellectualists and voluntarists can be seen most clearly(Leftow 2017). Intellectualists about the will, like Aquinas and Augustine, have understoodGod’s free will in the light of his perfect reason. Human free will is limited, because itsuffers from various deficiencies: reason often fails to identify what is best and choosesthe wrong means; the will is often impeded by internal disintegration (conflicting emotions,desires) or external constraints. God, however, suffers from none of these limitations sincehis knowledge and power are perfect. God’s reason is perfect, so he always knows thebest course of action. God is omnipotent and simple (in the technical sense of lackingpsychological and metaphysical parts or divisions) so there can be no internal or externalconstraints on his actions. Because God is the source of everything else, there is nothingexternal to God that could constrain his actions or impede the functioning of his reason.So, God’s perfect freedom consists in the power to do what is the best in all situations.
Voluntarists, like Duns Scotus, would see God’s freedom in a different way. For them,God’s ultimate freedom does not reside in the fact that God always acts perfectly rationally.Instead, God is free because God can choose whatever he wants; God has accessto all alternatives. When taken to the extreme, this view leads to the conclusion thatthere is nothing prior to God’s decision that would explain it or make it necessary, noteven God’s reason. We see this way of thinking in the case of Luther, whose views areexamined above. According to Luther, God is the only being with free will. Free will,
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properly understood, is a divine attribute; therefore, it is not something that a created beingmight ever have. God has free will, because his will is not dependent on anything externalto it, not even God’s mind. God can do whatever he decides to do and God’s decisions arebrute facts that ground all other facts, including moral facts.
The difference between voluntarists and intellectualists regarding God’s will has significantmetaphysical and ethical consequences. One such consequence pertains to the natureof the created world as a whole and our knowledge of God. Christian theologians widelyagree that God creates the world freely – meaning that creation is a free decision onGod’s part that involves no prior necessity. On the intellectualist picture, God acts outof his perfect reason, so we can assume that the created world is a rational world. Thecreated world is not random or chaotic, but an understandable whole, since it is created bya rational God whose actions are supremely reasonable. It also follows that by examiningthis world, we can infer the rational principles behind it and learn something about God.The voluntarist would paint a different picture. If the created world is a product of God’sfree decision for which there is no prior reason or explanation, he could have created avastly different world than ours. In a way, the created world is not a product of perfectreason, but a perfectly free choice. God’s choices are brute facts that have no explanationexternal to God’s omnipotent will, so humans cannot really understand them. It is by nomeans clear that our reason can discern God’s rational principles in the created world.It is also not clear whether there is anything in such a world that reflects God’s nature orattributes. The way to knowledge of God through the created world is therefore shut.
In recent philosophical theology, some of these convictions have been used to generatearguments against the existence of a Christian God. One argument could be put like this:how can God be perfectly free, when he lacks significant alternative possibilities (Pike1969)? We humans can choose between good and evil actions, but God cannot. SinceGod is supposed to be perfectly good, he cannot choose to commit evil actions, so hehas fewer choices available to him than we do and therefore lacks power. One possibleresponse is to maintain that God does not lack any significant power by being unableto act in evil ways. We humans have the ability to act in either morally praiseworthy orblameworthy ways, but this is because of our sinful nature. God, however, lacks any kindof sin and his moral nature is perfect. It would be logically contradictory for a morallyperfect being to do evil, because there is no reason for such a being to do evil and all thereason to do good. Being able to do what is logically contradictory by no means detractthe power of a being, because such states of affairs are impossible. Following this line ofargument, God’s omnipotence is not restricted or constrained by his perfect moral nature.
Another challenge emerges when certain accounts of divine will are combined with thedoctrine of creation. As mentioned above, creation is supposed to be a free act of God. Ifthis free act is understood in terms of intellectualism about God’s will, it seems that God
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really did not have the option of not creating, or to choose between different possibleworlds he could create. Instead, God’s perfection would compel him to create a world andthe only possibility would be to create the one and only best possible world. So, not onlydoes God not create freely, but he must create the best of all possible worlds. But what ifthere is no such thing as the best possible world? In some sense, the world could alwaysbe better. If God cannot create the best possible world (because no such thing exists)but creating such a world is a necessary feature of a perfect being, then there can be noperfect being like God at all (Rowe 2006). Such arguments have been vigorously debatedin recent decades. One response is the argument that it is permissible for a morally perfectbeing to create a world that is ‘good enough’. Moral perfection does not require God tocreate a world where all value is maximised (Adams 1972).
2.5 Scientific challenges to free will
Finally, let us briefly look at some of the challenges that the results of modern behaviouraland natural sciences might present to theologians defending free will. Since the latetwentieth century, traditional notions of free will and moral responsibility have been subjectto intense criticism from the sciences. We can identify three scientific challenges to freewill that correspond to three necessary aspects of it: 1) there must be an agent, whose 2)actions are not determined by prior causes and 3) who is the source of her own will (List2019).
The first challenge, called the eliminativist challenge, is directed towards the notionsof agency itself. According to some philosophers and scientists (Churchland 1988),the combined results of evolutionary biology, cognitive science, and neurosciencesuggest that notions like ‘souls’, ‘selves’, ‘intentions’, and ‘beliefs’ are a part of oureveryday psychological theory – referred to as folk psychology – which we use to predicteach other’s behaviour. However, the progress of these sciences shows that our folkpsychological notions are in fact inadequate in explaining human behaviour, because theydo not track the real causes of our behaviour. Given the progress of the neurosciences,folk psychological notions will be replaced by scientific ones in the future. The problemis that the concept of free will requires such folk psychological notions: there have to beselves that act, intend, and decide. If there are no such entities and folk psychologicaldescriptions are false, there can be no such thing as free will. Indeed, there are no selvesor intentions or decisions either.
The argument from eliminativism raises the question between the connection of self/body dualism and free will. What is the self and how is it related to actions? Traditionally,theological debates about free will have taken place in the context of either Platonic mind/body dualism or Thomistic hylomorphism, according to which the intellectual soul is theform of the body rather than an individual substance independent from it (Goetz and
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Taliaferro 2011). However, for a number of reasons, such views have fallen under strongcriticism and theologians have had to rethink their basic assumptions about anthropology.One reason for this has been the advances of modern psychological sciences and overallcriticism of dualism in philosophy, especially by many physicalist philosophers. In addition,from the twentieth century onwards, biblical scholars have also suggested that holisticJewish anthropology underlying the Hebrew scriptures is quite far from later Platonicdualism adopted by many Church Fathers (Green 2008). As a consequence, sometheologians have turned towards physicalist or monist accounts of human nature (Murphy2006).
Given robust Cartesian mind/body dualism, it is natural to think that what causes theagent’s actions is the agent herself. The agent is an individual, spiritual substance witha specific causal power to initiate actions (Swinburne 2019). Indeed, such a view hasbeen quite typical of free will libertarians for centuries (Thomas Reid, Essays on the ActivePowers of the Human Mind, 1788). This view of causation of action assumes the existenceof a special type of causation known as agent causation. However, many contemporarylibertarians have rejected this view, because of the strong criticisms it has received andits dubious relationship to mind/body dualism. As a consequence, philosophers haveformulated libertarian views that invoke normal event causation (Kane 1996). In this view,it is not the agent as a substance that is the cause of her actions, but the mental statesclosely associated with the agent. It is the agent’s beliefs, desires, and intentions thatcause her actions.
The second issue arising from modern sciences is the challenge of determinism. Wealready alluded to the challenge of early modern Newtonian physics: it seems difficultto reconcile the determinist and mechanist view of nature with that of humans makingindeterminate, rational choices. The challenge of global, causal determinism of this kind,however, has been alleviated in the twentieth century due to quantum physics, chaostheory, and various types of emergence. It is not at all clear that global determinism isthe final word even in physics (Earman 2004). In any case, the challenge of determinismis not restricted to physics only. Instead, the twenty-first century challenge to free willcomes mainly from biology, genetics, and neuroscience. The question in this context isthe possible truth of genetic determinism or neurobiological determinism respectively.If genetic determinism were true, the direction of human lives, especially of humancharacters, would be determined by biological factors outside human control, namelyhuman genetic makeup. Neurobiological determinism is the view according to which allmental states are products of underlying brain states. Given that brain states are physicalstates sufficiently explained by prior physical causes, there could be no mental causation– that is, the agent’s mental states (intentions, beliefs, desires, decisions) cannot be thecauses of the agent’s actions.
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One possible theological response to the challenge of various forms of determinism wouldbe to simply accept their truth. If one already accepts divine determinism, perhaps addingnew determinisms in the mix would not be that difficult. This, however, would not solvethe issue of neurobiological determinism. The problem there is that the denial of mentalcausation implies that the agent lacks control over her actions. It is the agent’s brain thatcauses her actions, not her mental states.
This worry is further amplified by the third challenge, the argument fromepiphenomenalism. According to this view, there is empirical evidence that mentalcausation is only apparent causation, an illusion. It turns out – the argument goes – thatthe conscious decisions and intentions of the agent are rarely, or never, the causes ofher behaviour (Wegner 2002). In other words, crucial mental aspects of ourselves (likeour beliefs, intentions, and goals) are, in reality, disconnected from our actions. Instead ofselves initiating and controlling actions, human beings construct their self-representationson the basis of actions that are initiated with very little input from their self-representations.If this is the case, our consciously accessible mental states make very little difference interms of our actions. In short, our actions are often driven by unconscious factors outsideour control, so we have no free will.
One possible response to such challenges would be to acknowledge that a Christianaccount of human freedom always includes severe constraints. The social and moralcontext of human freedom places limits and restrictions on the individual. Sin has fracturedthis world and its communities, which in turn produces human individuals whose ability tounderstand moral reasons and act according to them is severely limited. While the resultsof psychology and neuroscience can function as a reminder to theologians not to overstatetheir case for human freedom, they go even further: if epiphenomenalism is true, eventhe most minimal conditions for free will and moral responsibility, like rational self-control,cannot be met by human agents.
Theologically motivated responses to these challenges have taken two distinct paths. Thefirst is to double down on agent causation and substance dualism. Christian theology, it isargued, entails that humans have libertarian free will and robust selfhood, so eliminativismmust be false (Hasker 2001). Similarly, genetic determinism and neurobiologicaldeterminism must also be false. Indeed, these are often turned around as argumentsagainst naturalism: if naturalism is true, there can be no free will and moral responsibility.Given naturalism, eliminativism about minds and determinism about our nature mustalso be true. However, if we accept human free will and the self as facts, this will lead usto adopt a supernaturalist position: naturalism is not the final word about us (Goetz andTaliaferro 2008).
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The second path adopts a compatibilist and event causal account of free will and allowsfor the possibility of physical selfhood. It is possible to conceive of human freedom atleast in terms of rational self-control, even if the power to choose between alternativepossibilities cannot be salvaged (Murphy and Brown 2007). There might be a number oftheological reasons to avoid substance dualism anyway. Perhaps a physicalist account ofpersonhood makes better sense of both biblical commitments and scientific results.
Attributions
Copyright Aku Visala (CC BY-NC)
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Bibliography
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Further reading
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Craig, William Lane. 1987. The Only Wise God: The Compatibility of DivineForeknowledge and Human Freedom. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.
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Fischer, John Martin, Robert Kane, Derk Pereboom, and Manuel Vargas. 2007.Four Views on Free Will. London: Wiley-Blackwell.
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McKenna, Michael, and Derk Pereboom. 2016. Free Will: A ContemporaryIntroduction. London: Routledge.
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Timpe, Kevin. 2014. Free Will in Philosophical Theology. London: Bloomsbury.
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Visala, Aku. 2020. ‘Theology, Free Will, and the Skeptical Challengefrom the Sciences’, Theology and Science 18, no. 3: 391–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/14746700.2020.1786218
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40Is Islam Committed to Dualism in the Context of
the Problem of Free Will?
Macksood Aftab
Harvard Extension
Biography
Dr. Macksood Aftab is a neuroradiologist, and clinical assistant professor at both Michigan State University and
Central Michigan University. He holds a Master degree in History of Science, and is an editor for the Journal of
Islamic Philosophy. The author can be reached at: mackaftab@post.harvard.edu.
Publication Details
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics (ISSN: 2166-5087). March, 2015. Volume 3, Issue 1.
Citation
Aftab, Macksood. 2015. “Is Islam Committed to Dualism in the Context of the Problem of Free Will?” Journal of
Cognition and Neuroethics 3 (1): 1–12.
Journal of
Cognition
Neanudroethics
2
Abstract
The concept of free will became an early source of debate amongst theologians and philosophers within Islamic
intellectual history. The influential theologian Ghazali refuted neoplatonic philosophers who laid claim to
a deterministic view of human nature by pointing to the problem of causation. Ashari theologians refuted
those who claimed humans create their own actions by arguing that such a statement would undermine God’s
omnipotence. The core issue in these Islamic debates was not so much human free will, but rather concern over
the preservation of divine free will. A largely dualistic picture emerged regarding the nature of human beings
from these early debates. Human free will did of course play an important role in law, morality and theology
and was accommodated with the development of the doctrine of kasb (acquisition). It is not until recently,
with the advances in neurophilosophy, psychology, neuroscience and neuroimaging that the Islamic theological
understanding has required a revisiting. Recent thinkers such as Iqbal have critiqued Ghazali for not being able
to break from dualism, and articulate a more wholesome view of man in which human free will takes center
stage. I will argue that Iqbal’s conception of free will within the Islamic context is not much different from that
articulated by Daniel Dennett, even if the implications drawn by the two men are vastly different. The rich
intellectual history of Islam is relevant to many of the contemporary debates on free will and these intersections
will be discussed.
Keywords
Dualism, Free Will, Islam, Ghazali, Ibn Sina, Iqbal, Dennett, Soul
Soul & Free Will
The classic problem of free will has often assumed a worldview based on a dualistic
perspective of the universe. This dualism which was once used to explain free will has
now become an obstacle in the same discussion. According to this view, two distinct
substances exist: physical and metaphysical. The body (the physical component) is acted
upon by the soul (the non-physical component). The locus of the human capacity for free
will is thought to be located in the soul (the non-physical component). A version of this
type of dualism is also seen within Islamic intellectual history.
This particular view has come under sharp criticism by modern day scientists and
philosophers. They argue that granting a metaphysical status to the soul exempts it from
Is Islam Committed to Dualism in the Context of
the Problem of Free Will?
Macksood Aftab
Aftab
3
being the subject of any meaningful scientific inquiry. If this is the case, then how can
we be sure that it exists at all? Furthermore, if it exists, they ask, how can a metaphysical
entity interact with a physical entity?
Daniel Dennett, the famous philosopher from Tufts University, summarizes the
problem when he writes,
One widespread tradition has it that we human beings are responsible
agents, captains of our fate, because what we really are souls,
immaterial and immortal clumps of Godstuff that inhabit and control
our material bodies rather like spectral puppeteers. It is our souls, that
are the source of all meaning, and the locus of all our suffering, our
joy, our glory and shame. But this idea of immaterial souls, capable of
defying the laws of physics, has outlived its credibility thanks to the
advance of the natural sciences. (Dennett 2003, 5)
Contemporary neuroscience poses new challenges to the problem of free will.
Consciousness is closely connected with the central nervous system; we know, for
example, that certain brain damage affects consciousness. Furthermore, with advanced
brain imaging such as functional MRI, studies have claimed to detect thoughts and
decisions in the brain even before we become conscious of them. These studies further
erode the concept of a sharp dichotomy between the body and the soul.
Muhammad Iqbal, an early 20th century Muslim philosopher critiques dualistic
tendencies within Islamic thought and proposes a non-dualistic framework for
understanding the problem of free will within Islam. Iqbal’s analysis is, therefore,
particularly relevant to this discussion.
According to Iqbal, dualism, as adopted by the dominant Ashari school of Muslim
theology, has several problems.
1. The static view of substance does not serve any psychological interest.
We do not think of elements of our conscious experience as qualities
of a soul-substance. Iqbal writes, “Our conscious experience can give
us no clue to the ego regarded as soul-substance, for by hypothesis the
soul-substance does not reveal itself in experience” (Iqbal 2013, 81).
Instead in Iqbal’s view our conscious experience is exactly what makes
up our self.
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics
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2. He points to Immanuel Kant’s critique of the Cartesian dualism. Kant
argues that the jump from Descartes “I think” to “I am a substance” is
illegitimate and carries no proof.
3. The concept of the soul as indivisible does not prove indestructibility.
4. If the soul-substance is considered metaphysical then there is a whole
host of other problems in trying to explain how it would interact with
the physical body and soul.
Let us assume for the sake of argument that Dennett and Iqbal are correct. The
question arises, to what degree is a theistic (specifically an Islamic) worldview dependent
upon this type of dualism?
Islam & Free Will
I will argue in this paper, that in so far as soul/body dualism emerges from Islamic
theological legacy, it does so due to practical considerations and not because of any
intrinsic Islamic creedal commitment to such belief as essential dogma. The practical
considerations were guided by the quest by the orthodox Ashari theologians to seek
an intellectual framework that would reconcile essential Islamic beliefs with reason and
philosophy.
Islamic intellectual history has a rich history of debate concerning the problem of free
will. In fact, the very first formal theological dispute in Islam concerned the issue of free
will and determinism (Blankinship 2008, 38).
Mu’tazilites
An early group of Muslims known as the Qadarites advocated for absolute free will,
and this cause was then taken up by the more influential group of Muslim theologians
known as the Mu’tazelites. Mu’tazilites stressed Divine justice. They held that good and
evil are objective. In order for God to be just he had to punish those who do evil and
reward those who do good. In order for this to be case, in order for Him to be just,
humans must be able to act freely, so they can be held accountable for their actions.
Therefore they argued that man is the creator of his own actions.
But this conflicted with the orthodox Ashari school, which thought that human free
will in this sense would restrict the sovereign freedom of the creator. All acts are created
and caused by God. God is all powerful and all knowing. Therefore man could not create
his own actions. They promulgated a more nuanced theory of free will in which man
acquired action but God remained the creator.
Aftab
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Aristotelians
On the other hand a group of early Muslim Aristotelian philosophers believed in
a deterministic universe. They rationalized the existence of God, as the first cause, on
the basis of reason. They argued if everything has a cause, and God is the first cause,
then everything else must necessarily flow from that first cause resulting in a determined
universe.
This led some of them, like Ibn Rushd, to reject free will. He writes, “Our actions
occur according to a definite pattern… The determinate order of the internal and external
causes is the decree and foreordination that God has prescribed for His creatures; that is
the Preserved Tablet” (Ibn Rushd 1998, 189.)
This view also ran contrary to the more orthodox Ashari position which argued that
a determined universe would deny God the ability to intervene within the world. A view
championed by Ghazali.
Ghazali
The influence of Ghazali upon Islamic orthodoxy cannot be understated. Richard
Frank, describes him as “the most important Sunni theologian at a crucial turning point
in the history of orthodox Muslim theology” (1987–89, 274).
Ghazali demonstrated that necessary causation was a flawed doctrine, as Hume did
many centuries later. He argued that cause and effect relationship cannot be proved; only
a temporal succession of events is seen. In Hume’s words there is no “causal glue” linking
cause to effect.
He furthermore, more importantly, showed that necessary causation resulted in
denying God freedom of will. If everything necessarily follows from previous events,
then God would not be able to interfere with the workings of the Universe. For example,
miracles would then be impossible. Therefore, for Al-Ghazali, the laws of causation were
not necessarily true and could, in theory, be suspended by God at any given time. The
primary purpose of Ghazali’s argumentation during his time was to ensure God’s freedom
of will. His position on human free will was perhaps intentionally ambiguous, secondary
to the theological debates of the time.
Professor Druart writes, “Whether or not Al-Ghazzali truly grants some agency to
human beings is dubious, but he certainly wishes to grant it fully to God” (Druart 2005,
345).
In fact in both the case of the Mutazalites and the Aristotelians the primary concern
of the orthodox Muslim theologians was preserving God’s power and freedom of will.
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics
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The doctrine of human free will that emerges from this is simply a secondary consequence
of that primary consideration.
Asha’rites
This emphasis upon granting God His attributes is a characteristic feature of Ashari
theology which would become the dominant form of scholastic theology in Sunni Islam.
Ghazali is generally identified with the Ashari school, although he may have had his
differences. The Asha’rites adopted a dualistic picture of the human person one which
consisted of a body and soul, with the soul serving as locus of personal identity. Iqbal
summarizes their view when writes,
To the Muslim school of theology of which Ghazali is the chief
exponent [presumably Asharites], the ego is a simple, indivisible, and
immutable soul-substance, entirely different from the group of our
mental states and unaffected by the passage of time. (Iqbal 2013, 80)
This type of dualism served the purposes of the orthodox Asha’rite school in
order to solve certain theological problems. However, as is being argued, Islam has no
clear doctrinal commitment to it. Therefore, Islamic dualism differs in its nature when
compared to the dualism which emerges out of Western Europe. It is worth pointing out
the distinction in the substance of Islamic dualism and the context in which it arose.
Islamic &. Cartesian Dualism
The dualism from Islamic tradition differs from the Cartesian dualism which arises
in the West. It is worth noting that Islamic dualism arises within the field of kalam, or
rational/analytic/scholastic theology. This field is understood by Muslim theologians to
be a tool or a dialectic method of dealing with intellectual challenges posed to Islamic
doctrine. Kalam is generally not equated with Islamic doctrine or dogma itself. But is
rather the art and science of defending this doctrine.
On its surface this appears to parallel the dualism we see develop in the western
tradition, namely Cartesian dualism. But the type of dualism within Islamic scholastic
theology, is not of the same category as the radical dualism found with Descartes. The
dualism within Islamic theology does not arise of out radical skepticism, but rather out
of pragmatic considerations. The primary pragmatic considerations were the rights and
attributes of God. The Islamic concepts of free will and the soul are shaped based upon
Aftab
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concepts like the life hereafter, and preserving divine attributes like omnipotence and
omniscience.
So instead of it being a theory of the human self, it is really a theory of God’s
interaction with humans. As Iqbal writes, “The unity of human consciousness which
constitutes the center of human personality never really became a point of interest in the
history of Muslim thought. The Mutakallimun regarded the soul as a mere accident which
dies with the body and is resurrected and re-created on the day of judgment” (2013, 77).
According to this view, the soul is immaterial, indivisible, immortal and unchanging.
This worked for the purposes of Islamic theological doctrines. The soul defined in this
school had to be immaterial so it could be separated from the body. It had to be indivisible
so it could not be destroyed, it had to be immortal so it could continue its life after the
body died, and it had to be unchanging so that it could act as the anchor for personal
identity. All of this was accomplished by creating the concept of the soul as a “substance.”
This view is summarized by the celebrated contemporary Muslim Philosopher Dr.
Naquib Al-Attas when he writes, “Man has a dual nature, he is both body and soul,
he is at once physical being and spirit” (1995, 143). Ghazali himself repeatedly makes
statements to the effect that “this subtle tenuous substance is the real essence of man”
(Skellie 2010, 6).
A form of this dualistic soul picture becomes part of mainstream Islamic theology.
But this happens not because there is an intrinsic Islamic basis for it but rather because it
is a convenient tool in scholastic theology to deal with certain problems posed by other
philosophers and theologians.
Origins of Islamic Dualism
To further examine how this type of dualism is different from Cartesian dualism we
must examine its origin. This type of dualism originated with Ibn Sina and his floating
man thought experiment. He asks his readers to imagine themselves suspended in air and
isolated from all sensation without even sensory contact with their own bodies. He says
the fact that we can imagine ourselves in this situation maintaining self-consciousness
independently from the body implies that the idea of the self is not dependent on a
physical thing. The soul therefore should be considered a primary given or a substance.
The type of dualism Ibn Sina introduces here is slightly more radical than that of
Aristotle who regarded the soul as the form of the body, but Ibn Sina goes further and
refers to it as a substance. Deborah Black writes,
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics
8
Ibn Sina does not reject the Aristotelian conception of the soul
outright, but he upholds a form of soul-body dualism that is foreign
to Aristotle… For Avicenna, the individual human soul is more than a
physical entity and organizing principle for the body. It is a subsistent
being in its own right, and a complete substance independent of any
relation it has to the body. (Nasr 2002, 309-10)
Ibn Sina’s experiment can be considered a precursor to Cartesian Dualism. However,
there is an important difference. Ibn Sina’s dualism is not as radical as that of Descartes.
Descartes engaged in methodological doubt, doubting literally everything and
concluding that only a metaphysical “I” could definitely exist. But Ibn Sina is not doubting
the existence of the world or even of the body, these were already accepted as real in the
Islamic worldview of his time.
Ibn Sina is only using the thought experiment as a way of securing for humanity
an existence which is more than mere physical matter. He was using it to argue against
a type of materialism that other philosophers were advocating. Despite his concept of
dualism, however, Ibn Sina recognizes close ties between soul and body. He thinks of
the body as an instrument of the Soul. He refers to it as a perfection of the body, or
the captain of a ship or ruler of a city. In other words, he is still trying to maintain a link
between the body and the soul. A link he ultimately cannot explain.
Ibn Sina was attempting to accommodate Islamic doctrines within a philosophical
framework. Ghazali who was highly influenced by Ibn Sina, went a little further and
critiqued philosophical methods when they contradicted Islamic doctrine while still
attempting to maintain a rational worldview.
Although it seems Ghazali is subscribing to Ibn Sina’s type of dualism by referring
to the soul as a subtle tenuous substance, in fact there is more to the story that this.
Even though he refers to the soul as a substance, he doesn’t seem convinced that it is
completely independent.
Jules Janssens, one of the foremost authorities on Ibn Sina in the world today writes,
Whereas Ibn Sina justifies a sharp dualism between soul and body, this
is far from the case in al-Ghazali. Indeed, he insists on the existence of
a very special connection between the “subtle” heart and the “physical”
heart. Referring to Sahl al-Tustari (d. 896) and his saying that the
heart is the throne and the body the footstool, he points out that the
relationship between them can be compared to that between God and
His throne and footstool. However, al-Ghazali remains rather vague and
Aftab
9
admits that he consciously avoid offering any deeper explanation. In
fact, he neither denies nor affirms a radical dualism between body and
soul.... His designation of the “subtle intellect” as a particular expression
for the seat of knowledge is of no real help in clarifying the issue. As
to the subtle notion of ‘spirit’, al-Ghazali says nothing about it, except
that it belongs to the “Lordly things,” offering no clear explanation
whatsoever. (2011, 619)
In Ghazali’s famous text the Incoherence of the Philosophers, Ghazali actually argues
against knowing that the soul-substance exists by pure reason, and is merely accepting it
as part of religious law. The title of Discussion 18 is as follows: On their inability to sustain
a rational demonstration [proving] that the human soul is a self-subsistent spiritual
substance that does not occupy space.
In in he writes,
We only want now to object to their claim of their knowing through
rational demonstrations that the soul is a self-subsistent substance. ….
We deny, however, their claim that reason alone indicates this, and that
there is no need for the religious law. (Marmura 2002, 178 )
For Ghazali the concept of the soul as a self-subsistent spiritual substance is
consistent with revelation and serves the purposes of theology, so there is no problem
with using it as a working theory. But even here he does not believe that this is inherently
obvious via pure reason.
So his aim is primarily to preserve the importance of religious law, and he is okay
with the contemporary concept of soul or self, which serves this purpose. We have seen
that the concern of Muslim theologians was to secure the Islamic concept of God, and the
concept of Man was simply a byproduct of ensuring that Gods attributes are preserved.
Unified Theory of Body & Soul
Putting this all in perspective, writing in the 20th Century, Iqbal then can make sense
of an Islamic view on Free Will, which does not require such a sharp dualism between the
body and the soul. Iqbal is arguing that given the problems with the classical formulation
of the problem of free will and the soul a re-examination of the core Islamic doctrines
reveals that indeed we are not committed to a dualistic picture of humans, but rather one
that is not all that different from what Dennett has proposed.
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics
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According to this view the human person occupies a central role in the Islamic
worldview. This is an underdeveloped concept in Islam’s intellectual tradition, outside
of the discipline of tasawwuf (Sufism). The Quran, he says, emphasizes the individuality
and uniqueness of man. That man is chosen of God, that he is the representative of God
on earth and he is a trustee of a free personality. To quote Iqbal again, he says, “It is
surprising that the unity of human consciousness which constitutes the centre of human
personality never really became a point of interest in the history of Muslim thought”
(Iqbal 2013, 77).
Iqbal notes the difference in the word used by the Quran for creation of objects,
khalq, with that used for the creation of the self, Amr. Amr is a directive command, it
is a dynamic word. He writes, Amr “means, [that] the essential nature of the ego is
directive, as it proceeds from the directive energy of God, though we do not know how
Divine Amr functions as ego-unities.” He writes, “the ego is present as a directive energy
and is formed and disciplined by its own experience.” And continues, “life of the ego is a
tension caused by the ego invading the environment and the environment invading the
ego” (Iqbal 2013, 82).
Iqbal writes: “Thus my real personality is not a thing; it is an act. My experience is
only a series of acts, mutually referring to one another, and held together by the unity
of directive purpose.” According to this view the mind and body become one in action:
When I take up a book from my table, my act is single and indivisible. It
is impossible to draw a line of cleavage between the share of the body
and that of the mind in this act. Somehow they must belong to the
same system, and according to the Qur’an they do belong to the same
system. “To Him belong Khalq (creation) and Amr (direction)” [7:54].
How is such a thing conceivable? We have seen that the body is not a
thing situated in an absolute void; it is a system of events or acts. The
system of experiences we call soul or ego is also a system of acts. This
does not obliterate the distinction of the soul and body, it only brings
them closer to each other. (Iqbal 2013, 84)
So according to Iqbal, we can discard thinking of selves as substances and focus on
our real complete experience, which is best manifest in action. Professor Absar Ahmad
explains this view:
The self in its efficient aspect does not depend upon any obscure or
hidden core, but depends upon what it does, has done, proposes to
Aftab
11
do, or is able to do. This self is revealed in its action; it reveals itself
and constitutes itself by acting. It is nothing before acting, and
nothing remains of it if experiences cease completely. One is not given
a ready made self in this sense; one creates one’s self daily by what
one does, what one experiences. Our behavior is not an expression
of our efficient self, but the very stuff which constitutes it. From the
side of the efficient self, then, what holds experiences together, what
gives us personality is not a substantial bond, but a functional one, a
coordinated structure of activities. Being never a finished product, the
efficient self is always in the making. It is formed throughout the course
of its life. The efficient self, so to say, has no aboriginal nucleus of its
own that exists prior to its action; it arises and takes on existence as it
acts, as it undergoes experiences. (1986, 17)
In this view there is a distinct emphasis upon action. I think at this point Iqbal’s view
is not too different from that of Daniel Dennett on this point. Dennett writes,
You have to distribute the moral agency around as well. You are not
out of the loop; you are the loop. You are that large. You are not an
extensionless point. What you do and what you are incorporates all of
these things that happen and is not a completely separate thing from
them.
Therefore, Islamic theology is not committed to dualism in the Cartesian sense.
Moving away from a dualistic form of thinking could help solve at least some of the
problems we typically associate with free will.
Journal of Cognition and Neuroethics
12
References
Druart, Th;r;se-Anne. 2005. “Metaphysics.” In The Cambridge Companion to Arabic
Philosophy, edited by Pter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, 327–48. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Ahmad, Absar. 1986. Concept of Self and Self Identity. Lahore: Iqbal Academy.
Al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid. 2002. The Incoherence of the Philosophers. Translated by Michael
Marmura. Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University.
Attas, Naquib. 1995. Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam. Kuala Lumpur:
International Institute of Islamic Thoughts and Civilization.
Blankinship, Khalid. 2008. “The Early Creed.” In The Cambridge Companion to Classical
Islamic Theology, edited by Tim Winter, 38-42. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Dennett, Daniel C. 2003. Freedom Evolves. New York: Viking.
Frank, Richard. 1987–89. “Al-Ghazali’s Use of Avicenna’s Philosophy.” Revue des Etudes
Islamiques 55–57: 271–284.
Ibn Rushd. 2001. Faith and Reason in Islam: Averoes’ Exposition of Religious Arguments.
Translated by Ibrahim Najjar. Oxford: Oneworld.
Iqbal, Muhammad. 2013. Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Janssens, Jules. 2011. “Al-Ghaz;l; between Philosophy (Falsafa) and Sufism (Tasawwuf):
His Complex Attitude in the Marvels of the Heart (‘Aj;’ib al-Qalb) of the Ihy;’ ‘Ul;m
al-D;n.” Muslim World 101 (4): 614–632.
Nasr, Sayyed Hossein. 2002. Encyclopaedia of Islamic Philosophy. Lahore: Suhail
Academy.1
Free Will and the Bounds of the Self1
[Forthcoming in Robert Kane, ed. Oxford Handbook
of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press]
Joshua Knobe Shaun Nichols
Yale University University of Arizona
If you start taking courses in contemporary cognitive science, you will soon encounter a
particular picture of the human mind. This picture says that the mind is a lot like a computer.
Specifically, the mind is made up of certain states and certain processes. These states and
processes interact, in accordance with certain general rules, to generate specific behaviors. If you
want to know how those states and processes got there in the first place, the only answer is that
they arose through the interaction of other states and processes, which arose from others... until,
ultimately, the chain goes back to factors in our genes and our environment. Hence, one can
explain human behavior just by positing a collection of mental states and psychological
processes and discussing the ways in which these states and processes interact.
This picture of the mind sometimes leaves people feeling deeply uncomfortable. They
find themselves thinking something like: 'If the mind actually does work like that, it seems like
we could never truly be morally responsible for anything we did. After all, we would never be
free to choose any behavior other than the one we actually performed. Our behaviors would just
follow inevitably from certain facts about the configuration of the states and processes within us.'
Many philosophers think that this sort of discomfort is fundamentally confused or
wrongheaded. They think that the confusion here can be cleared up just by saying something
like: 'Wait! It doesn't make any sense to say that the interaction of these states and processes is
preventing you from controlling your own life. The thing you are forgetting is that the interaction
of these states and processes – this whole complex system described by cognitive science – is
simply you. So when you learn that these states and processes control your behavior, all you are
learning is that you are controlling your behavior. There is no reason at all to see these
discoveries as a threat to your freedom or responsibility.'2
Philosophers may regard this argument as a powerful one, perhaps even irrefutable. Yet
we doubt that people will generally find this response fully comforting. Rather, we suspect that
people will continue to have the sense that if everything is controlled by these states and
processes, somehow they themselves cannot be fully free or responsible.
Our aim here is to get at the sources of this discomfort and thereby gain some insight into
whether or not it is warranted. We will argue that the worry people feel about these issues
reflects something fundamental about the way they normally think about the sources of human
1 We are grateful to Verity Harte, Rachana Kamtekar, Tamar Kushnir, Tania Lombrozo, Eddy Nahmias, Jonathan
Phillips, and Manuel Vargas for discussion and comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
2 Dennett (1984) provides a contemporary instance of this sort of argument, but the basic idea can be traced all the
way back to Chrysippus. According to Chrysippus, my actions are produced by me precisely because they are
produced by my nature and character (see, e.g., Annas, 2001, 21), so discovering that my character caused my
actions could hardly count as a problem.
2
action. In particular, we will suggest that the worry stems from certain complex aspects of the
way people ordinarily conceive of the bounds of the self.
1. Experimental Philosophy of Free Will
Consider again the picture we inherit from the sciences. It is a picture according to which
human actions are caused by certain states and processes, which are in turn caused by yet earlier
states and processes... and so forth. Our aim is to explain why people regard this picture as a
threat to their sense of freedom and responsibility, and we will be devoting most of this chapter
to developing an explanatory framework and discussing experimental studies designed to test it.
But first we need to complete a preliminary step. We asserted above that people feel threatened
by the prospects of a complete scientific explanation of human behavior, but we need to show
that this is the case, that people actually do regard this picture as a threat to their sense of
freedom and responsibility.
Now, one obvious way of examining people's intuitions here would be to present
experimental subjects with a story of an agent who performs some dastardly deed, tell them to
imagine that it was brought about through a particular sort of causal process, and then ask them
whether the agent is morally responsible for what he has done. As it happens, a number of
experimental studies have made use of this approach, and the results have been rather surprising.
The key finding is that people show an extraordinary willingness to hold agents responsible,
pretty much regardless of the nature of the process that leads up to their actions. People say that
an agent can be responsible for his actions when they are told that this agent's actions are the
inevitable result of his genes and environment (Nahmias, Morris, Nadelhoffer & Turner 2006),
when they are told that the agent lives in a completely deterministic universe (Nahmias et al.
2006), even when they are told the agent has a neurological disorder and that if anyone else had
this illness, he or she would behave in the same way (De Brigard, Mandelbaum & Ripley
forthcoming).
These experimental results are fascinating, and we certainly agree that they have a lot to
teach us about the nature of people's attributions of moral responsibility. But we also think that
there is more to the story. It may be true that people are willing to say that an agent who
performs some horrible misdeed can still be morally responsible even if his act was the result of
a neurological disorder, but that does not mean that people do not see neurological disorders as
being at all relevant to moral responsibility judgments. Perhaps people do see these disorders as
threatening their intuitive sense of freedom and moral responsibility, but then there is some
separate process at work that is overcome by the concrete, vivid, affect-laden character of the
stories and therefore ends up driving people to regard these agents as responsible.
Accordingly, we conducted an experiment that made it possible to systematically vary the
concreteness vs. abstractness of the questions subjects were asked (Nichols & Knobe 2007). All
subjects in the experiment began by reading a description of two universes:
Imagine a universe (Universe A) in which everything that happens is
completely caused by whatever happened before it. This is true from the very
beginning of the universe, so what happened in the beginning of the universe
caused what happened next, and so on right up until the present. For example
one day John decided to have French Fries at lunch. Like everything else, this
decision was completely caused by what happened before it. So, if everything in
3
this universe was exactly the same up until John made his decision, then it had
to happen that John would decide to have French Fries.
Now imagine a universe (Universe B) in which almost everything that happens
is completely caused by whatever happened before it. The one exception is
human decision making. For example, one day Mary decided to have French
Fries at lunch. Since a person’s decision in this universe is not completely
caused by what happened before it, even if everything in the universe was
exactly the same up until Mary made her decision, it did not have to happen that
Mary would decide to have French Fries. She could have decided to have
something different.
The key difference, then, is that in Universe A every decision is completely
caused by what happened before the decision – given the past, each decision has
to happen the way that it does. By contrast, in Universe B, decisions are not
completely caused by the past, and each human decision does not have to
happen the way that it does.
Subjects were then randomly assigned either to the abstract condition or the concrete condition.
Subjects in the abstract condition received the following question:
In Universe A, is it possible for a person to be fully morally responsible for their
actions?
YES NO
Meanwhile, subjects in the concrete condition received a question that asked about a particular
concrete individual who performs a specific misdeed:
In Universe A, a man named Bill has become attracted to his secretary, and he
decides that the only way to be with her is to kill his wife and 3 children. He
knows that it is impossible to escape from his house in the event of a fire.
Before he leaves on a business trip, he sets up a device in his basement that
burns down the house and kills his family.
Is Bill fully morally responsible for killing his wife and children?
YES NO
The results revealed a striking difference between the two conditions. Only a small minority of
subjects in the abstract condition (14%) said that people in Universe A could be morally
responsible, but the vast majority of subjects in the concrete condition (72%) said that Bill was
morally responsible for what he had done. In other words, it seems that people do see the chain
of causation in Universe A as a threat to their intuitive notions of freedom and moral
responsibility, but it also seems that there is something about the presentation of a vivid,
concrete, affect-laden example that drives people to think that the characters in such examples
actually can be morally responsible.
Now, looking at these results, one striking feature is that participants are much more
willing to ascribe moral responsibility in the concrete condition than they are in the abstract
condition. A number of hypotheses have been offered to explain this effect, and researchers
4
continue to debate the empirical and theoretical support for these contrasting opinions
(Mandelbaum & Ripley 2009; Nichols & Knobe 2007; Sinnott-Armstrong 2008; Sosa 2006), but
we will not be pursuing the issue further here. Instead, our aim is to focus on a simpler and more
basic problem. We want to understand why it is that people are so reluctant to ascribe moral
responsibility in the abstract condition in the first place. What exactly is it about Universe A that
makes people reluctant to say that the agents within it can be morally responsible for their
actions?
The first thing to establish here is that the results obtained thus far are not simply due to
some kind of experimental artifact. For example, some may believe the response pattern arises
from the fact that participants were asked whether individuals could be ‘fully morally
responsible.’ This wording, it might be thought, appears to call for an especially metaphysically
loaded sort of judgment which might differ from the sort of judgment elicited by more ordinary
terms like 'free will' or 'blame.' However, subsequent studies showed that similar responses were
given even when participants were directly asked whether people in a universe like the one
described here could have 'free will' (Feltz, Cokely & Nadelhoffer, 2009; Roskies & Nichols,
2008) or when they were simply asked whether such people ‘should still be morally blamed’
(Roskies & Nichols, 2008). So it does not appear that the pattern of responses is merely an
artifact of the way the question is phrased.
Others have suggested that the pattern of results might have arisen because of certain
infelicities in the description of the Universe A itself. Subjects are told that “it had to happen”
that the agent would act as she did, which might be taken to suggest an extreme form of fatalism
according to which people's mental states and psychological processes have no impact on their
behaviors (Feltz, et al., 2009; Nahmias, 2006; Nahmias, Coates & Kvaran, 2007). But this too
appears to be a red herring. Subsequent work has shown that participants give the very same
responses even when all of this language is removed (Misenheimer, 2009). In fact Pacer (2010)
has shown that this same effect emerges when an agent’s actions are explained in terms of a
complex chain of cognitive processes, with each event completely causing the one after it.
Finally, some might object that the pattern of intuitions observed in these studies does not
reveal any kind of general truth about human cognition but simply reflects certain idiosyncratic
facts about one particular culture. Perhaps people's intuitions in these cases are influenced in
some way by the contemporary American emphasis on individual autonomy. Or perhaps people
have been affected by certain strands of Western philosophy or theology (arriving at certain
conclusions as the result of explicit religious instruction). We certainly agree that these are very
plausible hypotheses, but the empirical evidence thus far has not been kind to them. In a recent
study, subjects from India, Hong Kong, Colombia and the United States were all presented with
the abstract condition of the experiment described above (Sarkissian, Chatterjee, De Brigard,
Knobe, Nichols & Sirker forthcoming). Strikingly, the majority of subjects in all four of these
cultures said that no one could be fully morally responsible in a deterministic universe, and there
were no significant cross-cultural differences in people's responses. In short, the effect here does
not appear to be specific to any one culture; there really does seem to be a general, cross-cultural
tendency whereby people are drawn to the view that moral responsibility is not possible in a
deterministic universe.
We find these results deeply puzzling and mysterious. The question of free will is a very
complex one, which philosophers have been debating for millennia. Yet ordinary people, many
of whom have never thought about these questions before, seem somehow to immediately
converge on one particular answer. In fact, we find this convergence even across four different
5
cultures, with radically different religious and philosophical traditions. What could possibly
explain this striking pattern of intuitions?
2. Understanding the Threat to Free Will
In thinking through this difficult question, we can begin by taking a cue from the
philosophical literature. Philosophers have developed careful, systematic accounts of the ways in
which a scientific perspective on human action might provide a threat to free will, and we can
begin our inquiry by looking to these philosophical accounts for inspiration. Of course, it will not
be possible to look in detail at each of the prominent philosophical accounts, but it seems that
these accounts fall naturally into certain broad families, and we can therefore proceed by looking
in a general way at a few different families of approaches.
One broad family focuses on the distinction, familiar from discussions of modern
physics, between determinism and indeterminism. The distinction here centers on certain claims
about the laws of nature governing our universe. So, for example, Newtonian mechanics is
typically regarded as a deterministic theory, whereas certain interpretations of quantum
mechanics count as indeterministic. The only way to know which type of law of nature governs
our own universe is to do research in the foundations of physics.
Some philosophers have argued that questions about the laws of nature are deeply
relevant to issues about free will and moral responsibility (Ginet 1990; Kane 1996; van Inwagen
1983). They say that free will and moral responsibility are not possible in a universe governed by
deterministic laws. Such claims lead immediately to difficult questions of metaphysics and
philosophy of science, and contemporary discussions of them focus heavily on quite complex
logical principles. For example, there has been a surge of work examining the validity of the
controversial 'rule beta':
Np
N(p ; q)
–––––
Nq
(Meaning that one can infer from the claim that no one has a choice about whether p and the
claim that no one has a choice about whether p entails q to the claim that no one has a choice
about whether q.)
Now, it might turn out that ordinary folks can be brought to see the force of these sorts of
arguments, but we think it is highly unlikely that arguments from this family are getting at the
root of people's intuitive worry about free will. In particular, it seems that people do not
ordinarily understand their world in terms of laws of nature. They might acquire the concept of
laws of nature when taking physics courses, but it seems unlikely that this concept plays an
important role in their intuitive conception of how the world works, and it therefore seems
implausible that their principal worry about free will is a worry that the laws of nature might turn
out to be deterministic. The intuitive problem presumably lies elsewhere. (Indeed, even within
the traditional philosophical literature, the free will problem was often posed not in terms of
deterministic laws of nature but simply in terms of the idea that each event might be caused by
some event that occurred before it; see, e.g., Spinoza 1992/1677.)
6
Let us therefore turn to the second major family of philosophical accounts. This second
family focuses on the self and the worry that the self might turn out not to be the source of
human action (Nietzsche 1989/1887; Spinoza 1992/1677; Strawson 1986). On this second sort of
view, the central worry is not really about deterministic laws of nature. Rather, determinism is
merely serving to crystallize or make salient another sort of worry. The central concern is that we
might discover that when an agent acts, she herself is not in some relevant sense the source of
her own actions.
In a series of recent papers, Eddy Nahmias and colleagues have argued that people's
intuitive worry about free will actually takes this second form (Nahmias 2006; Nahmias, Kvaran
& Coates 2007; Nahmias & Murray forthcoming). Their suggestion is that the intuitive worry
about free will stems from the thought that the causal chain leading up to our actions might turn
out to bypass the self entirely. In other words, the worry is that the self is epiphenomenal with
respect to action.
Perhaps the easiest way to bring out the force of this idea is by introducing a simple
example. Suppose we discover that John's actions are entirely determined by the states of his
brain. We might then experience a worry that John does not have free will. But why? On the
hypothesis under discussion now, the worry here is fundamentally about the role of John's self in
his own actions. That is, when people hear that John's actions are determined by his brain states,
they do not think: 'Oh no! So our universe is governed by deterministic laws that link brain states
to behavior...' Rather, they think something like: 'Oh no! So it isn't really John who gets to
decide what to do; it's merely his brain that is controlling all his actions...' Nahmias and
colleagues have presented an impressive array of experimental evidence for this hypothesis, and
we think that they are on exactly the right track.
But, of course, even if this hypothesis helps to answer certain questions, it also raises a
host of new questions of its own. Why exactly would anyone worry that the self is
epiphenomenal in this way? Why would our experimental stimuli trigger that worry? And what
is it about contemporary work in cognitive science that makes the worry seem so pressing?
One way to address this question would be to suggest that people are simply falling
victim to some kind of straightforward confusion. One might think that people are somehow
failing to read the vignettes in the questionnaires correctly. Or that they are getting confused
about the relationship between brain and mind. Or that they don't quite understand what
determinism involves. All of these hypotheses are plausible ones, which would be worthy of
further theoretical and empirical exploration.
Our aim here, however, is to propose a very different hypothesis. We want to suggest that
people's intuitions in these cases are not merely the result of confusion but reflect something
deep and fundamental about the concepts they ordinarily use to make sense of the world. In
particular, we will argue that these intuitions are pointing at something important about the way
people ordinarily think about of the self.
3. Three Conceptions of the Self
We noted above that the pattern of responses in recent experimental studies leaves us with a
puzzle. Most people have presumably given little thought to the problem of free will, and yet,
when experimental philosophers present them with these strange questions about alternate
universes, they seem somehow to converge on the same pattern of responses. Given that the
7
questions are so bizarre and unfamiliar, why is it that most people respond in this same way? We
can now propose a hypothesis about how this convergence arises. Our hypothesis will be that
people arrive at the same intuitions about free will because they share the same basic way of
understanding the self.
To really unpack this hypothesis, we will report a series of new experimental studies. But
first we need to refine our conceptual framework. We begin by considering a basic question –
what exactly is the self? More specifically, what are the bounds of the self – what falls inside and
outside the self?
The issue here seems straightforward enough. Suppose that we are observing John and
trying to figure out whether he himself is in control of his actions. To do this, we need to draw a
distinction between two different types of factors. On one hand, there is John himself; on the
other, there is the broader situation in which he happens to be embedded. But how exactly can
we distinguish between these two types of factors? In some cases, it may all seem perfectly
simple – the temperature in the room is clearly an aspect of John's situation, not a part of John
himself – but there may be other cases in which the distinction proves harder to grasp. If John
has a broken arm, would that be a problem in John himself or merely a difficult aspect of the
situation that he happens to be confronting? What if he had a brain tumor? Our aim here is to
arrive at a better understanding of the way people ordinarily make sense of these questions.
Fortunately, we already have before us a rich source of hypotheses. After all, in
philosophy, questions about the nature of the self are at least as old as questions about free will
and determinism. So we might begin by considering various conceptions of the self that have
been articulated by philosophers. We focus here on three particularly prominent approaches.
3.1. The bodily conception of the self
One conception of the self is that the self contains everything from the skin in. So your
brain is part of you, but so are your feet, your intestines, and so forth. This conception certainly
does have a strong appeal. The body is, after all, the primary means by which we typically
identify each other. And if a falling tree breaks John's leg, it seems that this damages John – it
would seem implausible to say that the tree didn't hit John himself but only his body.
In philosophical work on the self, the identification of the self with the body forms a
venerable tradition. It emerges, for example, in Nietzsche's dictum:
"Body am I, and soul"—so says the child. And why should one not speak
like children?
But the awakened one, the knowing one, says: "Body am I entirely, and
nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body."
[…] Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord,
an unknown sage—it is called Self. It dwells in your body, it is your body.
(Nietzsche 1999/1883 I 4, our translation)
This basic conception of the self has been developed, though with important variations, in much
contemporary work within the analytic tradition (e.g., Carter 1990, Olson 1997, Williams 1970).
Such work emphasizes that human beings are fundamentally animals and that a proper
understanding of the self must take account of our nature as embodied organisms.
If the bodily conception is right, it’s hard to see how the epiphenomenal worry would
even get off the ground. Certainly scientific work provides no basis for worrying that bodily
8
processes are left out of decision-making. Although there is abundant scientific disagreement
about the self and its role in decision, none of the prominent accounts would deny that decisions
are generated by stuff inside our bodies.
But the fact that the bodily conception of the self renders the epiphenomenal worry
toothless does not end the discussion. For the bodily conception of the self is hardly the only
available conception. On a ‘thinner’ conception of the self, certain factors that lie within the
body could nonetheless fall outside the bounds of the self. On such an account, even if we
acknowledge that an agent's actions are under the control of factors within that agent's body, this
doesn’t settle the question as to whether those actions were under the control of the agent herself.
Our aim is to explore the idea that people's ordinary understanding of the self might
actually rely on such a thinner conception. But for present purposes, we are focusing
on philosophical treatments of the self. And the bodily conception of the self has been disputed
from the beginning of Western philosophy. Already in the Socratic dialogues we find a vigorous
rejection of the bodily view.3 As Socrates is about to drink his hemlock, Crito asks, "in what
fashion are we to bury you?" Socrates then upbraids Crito for thinking that the object that will be
buried is Socrates himself. The object that will be buried, he says, is merely a body, while
Socrates himself is something quite different:
Friends, I can't persuade Crito that I am Socrates here, the one who is now
conversing and arranging each of these things being discussed, but he imagines
I'm that dead body he'll see in a little while, so he goes and asks how he's to
bury me!
After Socrates dies, there will still be a body in the room, but Socrates himself will no longer be
present. Therefore, the body of Socrates and Socrates himself must somehow be distinct things.
This is a powerful philosophical argument. But if the self isn’t simply the body, what other
conceptions are available? Two prominent conceptions follow.
3.2. The psychological conception of the self
Instead of a bodily approach to the self, we might adopt a more restrictive notion of the
self – one on which fewer things count as part of the self and more counts as external and merely
part of the environment. One might adopt the view that only psychological things associated
with a body are part of the self; the feet, intestines, and so forth are merely external objects to
which the self happens to be attached. What really matter are the memories, convictions,
aspirations, etc. That's what constitutes the self. On this view, the physical features of one's body
are often obstacles to the self. For instance, the physical features can impede the aspirations and
convictions that make the self. If my foot is broken, this is plausibly a problem that I face. My
broken foot doesn't constitute me, even in part; rather my broken foot is external to who I really
am – it's a problem that I confront.
This psychological approach to the self also has much in its favor. It draws support from
the philosophical tradition according to which much of what we regard as most important about
our selves is precisely our memories, convictions, and so forth (cf. Locke 1979/1847, Parfit
1986). It also draws support from the assumption, widely shared within cognitive science, that
the only tenable view of the self will be given in terms of psychological states and processes.
3 Strikingly, the bodily conception is also disputed in the independently developed philosophical tradition of India.
In the Chandogya Upanisad, the sage Maghavan says “This body… is mortal… So, it is the abode of this immortal
and nonbodily self.” (6.12.1).
9
If this psychological conception is the right view of the self, it’s easier to see how science
might show that the self isn’t in charge. For if science shows that out behavior is caused by nonpsychological
processes in our bodies, this will mean that the behavior isn't caused by the self.
On the psychological conception of the self, if the self is the cause of our behavior, it must be the
case that our psychological features cause our behavior. If instead science shows that
psychological features are irrelevant to behavior, then the self is indeed epiphenomenal.4
Notice, however, that on a view like this one, the purely cognitive sciences would be no
threat at all to free will. Learning that one's actions are caused by one's own mental states would
only help to confirm the conviction that one was free.5
3.3. The executive conception of the self
There is, however, a third possible conception of the self on which the cognitive sciences
pose a deep and abiding threat. Instead of adopting the view that the self is just a bunch of mental
states, one might suppose that the self is really some further thing, something over and above the
various mental states one might have. On this view, the particular mental states you have are
external to the self, much as intestines are external to the self on the previous view.
It’s easy to see advantages of the view. Just as my broken foot is plausibly external to
who I am, there is some force to the idea that the particular psychological characteristics I have
are external to who I am. Thus, suppose John has always had a longing to become a famous
guitarist but also suffers from extreme stagefright. On the conception of the self under discussion
here, both the longing for fame and the stagefright would just be aspects of the situation John
happens to be confronting. However, there would then be some further thing – John himself –
which could consider these various drives and emotions and make a decision based on them. So
John would count as in control of his actions to the extent that his actions were determined not
by his individual psychological states (the longing, the fear, etc.) but by an executive that could
consider these states and arrive at a decision.
This view of the self has deep roots in intellectual history. It is plausibly the dominant
strand of thought about the self in ancient philosophy. There, the common view is that the self is
the soul, the seat of psychological states and the source of action. This is particularly clear in
Stoic philosophy, in which the soul is a commanding-faculty (“hegemonikon”), which thinks,
plans, and decides (Baltzly 2008), and it is this commanding faculty that is thought to be
separable from the body (cf. Sextus Empiricus 1949/2000 7.234).
We thus seem to get a glimpse of the executive conception of the self in ancient
philosophy, but it is only in the early modern period that this executive conception is explicitly
differentiated from the psychological conception. For instance, on Reid's theory, the self is the
4 If, as suggested by the hypothesis of folk dualism (e.g. Bloom 2004, 2006), people think of the mind as something
entirely non-physical, separate in every way from the human body, then we should expect people to find this threat
quite vivid. Demonstrating that our behavior is controlled by physical processes (neurons or whatever) would
undermine the idea that it is one’s (non-physical) mental states that are doing the work.
5 Obviously there are further distinctions available within the general psychological approach to the self. For
instance, one might think that the self is a proper subset of one's psychological states. Researchers have proposed a
number of accounts along these basic lines, each picking out a different subset to count as the self. (Frankfurt 1971,
Watson 1975, and Wolf 1990 offer somewhat different accounts. For discussion of a very different proposal about
which psychological states constitute the self, see Gide 2000/1902.) In the experimental studies reported below, we
will be asking whether ordinary people hold a simple psychological conception of the self, but these same
experimental methods could be used to ask whether people’s intuitions follow any version of the subset view.
10
soul, and it is also the agent that causes decisions.6 Reid memorably insists that the
psychological approach to the self perverts the relationship between the self and its
psychological states: “I am not thought, I am not action, I am not feeling; I am something that
thinks, and acts, and suffers.” (Reid 1785/1969 341). On such a view, the psychological states
don’t constitute the self, they belong to the self, and the self makes its decisions in light of the
psychological states, but not as a simple consequence of the states.
If this view of the self is right, then an account of decision making in terms of
psychological churning and processing would leave the self out entirely. If the self is something
other than our psychological characteristics, then insofar as psychological states are in the
driver’s seat the self isn’t. Of course, just as you have intestines, you also have various desires,
emotions, etc., but on this view of the self, it is not as though these desires, emotions, etc. just
interact with each other in some complex way and then produce your actions. Rather, you are
confronted with these desires, emotions, etc., and then you choose in light of all of them which
action to perform. On this view, the self is an executive that stands apart from the particular
mental states that inform her decision. In this sense, it is like the president of a country. The
president might listen to various advisors representing various constituencies and then make a
decision. But the president himself is not just a bunch of advisors and constituencies. He is some
further thing that can listen to the advisors – but can also choose to go against their advice.
3.4. Commonsense and the three conceptions
On some of these views of the self, it is simply obvious that if your actions are controlled
by your desires and values, then they are controlled by you, whereas on other views, it should be
obvious that if your actions are controlled by your desires and values, then they are not
controlled by you. At first glance, it might seem that our task is correspondingly clear – if we
want to determine whether epiphenomenalism is a looming threat to our ordinary view of the self
in action, we need only discover which notion of the self is at play in common sense.
We fear, however, that the task is not nearly so straightforward. For we think that the
diverse philosophical views on the self are not pristine inventions of academic philosophers.
Rather, we suspect that these different views of the self all reflect important strands of
commonsense thought about the self. In some contexts, people think of the self as the body, in
other contexts, it’s the psychology, and in other contexts, it’s neither. People shift between these
different views of the self depending on the way in which they are thinking of the problem. A
proper theory in this domain needs to adequately reflect this complexity, getting at the sources of
our attraction to the different conceptions and the nature of the ensuing conflict. But merely
speculating about this is one thing. What we need to do now is formulate hypotheses about what
factors of a situation might make people incline to one conception rather than another.
4. Shifting perspectives and the conceptions of self
Developing hypotheses about the factors influencing how people think about the self difficult
task, and it might be best to begin by approaching it somewhat indirectly. Instead of starting in
immediately with these vexed questions about the constituents of the self, we can begin by
looking at a far simpler analogue: a question about the constituents of a corporation.
6 On such "agent-causation" views, the agent causes the action without the agent herself being caused to do so. In
that sense, agent-causal views do reject deterministic accounts of decision making. For on agent-causal views, the
agent herself is not determined to decide one way rather than another.
11
Looking at a typical business deal, one might observe that there is a corporation which,
taken as a whole, is performing certain actions, and one might also see that there are various
other objects – buildings, employees, etc. – which appear to be playing an important role. But
now it seems that a question arises about the relations among these distinct entities. Are the
buildings, employees, etc. literally constituents of the corporation itself, or should one say that
the corporation is some radically different kind of thing, such that things like buildings and
employees could never literally be parts of it? We maintain that people do not have any single,
stable approach to making sense of this sort of question. They have a capacity for thinking about
things like corporations, and they have a capacity for thinking about things like buildings and
employees, but they do not have a single fixed picture of the relationship between the former and
the latter. Instead, their intuitions about questions like this one can vary greatly depending on the
particular type of perspective they adopt.
First, suppose that we are looking out at an entire city and thinking about what might be
going on in each of its various neighborhoods. One of us might point over at a particular location
and say: ‘Those buildings are part of Microsoft, while those over there are part of Intel.’ In this
sort of context, such a remark might seem perfectly natural. We could immediately see how
certain buildings would be part of one corporation while others could be part of a separate
corporation.
But now suppose we adopt a different perspective. Suppose we zoom in on one specific
building and consider it in detail. We are thinking about the building’s physical structure, the
chemical composition of its bricks and mortar. It might then seem a bit bizarre to suppose that
this building – an actual physical object – could literally be a part of a corporation. Indeed, it
may begin to seem that if one really understood what it is to be a building and what it is to be a
corporation, one would have to see that the former just isn’t even the sort of thing that could
possibly be a part of the latter.
Assuming now that these claims about people’s intuitions are correct, let us sum up the
basic pattern. There seems to be a distinction between the perspective we adopt when we are
zooming out and the perspective we adopt when zooming in. When one ‘zooms out’ to consider a
vast panorama of different objects and processes, it may seem obvious that certain buildings
count as part of a corporation. But if one then ‘zooms in’ to think about one particular building in
detail, it may begin to appear that this building could not possibly be part of a corporation at all.
Hence, it may be that people do not have any single, stable view about what lies inside or outside
of a corporation. As their perspective changes, so does their conception of the corporation’s
constituents.
We now want to suggest that a similar phenomenon arises for people’s conceptions of
the self. That is, we will be arguing that people do not have any single, stable view about what
lies inside or outside of the self. People have a capacity for thinking about agents, and they have
capacities for thinking about things like bodily parts and mental states, but they do not have a
single fixed sense of the relationship between the agents themselves and the bodies and mental
states with which they are associated. Instead, people’s intuitions about this relationship depend
in part on the perspective they are adopting at the time.
Consider in this light our earlier question about the relationship between the body and
the self. Do the parts of John’s body truly count as parts of John himself? Or are they merely
aspects of the situation in which he happens to be embedded? One way to approach this question
would be to consider the entire planet and to ask, for each thing on this planet, whether it lies
inside or outside of John. When we zoom out this far, it may begin to seem perfectly obvious that
12
anything in John’s body has to count as a genuine part of John. (It would seem a bit bizarre in
this context to say: ‘John’s pancreas is not actually a part of him; it is just a part of his body,
which is something else entirely.’) But now suppose we adopt a different perspective. Suppose
we zoom in closely and begin thinking in detail about all the factors, both mental and physical,
that went into one particular decision John made on one specific occasion. John has always spent
most of his income on his children but is now facing some serious health problems, and the
question is whether he will decide to start spending his money on expensive medicines instead.
Looking at this sort of case, our intuitions may begin to shift. It may begin to seem quite
tempting to suggest that John’s pancreas is not best understood as a part of his self at all – that it
is merely an aspect of the situation in which he happens to be embedded.
Or consider the question about the relationship between a person’s self and his or her
various mental states. Suppose first that we are confronted with some quite intricate social
situation, involving dozens of different people, and we are trying to get at the source of a
particular problem, say, that a business venture is underfunded. If we now discover that the
problem can be traced back to something about John’s anxieties and fears, we might immediately
conclude that the problem lies within John himself. (It would be a bit odd even to consider the
objection that John’s emotions are not properly regarded as parts of John.) But now suppose we
switch over to a more zoomed-in perspective. Suppose we focus on the details of the case in
which John is forced to make a decision. He plans to perform a specific action but then finds
himself overcome by anxieties and fears, and the big question is whether he will be able to go
through with the plan nonetheless. In this latter sort of context, it might seem fairly natural to
regard the anxieties and fears, not as parts of John himself, but as a particularly difficult aspect of
the situation he now faces. John, when we focus closely on him, is identified with a thin,
executive self.
With this general theoretical framework in place, we can now put forward a specific
testable prediction. Consider a case in which an outcome is caused by John’s emotions (without
involving any actual choice on his part), and now suppose we ask whether John caused the
outcome. People should respond differently to this question depending on their perspective:
• When they zoom out to consider the broader context, they will regard John's emotions as
part of John's self, and they will therefore conclude that John himself did cause the
outcome.
• But when they zoom in to consider that behavior in isolation, they will adopt a
conception according to which John's emotions do not count as a part of his self, and
they will conclude that he did not cause the outcome.
This, at least, is the theory. To decide whether this theory is true, we need to gather some
additional data.
5. Experimental Studies
The basic methodology behind our experimental studies is a simple one. Subjects were
presented with cases in which it was clear that John's body or his psychological states brought
about a particular outcome, and they were then asked whether they agreed with the claim that
13
John brought about that outcome. The aim was to use this methodology to get a better
understanding of how people think about the bounds of the self.
If people think that John simply is his body or his psychological states, then whenever
John's body or his psychological states causes an outcome, they should think that John himself
caused that outcome. But that is not the pattern of intuitions we predict. Instead, we predict that
people's intuitions will vary depending on their perspective. The more they zoom out to consider
a broader context, the more they should feel that John counts as the cause of the outcome in
question. By contrast, the more they zoom in to consider the details of the process leading up to
this one particular behavior, the more they should feel that John himself does not count as a
cause at all.
Study 1
Ultimately, our aim is to look at the contrast between zoomed-out cases and zoomed-in
cases, but before introducing zoomed-out cases, we thought it might be best to explore how
people think about the issue in zoomed-in cases in which we ask people to look in detail at the
process leading up to one specific behavior. In particular, we wanted to determine whether there
are conditions under which people would say that the person didn't cause an outcome, even
though the outcome was a product of the person's psychological states.
So, for this first experiment, we looked at a case in which John's eye blinks rapidly. Each
subject was randomly assigned either to one of two conditions. In one condition, subjects
received what we will call the choice-cause case:
Suppose John’s eye blinks rapidly because he wants to send a signal to a friend
across the room.
Please tell us whether you agree or disagree with the following statement:
• John caused his eye to blink.
In the other condition, subjects received what we will call the emotion-cause case:
Suppose John’s eye blinks rapidly because he is so startled and upset.
Please tell us whether you agree or disagree with the following statement:
• John caused his eye to blink.
Subjects rated each statement on a scale from 1 ('disagree') to 7 ('agree').
Notice the force of the question in the emotion-cause case. The scenario makes it clear
that the blinking is being caused by John's psychological states, namely, by his being upset. So if
participants actually do hold a psychological conception of the self (according to which John
simply is his psychological states), they should conclude that the blinking is caused by John
himself.
But we predict that participants will not adopt a psychological conception of the self in
this case. Since the scenario encourages participants to zoom in on the processes underlying a
specific behavior, they should instead adopt a narrower conception, like the executive
conception. On this conception, John's emotions do not actually count as part of John himself.
14
Instead, John is seen as some kind of further entity which can take into account these various
emotions and then make a choice. Thus, participants should regard John himself as a cause in the
choice-cause condition but not in the emotion-cause condition.
Indeed, that is exactly what we found. Subjects tended to agree with the claim that John
caused the outcome in the choice-cause case, while they tended to disagree with the claim that
John caused the outcome in the emotion-cause case. This difference was statistically significant.7
Our aim is to use results like this one as part of an extremely simple argument. It is clear
in a case like this one that the ensemble of John's psychological states caused an outcome, but
people nonetheless say that John himself did not cause the outcome. Therefore, people do not
conceive of John himself as simply being the ensemble of his psychological states.
Of course, this isn't the only hypothesis that fits the data. We won't be able to address all
available alternative hypotheses here, but we can chip away at some of the major contenders.
Study 2
To begin with, we are assuming that the above case is a clear instance of John's
psychological states causing his behavior. But someone might reject this assumption. Someone
might say that people's ordinary concept of causation is actually more complex than we have
been assuming and that people's ordinary intuition is that these behaviors are neither caused by
John nor caused by his psychological states. Alternatively, someone might say that reactions of
startle and anxiety aren’t the kind of psychological states that constitute a person. (It might be
said, e.g., that only states like thoughts and goals are truly internal to the self.) These are
certainly reasonable worries, and to address them, we conducted a second study.
In this second study, all subjects were given the following case:
• John’s hand trembled because he thought about asking his boss for a
promotion.
All subjects were then asked whether they agreed or disagreed with two statements about this
case. One of the statements was quite similar to the one used in the emotion-cause condition of
Study 1:
• John caused his hand to tremble.
The other statement was then exactly like the first, except that the word 'John' was replaced with
'John's thoughts':
• John's thoughts caused his hand to tremble.
The order of the two statements was counterbalanced, but there were no order effects.
As predicted, these two statements led to two very different responses. People tended to
disagree with the statement that John caused his hand to tremble, but they tended to agree with
the statement that John's thoughts caused his hand to tremble.8 In other words, the results yielded
an especially stark version of the effect obtained in the earlier study. People are apparently happy
to say that the outcome was not caused by John himself but was caused by John’s thoughts. This
suggests that people conceive of John himself as being something distinct from his thoughts.
7 N = 30 people spending time in a New York public park, mean for choice-cause 5.5 out of 7, mean for emotioncause
2.6 out of 7, t(28) = 3.8, p = .001.
8 N=41 students in introductory philosophy classes at University of Arizona. Mean agreement response for "John's
thoughts caused" was 5.8 out of 7; mean response for "John caused" was 3.76 out of 7. This difference is statistically
significant (t(40)= 3.97, p<.001)
15
Moreover, we expect that much the same result would emerge if we picked any other
class of mental states – desires, urges, convictions, etc. That is, we expect that people would be
willing to say about various cases that John's desires (convictions, urges, etc.) caused his
behavior even though John didn't cause it. If the result generalizes across mental state types,
then this suggests that, at least in these contexts, people reject the psychological conception of
the self, apparently in favor of the executive conception.
We recognize, however, that there might be other ways of explaining these data. For
example, one might seek to explain people's intuitions in these cases by positing a fairly simple
conception of the self and then accounting for all the puzzling results by assuming that people
have a quite complex concept of causation. (The idea then might be that people's concept of
causation is somehow sensitive to the distinction between acts that were performed on purpose
and those that were not; see, e.g., Lombrozo 2009.) Or perhaps there is some third form of
explanation available here, one that relies neither on people's concept of the self nor on their
concept of causation. Just looking at the experimental results we have presented thus far, it
seems that numerous possible approaches might prove viable here.
Study 3
Although several approaches might explain the above results, our theory also generates
another, very different prediction that does not fall naturally out of any of the other possible
approaches. As we have seen, the theory says that when people zoom in to consider one specific
behavior (like blinking), they will tend to regard the agent's body and psychological states as
falling outside of the self. But the theory also says something further. It says that when people
zoom out to consider a broader context, they will change their conception and adopt a view
according to which the body and mental states actually are part of the self. Hence, if we can just
get subjects to zoom out a little more, they should end up concluding that John himself actually
is the cause of all the outcomes that are caused by his body or mental states.
For an illustration of the basic idea here, consider the following vignette:
Suppose that John has a disease in the nerves of his arm. He experiences a
sudden spasm, his arm twitches, and his hand ends up pushing a glass off the
table. As the glass strikes the floor, there is a loud crashing noise.
In this vignette, John has a medical condition that leads to a spasm. Will people think that this
condition is a part of John himself? Well, their answer should depend on the perspective they
adopt. To they extent that they zoom in and think in detail about the processes leading up to that
one arm movement, they should regard the medical condition as falling outside the self. But
suppose we force them to change perspective. Suppose we get them to think about the broader
context, including not only the bodily movement but also the table, the glass, the crashing noise,
and so forth. If the theory is correct, they should then change their conception and adopt a view
according to which the medical condition actually is part of the self. Hence, they should then be
drawn to the idea that anything caused by the medical condition actually was caused by John.
To test this hypothesis, we conducted a further experiment. All subjects were given the
vignette about the spasm that pushes the glass off the table. Subjects were then randomly
assigned either to the zoomed-in condition or to the zoomed-out condition. Subjects in the
zoomed-in condition were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the sentence:
• John caused his arm to twitch.
16
This sentence was designed to make subjects focus in on the details of the process leading up to
one particular bodily motion, and according to the theory, it should therefore lead them to adopt
a 'thin' account of the self whereby John's bodily parts and even his mental states do not count as
falling within John' self.
Subjects in the zoomed-out condition were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with
the sentence:
• John caused the loud noise.
This sentence was designed to make subjects think more broadly about the whole situation in
which John was embedded, and it should therefore lead them to adopt a 'thicker' notion of the
self, according to which the nerves in John's arm count as a part of John himself.
As predicted, these two sentences led to two very different patterns of intuition. Subjects
in the zoomed-in condition tended to disagree with the claim that John caused his arm to twitch,
whereas subjects in the zoomed-out condition tended to agree with the claim that John caused
the loud noise. This difference was statistically significant.9
Notice the puzzling character of people’s intuitions here. The noise was clearly brought
about through the twitching of the arm, yet people somehow conclude that John did cause the
noise but didn’t cause the twitching. It seems difficult to make sense of this asymmetry by
supposing that there exists some single object – John – which people regard as the cause of the
noise but not of the twitching. Rather, the natural explanation here would be that people are
adopting different conceptions of the self in the different cases. They adopt a thinner conception
in the zoomed-in case, a thicker one in the zoomed-out case. Then the thicker their conception of
the self, the more inclined they are to regard the self as a cause of the series of events that
unfolded.
Study 4
Thus far, we have been looking separately at a number of different variables that affect
people's intuitions. First we looked at the distinction between different types of actions (choicecause
vs. emotion-cause); then we looked at the distinction between different types of
perspectives (zoomed-in vs. zoomed-out). The experimental results seemed to indicate that both
of these variables had an impact on people's intuitions. For this final study on zooming,
therefore, we wanted to conduct a single experiment that would allow us to systematically
examine all possible combinations of these two variables.
In other words, we wanted to look at people's intuitions about the four possible cases in
the following 2 x 2 table:
Zoomed- In Zoomed-Out
Choice-Cause x x
Emotion-Cause x x
9 N= 40 people spending time in a New York public park. The mean rating for the zoomed-in condition was 2.0 out
of 7; the mean rating for the zoomed-out condition was 4.8 out of 7,t(38) = 4.6, p < .001.
17
Each subject was assigned to receive one of these four cases. By looking at the intuitions
subjects had in each case, we hoped to get a better sense for the impact of the two variables
under discussion thus far.
For the zoomed-in cases, the set up went as follows. In the choice-cause condition,
participants were given the following instructions:
Imagine you just observed the following:
A bee lands next to John and his hand withdraws.
Now suppose you learn that John’s hand withdrew because he is afraid of bees.
Please tell us whether you agree or disagree with the following statement:
• John caused his hand to move.
In the emotion-cause condition, the case was exactly the same, except that the word 'withdraws'
was replaced with 'trembles':
Imagine you just observed the following:
A bee lands next to John and his hand trembles.
Now suppose you learn that John’s hand trembled because he is afraid of bees.
Please tell us whether you agree or disagree with the following statement:
• John caused his hand to move.
Hence, John performs exactly the same behavior in the two cases; the only difference is that in
the choice-cause condition he does so presumably as a result of a choice, while in the emotioncause
condition his behavior seems to be directly caused by his emotions.
For the zoomed-out cases, the set up was exactly parallel except that John's movement
(withdrawal or trembling) knocks over a glass of milk. Subjects were then asked whether they
agreed or disagreed with the statement:
• John caused the milk to spill.
Subjects rated each of these sentences on a scale from 1 (‘disagree’) to 7 (‘agree’).
The theory under discussion here predicts that people should respond differently in the
zoomed in cases, but they should not respond differently in the zoomed out cases. For we
maintain that when people zoom out, they are more promiscuous about what counts as part of the
self; by contrast, when they zoom in, they tend to think of the self as executive. The results
confirmed this prediction by revealing a striking difference between the zoomed-in and zoomedout
cases.
Zoomed- In Zoomed-Out
Choice-Cause 6.10 4.95
18
Emotion-Cause 3.95 5.48
In the zoomed-in cases, people regarded John as a cause when he chose to move his hand but not
when his behavior was produced directly by his emotions. In the zoomed-out cases, by contrast,
there was no such difference: John was regarded as a full-fledged cause either way.10 This fits
perfectly with the proposal that in the zoomed-out condition, people are willing to take a very
thick view of what counts as the self, but in the zoomed-in case, people are inclined to think of
the self as a thin executive.
Of course, we are open in principle to the idea that this asymmetry in people's intuitions
could be explained without positing a shift in their conceptions of the self. However, we have not
been able to come up with any alternative hypothesis that can explain the full pattern of
intuitions revealed in these studies. At least for the moment, then, we will be proceeding on the
assumption that people's conception of the self actually does shift depending on the perspective
they employ.
6. The executive self and cognitive science
We began with a puzzle about the basic picture of the mind coming out of cognitive
science. This picture says that human actions are caused by certain psychological states and
cognitive processes, which are in turn caused by other states and processes, and so on, back into
the past. Such a view might seem relatively harmless – perhaps even obviously true – but recent
research indicates that people often find it strikingly unsettling. They appear to regard it as a
serious threat to the possibility of human free will.
A proper explanation of people’s intuitions here should allow us to see why the picture
coming out of cognitive science leaves them with this feeling of unease, but it should also help
us to understand why the issue is so characteristically confusing. It should help us to see why
people so often feel pulled in competing directions, why they come to think that there is some
kind of deep philosophical problem here that needs resolving.
Our aim now is to take the theoretical framework we have been developing thus far and
use it to address these questions. We proceed in two steps. First we provide experimental
evidence that the picture coming out of cognitive science goes against people’s ordinary
understanding of human action. Then we argue that it is this departure from people’s ordinary
understanding that generates the perceived threat to free will.
6.1. The self and cognitive science
Researchers in cognitive science often rely on an analogy between the mind and a piece
of computer software. In a typical piece of computer software, one finds certain lines of code and
certain data structures, and everything the computer does can be understood in terms of the
10 N=41 students in introductory philosophy class. The data were analyzed using a 2 x 2 ANOVA, with zoom
(zoomed-in vs. zoomed-out) as a between subject factor and action type (choice-cause vs. emotion-cause) as a
within-subject factor. The results showed no main effect of zoom, F(1, 39) = .13, p = .7, though there was a main
effect of action type, F(1, 39) = 5.5, p < .05. Most importantly, there was a significant interaction effect, F(1, 39) =
14.9, p < .001, indicating that the impact of action type is larger for the zoomed-in case than for the zoomed-out
one.
19
operations of the code on the data. The dominant view in cognitive science is that the mind
works in more or less the same way. In place of lines of code and data structures, we have
cognitive processes and mental states, but the basic explanatory paradigm remains the same: one
posits certain operations of the processes on the states, and these operations are supposed to
determine everything we ever think or do.
On the account we have been developing here, people’s ordinary understanding does not
consist in some kind of coherent theoretical viewpoint but rather involves applying different
conceptions in different sorts of cases. Most importantly for present purposes, when people adopt
a more zoomed-in perspective, we suggested that they end up with a conception that is really
quite different from the standard cognitive science picture. In this perspective, they do not
conceive of the mind as being fundamentally like a computer. They do not think that human
behavior is just a product of cognitive processes operating on mental states. Instead, they adopt a
conception according to which there exists some further thing – the self – that stands outside all
of these states and processes and can choose whether to obey them or not.
To more directly explore these questions, we conducted one final experiment. Each
participant received a scenario about a computer and story about a human being. (The order of
scenarios was counterbalanced.) The computer scenario stipulated that all of the computer’s
programming was directing it against a particular behavior. We then asked whether the
computer might cause that behavior nonetheless. The case went as follows:
VQ5T is a computer that has a robotic hand. The robotic hand is positioned
next to the power button for a device that is delivering electrical shock to a rat
in an experiment. If VQ5T moves its hand to the right, it will push the button
and stop the shocks.
VQ5T has the information that if it moves its hand to the right it will stop the
shocks. But all of VQ5T’s software instructions are not to move its hand. In
addition, everything in VQ5T’s programming code directs it not to move its
hand.
Participants were asked to indicate agreement with the following:
• Even though all of VQ5T's software and programming code are not to move its hand, it is
still possible that VQ5T will cause its hand to move to the right.
The human scenario was almost exactly like the computer scenario, except that instead of the
VQ5T computer, it featured a human being named John:
John’s hand is positioned next to the power button for a device that is delivering
electrical shock to a rat in an experiment. If John moves his hand to the right, it
will push the button and stop the shocks.
John knows that if he moves his hand to the right it will stop the shocks. But all
of John’s desires and urges – both conscious and unconscious – are not to move
his hand. In addition, all of John’s thoughts – both conscious and unconscious –
are not to move his hand.
Then participants were asked to indicate agreement with this claim:
• Even though all of John's urges, desires, thoughts, etc., are not to move his hand, it is still
possible that John will cause his hand to move to the right.
20
The results showed a substantial difference in intuitions between the computer and the human.
Participants tended to say that the computer could not possibly move its hand if all its software
tells it to do otherwise but that John actually could move his hand even if all of his desires and
thoughts told him to do otherwise.11
These results suggest that people’s ordinary understanding of human action is
importantly different from the picture one finds in cognitive science. While cognitive science
aims to explain behavior entirely in terms of the interactions of certain states and processes,
people’s ordinary understanding appears to involve something more – a separate self that stands
outside all these states and processes and can choose to ignore their promptings.
6.2. Application to free will and moral responsibility
With this basic framework in hand, we can now return to the topic of intuitions about free
will and moral responsibility and offer a new type of explanation.
The trouble we got into before was that people show quite complex patterns of intuitions
about the problem of free will, and these patterns of intuitions appear to be shared across a
variety of different cultures, but we couldn’t see any way to explain this surprising convergence
on what might initially appear to be a rather abstruse philosophical problem. It hardly seemed
plausible to suppose that people all subscribe to some kind of highly specific philosophical
principle regarding the problem of free will in particular.
We now have available a possible solution to this difficulty. There might be no need to
introduce any controversial or complex assumptions about how people think about free will or
moral responsibility in particular. Instead, we can simply rely on the relationship between
questions about free will and moral responsibility and questions about the self. For example,
suppose we assume that people subscribe to a view that goes something like this:
It can’t be that John was morally responsible for an outcome unless John was the one
who caused it.
Then all of the complexity we observe in people’s moral responsibility intuitions could arise out
of people’s complex way of figuring out what exactly counts as John – which factors count as
internal to him and which as external. In other words, all of the complexity would come from
people’s complex understanding of the self.
At this point, the path ahead of us should be clear. We have a general account of people’s
understanding of the self. We have the claim that the picture coming out of cognitive science
involves a departure from certain aspects of that understanding. What we need to do now is just
to bring out the significance of this departure for questions about free will and moral
responsibility.
The basic idea, of course, is that people adopt different conceptions depending on their
perspective. When they are looking at an agent in a broad context – interacting with the world
and other agents – they adopt a broad view of the self. From that vantage, it’s natural to say that
the agent herself is causing various things. People recognize that the agent's decision is affected
by her beliefs, desires and values, but when they view the matter from this perspective, they take
11 N= 43 students at the University of Arizona. The mean rating for the computer scenario was 2.48 out of 7; the
mean rating for the human scenario was 4.85 out of 7. The difference between the cases was statistically significant:
t(42) = 7.06, p < .001.
21
all of those states to be parts of the agent herself. It then seems just obvious that the agent is
responsible for all sorts of important outcomes.
But now suppose they start to zoom in more closely. Suppose they use the methods of
cognitive science to develop a precise model of the exact process that led up to the agent's
decision. They will then come to adopt a different conception of the self. They will begin to see
the agent’s own psychological states as factors within the situation that the agent herself must
confront. They will come to feel that the agent’s self must be some further thing, some entity that
can stand outside all these psychological states, consider each of them in turn, and then make a
choice.
The problem is that the models discussed in cognitive science never seem to leave any
room for this ‘further thing.’ When one begins looking to these models, one doesn't really find
some part where the ‘self’ intrudes and makes itself known. One just finds a whole bunch of
states and processes – like those diagrams with boxes and arrows – and these states and
processes seem to be running everything. Thus, the more people focus on a detailed complete
cognitive story about the decision, the more they feel that the agent herself has nothing left to do.
It is here, we think, that the threat to free will arises. When people adopt a particular sort
of perspective, they come to feel that all of the states and processes posited by cognitive science
fall outside the bounds of the self, and it then begins to seem that the self really has no impact at
all on human action.
7. Conclusion
It has been a recurring theme in philosophy that a complete scientific explanation for human
action would exclude the possibility of free will. With the rapid progress of the neuro- and
cognitive sciences, this issue has moved into the public arena. Academics from a wide range of
disciplines now debate the social import of the science of human action. If science does provide
a complete explanation for human action, how should this affect the legal system, public policy,
and punishment practices?
An old and persistent line of response to this issue is that the whole worry here is based
on a confusion. This line of response gains succor from the intuitive idea that if your psychology
determines your actions, then you determine your actions. What more do you want? Once this
point is appreciated, it is thought, it will be clear that a complete scientific explanation of human
action need not pose a threat to free will.
Looking at the debate over these questions, it is easy to come away with the sense that
one side or the other must be making some kind of conceptual error. Perhaps the people who saw
cognitive science as a threat to free will are indeed falling prey to a confusion, or perhaps the
confusion is actually on the other side, and the philosophers who think there is nothing to worry
about are the ones making the mistake. Either way, the claim would be that if we could just get
clear on how our concepts worked, the whole issue would dissolve, and we would arrive at a
single, univocal answer as to whether cognitive science poses a threat to free will or not.
Our aim in this chapter has been to sketch a very different view. On the account we have
offered, people have access to a number of different conceptions of the self. Some of these
conceptions lead to the conclusion that cognitive science is no threat at all, while another
conception leads to the conclusion that contemporary cognitive science involves a direct threat to
the possibility of human free will. Hence, on the picture we have been developing, the
puzzlement people feel in the face of the free will problem is not merely a superficial muddle
22
that can be dissolved through conceptual clarification. It is a deeper, more fundamental sort of
puzzlement that reflects a genuine tension in people’s understanding of the self.
23
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1
ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE ORIGINAL SIN, FREE WILL AND GRACE IN THE WORKS OF JEREMY TAYLOR WORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLOR WORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLORWORKS OF JEREMY TAYLOR WORKS OF JEREMY TAYLOR
by
ANDREW HARVEY ANDREW HARVEY ANDREW HARVEYANDREW HARVEYANDREW HARVEYANDREW HARVEY ANDREW HARVEY
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2
Abstract
Taylor is an early example of a divine who wanted to find a way of remaining an
orthodox Christian while rejecting the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. Taylor could
not see how the term ‘sin’ could be correctly applied to anything but an individual’s
freely-chosen acts. However, he recognised that the reduction of the Christian concept of
sin to particular sins constituted the Pelagian heresy. He attempted to avoid it by placing
the insight behind the traditional doctrine in the challenge posed to the will by a
naturalised version of the Augustinian fallen state, which was nonetheless morally
indifferent in itself. The insights and confusions in Taylor’s treatment of original sin and
his anthropology, notably regarding the human will and its freedom, provide a fruitful
basis for a more general consideration of the question of ‘orthodoxy’ concerning original
sin and the classical Christian doctrine of man.
3
Table of Contents
Introduction p6.
Chapter 1: Secularising the fallen state, and upholding free choice: Taylor in
context. p9.
1.1 Epicureanism, scepticism, Platonism, and naturalising the fallen state p15
Chapter 2: Taylor’s Augustinian anthropology without the Fall. p42
Chapter 3: Will, free will and the nature of 'original sin': Augustine, Taylor and
Coleridge's Kantian critique. p71
A. Augustine and Taylor on the will and original sin p71
3.1 Augustine on the will and sin p71
3.2 Pelagius p85
3.3 Taylor’s anthropology and the nature and freedom of the will p92
B. Taylor’s attempt to reconcile an ‘Augustinian’ anthropology with libertarian
freedom, and Coleridge’s Kantian critique p116
3.4 Metanoia p123
3.5 Natural propensities and the freedom of the will p126
3.6 Taylor, Coleridge and Kant on the propensity to sin p130
Chapter 4: Taylor on Nature and Grace. p136
4.1 Taylor on Nature and Grace p136
4.2 Taylor's use of the Fathers in his ‘non-lapsarian’ account of nature and grace p147
4
4.3 Taylor's revised Augustinianism on the goodness of the flesh: the example of sex and
marriage p169
4.4 Flesh and sinful flesh p178
4.5 Taylor’s understanding of the ‘first Adam’ as human nature in itself p185
4.6 Conclusion to ch.4 p194
Appendix: Newman and Taylor on nature and grace and faith and reason. p198
Chapter 5: Taylor and natural law. p208
5.1 Taylor's idea of nature in the context of questions of natural right and natural law
p209
5.2 Taylor’s rejection of natural law and its implications p215
Conclusion p250
Bibliography p259
Note on references and abbreviations: I have used the editorial divisions and
numbering (including Roman numerals, or not etc.) of the editions I refer to. If referring
to a single text for several pages, or giving a glancing reference, I have at times included
the references in the text, rather than footnotes. I give a full reference for secondary
literature in the first note for each work, and in the bibliography; then use the author's
name and date of publication elsewhere.
I have given the volume number and page reference for citations from Taylor's
works, and full bibliographical information in the bibliography. In the first note for each,
I preface the reference with the title of the book they come from, and thereafter generally
5
abbreviate this to the initials of the title: thus, Unum Necessarium: UN; Ductor
Dubitantium: DD; Great Exemplar: GE. I refer to sermons by title, volume and page
number. Taylor's developed views concerning my subject are chiefly found in UN,
published during the Interregnum (1657) and his great casuistical work, DD, published in
the earliest years of the Restoration (1660-2); as well as several important sermons; the
Great Exemplar, contains an earlier version.
I have either given the titles of Augustine's works in full in English (according to
the translation I have used) or Latin, or used the Latin initials; the most common by far
being: Conf.: Confessiones: Confessions; De Trin.: De Trinitate: On the Trinity; CD: De
Civitate Dei: The City of God; DLA: De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis: On Free Choice of
the Will; DNC: De Nuptiis et Concupiscentia: On Marriage and Concupiscence; DNG:
De Natura et Gratia: On Nature and Grace. For simplicity, the abbreviation of Against
Two Letters of the Pelagians appears as ATLP.
6
Introduction
Jeremy Taylor (1613 - 1667) was a celebrated figure for many generations of Anglicans,
especially among those for whom the term “Anglican” acquired a certain positive
ideological content. Ultimately Taylor’s reputation came to rest more on his literary
talent, pastoral ideals and devotional writing, than his theology: the great Romantic poet
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who arguably became one of the Church of England’s greatest
theological writers, called him “our Christian Mercury”, and “this most eloquent of
Divines: Had I said, of Men, Cicero would forgive me, and Demosthenes nod assent!”1
Taylor’s Holy Living and Holy Dying became ubiquitous manuals of piety among those
who came to be known as ‘high churchmen’; they were also influential for the Wesleys
and the Methodist movement, and even in Evangelical circles.2
However, Taylor ought not to be neglected as a theologian. He is highly eclectic,
and not always consistent: one of the characters in Newman’s novel Loss and Gain says
that “Bishop Taylor differed from himself”.3 But he made a significant contribution to the
development of a distinctively ‘Anglican’ identity, which began in earnest with the
Laudian divines of the seventeenth century.4
Above all, perhaps, Taylor displays a remarkable subtlety and sensitivity in
1 Aids to Reflection, Routledge edition, p189.
2 Hughes, H. Trevor. "Jeremy Taylor and John Wesley." London Quarterly and Holborn Review
174 (1949): 296-304.
3 Oxford World’s Classics edition, p 61-2. Taylor was a benchmark ‘Anglican’ divine for the
Tractarians as well as the older high church tradition. Theirs was far from an uncritical appreciation,
however; Taylor was regarded by Newman as one of the fathers of Latitudinarianism and was later
excluded from the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology.
4 Of particular interest in this respect is the bibliography Taylor that attaches to a letter to one Mr
Graham, of Trinity College, Dublin, included in Heber’s Life, in his complete edition of Taylor’s works, vol
1 p lxxxviii: “Hee that would improve in the understanding of the doctrine of the church of England, so as
to bee able to teach others, must bee careful to understand and bee very perfect in every part of, [the
following works].” There follows a very extensive and interesting list, with Taylor’s comments. It includes
the Dutch Arminian “Episcopius, whose whole works are excellent, and containe the whole body of
orthodox religion”; the reader, Heber comments, “will see from this where [Taylor] may have learned his
doctrines respecting Original Sin.” Taylor’s attempts to minimise the traditional doctrine owe something to
Episcopius; but his account contains many original aspects, which we shall consider in the following
chapters.
7
relating the patristic learning and classical Christian orthodoxy in which he was steeped,
with the startling new theories in politics and law, science and epistemology, which were
making such an impact in his day, and in which Taylor had a voracious interest.5 In
particular, he draws on them to remarkable effect in his writings on the unlikely subject
of original sin, and in his related account of the relationship between nature and grace.
I shall argue that Taylor tries to substitute for the traditional doctrine of original
sin an account of human nature which answers to Augustinian anthropology, but which
treats what were generally regarded as the effects of original sin, as natural. However,
human nature is not thereby intrinsically corrupt, for Taylor: what St Augustine called
‘ignorance’, ‘difficulty’ and ‘concupiscence’, are both the conditions for human sin and
failure, and, ironically, necessary for human freedom and moral responsibility, according
to Taylor. The passions, which the Augustinian tradition held to be in a disordered state
resulting from original sin, are seen by Taylor as natural, and good when engaged in the
right context and degree. Taylor apparently thinks that he can avoid the heresy of
Pelagianism by allowing that although sin is not irresistible, it is inevitable: inevitable,
for every individual, but not in any given instance, we might say.
However, he tends to reduce ‘original sin’ to what Augustine thought of as its
effects, in Adam’s descendants; whereas Augustine actually thought that the evil will
which led to the first sin, was replicated in Adam’s descendants, not that their wills were
simply tempted or overpowered by ‘external’ influences - a view, which, on Augustine’s
account, would reduce to ‘Pelagianism’ or ‘Manicheanism’, depending on whether the
influence in question was resistible or not. This issue raises many important and
5 Taylor wrote to his friend John Evelyn from Ireland in 1659: “But Sir, I pray say something to
me concerning the state of learning; how is any art or science likely to improve? What good bookes are
lately publike? What learned men abroad or at home begin anew to fill the mouth of fame, in the places of
the dead Salmasius, Vossius, Mocelin, Sirmond, Rigaltius, Des Cartes, Galileo, Peiresk, Petavius, and the
excellent persons of yesterday?” Works vol 1 lxxxi. Which is an interesting list; notably Vossius, Descartes,
Galileo, Peiresc, and Petavius.
8
interesting questions, both theological and philosophical, regarding the Augustinian
doctrine of original sin, and its relationship to ideas about the will, its freedom, and the
relationship between mind and body.
9
Chapter 1: Secularising the fallen state, and upholding free choice: Taylor in
context
Taylor’s response to and use of contemporary ideas in the context of original sin,
free will, and nature and grace begins from his “Arminianism”; and in this respect some
historical remarks of Newman on the Church of England are a good place to start.
According to Newman, in “the sixteenth century [the Church of England] was Calvinist;
in the first half of the seventeenth it was Arminian and quasi-Catholic; towards the close
of that century and at the beginning of the next it was latitudinarian.”6 The Latitudinarian
party “broke off from the quasi-Catholic party … in the reign of Charles I, and was fed
and extended by the introduction into England of the principles of Grotius and the
Arminians of Holland”. Crude though these distinctions are, modern scholars generally
agree with Newman that by the mid-1620s, an “Arminian” and even, to some extent,
“quasi-Catholic” party began to challenge the hegemony of a broadly Calvinist
ecclesiastical establishment in England. They were supported by and received the
patronage of the new king, Charles I.7
The great Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius was an influential figure for many of these
“anti-Calvinist” divines, long before the emergence of any identifiable “latitudinarian”
party, on account of his interest in Christian reunion on the basis of a moderate, reformed
6 Newman, JH. Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Everyman, JM Dent, London 1993, Appendix C, ‘The
Church of England’, p400-1.
7 There is an extensive literature. See especially N. Tyacke, Arminianism, Oxford, Clarendon 1987,
the book which shaped the current debate, and Tyacke’s collection of essays, some in response to his critics,
Aspects of English Protestantism, Manchester University Press 2001; Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans?
HarperCollins 1988; Lake, Lancelot Andrewes, John Buckeridge and Avant-Garde Conformity at the court
of James I in Linda Levy Peck ed., The Mental World of the Jacobean Court Cambridge 1991; Kenneth
Fincham ed., The Early Stuart Church 1603-1642, Stanford 1993, especially the first three essays; Kenneth
Fincham and Peter Lake, eds., Religious Politics in Post-Reformation England: Essays in Honour of
Nicholas Tyacke, Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2006; and Jean-Louis Quantin’s fine recent study,
The Church of England and Christian Antiquity, Oxford University Press 2009.
10
episcopalianism, and his Arminian views on free will.8 Grotius’s views were congenial to
English divines like John Overall and Lancelot Andrewes,9 who began to develop an
understanding of the English Church based on the idea of a return to the faith of the
“primitive” and “undivided church”, of the early centuries of the Fathers and the great
councils which decided the Christological controversies, before the separation of east and
west and the growth of various “corruptions” in both. Such a view relied heavily on
historical scholarship, and Grotius’s interest in probabilistic reasoning and ideas about
certainty were of some importance in this respect.10
By “the principles of Grotius and the Arminians of Holland” Newman seems to
have in mind precisely this sort of sceptical, probabilist approach to questions of
certainty; in this case, religious and historical certainty: he goes on to say that “the
philosophy of Locke … had an influence in the same direction”; and that Latitudinarian
thought influenced the Whigs in politics, and gave birth to that “Liberal” party in the
church which at one time claimed Newman’s own allegiance, and later clashed bitterly
with the Tractarians.11
8 On this and what follows, see Hugh Trevor-Roper 1987, Laudianism and Political Power in
Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans, London, Secker and Warburg 1987, p40ff; on Grotius esp. p52f and
p98; and Tyacke 2001, Arminianism and English Culture, p223ff; and Religious Controversy, notably
p290-1.
9 Tyacke 2001 p223; for Andrewes and Overall, see, for example, Tyacke’s essay Lancelot
Andrewes and the Myth of Anglicanism, in Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church c1560-1660,
Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2000, ed. P.Lake and M.Questier; and Anthony Milton’s essay on Overall in
Fincham and Lake ed. 2006. Richard Hooker’s approach to the relationship between faith and reason was
also very influential on divines with an optimistic, in a sense somewhat more ‘Catholic’ view of the
capacities of human reason and will, and an interest in the authority of the ancient traditions of the church.
10 Trevor-Roper 1987 p52f and The Great Tew Circle in the same volume, esp. 210f; Tyacke 2001
p230f. Also Barbara Shapiro, Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth Century England, Princeton
University Press 1983 p77f.
11 Apologia Appendix C, p401. Also p92f. In certain aspects of his thought, Taylor was a precursor
of Locke: besides his interest in probabilistic reasoning, his ethics and ideas about natural law rely on
pleasure and pain and divine sanction, based on the same sources as Locke; and ethics are central to
religion in his thought, as they were for Locke. However, Taylor remained an ardent Royalist, being in this
respect a precursor of Locke’s Tory political opponents, as well as “quasi-Catholic” in many of his
theological views, in a way that was hardly acceptable to Locke. See Lisa Sarasohn, Gassendi’s Ethics:
Freedom in a Mechanistic Universe, Cornell University Press 1996 p168ff on Gassendi (who as we shall
see in this chapter perhaps influenced Taylor) as a precursor of Locke, and on the influence of ‘Epicurean’
11
Reginald Heber, a 19th century Anglican bishop and first editor of Taylor’s
complete works, comments in his Life of Taylor that “Taylor was a reader and admirer of
Grotius”,12 and there is considerable (though often implicit) evidence of the influence of
Grotius and other Dutch Arminian writers, notably Vossius and Episcopius, in Taylor’s
work, chiefly in respect of probabilisitc reasoning and certainty, as well as original sin,
grace and free will.13 Although Taylor always remained an adherent of what Newman
calls the “quasi-Catholic party” associated with Archbishop Laud and Charles I, at an
early stage in his career he wrote a treatise advocating the Apostle’s Creed as the sole
condition for lay communion in the Church of England, and he displays considerable
scepticism about the extent to which any doctrinal consensus can be drawn from the
church Fathers; in these respects he can be seen as something of a proto-Latitudinarian,
under the ‘Socinianising’ influence of Grotian probabilism.14
pleasure/pain-based ethical theory on other English Arminians and Latitudinarians; and Shapiro 1983 p105
on the influence of such ‘Epicurean’ ethical theory in Restoration thought (Shapiro does not associate
Epicureanism with this form of ethical theory; Sarasohn 1996 and Parkin [1999, see below] do): “Moral
probabilism continued to be characteristic of casuistry [in England] in the early modern era … The casuist
tradition [which, though probabilist, owed much to Thomism] survived the Reformation, [and] contributed
not only to shaping English latitudinarianism but also to the style of calculating interest and advantage
found in Restoration political and economic writing.” Taylor was a leading exponent of probabilist
casuistry in this tradition; which is not to be confused with the version caricatured by Pascal in the
Provincial Letters: as Shapiro notes, “Jeremy Taylor roundly condemned [then-current Roman Catholic
versions of probabilism] because it did not recognise that some opinions were more probably true than
others.” For Taylor’s Epicureanism in respect of his ethics and his understanding of nature and free will, see
below, this chapter. For Taylor’s sceptical/probabilist and ‘Epicurean’ revision of the Thomist account of
nature and grace, and its influence, notably on Butler and Newman, see ch.2, 4 and appendix to 4 below.
For Taylor as casuist, see McAdoo, The Structure of Caroline Moral Theology, London 1949, and Slights,
"Ingenius Piety: Anglican Casuistry of the XVIIth Century." Harvard Theological Review 63 (1970): 409-
32.
12 Works vol. 1 p xlvi note t.
13 On the English influence of these writers, see Trevor-Roper 1987 p53,98,195. These writers drew
on the Greek Fathers on original sin; as we shall see, besides emphasising the power of the will to cooperate
with or resist grace, Taylor uses the Greek idea that mortality, but not concupiscence, derives from
the fall, to sideline the fall. See ch4 below.
14 On the Liberty of Prophesying, Works vol. 5; on Taylor’s un-Laudian scepticism about doctrinal
consensus in the Fathers, perhaps influenced by Daille, see the discussion in Quantin 2009 pp 242f. Not
many years before, Taylor wrote what Tyacke (2001, p283) calls “the most extreme defence of episcopacy”
published during the period. However, Taylor’s arguments noticeably rest on a historical case, not on
arguments from tradition and the authority of the Fathers in themselves. (See the discussion of Taylor and
Great Tew, this chapter, below.) Newman argued that “the principles of the Liberals do not even stop at
deism”, (Apologia p401) but he was himself much influenced by probabilistic reasoning, most notably in
his Grammar of Assent, in which he boldly mounts a defence of Roman Catholic orthodoxy on certainty in
12
There was a tendency on the part of Arminian writers to mitigate the effects of
original sin on human nature, certainly relative to the Calvinists who opposed
“Arminianism” in both Holland and England, and to emphasise the power of human free
will to co-operate with or reject divine grace. There is reason to suppose that is connected
with the views of writers like Grotius on certainty. The emphasis on free will did not
begin with Arminius, but is already to be found in Erasmus and Renaissance humanism.
The position taken by Erasmus against Luther on the relationship between free will and
grace is essentially the view later maintained by Arminian Protestants and Molinist
Roman Catholics:
In my opinion free will could have been established in such a way as to avoid that trust in
our own merits and the other harmful consequences which Luther avoids … yet so as not to
destroy the benefits which Luther admires. This I believe is achieved by the opinion of
those who ascribe entirely to grace the impetus by which the mind is first aroused, and only
in the succeeding process attribute something to human will in that it does not resist the
grace of God. Since there are three parts to everything - beginning, continuation and
completion - they ascribe the first and last to grace and allow that free will has an effect
only in the continuation …
We will also try to illustrate what we are saying metaphorically. A human eye, however
healthy, sees nothing in the dark … Just so the will, however free, can do nothing if grace
withdraws itself from it; and even if it is in light a man with healthy eyes can close them so
as not to be able to see, and turn them away so as no longer to see what he had been able to
religious questions, using (amongst other things) a form of probabilistic argument, in an atmosphere still
dominated by Scholasticism. Newman was mainly influenced in this by the Anglican Bishop Butler, a
writer who combined ‘latitudinarian’ methods with ‘high church’ sympathies in the eighteenth century:
Apologia p94; “Butler’s doctrine that Probability is the guide of life, led me … to the question of the logical
cogency of Faith, on which I have written so much.” Taylor’s views on the relationship between faith and
reason influenced both Butler, and, in my view, Newman directly; this is of considerable interest in relation
to original sin, as we shall see in the appendix to chapter 4. Taylor’s account of faith and reason might be
called a sort of sceptical and ‘Epicurean’ version of Richard Hooker’s Scholastic account.
13
see.15
Scholars have noticed a connection between Grotius’s views on certainty, and on
free will; and that in this respect, he owes something to Erasmus.16 This is also true of
writers like Gassendi, as we shall see in this chapter.17 The same connection is observable
in Taylor’s works. For example, we shall see in this chapter that Taylor is instinctively
uncomfortable with traditional ideas about natural law, apparently partly because he
thinks that demonstrable certainty in religious and ethical questions would deprive human
beings of free choice, and of moral worth attaching to their choices.
However, in Taylor’s work the Erasmian and Arminian mitigation of conventional
views on original sin is balanced with a tendency to regard many aspects of the ‘fallen’
state as simply natural for human beings. The traditional doctrine of original sin is
sidelined, but there is an attempt to emphasise what one might call the insights behind it,
at least concerning what was traditionally held to be the corrupted condition consequent
upon the fall.
In Taylor’s work, this attempt arguably becomes more conscious and explicit than
in other writers of a similar persuasion. Taylor, like other Arminians, has an appreciation
of human capacities, for example, of reason and will, that is in one sense more positive
15 Erasmus, De Libero Arbitrio, ed. Trinkaus, trans. Macardle and Miller, University of Toronto
Press 1999 p79-80. There is an important comparison with the passage from Taylor quoted below, on free
will and the effect of Adam’s sin; and with Augustine on a good will in DLA 1.12, see ch.3. However,
Erasmus is unclear as to whether the will must act on the impetus provided by grace, or whether this occurs
smoothly and ‘naturally’ as a result of grace, and the will’s positive action occurs only in resistance to
grace.
16 Trevor-Roper 1987 p52 f and 192f , and Tyacke 2001 p230f.
17 See Sarasohn 1996, ch.1-2. See p24f for the influence of Epicurean ethical ideas derived from
pleasure and pain on Erasmus. These ideas are useful to anti-Scholastic thinkers in that they do not rely on
any natural teleology, or ideas of justice derived from natural proportion; compare my ch.5, below.
Probabilistic reasoning (aiming for moral certainty, involving room for free choice based on the goodness
or attractiveness, as well as the truthfulness of something, and rhetorical persuasion, rather than
demonstrative reasoning issuing in absolute certainty) and Epicurean ethical theory allow for a certain
contingency in the created order, in the minds of some writers, including Taylor.
14
than the traditional view, and in another sense more negative. For Taylor, reason is not
corrupted by original sin; nor is the will; yet in contrast to the Scholastic tradition, he can
say that
reason is such a box of quicksilver that it abides no where; it dwells in no settled mansion;
it is like a dove’s neck or changeable taffata; it looks to me otherwise than to you who do
not stand in the same light that I do … For some having (as Lucian calls it) weighed
reasons in a pair of scales thought them so even, that they concluded no truth to be in the
reasonings of men; or if there be, they knew not on which side it stood, and then it is as if it
were not at all; these were the sceptics: and when Varro reckoned two hundred and eightyeight
opinions concerning the chiefest good or end of mankind, that were entertained by the
wisest and the most learned part of mankind, it is not likely that these wise men should any
more agree about the intricate ways and turnings that lead thither, when they could so little
agree about the journey’s end, which all agreed could have in it no variety, but must be one,
and ought to stand fair in the eyes of all men, and to invite the industry of all mankind in
the pursuit of it.18
Taylor makes use of sceptical thought to underline the natural limitations of human
reason, traditionally ascribed, in their present form, to the effect of original sin. Likewise,
free will was not lost as a result of Adam’s fall; yet free will is insufficient by itself for
salvation. In this respect Taylor is closer to Scholasticism, notably to its distinction
between the natural and the supernatural:
For when it is affirmed [by Taylor himself] that Adam’s sin did not, could not, impair our
liberty, but all that freedom of election which was concreated with his reason, and is
18 Ductor Dubitatium vol 1, Works vol 9 p293-4.
15
essential to an understanding creature, did remain inviolate; there is no more to be said, but
that after Adam’s fall all that which was natural remained, and that what Adam could
naturally do, all that he and we could do afterwards. But yet this contradicts not all those
excellent discourses which the church makes of the necessity of grace … when I say that
our will can do all that it ever could, I mean all that it could ever do naturally, but not all
that is to be done supernaturally.19
Instead of appealing to the fall as an explanation of the need for grace, and the fallibility
of reason, Taylor draws on the sceptical tradition, humanist ideas about a theoretical precivilised
“state of nature”, and the “new philosophy”, which I shall argue all to some
extent already represented a ‘naturalised’ version of the Augustinian fallen state in the
writings of their Christian advocates, and combines them with a version of the Thomist
distinction between the natural and the supernatural. The ongoing influence of the
Platonist tradition is also found throughout Taylor’s works, and plays an important role in
the context of his ideas about human nature, sin and grace. According to Taylor, the
present state of human nature is actually necessary for meaningful moral responsibility,
yet it is also a state in which error and sin are inevitable.
1.1 Epicureanism, scepticism, Platonism, and naturalising the fallen state
In his diary entry for April 12th, 1656, John Evelyn records that “Mr Berkeley and
Mr Robert Boyle (that excellent person and great virtuoso), Dr Taylor, and Dr Wilkins,
dined with me at Sayes Court, when I presented Dr Wilkins with my rare burning-glass.
In the afternoon, we all went to Colonel Blount’s, to see his new-invented ploughs.”
19 Unum Necessarium, Works vol. 7 p 315.
16
Among the members of this party, with their leisurely interest in burning-glasses and new
designs of plough, are a variety of connections and contrasts, religious, intellectual and
political, with a sometimes surprising bearing on our subject. Evelyn and Boyle in
particular are celebrated figures in the history of England: Evelyn as a diarist and man of
letters, and for his involvement with the Royal Society; and Boyle alongside Newton and
Hooke, as one of the greatest scientific pioneers. In the history of ideas, John Wilkins,
too, is a familiar name; he became the first president of the Royal Society, of which
Evelyn and Boyle were fellow founder-members. Wilkins made a useful contribution to
the epistemological basis of the work of the Society’s virtuosi, and we shall have cause to
touch upon this further, with reference to Taylor’s theological writings. At this time,
Taylor was sheltering with Evelyn after being released from a period of imprisonment by
the Cromwellian regime.
Evelyn first mentions Taylor in the diary entry for 15th April, 1654, though they
were already acquainted: “I went to London, to hear the famous Dr Jeremy Taylor (since
Bishop of Down and Connor [after the Restoration]) at St Gregory’s (near St Paul’s) on
Matt. vi.48, concerning evangelical perfection.” The following year, on 18th March,
Evelyn again travelled to London “on purpose to hear that excellent preacher, Dr Jeremy
Taylor, on Matt xiv.17, showing what were the conditions of obtaining eternal life: also,
concerning abatements for unavoidable infirmities, how cast upon the accounts of the
cross. On 31st, I made a visit to Dr Jeremy Taylor, to confer with him about some spiritual
matters, using him thenceforward as my ghostly father.”
Taylor’s connection with Evelyn, and the subject matter of the two sermons
Evelyn travelled to London to hear, are significant for our purposes. Evelyn, like Taylor,
was a devout supporter of both the Royalist cause, and the faith and order of the Church
of England as interpreted and defended by those divines supported and promoted by
17
Archbishop Laud and King Charles I. He tells us that Taylor preached on the nature of
“evangelical perfection”, and on “unavoidable infirmities”; the question of how
“unavoidable infirmities” relate to personal sin is an important and challenging issue for
Taylor’s discussion of original sin, and he was wrestling with this and the whole question
of original sin at just this time.
At the time Evelyn heard Taylor preach and made him his spiritual director,
Taylor was at work on a book that would create suspicion and hostility among friends and
foes alike.20 Evelyn, however, seems to have been sympathetic. Their correspondence
reveals that Taylor discussed the work and the ensuing controversy with Evelyn, and
Evelyn sent him comments on the manuscript (unfortunately lost).21 A little under a
month after the lunch party, on 6th May 1656, Evelyn “brought Monsieur le Franc, a
young French Sorbonnist, a proselyte [a convert from Roman Catholicism to the Church
of England], to converse with Dr Taylor; they fell to dispute on original sin, in Latin,
upon a book newly published by the Doctor, who was much satisfied with the young
man.” This was the same book that Evelyn had “read over” for Taylor: entitled Unum
Necessarium: On the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance, it caused considerable
controversy, because in it, Taylor seemed to effectively deny the doctrine of original sin.
Taylor rejected this accusation: “the question is not whether there be any such
thing as original sin; for it is certain and confessed on all hands almost. For my part, I
cannot but confess that to be which I feel, and groan under, and by which all the world is
miserable.”22 In his first attempt to explain himself after the reaction to his book, Taylor
robustly defended his orthodoxy. “The article we all confess; but the manner of
explicating it is not an ‘apple of knowledge’, but ‘of contention’.” In true Laudian style,
20 Heber, Life, Works vol 1 p xxxix f.
21 Ibid xlvi.
22 Deus Justificatus Works vol 7 p497.
18
he argues that his views are derived from “the first and best antiquity”,23 while admitting
that “the doctrine of original sin, as I have explicated it, is taxed of singularity and
novelty”.
I do confess and complain of it, that the usual affirmations of original sin are a popular
error; yet I will make it appear that it is no catholic doctrine, and that it prevailed by
prejudice, and accidental authorities; but after such prevailing, it was accused and reproved
by the greatest and most judicious persons of Christendom.24
As these protestations suggest, when Taylor claimed to accept “original sin”, he
did not quite mean what most of his western Christian contemporaries meant by it. He
claims to admit it insofar as the ante-Nicene Fathers admit it; but as we shall see, perhaps
he did not admit it so far, at least in the usual sense of “original sin”. Yet in the following
passage, taken from a sermon, Taylor sounds as Augustinian as could be, allowing for an
‘Arminian’ assertion of the ability of the will to co-operate with or resist grace
resembling that which we observed in Erasmus.
The divine love must come upon us and snatch us from our imperfection, enlighten our
understanding, move and stir our affections, open the gates of heaven, turn our nature into
grace, entirely forgive our former prevarications, take us by the hand, and lead us along;
and we only contribute our assent to it.25
23 The united witness of antiquity being the test of the true Apostolic faith, according to the maxim
of St Vincent of Lerins beloved of high Anglican controversialists; “quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab
ominbus credendum”: whatever is believed by all, everywhere, always.
24 A Further Explication of the Doctrine of Original Sin, in Unum Necessarium, Works vol. 7 p303.
Compare Taylor’s letter to Evelyn, Heber, Life, Works vol 1xlvi.
25 Sermon On the Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol.4 p120.
19
A careful reading of Taylor’s published writings concerning original sin and
related matters suggests that he believed the present state of human nature to be the
natural condition of humanity, and not the consequence of original sin. He frequently
describes it as the “state of nature”, with all the resonances of the theoretical state of precivilised
man used by legal and political theorists in Taylor’s day, such as John Selden
and Thomas Hobbes.26 However, Taylor did not hold that human nature was thereby
intrinsically imperfect or corrupt, as nature; he distinguishes between “nature”
considered in itself, and in respect of its “supernatural” end, in language reminiscent of
the Thomist tradition. But Taylor’s concept of nature is a very different one from that
associated with Scholasticism. We shall consider the content of Taylor’s views on nature
in more detail in the following chapters, notably 2, 4 and 5; in this chapter, we shall
concentrate on the sources and context of those views.
Taylor’s understanding of “nature” is derived from some of the same ideas that
influenced Evelyn, Wilkins and Boyle, as well as writers like Selden and Hobbes. On 12th
May 1656, a few days after his visit to Taylor in the company of Monsieur le Franc,
Evelyn’s Essay on Lucretius was published. This was a translation of book 1 of
Lucretius’s poem De Rerum Natura, the most extensive statement of the Epicurean
philosophy to survive from antiquity. Evelyn adds to this entry that “Little of the
Epicurean philosophy was then known amongst us.” The poor reception of this
publication, partly due to the numerous errors made by the printer, discouraged Evelyn
from pursuing the project any further; but Epicurean ideas were to play a significant role
26 Selden was an important influence on Taylor’s views on nature and natural law, see editor’s note
Works vol.9 p279, and, for example, Jon Parkin, Science, Religion and Politics in Restoration England
RHS/Boydell Press 1999 p64f. Taylor also seems to have been influenced by Hobbes, as we shall see in the
final chapter. Evelyn knew Hobbes well: for example, 14th December 1655, “I visited Mr Hobbes, the
famous philosopher of Malmesbury, with whom I had been long acquainted [in exile in] France.”
20
in the work of some of the Royal Society’s virtuosi, including Boyle.27 The importance of
Epicurean atomism for the early scientists of the Royal Academy, and those who
influenced them abroad, such as the French priest and natural philosopher Pierre
Gassendi, has been the subject of extensive research, and it is beyond the scope of this
study to consider that in detail.28 However, at certain points Epicurean ideas and their
influence touch on our subject in important ways. It is clear from their correspondence
that Evelyn discussed his work on Lucretius with Taylor; Lucretius was a controversial
writer, due to his effective ‘atheism’ (the lack of divine intervention in the cosmos) and
the association commonly made between Epicureanism and a crude hedonism. Taylor
advised Evelyn to gloss his work with Christian explanations, but was far from hostile to
the project.29
Although Evelyn’s comment in the diary entry suggests that at the time Taylor
wrote Unum Necessarium, their influence was limited, Epicurean ideas fit in with
Taylor’s existing views concerning free will, and the limitations on the power of human
reason, as well as his understanding of nature; and they perhaps played a role in his later
works. For example, early in March 1657, “Dr Rand, a learned physician” dedicated “his
version of Gassendi’s Vita Peiriskii” to Evelyn; later in the same month, “Dr Taylor
27 See, for example, Sarasohn 1996 p172, and Parkin 1999, p150, on Gassendi and Boyle; Boyle
“wrote to Samuel Hartlib [as early as] 1647 that ‘Gassendes is a great favourite of mine.’”
28 There is an extensive bibliography. See, for example, Shapiro 1983 p39, Parkin 1999 p143f, and
bibliography; Sarasohn 1996 p171f, and bibliography; notably Joy, Mayo, Westfall and Kargon (see my
bibliography). Gassendi also seems to have influenced Hobbes; on the relationship between Hobbes and
Gassendi and their ideas, see Parkin 1999 p146f, and two articles cited by Parkin; L. Sarasohn, ‘Motion and
morality: Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes and the mechanical world-view’, Journal of the History of Ideas
xlvi (1985), 363 - 80, and chapter 6 of her book (1996) p118f; and T. Sorrell, ‘Seventeenth-century
materialism: Gassendi and Hobbes’, in G.H.R Parkinson ed., The Renaissance of Seventeenth-Century
Rationalism, London 1993, 235-72. Parkin also discusses the relationship between Selden and Hobbes, and
the influence of Selden on Taylor, p64f.
29 Taylor to Evelyn, 16th April 1656, in Heber, Life, Works vol 1 p li: “it is nothing but what may
become the labours of a Christian gentleman, those things only abated which our evil age needes not; for
which also I hope you either have by notes, or will by preface prepare a sufficient antidote”. Parkin notes
that it “is clear from Taylor’s correspondence with Evelyn that Taylor did not regard Epicureanism as being
necessarily harmful to Christianity”, p150-1.
21
showed me his MSS of Cases of Conscience, or Ductor Dubitantium, now fitted for the
Press.” This is an important work in relation to Taylor’s views on original sin, due to the
sceptical understanding of nature and the probabilist reasoning it applies, and we shall
encounter it frequently later.
Nicholas Tyacke, one of the leading scholars of the Arminianism or ‘anti-
Calvinism’ integral to the Laudian movement, and to Taylor’s own theological views,
suggests that Epicurean ideas exercised a particular appeal for those with a religious and
philosophical commitment to free will in this period. Tyacke writes that
the atomists John Evelyn and Walter Charleton were each enthusiastic free-willers.
Charleton … defended atomism in 1652 while refuting ‘the doctrine of Calvin concerning
absolute predestination’, which he brackets with the ‘fate of the Stoicks’. Similarly Evelyn,
a member of the growing class of virtuosi, popularised atomism in his 1656 Essay on
Lucretius, the follower of Epicurus, having already endorsed the extreme Arminianism of
Jeremy Taylor - theologian and later bishop. Evelyn also translated works by the libertins
erudits Francois de la Mothe le Vayer and Gabriel Naude.30
Charleton, like Evelyn and Taylor, held ‘Laudian’, as well as Arminian, views, and seems
to have already come under the influence of Epicureanism, via Gassendi, by the early
1650s.31 Gassendi, like Charleton and Evelyn, was an “enthusiastic free-willer”, and
Charleton adopted Gassendi’s Christianised version of Epicurean ethics, based on the
pursuit of higher pleasure and the avoidance of pain.32 Very similar ideas are discernible
in Taylor’s works; we shall see in chapter 2 that Taylor also seeks to rehabilitate the role
30 Tyacke 2001, p232.
31 Sarasohn 1996 p173-5; Parkin 1999 p149f.
32 Parkin 1999, p144: “the summum bonum of Epicurean philosophy was a tranquillity
characterised by freedom from pain and disturbance”. Compare Erasmus in his dialogue The Epicurean.
22
of the passions in human life, not only in morals, but concerning the legitimate pleasures
of what is natural for humans. Yet for Taylor the passions also remain the basis of the
moral challenge for human reason and will traditionally held to result from original sin.
Tyacke summarises Epicurean teaching and its connection with English antideterminist
views as follows:
The link between atomism and anti-determinism is provided by Epicurus, as can be seen
most clearly from the writings of Charleton during the 1650s. Knowledge of Epicurean
teaching derived from Lucretius’ de Rerum Natura and the life of Epicurus, by Diogenes
Laertius, which incorporates three of his letters and his maxims … According to Epicurus,
‘the whole of being consists of bodies and space’. The smallest constituent parts of bodies
are atoms, which are indestructible and ‘in continual motion through all eternity’. Man’s
‘own actions are free, and it is to them that praise and blame naturally attach’. Lucretius
explains the compatibility of physical causation with free will by the concept of the atomic
swerve, which introduces an element of indeterminacy [into nature].33
In a fascinating study of Gassendi’s thought, Lisa Sarasohn describes a link between the
free movement of atoms, and the movements of the human passions:
Maragaret Osler has pointed out that Gassendi believed the animal soul, which is the same
as the anima, or irrational, vegetative and sensitive soul in human beings, is in ‘constant
motion’. The motion of the anima is the same as the motions of physical matter according
to a passage in [Gassendi’s] Physics:
For when a boy runs to an apple offered to him … there must be a physical, a natural, power inside
the boy by which he is directed or impelled towards the apple … the prime cause of motion in
33 Tyacke 2001, p232.
23
natural things is the atoms, for they provide motion for all things when they move themselves
through their own agency and in accord with the power they received from their author in the
beginning; they are consequently the origin, and principle, and cause of all the motion that exists in
nature.34
Atoms move continuously in an indeterminate, random way; the same is true of the
“anima”, the “irrational, vegetative and sensitive soul” which humans have in common
with animals. The anima is attracted by various desirable objects, necessary or
pleasurable for bodily life: these are naturally attractive, and draw the irrational impulses
of the soul towards them without regard to moral considerations. According to Gassendi
the rational soul, the animus, is able to choose to resist such impulses, according to its
rational judgment concerning morality.35
Taylor does not give a systematic account of the structure of soul and body in the
way that Gassendi does, nor is there any clear evidence of Gassendi’s direct influence on
Taylor; but Taylor’s account of the sensitive, appetitive functions of human nature has
much in common with Gassendi’s idea that these incline freely towards their own objects,
independently of rational judgement or any natural proportionality, quite naturally. We
shall see that this contrasts with the traditional view that prior to the Fall of man, the
“lower” features of human nature were under the perfect control of the rational will;
indeed, for influential writers like St Augustine of Hippo and St Thomas Aquinas, they
did not even exist except at the instigation of the rational will, even in a temperate
proportion, in the pre-lapsarian state. This is not at all the case for Taylor, who, as we
shall see in the next chapter, is sceptical about such a state of “original justice”.
34 Sarasohn 1996 p70-1.
35 Ibid.
24
Gassendi, Charleton and also Boyle share with Taylor an interest in a post-
Aristotelian account of both nature, and the relationship between nature and grace.36 As
Jon Parkin observes, Taylor often displays a “sceptically voluntarist outlook and
sometimes rather Hobbesian positions”.37 Taylor is sceptical about natural law and even
natural theology; see below, ch.5. Just as for Taylor, for Boyle and Charleton this is a
state of nature in which the ‘natural appetite’ does not necessarily ‘follow the natural
power’, as the Scholastic maxim put it: human nature is effectively in the state the
Scholastics identified as the result of original sin. (See ch.2, below.) Epicurean
contingency, and the endlessly inclining state of the passions deriving from this, are
important to this account; the contingency inherent in nature, and the lack of any intrinsic
moral order, provides a necessary background for moral freedom. This also seems to be
true for Gassendi. We shall consider this more carefully in the final chapter; Taylor’s later
views in particular do seem to have been influenced by Hobbes, and certainly by John
Selden, but he puts the work of these thinkers to an original use, which to an extent is
shared by Gassendi, Charleton and Boyle. As we shall see in chapters 2, 4 and 5, Taylor
substitutes the ‘humanist’ idea of nature for the Scholastic one; for Taylor, nature is not
teleological, and there was never, and could never be, any state of “original justice”.
There is, in essence, no difference between the ‘fallen’ and ‘purely natural’ states; grace
always relates to nature thus understood in the same way. Nature understood in this sense
is necessary for freedom of choice, and in order to be open to grace, for Taylor.
36 See Parkin 1999 p149f; Boyle, A Discourse of Things Above Reason in Selected Philosophical
Papers of Robert Boyle, ed. M.A. Screech, Manchester University Press 1979; and Charleton, The
Harmony of Natural and Positive Divine Laws, London 1682. Parkin p150: “Boyle made it clear on many
occasions that the radical distinction between God and man made it difficult to obtain information about the
nature and intentions of the deity from a knowledge of nature. Boyle’s fideist, and sceptical, approach to
natural philosophy in many ways placed him closer to writers like Charleton and Hobbes than it did to
Latitudinarians like Wallis and Wilkins.”
37 Parkin 1999 p151.
25
As we observed in the introduction to this chapter, Taylor’s naturalising approach
to original sin also seems to have been influenced in this respect by the debate
surrounding the problem of certainty and new ideas about the nature of reasoning; these
ideas prevailed in the same context as Epicureanism. Again, a certain connection between
scepticism and probabilisitc reasoning, and Arminianism is highlighted by Professor
Tyacke:
While in England the new mechanical philosophy of atomism was popularised by
Arminians, it has also been argued that there exists an affinity between the mitigated
scepticism of theologians like William Chillingworth, Laud’s godson, and the scientific
attitude of the Royal Society. Chillingworth’s book The Religion of Protestants [a sure way
to salvation], published in 1638, explicitly draws on the ideas of Grotius that there are
different levels of human certainty, in natural science as well as religion, and all less than
absolute. Chillingworth himself rejected Calvinist determinism and was suspected of
Socinianism.38
Taylor’s account of original sin led him, too, to be suspected of Socinianism, that is, the
denial of the divinity of Christ and the usual Christian understanding of the economy of
salvation; an emphasis on moralism and good works at the expense of ideas about grace
and the atonement.39 Taylor strongly repudiated such accusations, though as we shall see
they are comprehensible in the light of his soteriology, which emphasises good works
over faith, which often led Calvinists in particular to accuse Arminians and Roman
Catholics of Socinianism. In Taylor’s case, his radical views on original sin intensified
38 Tyacke 2001 p232.
39 See Tyacke’s account of controversies over Socinianism in the essay Religious Controversy, in
Tyacke 2001 pp262-308; he briefly refers to accusations against Taylor, p290. Also Trevor-Roper on
‘Socinianism’ in the broader sense of reason in religious questions, in The Great Tew Circle in Catholics,
Anglicans and Puritans London, Secker and Warburg 1987 p186f.
26
the force of the accusation.
Like Chillingworth, Taylor was much influenced by Grotius, who was accused of
Socinianism, though he wrote against Socinus.40 Grotius exercised a widespread influence
in England at this time, especially on the circles in which Taylor moved. Hugh Trevor-
Roper described Chillingworth as the “intellectual motor” of the Great Tew circle, “the
group of young men … who lived together in a kind of continuing seminar or reading
party at the Oxfordshire house of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, in the 1630s”.41
Taylor was not a member of this circle, but he was well known to them, and they to him,
and he shared many of their interests, including a strong emphasis on probabilistic
reasoning.42 The Great Tew circle included others besides Chillingworth for whom
Grotius was a significant influence, in a variety of ways, and who in their turn exercised a
powerful effect on Taylor’s work, especially the lawyer John Selden. Hobbes, too,
hovered on the fringes of Great Tew, and was much influenced by Grotius, though his
views were far from Arminian. Another member of the Great Tew circle who made use of
Grotian ideas was a divine of pronounced Laudian views, Henry Hammond, who wrote
on the essentials of the Christian faith, distinguishing them from things of lesser or
uncertain importance, in Grotian style, in a way reminiscent of Taylor’s Liberty of
Prophesying. Ironically, Hammond was commissioned by the king to write a refutation of
Taylor’s radical plea that the Apostle’s creed should be the only condition of communion
in the English church.
The influence of Chillingworth’s “mitigated scepticism” on the Royal Society,
and especially on John Wilkins, is discussed in detail in H. van Leeuwen’s book, The
40 de Satisfactione Christi. See also Hans W. Blom, Grotius and Socinianism, in Muslow and Rohls
eds., Socinianism and Arminianism: Antitrinitarians, Calvinists, and cultural exchange in seventeenth
century Europe, Brill: Leiden 2005 pp121-147.
41 Trevor-Roper 1987 p166.
42 Taylor was acquainted with Lord Herbert of Cherbury, as well as the Great Tew circle. Heber,
Life, Works vol 1 p xxxv. On Herbert, probabilism, Arminianism and atomism, see Tyacke 2001 p233.
27
Problem of Certainty in English Thought. Leeuwen identifies Chillingworth’s Grotian
probabilism and Francis Bacon’s inductive empiricism as key influences on the Royal
Society. Barbara Shapiro has contributed several important studies of the development of
probabilistic reasoning, including an intellectual biography of Wilkins.43 In her book
Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth-Century England, Shapiro highlights various
strands which contributed to the new probabilist epistemology; again, for Shapiro,
Grotius and Chillingworth are of central importance. She argues that Grotius and his
English followers were influenced by Pyrrhonian elements in Renaissance humanism,
and notably by Erasmus, in both their interest in tolerance and Christian reunion, and free
will:
In his debate with Luther over freedom of the will, Erasmus not only introduced a line of
thought which would emphasize religious peace over theological precision but also
contributed to a new approach to religious knowledge and belief … While God’s injunction
that man follow a moral life was clear, theological questions, [for example, the extent of
our free will,] were not fully knowable by men, whose capacity for knowledge was
limited.44
Shapiro observes that Erasmus’s position “perhaps owes something to late academic
skepticism”.45 To some extent Erasmus seems to use scepticism to both defend man’s
natural capacities, especially free will, and to underline scepticism about them. In this he
43 Wilkins can’t be considered Laudian, nor even Arminian. He was, however, interested in natural
religion and emphasised ethics over doctrine.
44 Shapiro 1983 p75. See also Trevor-Roper 1987 on the influence of Erasmus on Grotius and Great
Tew, p186f, as above. As we have seen, the account of free will cautiously and modestly endorsed by
Erasmus in his controversy with Luther is in many ways the classic statement of what would become the
Arminian position, essentially that grace is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of an actively good
will.
45 On the influence of scepticism, see Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Savonarola
to Bayle, Oxford 2003.
28
was followed not only by Grotius, but by Gassendi. As Lisa Sarasohn shows, for
Gassendi, limited knowledge, though an imperfection, is necessary for free will: “For
Gassendi the essence of free will is the ability to be [intellectually] indifferent, to be able
to make mistakes. Error, therefore, which is an evil in itself, seems to be a good taken in
the perspective of the whole man. Error is a positive and necessary part of man’s being.
This paradoxical reality is in fact God’s gift to man. It is what makes human beings
human, for if man were determined in the Cartesian sense, or in the Augustinian sense, or
even in the Thomistic sense, either by natural light or by grace, he would cease to be
human because a human must be free.”46
Without the ability to make mistakes, human beings would not have genuinely
free choice. The same is true for Taylor, though unlike Gassendi he emphasises the
faculty of will as much as that of intellect:
For in moral and spiritual things liberty and indetermination is weakness, and supposes a
great infirmity of our reason, and a want of love. For if we understood all the degrees of
amability in the service of God, and if we could love God as he deserves, we could not
deliberate concerning his service, and we could not possibly choose or be in love with
disobedience, we should have no liberty left, nothing concerning which we could
deliberate; for there is no deliberation but when something is to be refused and something
is to be preferred, which could not be but that we understand good little, and love it less.
For the saints and angels in heaven and God himself love good and cannot choose evil,
because to do so were imperfection and infelicity; and the devils and accursed souls hate all
good ... but between these is the state of man in his pilgrimage, until he comes to a
confirmation in one of the opposite terms. Liberty of will is like a magnetic needle toward
46 Sarasohn 1996, p97. See Sarasohn’s account of the influence of Molinism on Gassendi, 1996
ch.4 p76f.
29
the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it be fixed in the beloved point: it wavers as
long as it is free, and is at rest when it can choose no more ... our dignity and excellence
supposes misery and is imperfection, but [is] the instrument and capacity of all duty and all
virtue.47
If human intellect and will are not in some measure indifferent about what is perfectly
true and good, then human beings have no real freedom regarding them, and therefore no
real merit attaches to their choices. Yet there is a sense that the very ability to prefer and
to choose evil to good, is an imperfection. Perfect happiness, for Taylor as much as for
Augustine or Aquinas, whose ideas Taylor alludes to here in his reference to that higher
freedom possessed by God himself and the saints in glory, resides in perfectly knowing
and consequently loving, the good. But in order to attain to this state, we must have
liberty of indifference during our earthly life. An inevitable consequence of the very
possibility of indifference is error and sin: yet it is also “our dignity and excellence … the
instrument and capacity of all duty and all virtue”. The very state of liability to error and
the need to control the passions, is one of limitation and inevitable sin, and yet a
necessary condition for free choice. This is unlike the Pelagian view, in that for Taylor the
conditions for freedom, the liability to sin, means the inevitability of it, due to
imperfection. Taylor is strongly opposed to the idea that human beings are ever capable
of altogether avoiding sin, even with the help of grace. As we shall see in chapter 3, this
involves him in convoluted problems concerning the nature of sin and human freedom.
Therefore, we see that Taylor makes considerable use of probabilism in his
account of original sin, since vital to his interest in both human freedom and in
naturalising the ignorance belonging to the ‘fallen’ state, is the idea of indifference of
47 Ductor Dubitantium vol 2, Works vol 10 p552. Compare Gassendi, Sarasohn 1996 p69 on the
saints in heaven.
30
intellect. Indifference of intellect and will are both the ground of human freedom, and of
error and sin, for Taylor. In this context he also makes use of the Epicureanism gaining
ground at this time in natural philosophy. Epicurus was a defender of free will and the
importance of contingency in nature to allow for this; Epicurean ideas appeal to Taylor
for this reason, and he regards the lack of any moral teleology in nature as a condition
allowing for such freedom.
This concern for the possibility of indifferent choice is central to Taylor’s whole
appreciation of the natural order. He is sceptical about a natural law on precisely these
grounds: human beings could have no freedom relative to an intrinsic natural law,
because we would then love and do what we really know to be good. This leads Taylor to
be sympathetic to the sceptical advocates of probabilism and the new philosophy.
Taylor’s scepticism about natural law, is reminiscent of Bacon’s scepticism about
Aristotelian natural philosophy:
For all men talk of the law of nature, and all agree that there is such a material law which
some way or other is of the highest obligation; but because there are no tables or digests of
this law, men have not only differed about the number of them, and the instances
themselves, but about the manner of drawing them forth, and making the observation:
whereas if the law of nature were such a thing as it is supposed generally, these differences
would be as strange and impossible as that men should disagree about what is black, or
what is yellow, or that they should dispute concerning rules to signify when they desire, or
when they hope, or when they love.48
48 Works vol 9, p279. Taylor seems to regard these perceptions as primitive, and this is reminiscent
of Augustine, as well as Bacon: Against the Sceptics 3.11.26: ‘When a man tastes something, he can swear
in good faith that he knows that this is sweet to his palate … and no Greek sophism can deprive him of that
knowledge’. Cited by JM Rist, Augustine, CUP 1994 p.54. Rist describes Augustine’s views on the validity
of such perceptions as follows, op. cit. p.56: ‘I know what it is to know what is sweet to me and what is not.
Yet this sort of appeal to awareness … is not an appeal to knowing something about what is sweet or to
31
Similarly, concerning the teleological order in nature identified by Aristotle and his
successors, Bacon argued:
There is a great difference between the illusions of the human mind and the ideas of the
divine mind; that is, between what are no more than empty opinions and what we discover
are the true prints and signatures made on the creation.49
Bacon rejects the a priori approach to the study of nature based on the scholastic
categories originally established by Aristotle, and insists on an inductive, empirical
approach. We must establish by observation and experiment how nature operates, and this
only can be the basis for any claim to knowledge concerning it. This investigation begins
from basic sense perceptions, of just the sort which Taylor alludes to in the passage just
quoted:
The notions of the lowliest species, man, dog, dove, and of the immediate perceptions of
sense, hot, cold, white, black, do not much mislead, though, from the flux of matter and the
conflict of things, they are sometimes confused; all the others that men have so far made
use of are aberrations, not being drawn and abstracted from things in proper ways.50
Aristotle had held that all things move towards some end, and that motions can on this
knowing or believing (propositionally) that this is sweet; it is a claim that being aware, having a
conscientia, of seeming sweetness is a primitive’ (original emphasis). Bacon could well have had
Augustine’s defence of sense perception against the sceptics in mind. The possible connection between
Augustine and Bacon in terms of the relationship between scepticism, Platonism and original sin, is
discussed to below. [The same idea is of interest in relation to Taylor’s views on the intuitive, primitive data
of the moral conscientia in ch.5; note the comparison with Augustine’s ethical intuitionism there too.]
Augustine also holds mathematical truths to be certain in Against the Sceptics.
49 Novum Organon bk 1 Aphorism 23.
50 Ibid Aphorism 16.
32
basis be classified as “natural” or “violent”. Bacon rejects this as an artificial projection
onto the order of nature unless it can be established by an empirical examination of those
“appetites and inclinations and things by which all of the many effects and mutations that
are evident in the works of nature and art are made up and brought about”.51 According to
Bacon, in order to discover “the true prints and signatures made on the creation”, in other
words, the true character of the causal structure we believe we perceive in nature, we
must examine “the principles, sources, causes and forms of motions, that is, the appetites
and passions of every kind of matter”, and the “collisions or impacts of motions, the
restraints and resistances, the free passages and obstructions, the interchanges and
mixtures, circuits and sequences, in short, the universal process of motions”.52 We must
test the operations of the natural world as they appear to our perception, without any
preconceptions or principles of interpretation drawn from pure reason.
Bacon’s rejection of the Aristotelian cosmic order leaves only a mass of appetites,
inclinations, events and happenings in the world of sense perception, that must be ordered
and made sense of by observing and testing them to see what principles in fact govern
them. Although Taylor never refers to Bacon by name, a scepticism analogous to that
which Bacon displays concerning Aristotelian physics, appears in Taylor’s resistance to
the traditional idea of natural law. The moral and legal state of nature which Taylor draws
from legal and political theorists like Selden and Hobbes, resembles the natural world as
it first confronts the natural philosopher, for Bacon, as we shall see at more length in
chapter 5.
The right of nature or jus naturae, is no law, and the law of nature is no natural right. The
51 Cogitationes III.20/V.425.
52 Ibid III.20/V.426.
33
right of nature is a perfect and universal liberty to do whatsoever can secure me or please
me. For the appetites that are prime, original and natural, do design us towards their
satisfaction, and were a continual torment, and in vain, if they were not in order to their
rest, contentedness and perfection. Whatsoever we naturally desire, naturally we are
permitted to.53
The natural order is not teleological: there are no principles from which to derive a
natural law, the natural ‘goods’ that we seek after are an indication of a desire, and a
negative right, no more. Taylor agrees with Hobbes, then, that natural philosophy doesn’t
reveal God’s will to us; that is, there is no natural moral law derivable from natural
teleology. In a sense this is ‘Epicurean’.54 Nevertheless, Hobbes came to a different
conclusion from Taylor about the possibility of a natural law on the basis of this state, as
we shall see in the final chapter.
The passions naturally incline freely and endlessly - continuously, like the swerve
of the Epicurean atoms - in a similar way for Selden, Taylor and Hobbes, as for Bacon
and Gassendi. They pull us their own way irrespective of moral considerations; but for
Taylor, as for Gassendi, we have the power to choose against them. The passions are
indifferent in themselves, not in an intrinsically corrupt state; and ironically Taylor’s
Hobbesian account of the passions leads to a more positive appreciation of them: see ch.2
below. The free passions, perhaps to be understood as a result of the atomic swerve, are
necessary for freedom, like indifference of intellect and will: they provide a necessary
neutral background for meaningful moral choice; a universe with an element of
contingency, openness, which is not wholly causally determined, mechanistic, even at the
physical level. This provides a context for real human freedom. (Hobbes, of course, in
53 Works vol.9 p279-80.
54 Compare Sarasohn 1996 p 149.
34
contrast, is a determinist, more in the tradition of Democritus.)
In response to an earlier generation of scholars who tended to portray Bacon as
more influential for those of a “Puritan” persuasion, Tyacke notes that Bacon was
influential in Taylor’s circles: “Enthusiasm for the philosophy of Bacon was shared by
many of the royalist gentry gathered in Oxford during the civil war, men like Justinian
Isham and Sir Christopher Hatton … Isham was a committed defender of the English
Prayer Book, while Hatton was a patron of the Arminian Jeremy Taylor. They were to
become fellows of the Royal Society in 1663 … no particular religious or political group
had a majority interest in Bacon.”55 Tyacke compares Hatton’s household, among others,
to Great Tew: “the circle around Viscount Falkland at Great Tew was only the most
famous of similar groups throughout most of England. The households of Cavendish in
Nottinghamshire [the Royalist patrons of Thomas Hobbes], Hatton in Northamptonshire,
Paston in Norfolk, Sandys in Kent, and many more, all played comparable roles.”56
So Taylor uses scepticism, probabilism and Epicureanism, Baconian natural
philosophy and the state of nature theories of the humanist lawyers, and as we shall see,
Platonism, to try to retain an orthodox anthropology but without original sin, and
including free will and responsibility. The passions incline freely to their own objects,
and are good or bad depending on the moral context. Human nature for Taylor is thus
God’s good creation, and at the same time involves the traditional moral challenges from
ignorance and passion that Augustine thought were derived from original sin. This
condition is even a morally-neutral background understood as necessary for free moral
choices.
In an important paper, Peter Harrison has reminded us that the limitations on
55 Tyacke 2001 p256.
56 Tyacke 2001 p234.
35
human reason were traditionally held to be among the consequences of original sin, and
that appeal was frequently made to this in the period we are dealing with.57
The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed a renewed consciousness of the
pervasive nature of original sin and of the severity of its effects. This was in no small
measure the consequence of the Protestant Reformers' revival of the more severe
Augustinian form of the doctrine. An integral part of this development was a renewed
emphasis on the epistemological consequences of the Fall, again most prominent in
Protestant writings. However, this mood was also felt in Catholic countries. The skepticism
of Montaigne and disciples emphasized the vanity of the human condition, and in the
seventeenth century Catholicism experienced its own resurgence of Augustinian
anthropology with the rise of Jansenism. In addition, Renaissance humanism and
Reformation biblicism had combined to bring a renewed emphasis on the literal or
historical sense of the biblical text. As a consequence, the narrative of the Fall was widely
viewed not as an allegorical tale but a historical truth of enduring significance.58
Prominent among the consequences of the fall was the disruptive and distracting
influence of irrational passionate impulses, which we have already noted. The passions
would have been under the perfect control of reason and will in the state of innocence.
[It was commonly thought that] Adam's [perfect, or far more extensive than our postlapsarian]
knowledge of nature had been made possible through the maintenance of the
proper hierarchical relations amongst the various faculties of the mind - the will, reason,
and imagination - and of the mind-body relation - the passions and the senses. Adam's
57 Harrison, P. Original Sin and the Problem of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, Journal of the
History of Ideas - Volume 63, Number 2, April 2002, pp. 239-259.
58 Ibid p243.
36
virtual omniscience was thus the result of his faculties cooperating in the fashion in which
their maker had originally intended. For this reason, psychological analyses of the Fall
focused upon the breakdown of the proper harmonious relations which had once existed
amongst these various faculties … In much the same way that Adam had lost his dominion
over the beasts, so too, in the inner world of the soul, reason had lost its control of the
passions, which rebelled against their rightful master. The Fall was thus supposed to have
wrought havoc with the internal harmony of the human being, resulting not merely in a
moral fall, but in a fall from knowledge and the ability to discover truth. Original sin, in
short, consisted in both a propensity for moral wrongdoing and an inability to recognize
truth.59
Harrison points out that Bacon considered his inductive method as necessary due to the
effects of original sin:
Francis Bacon had famously observed in his Novum Organum (1620) that the human
dominion over nature which Adam had lost at the Fall could be restored in some measure
by the sciences: "For man by the fall fell at the same time from this state of innocency and
from his dominion over creation." The moral losses of the human race were to be restored
in some measure by "religion and faith"; Adam's lost knowledge, and the dominion which
it made possible, by "arts and sciences." Bacon's vision of a reconstructed knowledge of
nature during the period which he regarded (somewhat prematurely) as "the last times"
clearly played an important role in legitimizing the goals and methods of the new natural
philosophy. Indeed the program of the Royal Society of London from its inception in 1660
explicitly relied upon a Baconian rhetoric of the restoration of that human knowledge and
dominion over nature which Adam had once enjoyed.60
59 Ibid p242-3.
60 Harrison 2002, p240.
37
Taylor and Bacon’s views are reminiscent of Augustine on the fallen world as one of sin
and scepticism; as well as of Plato, for whom the effects of passion on reason and
knowledge clouded moral judgement, and even understanding of purely intellectual
questions.61 Coleridge idiosyncratically regarded Bacon as a Platonist on these grounds.
Taylor was much influenced by Platonism, as we shall see in chapters 2, 3 and 4; he was
a friend of the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, though they were of different
churchmanship and politics. Parkin observes the influence of Platonism on Selden,62 as
well as on Joseph Glanvill,63 friend and collaborator of Taylor’s chaplain George Rust,
who preached at Taylor’s funeral. The influence of passion on the mind leads to a failure
of clear and distinct intuitive knowledge, so a need for sceptical empiricism; but ethics
remain ultimately based on intuition. This is similarly true of Origen (see Taylor making
use of Origen on conscience, ch.5 p251 below ) - Parkin notes his influence on Glanvill -
and Augustine following Plato, in a way surprisingly reminiscent of Selden and Bacon.
There is undoubtedly some truth to the idea that there was a “renewed emphasis
on the epistemological consequences of the fall” due to the “more severe form of the
doctrine” of original sin preached by the Reformers and the Jansenists. However,
important qualifications must be made to this. The English and Dutch Arminians seem to
have been more enthusiastic sceptics than their Calvinist opponents; partly due to their
interest in free will, and perhaps also partly due precisely to the fact that they emphasised
the integrity of human nature, notwithstanding original sin. There was a certain need, in
61 For Augustine, man possessed intuitive knowledge before the fall; see Aquinas on this, ch2
below. For Plato, the rational soul unencumbered by the body would possess it. On the effect of the body on
knowledge, see, for example Phaedo 64b-65c.
62 1999 p63. Selden is most influenced by Platonism in precisely the areas where he influenced
Taylor; sse ch.5 below, p249.
63 1999 p121. Also Glanvill and Rust, ed. Henry More, Two Choice and Useful Treatises London
1682.
38
terms of traditional Christian anthropology, to emphasise natural limitations on human
powers, if one mitigated their corruption. Certainly in Taylor’s case, as we shall see at
some length in the following chapters, there is an attempt to retain traditional spirituality
and soteriology while sidelining the doctrine of original sin; and he goes about this partly
by making use of sceptical ideas about the natural limitations of human capacities. His
voluntarism and scepticism, and ideas about the non-teleological character of nature, and
the indifferency of intellect and will, seem to substitute for the traditional doctrine of
original sin.
The Socinian accusation against the Arminians reflects the fact that they were
both more positive about human reason, and to some extent more sceptical about how
much it could prove (notably in matters of faith). In the Catholic context, Montaigne
doesn’t seem to directly emphasise original sin in the way that Jansenist-inclined Pascal
did in response to him; though the other great French sceptic Pierre Charron does, as
Harrison observes.64 Susan James points out that Pascal thinks of the condition they
describe as proof of original sin.65 It might be possible to see Renaissance and later
scepticism, and possibly the voluntarism of some thinkers besides Taylor, with its
concomitant scepticism about the capacity of man to understand the ways of God, as a
way of maintaining orthodox views on man’s ‘fallen’ state without reference to original
sin.
Moreover, the rationalist philosophers, who Harrison sees as more Thomist and
Catholic in their positive account of the possibilities of human reason, are closer to the
Jansenists in that they are arguably more deterministic;66 while Gassendi, sceptical and an
64 2002 p243.
65 Passion and Action: the Emotions in Seventeenth Century Philosophy, OUP 1997 p238. Compare
Newman, Apologia p276. (Compare Pascal on love and knowledge, James 1997 p234f, with Taylor on
conscience, ch.5 below, and Taylor and Newman on assent and faith, appendix to ch.4 and ch5 below.)
66 See Sarasohn 1996 p86f on Descartes and determinism; though Descartes is not really more
39
empiricist, is a Molinist. Like Taylor Gassendi doesn’t emphasise original sin, and
scepticism and natural ignorance, along with his voluntarism, seem to substitute for it in a
way. Gassendi is quite Socratic or Stoic, to the extent that he sees sin as error.
However, it seems likely that Bacon’s empiricism was influenced by the more
radical lapsarian views of the Reformers; the same might be said of Hobbes, who might
be called a sort of secularised Calvinist. But in the end all these writers are heavily
influenced by the Augustinian tradition; the difference is one of emphasis and degree:
“those who have defined original sin as a lack of original justice which ought to be in
man, although in these words they have comprehended all the substance, still they have
not sufficiently expressed the force of it. For our nature is not merely empty and destitute,
but it is so fecund of every kind of evil that it cannot be inactive.”67
Although Arminians and Catholics had a more positive anthropology, then, and a
more positive appreciation of reason’s powers - natural powers were damaged, rather
than devastated - scepticism both contributes to and limits the scope of these powers.
Certainly, most would have remained very suspicious of the idea that the fall could be
entirely overcome, even in matters of natural reason, just as it is never wholly overcome
in moral matters, despite grace and the sacraments: [Hooker. Aug: forgive us our
trespasses.] Ironically, despite the different emphases regarding original sin, like the
Erasmian/Grotian tradition Bacon’s sceptical view of human capacities manifests itself in
quite an optimistic way: his inductive methods are supposed to enable man to some
extent to recover Adam’s lost dominion.
Taylor is sceptical about the possibilities of human reason, as we see in the case of
natural law; yet we shall see him reject the usual view of the fall and its effects, in
Jansenist, simply more Thomist, in this respect, bizarrely enough; but the point is the same. Also, recall the
Jansenist interest in the purely rational discipline of logic.
67 Calvin, Inst. II.1.9.
40
chapters 2 and 4. While Taylor agrees that ignorance and passionate impulse constitute a
moral challenge for human beings, in accordance with orthodox Christian tradition, he
also thinks that the present human state is a natural one, and not the result of Adam’s fall.
We shall see that what Augustine referred to as “ignorance” and “difficulty”, are for
Taylor part of the natural human condition; and that on his account, it can even be said
that ignorance, and even the difficulty created by the free play of the passions,
“concupiscence”, are necessary for there to be meaningful moral choice.
The Erasmian tradition, as we might call it, influenced Grotius and the Dutch
Arminians, and Grotius’s English followers like Taylor, many of whom were also
Arminian and Laudian. It has something in common with French Catholic (and Arminian
Hugenot) libertin thought, which probably also owed something to Erasmus. Both are
characterised by a more positive, and indeed Catholic, emphasis on the goodness, rather
than the corruption, of human nature, and free will; yet also by a proportioned scepticism
about human capacities, that to some extent does the work of the traditional doctrine of
original sin. Both use scepticism to mitigate the corruption of nature, yet at the same time
to emphasise nature’s inadequacies; free will itself, in the sense of liberty of indifference,
is necessary for moral worth and merit, but is a kind of limitation, even imperfection. In
England, more radical Protestant views on human corruption probably influenced Bacon
and the cynical view of human nature found in Hobbes; yet both Bacon, in the field of
natural philosophy, and Hobbes, concerning the foundations of morality and law and the
political order, have a reasonably optimistic assessment of what can be achieved despite
the non-teleological, chaotic nature of reality; and in Hobbes’s case, of the goodness of
natural passions, despite a cynical view of man driven by these (Taylor and Hobbes on
the passions, in ch.2 and 5 below).
Taylor draws on these ideas for precisely these reasons: to minimise and even
41
dispense with the traditional doctrine of original sin, and yet uphold what Taylor
considers to be the very real insight behind it, and balance that with the doctrine of the
goodness of the natural, of the creation. To a greater extent than other Arminians, Taylor
does not assume that the present state of human nature is the result of the fall. In Taylor
we find an ‘Arminian’ account of the relationship between grace and free will, but
certainly not the usual account of how human nature got into its present ‘fallen’ state.
Instead, we find a creative use of contemporary ideas, and the nature/grace,
natural/supernatural distinction found in traditional Scholastic thought. Taylor accepts
this distinction, but his concept of ‘nature’ owes more to patristic and Platonist analysis,
humanist states of nature and Epicurean atomism than it owes to Scholasticism. The state
in which we find human nature is its natural one, not a corrupted one deriving from
original sin; but nature is still in need of grace.
We shall see in the next chapter that this implies there was no state of “original
justice” in which, as according to the Scholastic maxim, the “natural appetite follows the
natural power”; but the natural condition is not intrinsically, in itself, an evil state: the
passions and appetites of man tend to their proper objects, requiring restraint and order
where the moral law is superinduced.
42
Chapter 2: Taylor’s Augustinian anthropology without the Fall
Jeremy Taylor's anthropology represents a post-Aristotelian, humanist reflection
on Augustinian and Scholastic ideas about human nature. However, Taylor differs sharply
from both Augustine and the Scholastics in that he no longer believes in two temporally
successive, separate and distinct states of human nature, one that of primal innocence
before the fall, 'man as he was created', in which human nature, created good in itself,
was sustained in moral virtue by grace; and the other the disordered state resulting from
the fall, in which human nature, although still good in itself, as created by God, must be
rescued by grace from its own rebellious will and unruly passions. Instead, Taylor makes
a theoretical distinction between these two states as aspects of the same condition. He
derives this account from reflection on patristic and Scholastic accounts of human nature
understood in the context of more recent analysis.
For Aquinas man created in grace desired “as he ought to desire, and what he
ought to desire”. According to the Aristotelian definition adopted and put to Christian use
by Aquinas, “Perfection of moral virtue does not wholly take away the passions, but
regulates them; for the temperate man desires as he ought to desire, and what he ought to
desire, as stated in Nic. Ethic. III.11”. (ST 1a1ae q95 art2 ad 3.) For Aristotle, and for
Aquinas regarding man in his fallen state, temperance is an acquired virtue; but in the
state of human nature as it was originally created, Aquinas thinks that temperance came
naturally to man; though this state of “original justice” was preserved by supernatural
means, by divine grace. In this state the passions did not need to be regulated and
restrained by a virtuous will in the way that they do in the fallen state, because they were
instigated and directed wholly by reason, and in proportion to its judgements: “in the
43
state of innocence the inferior appetite was wholly subject to reason: so that in that state
the passions of the soul existed only as consequent upon the judgment of reason”.68 This
relationship between reason and the passions in the state of innocence was maintained by
the grace in which the first human beings were created: since “the loss of grace dissolved
the obedience of the flesh to the soul, we may gather that the inferior powers were
subjected to the soul through grace existing therein” (1a1ae q95 art1 Ans). The balanced
and temperate state of man's first creation was lost as a result of the deprivation of grace
consequent upon the first sin, and now an important feature of the moral life involves
human beings struggling to subordinate their passions to their rational wills.
Aquinas derives his account of how “the obedience of the flesh to the soul” was
lost as a result of original sin from Augustine, whom he cites in this article [CD 14.10].69
According to Augustine, the human passions did not incline to their objects
independently of reason and will before the fall. In regarding appetites, desires and
feelings outside the control of reason as a moral problem for human beings, Augustine
stands in the Platonist tradition; the Stoics and Peripatetics, in different ways, concurred.70
Augustine congratulates the Platonists for coming close to the Christian view:
the Platonists, who approached the truth more nearly than other philosophers,
acknowledged that anger and lust are perverted elements in a man’s character, or soul, on
the ground that they are disturbed and undisciplined emotions leading to acts which
68 ST 1a1ae q95 art2. This would seem to be an application of the principle that the natural appetite
must follow the natural power; though this condition is only maintained by grace, and as we shall see,
Aquinas does not in any case invariably accept the principle: the rational creature has a natural desire for
perfect beatitude, which is an end unattainable by its natural powers alone. Again, as we shall see, Taylor
thinks that a creature whose essence includes a naturally insatiable appetite, cannot ever have been in an
original state where appetitive temperance came naturally, even one maintained by grace, which always
relates to nature in the same way, according to Taylor.
69 Though they perhaps have slightly different views about whether fallen human nature is just
nature deprived of grace, or nature actually disordered or damaged.
70 For the Stoics, passions were the result of a form of intellectual error, not the cause of it, as for the
Platonists and Peripatetics.
44
wisdom forbids, and therefore they need the control of intelligence and reason. This third
rational division of the soul is located by them in a kind of citadel, to rule the other
elements, so that with the rational element in command and the others subordinate, justice
may be preserved in the relation between all the parts of man’s soul.71
Augustine follows the classic tripartite division of the soul described by Plato in book 4
of the Republic and the Timaeus. We may compare Gassendi’s account cited in the
previous chapter. However, unlike the Platonists, Augustine thinks that in the state in
which human nature was first created, the due order, the “justice” between the various
parts of the soul, came naturally:
But in paradise before man’s sin these elements [anger, lust etc] did not exist in their
perverted state. For then they were not set in motion, in defiance of a right will, to pursue
any course which made it necessary to hold them back with the guiding reins, so to speak,
of reason.
The situation now is that these passions are set in motion in this fashion, and are brought
under control by those who live disciplined, just and devout lives, sometimes with
comparative ease, sometimes with difficulty. But this control entails coercion and struggle,
and the situation does not represent a state of health in accordance with nature, but an
enfeebled condition arising from guilt.72
According to Augustine the existence of appetites and feelings outside the control
of reason is a fault in the perfect order of creation, and could not have been a feature of
human nature as it was originally created, because it leads to “acts which wisdom
71 CD XIV.19
72 CD XIV.19.
45
forbids”, and involves “coercion and struggle”, rather than a serene and tranquil state in
which the rational soul entirely determines behaviour. Although they thought of this
condition as representing a moral challenge for human beings, non-Christian Platonists
saw it as natural: at any rate, it either originated prior to the embodiment of the soul, or
was a result of that embodiment; it was not a corruption of the embodied condition
introduced after that condition came into being.73 Augustine regards it as a disruption
brought about by an act of the highest, rational part of the soul; as we shall see in chapter
3, an act of what Augustine calls “will”.
Augustine regards this present state of human nature as a corruption, due to his
distinctively Christian understanding of the body and lower parts of the soul as God’s
good creation. Non-Christian Platonists tended to account for the ‘disordered’ traits of
human nature on the basis of a principle of formlessness and disorder which represented
the ‘furthest remove’, so to put it, from the First Principle; the inevitable final term of the
generation of all being from the over-flowing “generosity” of the One, which brings the
cosmos into being without diminishing the One or affecting its immutability.74 They
called this final term “matter”; the material universe, including the human body and
lower parts of the soul, [sarx], was constituted from matter, which required form and
order from higher, intellectually-endowed realities, which imposed it through their
contemplation of the unity and perfection of the First.
Augustine on the other hand thinks that the created order exists at the will of God,
who saw that all he had made was good; so the disordered state of human nature cannot
be the result of any intrinsic principle, because this would be a flaw in the perfect form
and order that the good God bestowed upon the world he created. Augustine does not
73 For example, Plotinus, Enn. I.8.4.
74 Specifically in these terms, again, Plotinus, I.8, IV.8, V.
46
reject the notion of “matter”, but he thinks that God bestowed perfect form and order on
matter, when he created matter in its various forms.75 For the Platonists, matter is the final
term, tending to formlessness and not-being, of an eternal generation, requiring souls
which are involved in matter to impose form upon it; the unquiet passions are the result
of matter’s intrinsic formlessness, and can be formed by virtue, discipline, ‘ascent’ back
to the intelligible realm. For Augustine, God gave matter perfect form, so that, as Aquinas
puts it, “in the state of innocence the temperate man desired as he ought to desire”. That
perfect form and order has now been lost, and human nature requires grace to assist it in
the struggle.
Augustine was preoccupied with the problem of the origin of the ‘disorder’
inherent in human nature and the moral evil which he associated with it from his earliest
days as a Christian; indeed, according to his portrayal in the Confessions, it was, at least
implicitly, an abiding concern throughout his life, and was one reason he was drawn to
the Manichean sect for some years. The solution he eventually reached, based on
scripture and earlier Christian writers, and partly reflecting well-established Christian
views, is expounded in its mature form in book 13 of the City of God, as well as in
numerous other texts:
For after their disobedience to God’s instructions, the first human beings were deprived of
God’s favour … The soul, in fact, rejoiced in its own freedom to act perversely and
disdained to be God’s servant; so it was deprived of the obedient service which its body
had at first rendered … This then was the time when the flesh began to “lust in opposition
to the spirit”, which is the conflict that attends us from our birth. We bring with us, at our
75 Confessions XII.4. The soul’s turn away from the Good and towards formlessness at the Fall
unleashes the disorder in human nature: this is referred to the condition of the individual, Conf. XII.10.
However, unlike the Platonists, the soul’s turn is not caused by matter, according to Augustine; see ch.3
below.
47
birth, the beginning of our death, and with the vitiation of our nature our body is the scene
of death’s assault, or rather of his victory, as the result of that first disobedience. God
created man aright, for God is the author of natures, though he is certainly not responsible
for their defects. But man was willingly perverted and justly condemned, and so begot
perverted and condemned offspring. For we were all in that one man, seeing that we all
were that one man.76
For Augustine, then, sin does not simply have its origin in irrational passions; for
the disorder of the passions, had its origin in the first sin. Indeed, as we shall see, even in
the fallen state, very often, behind inordinate passions, lies volition.77 However, for the
Platonists, the disorder of the passions is the result of ‘matter’. Augustine, using the
scriptural term “flesh” also familiar to the Platonic tradition [sarks], reprimands the
Platonists for holding “that the flesh is the cause of every kind of moral failing, on the
ground that the bad behaviour of the soul is due to the influence of the flesh. But this
contention shows a failure to consider man’s nature carefully and in its entirety” (CD
XIV.3). It is true that in the fallen state “the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and
the earthly habitation depresses the mind as it meditates on many questions”, as scripture
says (Wisdom 9.5). But the Catholic belief (“our belief”)78 is that the “corruption of the
body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause of the first sin, but its punishment.
And it was not the corruptible flesh that made the soul sinful, but the sinful soul that
made the flesh corruptible” (Ibid). The origin of the disagreement between the rational
soul and the passions lies in sinful volition, not in the influence of the “flesh” on the will;
and sinful volition retains a certain priority in the fallen state, as we shall see in chapter 3.
76 CD XIII.13-14.
77 In a similar way to that in which for the Stoics, behind evil passions, lay intellectual error.
78 As opposed to that of the Platonists, or of the Manicheans; or the Pelagians, who, as we shall see
in ch.4, are implicitly targeted here.
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However, as we shall also see in chapter 3, volition has two basic meanings for
Augustine, which are in tension, and this affects his account of the relationship between
the rational soul and the passions.
Augustine says that “Virgil is apparently expounding Platonic teaching in glorious
poetry when he says [in Aeneid 6.730ff; Augustine seems also to have Cicero’s Tusculan
Disputations in mind here] … that the body is to be taken as the source of all four of the
most familiar disturbances of the mind: desire and fear, joy and grief, which may be
called the origins of all sins and moral failings.” Augustine argues that neither the
“disturbances” in themselves, nor the sins that often result from them, are simply due to
embodiment, or even to the corruption of the flesh consequent upon original sin. He
observes that although the “corruption of the flesh results in some incitements to
wrongdoing and in actual vicious longings … we must not attribute to the flesh all the
faults of a wicked life”, because this would absolve the Devil from those faults, “since he
has no flesh”. Nor are “desire and fear, joy and grief” necessarily a bad thing, a view
which Augustine ascribes to Stoic teaching. For Augustine, such a view is incompatible
with several important points of Christian faith and morals:
Scripture subjects the mind to God for his direction and assistance, and subjects the
passions to the mind for their restraint and control so that they may be turned into the
instruments of justice. In fact, in our discipline, the question is not whether the devout soul
is angry, but why; not whether it is afraid, but what is the object of its fear … how much
more honourable would it have been in the Stoic … to have been ‘disturbed’ by
compassion … Far more creditable, more humane, and more in harmony with the feelings
of true religion was the sentiment expressed in Cicero’s praise of Caeser, ‘Of all your
49
virtues, none was more admirable, none more attractive, than your compassion.’79
However, Augustine has some difficulty with this issue. On the one hand, he
denies that apatheia is the moral ideal for Christians, and asserts the validity of rightlyorientated
feelings, insisting that to lack feelings at all, would be inhuman, and
incompatible with Christian ethics and anthropology.80 On the other hand, Augustine is
uncomfortable with all passions and feelings that arise independently of the judgement of
reason, and the determination of the will on the basis of this. Indeed, there are some
appetites or passions which, in Augustine’s view, seem not to have existed in paradise at
all, at least not in anything like their present state, even in proportion to rational
judgement, and at the behest of the will. For Aquinas, passions were possible in the state
of innocence, but only at the instigation of the will, in a due proportion. But Augustine
often seems to suggest that even this was not the case. Augustine’s typical example is
sexual desire:
if there had been no sin, marriage would have been worthy of the happiness of paradise,
and would have given birth to children to be loved, and yet would not have given rise to
any lust to be ashamed of; but, as it is, we have no example to show how this could have
come about. Yet that does not mean that it should seem incredible that the one part of the
79 CD IX.5.
80 See also CD XIV.9, and the first section of ch.3 below. Stephen Gaukroger says that traditional
disputes about the passions in the seventeenth century “revolved around a basic polarity between what can
broadly be termed Stoic and Augustinian conceptions of the passions. The Stoics treated the passions as
false judgements, and following an already strong tradition of intellectualist ethics in Greek thought, they
identified virtue and knowledge. On this conception, regulating the passions was tantamount to ridding
oneself of [them]. On Augustine’s conception, on the other hand, the moral worth of the passions must be
seen above all in terms of the will, and there can be both virtuous and vicious ones. These cannot be
assessed by reference to some criterion of rationality, but must rather be judged in terms of the act of will
from which they arise.” The Soft Underbelly of Reason: The Passions in the Seventeenth Century,
Routledge 1998 p6. Precisely what Augustine means by will in this context is of great importance regarding
what can be considered a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ passion, as we shall in in this chapter, chapter 3 and especially
chapter 4. A good will is always directed towards the truth, for Augustine, so rationality is not altogether
lacking as a criterion of the moral worth of the passions.
50
body could have been subject to the will, without the familiar lust, seeing that so many
other parts are now in subjection to it. We move our hands and feet to perform their special
functions, when we so will..81
Apparently, then, the movement of the genitals would have occurred in the same way that
we can move our hands and feet: at the behest of the will, without any appetite or feeling
being involved at all. Feeling is bad in itself, for Augustine, in this context:
Now surely any friend of wisdom and holy joys who lives a married life, but knows, in the
words of the Apostle’s warning, “how to possess his bodily instrument in holiness and
honour, not in the sickness of desire, like the Gentiles who have no knowledge of God” -
surely such a man would prefer, if possible, to beget children without lust of this kind. For
then the parts created for this task would be the servants of his mind, even in their function
of procreation, just as the other members are its servants in the various tasks to which they
are assigned. They would begin their activity at the bidding of the will, instead of being
stirred up by the ferment of lust.82
Augustine does not consider the possibility that sexual desire might ever be in accord
with a good will; exactly what Augustine means by a good will, and how it affects the
passions, will be of the greatest importance to our discussion in chapters 3 and 4.
At any rate, Christ, according to Augustine, was of such good will and in such
perfect control of his own nature, that he decided what he was going to feel where
81 In this respect Aquinas diverges from Augustine, and is more ‘Aristotelian’ than ‘Platonist’: all
the natural inclinations of human nature existed, but the mean came naturally, perhaps at the deliberate
behest of the will.
82 CD XIV.16. Also Against Julian IV.14.72.
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feelings were appropriate;83 otherwise, he, too, would have been subject to that very
inward contradiction, of which St Paul so bitterly complains, and which, in Augustine’s
view, was brought about by the first sin. And what was true of Christ, also seems to have
been true of Adam in the state of innocence (CD XIV.10).
Jeremy Taylor denies that either Christ’s passions, or Adam’s before his fall, were
in a different state from ours, which at the time was a highly controversial view, and
inevitably attracted the accusation of Pelagianism, or even Socinianism. Taylor follows
Augustine in referring to the general state of the passions in their present, irrational form
as “concupiscence”:
if concupiscence, which is in every man’s nature, be a sin, it is certain Christ had no
concupiscence or natural desires, for He had no sin. But if He had no concupiscence or
desires, how He should be a man, or how capable of law, or how He should serve God with
choice, where there could be no potentia ad oppositum, I think will be very hard to be
understood.84
Taylor certainly does not deny the sinlessness (or the divinity) of Christ; instead, he
denies the intrinsic sinfulness of concupiscence. So did Augustine, in itself; but Augustine
also held it to be the result of original sin, as we have seen, and that even the regenerate
inevitably sinned at least venially from time to time as a consequence of it.
Concupiscence is not sin; but people with concupiscence, inevitably sin, at least venially,
even after baptism.85 Christ was exempt from original sin and its effects. For Taylor,
83 CD XIV.9; compare Adam and Eve before the fall, in XIV.10 and elsewhere.
84 Works vol. 7 p334. Compare Julian of Eclanum on the same point.
85 For example, Against Julian II.10.33. Julian thought that Augustine saw concupiscence as
52
Christ is not exempt from “concupiscence, or natural desires”; this is because for Taylor,
concupiscence is not the result of original sin.
The effects of concupiscence as a natural phenomenon are not wholly avoidable
for Taylor, any more than they are for man in the fallen state according to Augustine;
Taylor, like Augustine, exempts Christ, on the grounds that he had exceptional moral
insight and strength due to his divinity, though he is fully human, and tempted. As far as
ordinary humans go, Taylor has some important questions to answer: if concupiscence is
wholly resistible, then his view does indeed reduce to Pelagianism; if not, then he seems
to be in no better position that his Calvinist opponents: if someone could not have done
otherwise, then the question arises of whether their action can be called a sin, or
attributed to their responsibility. We shall consider this question in detail in chapter 3;
Taylor’s answer, such as it is, seems to be that sin is unavoidable in every given instance,
but not absolutely; and that we become responsible, as we attain the age of reason, for a
natural condition which inclines us to certain things that are sinful or not depending on
the moral context.
In contrast to the Augustinian account, according to Taylor, there never was a time
when the human passions were instigated wholly by and in proportion to reason. (As we
shall see in chapter 3, in a way this represents a reversion to the older Platonist view,
though not to every aspect of it, of course). Taylor’s rejection of a primeval loss of
“original justice” does not mean that he rejects Aquinas's assertion that “perfection of
moral virtue ... regulates [the passions according to reason, so that] the temperate man
desires as he ought to desire, and what he ought to desire”. St Thomas says that “all the
intrinsically sinful, as we shall see in chapter 4. Some of Taylor’s interlocutors seem to have thought that
human beings were naturally sinful for precisely this reason, and not only the Calvinist ones. But Augustine
did not hold this; see ch.3 below. In DNG 36 Augustine allows that grace might make it possible to avoid
sinning at all, but expresses scepticism about whether this has ever actually happened, except perhaps in the
case of the Virgin Mary.
53
inclinations of ... the concupiscible and irascible faculties, insofar as they are ruled by
reason, belong to the natural law”86. We shall see in chapter 5 that Taylor disagrees with
St Thomas about the existence of a natural law in the prescriptive and proscriptive sense;
but for Aquinas, something can belong to the natural law in a negative way, simply
insofar as it belongs to human nature. A natural feature of what it is to be a human being,
cannot in itself be entirely contrary to the moral law.87 This is Aquinas’s meaning here,
and to this extent Taylor agrees with him. The inclinations of the irascible and
concupiscible faculties are natural aspects of human nature, and insofar as they are ruled
by reason, they are morally acceptable. However, Taylor differs from Aquinas in that by
ruled by reason, he always means guided and controlled by reason, whereas Aquinas
thinks that in the state of innocence, the passions were instigated by the rational will in a
due proportion.
The existing relationship between reason and the passions is the natural
relationship, according to Taylor, in the context of mortal life, and not an undesirable
necessity created by original sin:
But I consider, that by “concupiscence” must be meant either the first inclination [of the
passions] to their object; or the proper acts of election, which are the second acts of
concupiscence. If the first inclinations be meant, then certainly that cannot be a sin, which
is natural, and which is necessary. For I consider that concupiscence and natural desires are
like hunger, which, while it is natural and necessary, is not for the destruction but
conservation of man; when it goes beyond the limits of nature, it is violent and is a
86 ST 1a2ae q94 art 2 reply to obj. 2.
87 Self-preservation, sexual intercourse, education of offspring, belong, as Aquinas puts it, to the ius
naturale, the “right” of nature. As we shall see in chapter 5, Taylor distinguishes between ius and lex as
negative right, and positive precept respectively; Aquinas accepted both a negative and positive right.
54
disease.88
For Taylor there is a motion of the passions which is both natural and independent of
rational judgement, and it plays a necessary and potentially positive role in earthly
existence. This can only be called “concupiscence” in Augustine’s sense of something
wrong and undesirable when it occurs in a morally illicit context, and more especially
when it is encouraged to excess by the will. The fact that we have it, however, is in itself
morally neutral, and in the right ethical context, passions in themselves are morally
acceptable. Taylor takes issue with Augustine’s suggestion that sexual desire did not exist
at all, at least in anything like its present form, before the fall:
[W]hen [natural desires] are taken for the natural propensity to their proper object, [they]
are so far from being a sin, that they are instruments of felicity for this duration; and when
they grow towards being irregular, they may if we please grow instruments of felicity in
order to the other duration, because they may serve a virtue by being restrained … to desire
that which all men desire, is no more a sin than to desire to be happy is a sin: ‘desire’ is no
more a sin than joy or sorrow is: neither can it be fancied why one passion more than
another can be in its whole nature criminal: either all or none are so; when any of them
grows irregular or inordinate, joy is as bad as desire, and fear as bad as either.89
For Taylor, the passions are not in an intrinsically corrupt or disordered condition; they
are even “instruments of felicity for this duration”. The state of original justice, as
described by Augustine and developed by Aquinas and others, was one in which, in
88 Letter to Bp Warner, Works vol. 7 p564. Nature is not teleological, however; what is “natural” for
the passions is assessed on the basis of the overall human good, given the sort of creatures we are; and even
then this requires confirmation by revelation, for Taylor, as we shall see in chapter 5.
89 Works vol.7 p564.
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effect, according to the Aristotelian/Scholastic maxim, ‘the natural appetite followed the
natural power’. Notwithstanding his assertions about the goodness of the passions when
they incline in accordance with “nature”, and their irregularity when they grow
“inordinate”, Taylor is in fact sceptical of any natural proportionality or teleology
regarding the passions.90 As we shall see in chapter 5, the measure of inordinacy, the
extent to which the passions require restraint, can only be judged according to
probabilistic reasoning and the moral principles contained in divine revelation, not
according to any intrinsic natural order or principle. The passions and appetites of human
nature know no natural proportion in themselves, even one maintained by the influence of
grace; they simply incline blindly to their own proper objects, and it is up to reason and
will to direct and habituate them to virtue. Grace always relates to nature in the same
way, for Taylor: it assists the rational mind to form the nature and character of the whole
man according to virtue, rather than only working this way in the redemption of ‘fallen’
humanity. The conflict between the “flesh and the spirit”, says Taylor, “comes by reason
of the laws which God made after He made our nature; He brought us laws to check our
nature, to cross and displease, that by doing so we may prefer God before ourselves”.91
That in some things our nature is cross to the divine commandment, is not always
imputable to us, because our natures were before the commandment; and God hath
therefore commanded us to do violence to our nature, that by such preternatural contentions
we should offer to God a service that costs us something. But that in some things we are
inclined otherwise than we are suffered to act, is so far from offending God, that it is the
90 Compare Works vol. 2 p12. Taylor’s concept of irregularity or inordinacy or excess in the
passions is not based on Scholastic ideas of a natural proportion, but seems to owe more to Plato and
Epicurus, in that it is a more intuitive conception; for example, Timaeus 87c4-6: “all that is good is
beautiful and what is beautiful is … well proportioned”. Compare Augustine on intuitive knowledge of
justice, with Aquinas on the just as drawn from natural mathematical proportion: see ch.5 below.
91 UN, Works vol 7 p335.
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opportunity of serving Him by which we can most endear him. To be inclined to that
whither nature bends, is of itself indifferent, but to love, to entertain, to act our inclinations,
when the commandment is put between, that is the sin; and therefore if we resist them, and
master them, that is our obedience.92
For Taylor, “our nature is not contrary to virtue, but the instances of some virtues are
made to come cross our nature.”93 One of the chief causes of the “universal iniquity of the
world” identified by St Paul in Romans 2, is not an intrinsic corruption of human nature
derived from Adam, but
because our nature is so hard put to it in many instances; not because nature is originally
corrupted, but because God’s laws command such things which are a restraint to the
indifferent and otherwise lawful inclinations of nature. I instance in the matters of
temperance, abstinence, patience, humility, self-denial, and mortification. But more
particularly thus; - A man is naturally inclined to desire the company of a woman whom he
fancies. This is naturally no sin: for the natural desire was put into us by God, and therefore
could not be evil. But then God as an instance and trial of our obedience, put fetters upon
the indefinite desire, and determined us to one woman; which provision was enough to
satisfy our need, but not all our possibility. This therefore he left as a reserve, that by
obeying God in the so reasonable restraint of our natural desire, we might give Him
something of our own … our unwillingness and averseness came by occasion of the law
coming cross upon our nature; not because our nature is contrary to God, but because God
was pleased to superinduce some commandments contrary to our nature … because we are
forbidden to do some things which naturally we desire to do and love, therefore our nature
92 Ibid.
93 Works vol 1, p118
57
is hard put to it; and this is the true state of the difficulty.94
Taylor is directly engaging the traditional Augustinian view of the state of the
passions, by way of Augustine’s own typical example: the present state of human sexual
desire.
For while it is true that the carnal desire dwelling in the genital organs is made good use of
by married chastity, still it has its involuntary motions which show that either it could not
have been present at all in paradise before sin, or if it did exist there that it was not such as
would ever resist the will. But now our experience of it is that it fights against the law of
the mind (Rom.7.23), and even when it is not required for procreation it goads us on to
copulation; if we give in it is sated by sinning, if we do not give in it is curbed by refusal;
both situations which no one can doubt were foreign to paradise before sin. After all, the
probity of that state would not do anything unbecoming, and the felicity of that state would
not suffer anything unsatisfying.95
In contrast, according to Taylor, human beings can be said to possess an “indefinite
desire” naturally. These passages indicate Taylor’s voluntarism and divine command
ethics, which we shall consider further in chapter 5; however, there is a more subtle
dimension to his view. Our naturally “indefinite desire” can be not only restrained in
accordance with the commandment, but also directed in such a way as to be engaged and
integrated with, and contribute to, a higher fulfilment of human nature. A more positive
understanding of marriage often surfaces in Taylor’s works than the restricted, lawful
outlet for natural passions suggested by the passages above (which Augustine would have
94 UN, Works vol. 7 p277.
95 de Trin. XIII.5.23.
58
held to constitute a lustful use of marriage). Moreover, this understanding contributes to a
more subtle and integrated account of the relationship between human passions and the
intellectual faculty, the rational soul, than simply the distinction between reason and
willpower on the one hand, and passion or desire on the other, suggested by Taylor’s
anthropology so far, which is suggestive of a rather crude mind-body dualism. We shall
consider this further in chapter 3.
In the preface to a comparatively early work on the life of Christ, Taylor argues
that God gave to man “two first appetites of nature”, which are related to one another; the
first, “to be like God, and the first natural instrument of it, love,” from which “descend all
the first obligations of religion”; and the second, “to beget another like himself”:
This appetite God only made regular [by the institution of marriage]. He gave to man a
woman for a wife, for the companion of his sorrows, for the instrument of multiplication;
and yet provided him but of one, and intimated he should have no more: which we do not
only know by an after revelation, the holy Jesus having declared it to have been God’s
purpose; but Adam himself understood it, as appears by his first discourses at the
entertainment of his new bride. And although there were permissions afterward of
polygamy … certainly the multiplication of wives is contrarient to that design of love and
endearment which God intended at first between man and wife … And amongst them that
have many wives, the relation and necessitude is trifling and loose, and they are all equally
contemptible; because the mind entertains no loves or union where the object is multiplied
and the act unfixed and distracted. So that this having a great commodity in order to man’s
great end, that is, of living well and happily, seems to be intended by God in the nature of
things and instruments natural and reasonable towards man’s end; and therefore to be a law,
59
if not natural, yet at least positive and superinduced at first in order to man’s proper end.96
Marriage, according to Taylor, is a fitting part of “man’s great end” or “proper end” in
this life, “that is, of living well, and happily”;97 an end which is conceived on what we
might see as a more ‘Epicurean’ than ‘Aristotelian’ model: that is, probabilistically
derived from what happens to be good, according to the appetites and inclinations we
happen to have, rather than on a teleological model. But marriage is also a certain natural
analogue of the spiritual life, and indeed an image of that relationship between the human
soul and God which, this time following the Augustinian tradition, Taylor holds to be the
true and ultimate human end:
Single life makes men in one instance to be like angels, but marriage in very many things
makes the chaste pair to be like Christ. ‘This is a great mystery’, but it is the symbolical
and sacramental representation of the greatest mysteries of our religion. Christ descended
from His Father’s bosom, and contracted His divinity with flesh and blood, and married our
nature, and we became a church, the spouse of the Bridegroom, which He cleansed with
His blood, and gave her His holy spirit for a dowry, and heaven for a jointure, begetting
children unto God by the gospel.98
Christ took our nature, says Taylor, “at last to make it partaker of a beatifical
resurrection”; “by means of His holy humanity it was taken up into the cabinet of the
96 Preface to the Great Exemplar, Works vol 2 p8-9.
97 Compare Erasmus, The Epicurean and On the Goodness of Marriage: see also MacCulloch, D.
Reformation: Europe’s house divided 1490-1700, Allen Lane, London 2003 on Erasmus and his influence
in this respect, chapter 16, Love and Sex: Moving On p647f.
98 Marriage Ring sermon, Works vol 4 p212. Also in an Erasmian, and Platonist, vein, friendship,
too, is a certain temporal image for Taylor: Discourse of Friendship, Works vol.1.
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mysterious Trinity”.99
For Taylor, even our temporal end - which, as indicated by the fact that loving
personal relationships are part of it and exemplify it, is not static, but, like our ultimate
end, dynamic - cannot be derived by reason from a teleological order in nature; it can
only be probably assessed, on the basis of what seems to contribute to human fulfilment
and flourishing, and is confirmed by revelation. “Matrimonial chastity could not have
been a law before Eve was created; yet our nature was perfect before.”100 For Taylor,
human nature has various natural inclinations, but they do not indicate any teleological
order: in themselves, they only indicate “a natural appetite or inclination”, they do not
imply any intrinsic ‘ought’ regarding behaviour, moral or otherwise, merely a desire for
satisfaction: for example,
that a thing is common to men and beasts is no indication of a law of nature, but only of a
common necessity, instinct or inclination respectively.101
A general consideration of what best contributes to human well-being will persuasively,
but not finally or demonstratively, indicate that our natural inclinations are best pursued
in certain ways and within certain temperate limits, for Taylor; but confirmation of this
can only come from divine revelation. We shall consider this question of revelation and
moral obligation further in chapter 5.
Taylor partly thinks this because he does not think our natural good, or natural
end, could exhaust all our possibility: one can never say, this is a perfectly flourishing,
good or happy man, except of one beyond the life of time and chance, who enjoys the
99 GE, Works vol 2 p52.
100 Works vol 9 p281.
101 Ibid. p283.
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vision of God. Our final end, which is naturally desired, is nevertheless unknown to us in
this life, without revelation:
Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and final interest, that at first it cannot move
one step towards God unless God by His preventing grace puts into it a new possibility.
[Homer quote:] “there is nothing that creeps upon the earth, nothing that ever God made,
weaker than man;” for God fitted horses and mules with strength, bees and pismires with
sagacity, harts and hares with swiftness, birds with feathers and a light airy body; and they
all know their times, and are fitted for their work, and regularly acquire the proper end of
their creation; but man, that was designed to an immortal duration and the fruition of God
forever, knows not how to obtain it; he is made upright to look up to heaven, but he knows
no more how to purchase it than to climb it.102
This is not to say that man is created imperfect or inadequate regarding his natural life;
only regarding his eternal destiny, which is, for Taylor as according to the Scholastic
maxim, naturally desired, but only supernaturally attained. In one sense, for natural life,
that is, our natural ends considered in themselves rather than from a moral point of view,
we are as well fitted as horses, pismires, harts or bees. We have various natural ends,
which are not teleological, but merely those we happen to have. But human
consciousness gives us a capacity for a higher, transcendent end, yet one which
necessarily cannot be obtained by any natural means. Human nature is sufficient for
natural life but it carries within itself a higher intrinsic possibility; it is not ‘closed’, that
is to say, it has a capacity beyond what it does or can do in nature, but which need not be
fulfilled; man is sufficient in his natural life, but by virtue of consciousness, human
102 Sermon X, The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol 4 p119. Compare Hooker, Laws bk I ch..IX.4.
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beings are creatures for whom there is a certain ontological excess, and even, as we might
say, a spiritual entropy, without the higher end provided by the supernatural order.
On these grounds, then, Taylor is suspicious of the Augustinian view that in the
state of innocence, human beings could not have suffered “anything unsatisfying”: the
only perfectly satisfying end, so to speak, is the Beatific Vision. Taylor cannot reconcile a
temporal state of “original justice” with Augustine’s assertion that “our hearts are restless,
until they rest in Thee”. And indeed the capacity for the vision of God, is reflected in the
endlessness, the lack of any intrinsic natural proportion, in our appetites, both physical
and mental. For Taylor, the “indefinite desire” characteristic of what Aquinas called “the
inferior appetite” is an image at the physical level, one might say, of the indeterminate
desire that characterises man’s intellectual and spiritual nature, a desire that can only rest
in the infinite, in the eternal contemplation of God (or, in a loving personal relation with
God). A creature whose desire is for the infinite, cannot be a creature of naturally
temperate appetites, of any sort; in a creature made up of an intimate (and intricate) union
of body and soul, spiritual appetite must have its physical analogue. St Thomas plainly
stated that a creature of infinite appetite cannot be perfectly satisfied by anything except
the infinite:
It is impossible for any created good to constitute man’s happiness. For happiness is the
perfect good, which lulls the appetite altogether; else it would not be the last end, if
something yet remained to be desired. Now the object of the will, i.e. of man’s appetite, is
the universal good; just as the object of the intellect is the universal true. Hence it is
evident that naught can lull man’s will, save the universal good. This is to be found, not in
any creature, but in God alone; because every creature has goodness by participation.
Wherefore God alone can satisfy the will of man, according to the words of Psalm 102.5:
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"Who satisfieth thy desire with good things." Therefore God alone constitutes man’s [final,
ultimate] happiness.103
For Taylor, St Thomas and St Augustine must be wrong about an earthly state of
perfect temperance on their own principles. No created thing, and no imperfect access to
the uncreated, either, could satisfy the human soul. Perfect happiness lies is the intuitive
vision of the perfect good; and as Aquinas says this was not perfectly available to man
even before his sin:
since in the Divine Essence is beatitude itself, the intellect of a man who sees the Divine
Essence has the same relation to God as a man has to beatitude. Now it is clear that man
cannot willingly be turned away from beatitude, since naturally and necessarily he desires
it, and shuns unhappiness. Wherefore no one who sees the Essence of God can willingly
turn away from God, which means to sin. Hence all who see God through His Essence are
so firmly established in the love of God, that for eternity they can never sin. Therefore, as
Adam did sin, it is clear that he did not see God through His Essence.104
Therefore, without the beatific vision, Taylor does not think that man can be thought of as
ever in a state where he does not suffer “anything unsatisfying”. Indeed, had he ever been
so, he would never have sinned. For Augustine, as Aquinas observes in the passage just
quoted, without the beatific vision, man was able to love himself better than God: the
absence of an intuitive vision of God was a necessary condition of the possibility of sin,
and for Taylor it is equally the necessary condition of freedom of choice regarding the
final good: as we saw him argue in chapter 1,
103 ST 1a2ae q1 art.8.
104 ST 1a1ae q94 art.1.
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in moral and spiritual things liberty and indetermination is weakness, and supposes a great
infirmity of our reason, and a want of love. For if we understood all the degrees of
amability in the service of God, and if we could love God as he deserves, we could not
deliberate concerning his service, and we could not possibly choose or be in love with
disobedience, we should have no liberty left, nothing concerning which we could
deliberate; for there is no deliberation but when something is to be refused and something
is to be preferred, which could not be but that we understand good little, and love it less.
For the saints and angels in heaven and God himself love good and cannot choose evil,
because to do so were imperfection and infelicity; and the devils and accursed souls hate all
good ... but between these is the state of man in his pilgrimage, until he comes to a
confirmation in one of the opposite terms. Liberty of will is like a magnetic needle toward
the north, full of trembling and uncertainty till it be fixed in the beloved point: it wavers as
long as it is free, and is at rest when it can choose no more ... our dignity and excellence
supposes misery and is imperfection, but [is] the instrument and capacity of all duty and all
virtue.105
Taylor also thinks this implies that without the intuitive vision of God, our highest
good, we have a certain natural tendency to love ourselves best of all,106 and
consequently to wander after other things: finite temporality, and its concomitant
mutability, notably for embodied creatures, are sufficient to account for this tendency, and
do not require the fall as an explanation of its origin.
the grace of God eases the malignity [of our “strange propensity to evil”], but it cannot be
105 Ductor Dubitantium vol 2, Works vol 10 p552.
106 Possibly Augustine agrees, and thinks of this as the explanation for the fall: Adam had enough
grace to avoid sin in any given instance, but was at least very likely to fall eventually. See ch.3 note 126
below, and Rist 1994 on this, p104-8.
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cured but by glory: that is, this freedom of delight, or perfect unabated election of evil,
which is consequent to the evil manners of the world, although it be lessened by the
intermedial state of grace, yet it is not cured until it be changed into its quite contrary; but
as it is in heaven, all that is happy, and glorious, and free, yet can choose nothing but the
love of God and excellent things, because God fills all the capacities of saints, and there is
nothing without Him that hath any degrees of amability: so in the state of nature, of flesh
and blood; there is so much ignorance of spiritual excellencies, and so much proportion to
sensual objects … that as men naturally know no good but to please a wild, undetermined
infinite appetite, so they will nothing else …107
In a thoroughly Augustinian manner, there is a certain spiritual ‘entropy’, on the part of
the human will, if it is not rejoicing in the possession of the highest good obtained; and
since in this life the final good cannot be had, yet the finite self possesses the capacity for
it, the will’s entropic, and, inevitably, greedy, “rebellious” tendencies, are in some
measure natural to it.108
Taylor follows his great English predecessor Richard Hooker in this respect.
Hooker remains heavily influenced by Scholasticism, whereas Taylor tends
philosophically to ‘Epicurean’ and ‘Platonist’ views, but they share an overall structure
107 Sermon Of the Flesh and the Spirit Works vol.4 p124. This is clearly a condition that is partly the
result simply of temporality and embodiment, for Taylor, and not just “the evil manners of the world”; as
we shall see further in the next two chapters. “Perfect unabated election of evil” is an exaggeration, as we
shall see in the next chapter; at any rate, in any given instance. Taylor constantly asserts that human beings
possess liberty of indifference.
108 Taylor essentially thinks that the natural state of man under grace is that of fallen man under grace
in CD XI.12, and the state of Adam in innocence in the same chapter is incoherent. We shall take up this
theme again in chapter 4. Compare John Burnaby, Amor Dei, London 1938 p37: “Change is the rule of
temporal existence, changelessness is the quality of the eternal, the limit towards which the creature may
approximate.” And p179: “Where the Greeks had thought of mortality and immortality, where the
scholastics were to think of nature and super-nature, Augustine thinks of change and the changeless.” See
many passages of the Confessions, notably in books 7 and 12; and de Trin. IV.4, cited in my chapter 4
below. Aquinas implicitly attempts to answer the objection that ‘original justice’ is incompatible with the
endless desire of the changeable soul for the changeless, when he claims that the relationship of man in
innocence to beatitude was “to a state of further good hoped for”: but in the light of our present discussion
this is not a very convincing answer.
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that owes much to Augustinianism and Thomism. In Scholastic mode, Hooker argues that
that which man doth desire with reference to a further end, the same he desireth in such
measure as is unto that end convenient; but what he coveteth as good in itself, towards that
his desire is ever infinite. So that unless the last good of all, which is desired altogether for
itself, be also infinite, we do evil in making it our end.109
For Taylor, human beings naturally tend to an endless desire for temporal and material
things, an endless search for satisfaction amidst the goods of this world; they do not
desire goods simply “in such measure as is unto [whatever] end convenient”. This is a
misdirected reflection of their capacity for God: as Hooker says, “Capable we are of God
both by understanding and will: by understanding, as He is that sovereign Truth which
comprehendeth the riches of all wisdom; by will, as He is that sea of Goodness whereof
whoso tasteth shall thirst no more.
As the will doth now work upon that object by desire, which is as it were a motion towards
the end as yet unobtained; so likewise upon the same hereafter received it shall work also
by love. “Appetitus inhiantis fit amor fruentis,” saith St Augustine: “The longing
disposition of them that thirst is changed into the sweet affection of them that taste and are
replenished.”
A certain endless seeking for satisfaction characterises the human will in the ‘state of our
pilgrimage’, according to Taylor; human beings have a natural tendency, then, to pursue
individual satisfaction. But in reality, for Hooker and Taylor as for Augustine, this
109 This, and all of the following, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity I.XI.4.
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perpetuates our ontological dissatisfaction. As Hooker says, “we now love the thing that
is good, but good especially in respect of benefit unto us”; in fact, human beings are
made to “love the thing that is good, only or principally for the goodness … in itself”;
and the pursuit of what is good in itself, for its own sake, will also provide the soul with
“joy, peace and delight”.110
An instructive comparison can be made between Taylor’s version of Augustinian
anthropology concerning desire, and that of Taylor’s contemporary, the great materialist
philosopher and political theorist Thomas Hobbes, whose influence is discernible in
Taylor’s later writings:
[T]he Felicity of this life, consisteth not in the repose of a mind satisfied. For there is no
such Finis ultimus, (utmost aim,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest Good,) as is spoken of in
the Books of the old Morall Philosophers. Nor can a man any more live, whose desires are
at an end, than he, whose senses and imagination are at a stand. Felicity is a continuall
progresse of the desire, from one object to another; the attaining of the former, being still
but the way to the later. The cause whereof is, That the object of man’s desire, is not to
enjoy once onely, and for one instant of time; but to assure forever, the way of his future
desire. And therefore the voluntary actions, and inclinations of all men, tend, not onely to
the procuring, but also to the assuring of a contented life; and differ onely in the way:
which ariseth partly from the diversity of passions, in divers men; and partly from the
difference of the knowledge, or opinion each one has of the causes, which produce the
effect desired.
So that in the first place, I put for a generall inclination of all mankind, a perpetuall and
restlesse desire of Power after power, that ceaseth onely in Death. And the cause of this, is
110 Compare Kant's similar, but far colder, appreciation of the relationship between happiness and
a good will that acts for the sake of what is good independently of any relation: “moral happiness”. For
Taylor, as for Hooker and Augustine, virtue is its own reward in a rather stronger way.
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not alwayes that a man hopes for a more intensive delight, than he has already attained to;
or that he cannot be content with a moderate power: but because he cannot assure the
power and means to live well, which he hath present, without the acquisition of more.111
In contrast to Augustine, Aquinas, Hooker and Taylor, Hobbes is a materialist: he denies
any distinction between the mental and the physical. However, in other respects, there is a
similarity. For Hobbes, the “felicity of this life” cannot consist “in the repose of a mind
satisfied”, without any excess desire. Without continual desire, all motion would cease.
Hobbes is setting out a sort of sceptical Aristotelianism without any prime mover. (We
shall see Grotius do something similar in chapter 5. Again, one is reminded of the endless
motion of the Epicurean atoms.) But nor can it on the Augustinian account, according to
Taylor: in this life we are ontologically dissatisfied, and the blessed in heaven are in a
state of continual bliss. For both Taylor and Hobbes, the pre-lapsarian state of man is
inconceivable on this account; something very like a naturalised version of the
Augustinian fallen state is the natural human condition. (We shall see further how much
Taylor’s thinking about human nature is influenced by the sort of ‘humanist’, anti-
Scholastic thinking characteristic of Hobbes, concerning the “state of nature” in chapter
5.)
Again, along with Hobbes, Taylor does not see this as an intrinsically negative or
evil state. In a study of the influence of Epicureanism on early modern thought, Catherine
Wilson argues that for Hobbes, “the felicity of heaven is as unknown as it is remote …
‘the word of the Schoole-men Beatifical Vision is unintelligible.’ He appealed to the
universal aspiration to be active in the world and at the same time secure in one’s
enjoyments. Co-operative lives of building and making are unconditionally good …
111 Leviathan ch.11. Augustine and Aquinas might have thought Hobbes too sanguine about the
human capacity to be content with a “moderate power”.
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Hobbes’s recognition that all humans, not merely a dissipated few, desire ‘Ease and
sensuall delight’, that delight is intrinsically related to vitality, and that this desire along
with the desire to be free from pain is the only possible ground for political authority, is
unprecedented.”112 Taylor often displays a similarly positive view of natural life, though
he disagrees of course about the beatific vision: “It is lawful when a man needs meat to
choose the pleasanter, even merely for their pleasures; that is because they are pleasant,
besides that they are useful; this is as lawful as to smell a rose, or to lie in feathers, or
change the posture of our body in bed for ease, or to hear music, or to walk in gardens
rather than the highways; and God hath given us leave to be delighted in those things
which He made to that purpose, that we may also be delighted in Him that gives them.”113
For Taylor, there is a temperate love of worldly things that constitutes our natural felicity,
without prejudice to the fact the “our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee”; indeed, as
we have seen in the case of marriage and friendship, this can, for Taylor, be a temporal
image of heaven.
Hobbes gives an account of the passions as in a sort of naturalised Augustinian
fallen condition; but they are not thereby intrinsically bad, in fact their fulfilment is
exactly what human felicity involves (and for Hobbes the state exists to guarantee the
peace that allows this). In the same way, for Taylor, the passions are “instruments of
felicity for this duration”, when directed to an object in a morally permissible context and
degree, or when integrated with a higher love. Taylor approves of pleasure, but thinks it is
112 Epicureanism at the origins of modernity, Clarendon 2008, p191. The only possible ground for
political authority, because only submission to a common power can guarantee the state in which human
life can flourish: “In [the state of nature], there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may
be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instrument of moving, and removing such things as
require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no
Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man,
solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short.” Lev.13. For Taylor the passions are not subject only to a restraint
based on what is necessary for social peace; but nor are they for Hobbes, in fact: Lev. Ch.15, p109 in
Tuck’s Cambridge edition.
113 Works vol 4 p202, sermon XVI “House of Feasting”.
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destructive unless temperate; he draws on Augustine’s account of love of temporal goods
in the Confessions, though he thinks Augustine too negative on natural goods.114
So, in Taylor we find a positive appreciation of the passions, and he is more like
Aquinas than Augustine in this respect; but Taylor is more positive about the freely
inclining state of the passions than either, and regards it as natural. In a way this is a
reversion to the Platonist view concerning the passions: AE Taylor compared Plato’s
account of the spirited and appetitive parts of the soul in book 4 of the Republic with the
very passage of Hobbes on human desire quoted above:
So the reason ought to rule, having the wisdom and foresight to act for the whole, and the
spirit ought to obey and support it. … And this concord between them is effected, as we
said, by a combination of intellectual and physical training, which tunes up the reason by a
training in rational argument and higher studies, and tones down and soothes the element of
‘spirit’ by harmony and rhythm. … When these two elements have been so brought up, and
trained and educated to their proper function, they must be put in charge of appetite, which
forms the greater part of each man’s make-up and is naturally insatiable. They must prevent
it taking its fill of the so-called physical pleasures, for otherwise it will get too large and
strong to mind its own business and will try to subject and control the other elements,
which it has no right to do, and so wreck the life of all of them.115
Taylor’s views are influenced by Platonist, as well as ‘Epicurean’ ideas: again, we are
reminded of Gassendi’s account of the free movement of the anima in chapter 1. Taylor is
more ‘Epicurean’ in his positive appreciation of the passions, with Hobbes, compared
with the Platonist tradition (or, still more, than the Stoic). For Taylor, the natural good
114 Ibid Works vol 4 p186; Confessions X.31.
115 Rep 441e-442b, trans. Lee. See A.E. Taylor, Plato, University Paperback 1960 p120.
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includes the passions, but the passions in morally illicit contexts are still the moral
problem Augustine saw them as; though their present state is natural, and not the result of
original sin.
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Chapter 3: Will, free will and the nature of 'original sin': Augustine, Taylor and
Coleridge's Kantian critique
We have seen in chapter 2 that Taylor’s anthropology makes subtle use of the Augustinian
tradition concerning the natural desire for God: and that this capacity for the infinite (in
both its ‘mental’ and ‘physical’ aspects) becomes precisely the problem when unfixed
(which is its prior natural state) or misdirected. Human beings are necessarily in this
state; in a state where the ‘natural appetite followed the natural power’, they would lack
such a capacity.
In this chapter we shall see how Taylor draws extensively on Augustine’s account
of the activity of the fallen will and passions in this context, as well as on Augustine’s
Platonist and earlier patristic sources, and the problems this raises for him, concerning
freedom and responsibility; notably, those pointed out by Coleridge in an important
discussion of the nature and importance of the doctrine of original sin in Christianity,
which he begins from a discussion of Taylor on the topic.
A. Augustine and Taylor on the will and original sin
3.1 Augustine on the will and sin
We have seen Taylor describe two “first great appetites” of man: to be “like God,
and to beget another like himself”. They are connected; Taylor’s account is based on the
Platonic account of love found in the Symposium and other texts, and in later
Neoplatonist exegesis of them, which was often made use of by patristic writers; this text
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and the interpretations of it exemplify the subtlety of the relation between the rational and
animal souls and the kinds of desire associated with them in the Platonic tradition, which
influences Taylor’s anthropology, as it did that of the church fathers.
For example, Plotinus, in Ennead III.5.1, argues that the soul - that is, the rational
soul - has a certain “tendency … towards pure beauty, in a recognition, in a kinship, in an
unreasoned consciousness of friendly relation.” [“the longing for beauty itself … in
men’s souls, and their recognition of it and kinship with it and unreasoned awareness that
it is something of their own”.]116 The soul itself is sprung from the intelligible realm, and
anything which has a resemblance to the Beautiful and the Good attracts it, due to the
“delight” arising from the “sense of kinship” [“delights” in what “is akin to it”]. The
rational soul’s “delight” gives rise to feelings, which belong to the spirited and appetitive
parts: the soul’s delight is the origin of the “will to beget in beauty” [“want to ‘bring forth
in beauty’”] which is the cause of “copulative love” [“if anyone delights in something
and is akin to it, he has an affinity also with its images. But if anyone rejects this cause,
he will be unable to say how far and for what reasons the emotion of love occurs even in
those lovers who aim at sexual intercourse”]. This is based on the Symposium where the
general desire for Beauty, the Good and happiness leads to the desire to beget in beauty
(206e).
For Plotinus, following Plato, the desire for Beauty Itself, like Taylor’s desire for
God, and to be “like God”, is related to, and is in a way the foundation for, other primary
human desires; an inclination of the mind, affects the passions and appetite. There is a
kind of desire on the part of the rational soul for what is purely intelligible, in the Platonic
tradition; and while this gives rise to or shapes the desire stemming from the lower parts
of the soul, the two can be distinguished. There is a complex relationship between
116 Citations from MacKenna’s translation; in square brackets, Armstrong’s, for comparison.
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different kinds of desire in human nature; but it seems that while there is an analogy
between the two, and that the two are interrelated, “desire” is not the prerogative of the
lower parts of the soul alone, leaving the higher purely rational.
The Platonists fail to further develop this notion, which seems to suggest an
‘appetitive’ element to the rational soul itself, which influences and is influenced by
appetite and passion; a notion that goes beyond their more usual ideas that mere reasons
or ideas alone can stir feeling in the lower parts of the soul, or those feelings cloud the
judgement of the rational part.117 On this Platonist account, feelings and even appetites of
a basic, physical kind are shaped by an inclination of the mind, which influences the
appetitive and spirited parts prior to specific, willed intention; they do not simply
represent an independent inclining of the passions, which affects the rational soul, so to
put it, from ‘without’.118
Although the Platonists do not further develop this, Augustine’s idea of “will”
seems to be partly derived from this Platonist idea of an unreasoned inclination of the
mind stemming from pure consciousness.119 For Augustine, as we have seen, sin began in
the soul, prior to any temptation exercised by the passions or bodily appetites, or even
feelings and emotions which are a complex ‘blend’ of the two. In Paradise, the rational
soul ruled all the rest of human nature in tranquillity. However, on Augustine’s account,
117 For the more usual Platonist view, see A. Dihle, The Theory of Will in Classical Antiquity,
Berkeley 1982 pp 20-122; see Rist 1994 p152f for an account of eros/inspiration as compared with
Augustinian will.
118 Compare Coleridge, Aids to Reflection p198-9: ‘It will be an equal convenience to myself and my
readers, to let it be agreed between us, that we will generalize the word Circumstance, so as to understand
by it … all and everything not connected with the Will, past or present, of a Free Agent. Even though it
were the blood in the chambers of the Heart, or his own inmost Sensations, we will regard them as
circumstantial, extrinsic, or from without.’
119 D. Hedley, Pantheism, Trinitarian Theism and the Idea of Unity: Reflections on the Christian
Concept of God, Religious Studies 32, 1996, p 69-70: “It has been argued in a now somewhat dated but
brilliant and still informative book by Ernst Benz that Plotinus’s concept of the freedom of the One as His
absolute self-willing (in the treatise VI.8.39 on Free Will and the Will of the One) was the real source of the
Western concept of ‘will’.” Benz, Marius Victorinus und die Entwicklung der adendlandischen
Willensmetaphysik (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1932). Compare - as Hedley points out - Rist on VI.8, in
Plotinus: the Road to Reality Cambridge 1967pp 66-83.
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the rational soul is itself appetitive, in a certain sense, and it is important to notice that
this appetitive aspect of the mind represents a kind of instinct of the mind: it is not wholly
in the power of the rational will, but is a by-product of consciousness itself, which
provides the foundation for the existence of a rational will at all. It was in this prior
inclination of the mind that sin first began.
In his first definition of will, Augustine describes will as an inclination of the
mind, before referring to it as the ability to choose.
Augustine: Do we have a will?
Evodius: I don’t know.
Aug: Do you want to know?
Ev: I don’t know that either.
Aug: Then don’t ask me any more questions.
Ev: Why not?
Aug: First, because there’s no reason for me to answer your questions unless you want to
know the answer. Second, because I shouldn’t discuss these sorts of things with you unless
you want to attain wisdom. And finally, because you can’t be my friend unless you want
things to go well for me. But surely you have already seen whether you will your own
happiness.
Ev: You’re right; it can’t be denied that we have a will.120
First of all, we learn from this passage that will, voluntas, means a certain kind of
wanting. Intellectual curiosity (which is not to be confused with sinful curiositas), the
desire for wisdom, the general desire for things to go well for our friends, and the desire
for beatitudo are all examples of our will at work. By will, then, Augustine means what
120 DLA 1.12, trans. T. Williams, Hackett 1993.
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we want, the orientation of the thinking self towards certain things. But the mind is
deeply mysterious for Augustine; it goes back behind our immediate consciousness. Will
in this sense of wanting would seem to arise to a certain extent whether we will or no, in
the conventional English sense of the word will; we cannot choose whether we want to be
happy or not, for example, and Evodius has this and similar desires prior to his conscious
attention being directly drawn to them. John Rist observes this, when he describes the
will as originating back in the mystery of the soul:
In English, ‘willing’ conjures up the idea of determining on a course of action. Is that, then,
not part of Augustine’s understanding of it too? It is, but he wants to put the genesis of
voluntas further back in the mystery of the soul. We determine on doing things as a result
of what we are, and what we are is what we love.121
By love, Augustine does not mean a feeling or emotion. Again, Rist perfectly summarises
Augustinian “love” in the sense we are dealing with here.
For a human being to love something is more than to be drawn to it by a natural appetite, as
is the case with animals. Human beings are able to value things, that is, to set or recognize
a value in them ... to “love” something, as Augustine puts it in one of the 83 Questions
(35.1), is “nothing other than to seek it for its own sake”: to treat it, that is, as an end in
itself ... the notion of loving something for its own sake puts Augustine in the Greek ethical
tradition of seeing the highest motivation as that of inspiration.122
121 Rist 1994 p188.
122 Rist 1994 p174-5, discussing CD XI.28. Compare St Thomas Aquinas, “Now on the reason
apprehending something, not only the sensitive appetite is moved, as regards its application to some
particular thing, but also the intellectual appetite, which is called the will. And accordingly in the
intellectual appetite or will there is that delight which is called joy, but not bodily delight.” ST 1a2ae q34
art.4.
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To love something, is for the mind to be drawn to it; to consciously set or recognise a
value in it; but this is a subtle process that does not necessarily involve a clear and
developed notion of value: there is a dimension to the mind that is mysterious, even to the
mind thinking about itself.
Again, in de Trinitate, will in the first instance is a desire or inclination of the
mind, which is a natural by-product of reflexive consciousness, before it is the power to
choose. The conscious mind that considers itself is apt to love itself; when the mind
thinks about itself, and so begets a “word” about itself, it naturally loves what it knows:
itself, that is, its own conscious presence.123 As in DLA, even before we know something,
the desire to do so “can already be called will”, according to Augustine:
This appetite, that is inquisitiveness, does not indeed appear to be the love with which what
is known is loved [because it doesn’t know it yet] … yet it is something of the same kind. It
can already be called will because everyone who inquires wants to find out … everyone
who inquires wants to know. If he urgently and passionately wants to know he is said to be
studious … So parturition by the mind is preceded by a kind of appetite which prompts us
to inquire and find out about what we want to know..124
Intentional action by the mind is preceded by a certain “appetite” that is naturally
consequent upon being a mind at all. For Augustine, the will wants or desires, before it is
the power to choose.
Will in this sense, the prior orientation of the soul, affects our feelings. One of the
characteristics of the fallen state, for Augustine, is that the various aspects of human
123 de Trin. IX.3.18.
124 Ibid IX.1.2,3 and 2.9f.
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nature are now outside the control of the rational mind, as we saw in the last chapter. But
there is clearly a sense in which our will, though definitely ours - nothing could be more
‘ours’, and ‘will’ is essential, in Augustine’s view, to being a self at all - originates “far
back in the mystery of the soul”; it is an instinctive appetition or inclination of the mind,
not simply the power of the mind to will or not will. Augustine elides the two ideas
together; the one provides the basis for the other:
There is nothing I feel so firmly and so intimately as that I have a will by which I am
moved to enjoy something. If the will by which I choose or refuse things is not mine, then I
don’t know what I can call mine. So if I use my will to do something evil, whom can I hold
responsible but myself? For a good God made me, and I can do nothing good except
through my will … If the movement of the will by which it turns this way or that were not
voluntary and under its own control, a person would not deserve praise for turning to
higher things or blame for turning to lower things, as if swinging on the hinge of the will.125
Two ideas of will are elided together in this passage; will as what the Scholastics later
called rational appetition, or intellectual appetite - the will is initially “moved to enjoy
something”, to an extent whether it will or no - and will as the power to choose or refuse.
For Augustine, as for his successors, the power to choose belonged to that very
inclination of the mind to something which he also called will.126 According to Augustine
we are aware of both of these aspects of the will by introspection; but as we shall see in
the course of this chapter, they are in tension, and Augustine came round to the view that
ultimately we choose whatever it is that we really want more than anything else.127
125 DLA 3.1.
126 See, for example, Aquinas on why this should be so, whatever ones makes of the quality of his
arguments: ST 1a1ae q83 arts. 2 and 3.
127 See DLA 1.12, on knowing intuitively that a good will is in our power. For Augustine, just as for
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Our desires in general are affected by our will in both senses of the term; that is,
the will can affect our appetites and feelings by the resolutions and choices that it makes,
but also by its prior inclination. In the last chapter we saw Augustine regretting the loss of
the will’s control over our feelings, appetites and passions after the fall. But it would
seem from what we have now seen about Augustine’s doctrine of will that Adam did not
simply ‘choose what to feel’, as we might say, in Eden; rather, the natural orientation of
his mind was towards the good, so that the rest of his nature, following this inclination of
the mind, “desired as it ought to desire, and what it ought to desire”, in Aquinas’s phrase.
In the City of God Augustine says that our feelings depend upon our will, in the sense of
love:
The important factor in those emotions is the character of a man’s will. If the will is
wrongly directed, the emotions will be wrong; if the will is right, the emotions will be not
only blameless, but praiseworthy. The will is engaged in all of them; in fact they are all
essentially acts of will. For what is desire or joy but an act of will in agreement with what
we wish for? And what is fear or grief but an act of will in disagreement with what we
reject? [Which are things that we can’t altogether help] … a rightly directed will is love in
a good sense and a perverted will is love in a bad sense. Therefore a love which strains
after the possession of the loved object is desire; and the love which possesses and enjoys
that object is joy. The love that shuns what it opposes is fear, while the love that feels that
Descartes, we can be deceived about the content of our thoughts when they attend to what is external to the
conscious mind itself, but not when they reflect on the mind itself. Just as we cannot be deceived about
whether we are thinking, so we cannot be deceived about whether we are able to make conscious decisions
or not; though the object of those decisions may not be in our power to obtain. However, as we shall see,
Augustine gets into difficulties on the basis of his experience, and ultimately he decided that we choose
what we really want. In addition, the power to choose does not logically follow from the ability to want.
(And see Rist 1994 p88 on the important difference between Augustine and Descartes on the soul: “Selfknowledge
[for Augustine] means knowing that one exists, but, unlike the view of Descartes, it does not
mean having a clear view of what we are. Augustine demonstrates that we are, and that we think, but
behind that we are quite mysterious, even to ourselves.” Stephen Menn, Descartes and Augustine, CUP
1998, is an excellent and insightful account of the influence of Augustine on Descartes and issues relating
to the nature of mind and the mind-body problem.)
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opposition when it happens is grief. Consequently, these feelings are bad, if the love is bad,
and good if the love is good.128
If our will, or our love, is rightly directed, then so will our feelings be; it was once the
case, for Augustine, but it has been lost. And it came to be lost, because the will started to
love itself better than God, and the objective good.
It was in secret that the first human beings began to be evil; and the result was that they
slipped into open disobedience. For they would not have arrived at the evil act if an evil
will had not preceded it. Now, could anything but pride been the start of the evil will? For
“pride is the start of every kind of sin.” And what is pride except a longing for a perverse
kind of exaltation? For it is a perverse kind of exaltation to abandon the basis on which the
mind should be firmly fixed, and to become, as it were, based on oneself, and so remain.
This happens when a man is too pleased with himself: and a man is self-complacent when
he deserts that changeless Good in which, rather than in himself, he ought to have found
his satisfaction. This desertion is voluntary, for if the will had remained unshaken in its
love of the higher changeless Good, which shed on it light to see and kindled in it fire to
love, it would not have been diverted from this love to follow its own pleasure …
Thus the evil act, the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit, was committed only
when those who did it were already evil; that bad fruit could only have come from a bad
tree.129
Bad will in the sense of choice, follows upon bad will in the sense of love. This is a
128 CD XIV.6, 7. Also XIV.9: “Christians … [insofar] as they live by God’s standards in the
pilgrimage of this present life, feel fear and desire, pain and gladness, in conformity with the holy
scriptures and sound doctrine; because their love is right, all these feelings are right in them.” Not wholly,
of course; the flesh still lusts against the spirit. This is partly the result of conscious intention and effort,
and partly a fundamental orientation.
129 CD XIV.13.
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version of the ‘possessive’ love for things, which Plato and Plotinus saw as the moral
problem for, or with, human beings.130 For the Platonists, there is a suggestion that this is
the result of embodiment, or at any rate, the result of the soul’s involvement with ‘matter’
(for example, this idea runs through Enn. I.8, IV.8); though sometimes it originates in the
soul itself: for example, the fall of the souls in the Phaedrus myth, and the text on which
Augustine’s account seems to be based, Enn V.1.1:
What is it, then, which has made the souls forget their Father, God, and be ignorant of
themselves and him, even though they are parts which come from his higher world and
altogether belong to it? The beginning of evil for them was audacity [tolma] and coming to
birth and the first otherness and the wishing to belong to themselves. Since they were
clearly delighted with their own independence, and made great use of self-movement,
running the opposite course and getting as far away as possible, they were ignorant even
that they themselves came from that world … Since they do not any more see their Father
or themselves, they despise themselves through ignorance of their birth and honour other
things, admiring everything rather than themselves, and, astonished and delighted by and
dependant on these [earthly] things, they broke themselves loose as far as they could in
contempt of that from which they turned away; so that their honour of these things here and
their contempt of themselves is the cause of their utter ignorance of God.131
Tolma, ‘wishing to belong to oneself’, being “delighted” with one’s “own independence”,
130 On what follows, compare Rist 1994 p152f and 188f; John Burnaby, Amor Dei, London 1938
184f.
131 But the more usual Platonist view is that the influence of ‘matter’ is the cause of the problem.
Rist 1994 p103. The earlier fathers tended to this view, as we shall see in ch.4, though there are
anticipations of Augustine’s position. The influence of matter, or of the flesh or the lower parts of the soul,
on the rational soul that is otherwise purely rational and immune from sin, introduces a different
anthropological structure to the more dynamic and complex integration of both passionate and intellective
appetitive tendencies drawn by Augustine. Of the greatest importance in this respect, as we shall see in the
course of this chapter and the next, is the idea that the human propensity to sin is the result not of the
‘external’ influence of appetite, passion, and feeling, but an internal tendency of the mind itself.
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clearly resembles Augustinian pride. “First otherness” and “coming to birth”, in other
words, the soul’s finite particularity, its substantial distinction as a particular reality, are
not the result of tolma, or constitutive of it, but the condition for it; in a similar way, for
Augustine, only a finite soul, “created out of nothing”, could be “distorted” by the “fault”
of pride (CD XIV.13). The very fact of the soul’s particular and reflexive nature ‘causes’
it - we must use the term with caution - to love itself more than anything else. Pride
manifests itself as an inordinate delight in one’s own power: the very thing that is highest
and best about the soul, its capacity for self-movement, the power it has over itself, to act
or not to act. The soul makes its own power the highest good; instead of finding its true
freedom and consummation in determining itself according to that wisdom and truth
which exists above and independently of the mind, the mind makes itself, its own selfish
delight, the measure of all things.132 The result of such an inordinate delight is often a
132 Augustine apparently regards this as a besetting tendency of finite consciousness, of being a
particular self, that requires the influence of grace to counteract it: “the badness of the tree came about
contrary to nature, because without a fault in the will, which is against nature, it certainly could not have
happened. But only a nature created out of nothing could have been distorted by a fault. Consequently,
although the will derives its existence, as a nature, from its creation by God, its falling away from its true
being is due to its creation out of nothing.” CD XIV.13. This raises the question of whether the fall of man,
and of the rebel angels, was avoidable or not: see CD book XII.6-9, on the idea of a ‘deficient cause’ and
the fall of the rebel angels, who “would not have fallen away, had they not willed to do so”, CD XII.9; but
their capacity to persevere in the good seems to have been dependent on the degree of grace they received:
“Either they received less of grace of the divine love than did the others, who continued in that grace; or, if
both were created equally good, the one sort fell through their evil will, while the others had greater help to
enable them to attain to the fullness of beatitude with the complete assurance that they will never fall
away”. Augustine says that with grace “all men can be saved if they wish it”, DGnM 1.3.6, but presumably
only if they have enough grace to effectually wish it, and so act: by grace “it comes to pass that the very
good will, which has now begun to be, is enlarged, and made so great that it is able to fulfil the divine
commandments which it shall wish, when it shall once firmly and perfectly wish. This is the purport of what
the Scripture says: so that the man who wills but is not able knows that he does not yet fully will, and prays
that he may have so great a will that it may suffice for keeping the commandments.” (Grace and Free will
31. My italics.) Augustine generally seems to hold that Adam possessed sufficient grace to endure in
righteousness if he co-operates, but there is a problem with this: “he had received the ability [to persevere]
if he willed, but he did not have the will for what he could, for if he had possessed it, he would have
persevered.” De Correptione et Gratia 31. Adam could have stood, if he had willed to do so, but he lacked
the will; the trouble is, that like the rebel angels, this is provided by grace. See Rist’s discussion of the
inevitability or otherwise of the fall: 1994 pp104-8.
We shall see that Taylor’s view seems to be that sin is inevitable for every individual without the
beatific vision, given the conditions of finite existence, but not in any given instance. Augustine has a
further problem at this point, which we shall see Taylor pick up on: if inordinate self-love is a besetting
tendency of the finite self, simply on account of being a particular centre of consciousness, why argue that
it must have been inherited from Adam, who did not, after all, inherit it from anywhere.
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desire for power over others, the libido dominandi, according to Augustine.
On Augustine’s account, the self wants things for itself, because it loves itself
above all; and because it is embodied, it wants physical things. But this begins in the
mind’s love for itself, not the from influence of embodiment. We had temperate appetites
in Eden, which were made inordinate by pride:
What happens is that the soul, loving its own power, slides away from the whole which is
common to all into the part which is its own private property … by the apostasy of pride
which is called the beginning of sin it strives to grab something more than the whole and to
govern it by its own laws; and because there is nothing more than the whole it is thrust
back into anxiety over a part, and so by being greedy for more it gets less. That is why
greed is called the root of all evils. Thus all that it tries to do on its own against the laws
that govern the universe it does by its own body, which is the only part it has a part
ownership in. And so it finds delight in bodily shapes and movements, and because it has
not got them with it inside, it wraps itself in their images which it has fixed in its
memory.133
The mind that knows itself better than anything else, from the ‘inside’, has a certain
tendency to love itself better than anything else; and so treat everything else in relation to
how it serves its interests and desires, instead of according to the divinely instituted
objective order; things (and other persons) are treated not for their own sake, but for the
self’s own sake. Because the soul is embodied - as Augustine puts it, has “part
ownership” in nothing besides its own body - this ultimately leads to the will loving best
what serves the body’s desires and needs, as its own highest selfish good.134
133 de Trin. XII.3.14. Compare Symposium 208c f.
134 ‘If the mind loves itself less than it is - for example if the mind of a man loves itself only as much
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This is not simply an account of what occurs at the fall, for Augustine; it is also
the character of sin in fallen man afterwards. Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum criticised
Augustine for effectively reverting to Manicheanism, by which they meant that the mind
is compelled to sin by the overpowering force of passions, which are ‘external’ to the
thinking mind itself.
Those Manicheans say, [says Julian,] with whom we now do not communicate, … that by
the sin of the first man, that is, of Adam, free will perished; and that no one has the power
of living well, but that all are constrained into sin by the necessity of their flesh.135
Augustine responded that this was not at all what he held; sinners are not driven to sin by
the overwhelming force of passion; rather, they do what they want to do: their will
inclines to sin out of inordinate self-love, as much as, or even prior to, their distorted
passions:
free will in the sinner up to this extent did not perish—that by it all sin, especially they who
sin with delight and with love of sin; what they are pleased to do gives them pleasure.
Whence also the apostle says, Behold, they are shown to have been by no means able to
serve sin except by another freedom. They are not, then, free from righteousness except by
the choice of the will, but they do not become free from sin save by the grace of the
Saviour.136
as a man’s body should be loved though it is itself something more than body - then it sins and its love is
not complete. Again if it loves itself more than it is, for example if it loves itself as much as God is to be
loved, though it is itself incomparably less than God, here too it sins by excess, and does not have a
complete love of itself. It sins of course with even greater perversity and wickedness when it loves the body
as much as God is to be loved.’ de Trin IX.1.4.
135 Augustine quoting Julian’s words, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 1.4.
136 ATLP 1.5.
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It is not, therefore, true, as some affirm that we say, and as that correspondent of yours
[Julian of Eclanum] ventures moreover to write, that [sinners sin] as if they were unwilling;
but if they are already of the age to use the choice of their own mind, they are both retained
in sin by their own will, and by their own will are hurried along from sin to sin [in other
words, they choose what they want to do, they are not constrained]. For even he who
persuades and deceives [the devil] does not act in them, except that they may commit sin
by their will, either by ignorance of the truth, or by delight in iniquity, or by both evils —as
well of blindness as of weakness. But this will, which is free in evil things because it takes
pleasure in evil, is not free in good things, for the reason that it has not been made free. Nor
can a man will any good thing unless he is aided by Him who cannot will evil—that is, by
the grace of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.137
For Augustine, the will is ‘free’ when of itself it inclines towards something, and loves or
takes pleasure or delight in it, without being driven by forces ‘external’ to it; and not
simply according to whether it possesses a power of indifferent choice.138 And human
beings are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ not simply according to the choices that they make, but
according to their fundamental dispositions: according to whether they love themselves
more than anything else, or the good more than themselves:
We see then that the two cities were created by two kinds of love: the earthly city was
created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, the Heavenly City by the love
of God carried as far as contempt for self. In fact, the earthly city glories in itself, the
137 ATLP 1.7.
138 There is a very extensive literature on this issue; for example, Burnaby 1938 p227f, Mary T.
Clark, Augustine 1994 p49f and Rist 1994 p132f. It must be said that Augustine is not always consistent; in
this passage, he suggests that one can sin by ignorance, and at times he gives the definite impression that
fallen humans are overpowered by what Julian refers to as “the necessity of their flesh”: for example, DLA
3.18. See Burnaby p187f.
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Heavenly City glories in the Lord.139
As Edmund Hill observes in his edition of the de Trinitate, “the whole virtue of
Augustine's structure of the psyche is that it is pregnant with dynamic possibilities; it is in
constant movement, either in the right or the wrong direction.”140 Will, before it is the
power of choice, is the disposition of the self, not imposed by anything outside, but not
simply indifferently chosen. Whereas for the Pelagians the soul is more static, it reasons
and chooses, it is not itself appetitive; appetitive influences are wholly external to it, from
nature, from appetite or passion; from what Plato portrayed as the lower soul, or what we
saw Gassendi in chapter 1 call the anima. The characteristic activity of the will for
Augustine is not simply to choose; but to love, or delight in, something. This has a
complex relationship with assent. There is a sense in which, for Augustine, the Pelagians
accepted the same paradigm as the Manicheans: for both, the cause of sin is influence of
the flesh on the soul, not an internal inclination of the will, which belongs to the rational
soul; though for the Pelagians the flesh in itself is morally indifferent, whereas for the
Manichees it is an intrinsically corrupting force.141 The difference in anthropological
structure between Augustine and the Pelagians is of the greatest importance for Taylor’s
account, which involves an attempt to reconcile libertarian freedom with something like a
more Augustinian anthropology. Before considering Taylor, we must look more closely at
a characteristic example of the Pelagian anthropology; Pelagius himself, in his letter to
Demetrias.
139 CD XIV.28. Compare Augustine’s cry against the Pelagians, “Far be it that it be or be called a
good will which glories in itself and not in the Lord.” For Augustine, we are good or bad not simply
according to our particular acts, as for the Pelagians; but according to the fundamental disposition of the
self.
140 p261. Compare Burnaby 1938 p37.
141 See, for example, Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, bk 2 chs. 1 and 2.
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3.2 Pelagius
Pelagius’s dispute with Augustine is partly about whether the will is anything
more than the pure power of free choice. Pelagius’s reduction of will to choice has
important consequences for his anthropology as against Augustine’s. For Augustine, will
partly refers to what we want. Bad will is not simply bad choice, but nor is it caused by
any “force of nature” external to itself; bad will is still ‘voluntary’ in the sense of being
what the will of itself wills. We are ‘in our own power’ when we do what we ourselves
want; when we are self-moved, that is, not moved or hindered by any external force: the
proud will is still very much in its own power, self-moved (for example, de Trin 14.4.15,
19). Plotinus said that “soul becomes free when it moves without hindrance through
Intellectual Principle towards the Good”; for Augustine, the soul is free when it moves
towards what it wants, without hindrance or external compulsion. With the help of grace,
it moves towards what it ought to want, namely the Good.142
The principal anthropological consequence of Augustine’s in contrast to
Pelagius’s account is that our human nature is never in any fixed, static, neutral ‘middle
state’, but is inclined, formed and shaped by what we want; so that vicious habit is rooted
in bad will, and is not simply an inclination gradually superinduced by free choice giving
way to passion. There is a more complex interrelation between thought and feeling, as we
might say,143 and as a result perhaps between soul and body, than Pelagius recognises.
142 Enn. VI.8.7. See Rist on Augustine’s repudiation of the “classical optimism” he finds in the
Platonist view that we can awaken ourselves from the moral and spiritual torpor derived from the soul’s
immersion in matter: 1967 p138 and 1994 154f and 179f. However, in CD X.29 Augustine observes that to
an extent, the Platonists have an idea of grace. Grace understood in terms of Platonic inspiration is
important for Taylor’s understanding of grace, as we shall see, as well as many other writers of the period,
notably the Cambridge Platonists.
143 Compare Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, Faber 1990 [1967], ch.31, esp. p372f. As will become
apparent, I do not agree with Brown that for Augustine, Pelagius’s description of human nature “might suit
an ideal human being”, close though it is in certain respects to what Burnaby 1938 and Harrison 2006 (for
example) see as his portrayal of human nature ‘in principle’, aside from the corruption wrought by the fall,
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Human nature is always inclined by what the soul wants or loves, for Augustine; whereas
Pelagius acknowledges that the appetite might desire something as a result of it being
discerned as good by the rational soul, but not that the rational soul desires, except
perhaps in Aristotle's sense of deliberated intention. For Pelagius the self remains in a
middle state, notwithstanding the natural operation of the passions and the habits
fashioned from their interplay with reason.
Apparently attacking what he thinks is Augustine’s anthropology, in his letter to
Demetrias144 Pelagius says that the "ignorant majority" believe that "man has not been
created truly good simply because he is able to do evil and is not obliged by the
overpowering inclination of his nature to do good on compulsion and without any
possibility of variation" (3,1). Man's status is in fact "better and higher" for this very
reason. It is "in this choice between two ways, on this freedom to choose either
alternative, that the glory of the rational man is based, it is in this that the whole honour
of our nature consists, it is from this that its dignity is derived and all good men win
others' praise and their own reward". Pelagius is more inclined to portray the moral life as
a form of spiritual athleticism, grounded in achievement, than Augustine.
This is perhaps how Pelagius understands the Neoplatonic “being in one’s own
power”, and certainly DLA’s “hinge of the will”. As he responded to Augustine, quoting
his own words from DLA 3.18 back at him: “For who sins by doing what he cannot guard
against? But there is sin, so it is possible to guard against it.” The will is like a pendulum
balanced in the middle, which the rational soul can swing this way or that; the pure power
of choice, not the mind’s inclination towards something. As a result Pelagius sees the
rational soul as essentially in a neutral ‘middle state’ in which virtue is constituted simply
in DLA.
144 In Pelagius: Life and Letters, B.R. Rees, Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1998 vol. 2 p29f.
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by the accrual of good choices:
Our most excellent Creator wished us to be able to do either but actually to do only one,
that is, good, which he also commanded, giving us the capacity to do evil only so that we
might do his will by exercising our own. [The capacity to do evil] makes the good part
better by making it voluntary and independent, not bound by necessity but free to decide
for itself (3,2).
Taylor observes concerning Pelagius, that in a way “nothing but an act can be a sin”145;
we are not disposed to or in any condition of sin. The 19th century American theologian
Benjamin Warfield gives this account of Pelagius' anthropology:
After each act of will, man stood exactly where he did before: indeed, this conception
scarcely allows for the existence of ‘man’ - only a willing machine is left, at each click of
the action of which the spring regains its original position, and is equally ready as before to
re-perform its function. In such a conception there was no place for character: freedom of
will was all.146
Warfield and Taylor give a correct account of Pelagius’ understanding of will; but they
are not quite right that Pelagius has “no place for character” or concept of habitual
145 UN, works vol. 7 p175: “Pelagius also introduced this opinion, against which I am now disputing
… lest concupiscence might be reckoned a sin, he affirmed that no habitude, no disposition, nothing but an
act could be a sin. But on the other side, lest concupiscence should be accounted no sin, S.Austin disputes
earnestly, largely affirming and proving, that a sinful habit is a special sinfulness distinct from that of evil
actions: malus thesaurus cordis, ‘the evil treasure of the heart,’ out of which proceeds all mischief”. As we
shall see in the course of this and the next chapter, there is some truth to this, notably when human nature’s
capacity for habit-forming is understood as Taylor understands it; but Pelagius did in fact acknowledge
sinful habits as a distinct problem.
146 cited in Jacobs, Original Sin: A Cultural History SPCK 2001 p52.
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dispositions. Assuming the authenticity of the letter to Demetrias,147 then we must
acknowledge that Pelagius had a place for bad habit, as well as the insidious deep-seated
effects of bad example.
In a word, as long as nature which was still comparatively fresh was in vigorous use and
long habit to sinning did not draw a dark veil, as it were, over human reason, nature was set
free and left without law; but when it had now become buried beneath an excess of vices
and as if tainted with the rust of ignorance, the Lord applied the file of the law to it, and so,
thoroughly polished by its frequent admonishments, it was enabled to recover its former
brilliance (8,2).
Bad habit can cloud our judgement and resist, even sap our willpower (or in the case of
virtuous habit bolster and strengthen us with rightly-directed passion); though once
exhorted and reawakened by the Gospel and the example of Christ and the saints to how
we ought to behave, we can still exercise our reason and willpower and, using the file of
free will to burnish our nature again, work to renew our strength. We do not need the
assistance of inward grace changing the heart to do this; our good created nature could
not be so inwardly corrupted, for Pelagius; as a consequence, the “law and teaching” and
outward example are sufficient if we rouse ourselves. The pendulum of the will is
balanced where it was; habits provide external resistance to its swing or clear the way for
it to swing freely, but they do not shift the soul's own centre of gravity.
Nor is there any reason why it is made difficult for us to do good other than that long habit
of doing wrong which has infected us from childhood and corrupted us little by little over
147 On which see Rees 1998 (vol.2) p29f.
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many years and ever after holds us in bondage and slavery to itself, so that it seems
somehow to have acquired the force of nature [meaning, external force over the inner
thinking and choosing mind]. We now find ourselves being resisted and opposed by all that
long period in which we were carelessly instructed, that is, educated in evil, in which we
even strove to be evil, since, to add to the other incentives to evil, innocence itself was held
to be folly. [So, mistaken ideas are partly to blame; this is the only sort of inner distortion
Pelagius allows or can conceive of.] That old habit now attacks our new-found freedom of
will, and, as we languish in ignorance through our own sloth and idleness, unaccustomed to
doing good after having for so long learned to do only evil, we wonder why sanctity is also
conferred on us as from an outside source (8,3).
Pelagius doesn't think of this in terms of a deep-seated perverse tendency of the self,
rather than just the result of ignorance and bad habit. He lays the responsibility for bad
habit with error and education in evil; not self-love that might make it desirable for the
spiritual self. Pelagius doesn’t deny a tendency to “sloth and idleness” regarding the
moral and religious life, which he puts down to education, custom and habit, and which
he thinks can be overcome by effort. But in the end it remains the case that sin is "not a
fault of our nature but our own choice" (8,1). In scripture "it is not the force of nature but
the freedom of the will that is then understood to be at work" (7). Pelagius thinks
Augustine’s anthropology (as he understands it, identifying it with that of the Manichees,
as Julian would later do) undermines human responsibility; he complains that "those who
are unwilling to correct their own way of life appear to want to correct nature itself"
(3,2). Nature has not been corrupted by some fault. Human ignorance and persistence in
habits of sin are to blame for the "corruption" of our nature; but with the teaching of the
scriptures and with genuinely determined effort these can be overcome.
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The trouble with Pelagius’s anthropology from an Augustinian point of view is
not that he does not recognise the power of custom and habit, or the insidious effects of
widespread or long-term bad examples (pace Taylor and Warfield). It is that he thinks that
the corruption of human nature, insofar as it is corrupt, is reducible to these things: as
Calvin said, “We call [original sin] natural [although it is accidental, not essential, to
human nature] that no one may suppose it to be contracted by every individual from
corrupt habit” (Inst. bk II ch.1 para.11).
Sinning affects our appetites and passions, according to Pelagius; it can even form
and shape them in a certain direction so that they “acquire the force of nature” But this
habitual inclination is caused in the passions; at a fundamental level the rational soul
remains unaffected The soul’s reason can be clouded by passion, and its will (freedom of
choice) be resisted by appetite; but these forces of passion are ‘external’, so to speak, to
the part of the soul which judges and chooses.
There is a distinct echo of the Platonic, even the Manichean, suspicion of the body
here, a ‘hard’ dualism which sees the material as something which hinders and opposes
the immaterial and spiritual with which it is awkwardly united. The soul’s problems stem
from its embodiment; the soul sins because it is influenced by a force external to its own
spiritual and immaterial reality as soul, which corrupts its judgement and hinders free
choice of the good, acting as a drag on it, especially once habituated (though for Pelagius
unlike the Manichees of course, it does not compel us to sin). The spiritual and moral life
is about confronting and overcoming this influence by deliberate use of the soul’s own
inner resources: through understanding what the good is, and undertaking it by exercise
of will (willpower, exerting free choice). The responsibility for sin, as for virtue, lies with
man’s free will; but free will sins because it is tempted by resistible temptation from
outside, not because of an internal distortion of the will. Due to his understanding of will
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as the mere power of intellectual discrimination and choice, such a concept makes no
sense to Pelagius; he thinks that Augustine means that a fault in nature compromises the
will, that is, 'external' appetite or passion overrides and compels our choice. In Pelagius'
view, any “fault” of this or any other kind affecting the will would necessarily
compromise human responsibility, and thus make the Creator God ultimately responsible
for sin.
In contrast, the wrong feelings or even inordinate appetite are often the result of a
bad will, for Augustine, in the sense of a wrong orientation of the self and its fundamental
desires, even in fallen man. Although the present state of the passions in themselves is
indeed the result of the fall, nevertheless we might say that the Augustinian akratic man
at some level wills the force that overbears him, unlike Aristotle’s, whose judgement is
blinded by passion; or the Manichean sinner, overwhelmed by passion; or the Pelagian
sinner, who gives way to temptation that he could resist.
3.3 Taylor’s anthropology and the nature and freedom of the will
Taylor recognises and makes use of the Augustinian idea of will as love, or
delight, an inclination of the mind; the will can be “delighted” in things; it is not simply a
faculty of indifferent choice: “A habit of sinning [for example] cannot remain at all but by
consent and by delight, by love and adhesion.”148 Taylor even makes use of the
Augustinian idea that the will is so in love with sin, that although “free” in the sense of
being uncompelled, it refuses to turn to the good:
But to sum up all the evils that can be spoken of the infirmities of the flesh; the proper
148 UN, Works vol.7 p173.
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nature and habitudes of men are so foolish and impotent, so averse and peevish to all good,
that a man’s will is of itself only free to choose evils. Neither is it a contradiction to say
‘liberty’, and yet suppose it determined to one object only; because that one object is the
thing we choose. For although God hath set life and death before us, fire and water, good
and evil, and hath primarily put man into the hands of his own counsel, that he might have
chosen good as well as evil; yet because he did not, but fell into an evil condition and
corrupted manners, and grew in love with it, and infected all his children with vicious
examples: and all nations of the world have contracted some universal stains, and the
“thoughts of men’s hearts are evil continually”, and “there is not one that doth good, no,
not one that sinneth not”: since, I say, all the world have sinned, we cannot suppose a
liberty of indifferency to good and bad; it is impossible in such a liberty that all should
choose the same thing; but a liberty of complacency or delight we may suppose; that is so,
that though naturally he might choose good, yet morally he is so determined with his love
to evil, that good seldom comes into dispute..149
However, it will be observed that the origin of this condition is quite different to
that portrayed by Augustine. The “proper nature and habitudes of men” are “foolish and
impotent … averse and peevish to all good”; this is not represented as the consequence of
Adam’s fall, but as the natural state: at any rate, though originally man was “in the hands
of his own counsel”, he “fell into an evil condition and corrupted manners”, and “infected
all his children with vicious examples”. The use of terms such as “corrupted manners”
and “vicious examples” does not suggest acceptance of the traducian theory, but rather
influences that affect individuals in the course of their lives: ‘nurture’ rather than ‘nature’,
so to speak. However, there is also a sense in which human beings without grace cannot
help but sin in many ways, due to the condition of their mere nature, according to Taylor,
149 Sermon XI, The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol. 4 p124.
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and this is made worse by education, custom and example:
[A] man runs to evil as he runs to meat or sleep; for why else should it be that every one
can teach a child to be proud, or to swear, to lie, to do little spites to his playfellow, and can
train him up to infant follies; but the severity of tutors, and the care of parents, discipline
and watchfulness, arts and diligence, all is too little to make him love but to say his
prayers, or to do that which becomes persons designed for honest purposes: and his malice
shall outrun his years, he shall be a man in villainy before he is by law capable of choice or
inheritance; and this indisposition lasts upon us forever; even as long as we live, just in the
same degree as flesh and blood does rule us … ‘art of physicians can cure the evils of the
body, but this strange propensity to evil nothing can cure but death’; the grace of God eases
the malignity here, but it cannot be cured but by glory: that is, this freedom of delight, or
perfect unabated election of evil, which is consequent to the evil manners of the world,
although it be lessened by the intermedial state of grace, yet it is not cured until it be
changed into its quite contrary; but as it is in heaven, all that is happy, and glorious, and
free, yet can choose nothing but the love of God and excellent things, because God fills all
the capacities of the saints, and there is nothing without Him that hath any degrees of
amability: so in the state of nature, of flesh and blood; there is so much ignorance of
spiritual excellencies, and so much proportion to sensual objects which in most instances
and in many degrees are prohibited, that as men know no good but to please a wild,
undetermined, infinite appetite, so they will nothing else but what is good in their limit and
proportion[.]150
But for Taylor, in contrast to Augustine, this propensity to sin is not the consequence of
the will’s own internal activity, of its own inner self love, but instead of the influence of
150 Works vol 4 p124.
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external factors: of limitations, like ignorance, and the passions, for example. In this
respect Taylor’s account resembles the Pelagians and the Manichees, depending on
whether these influences can be resisted or not, and diminishes an important feature of
Augustine’s thought. Taylor quotes Prudentius to the effect that “The soul was created
simple and pure, but fell into vice by the evil combination with flesh”.151
In a sense Taylor reverts to the traditional Platonist account of ignorance and
passion as the causes of the soul’s “bad behaviour”, which Augustine moved away from
with his doctrine of the proud will; in addition, he refers to the “similitude of Adam’s
transgression”, in something akin to the Pelagian manner, rather than sin as the effect of
it:
[T]here are many concurrent causes of evil which have influence upon communities of
men, such as are, evil examples, the similitude of Adam’s transgression, vices of princes,
wars, impunity, ignorance, error, false principles, flattery, interest, fear, partiality, authority,
evil laws, heresy, schism, spite and ambition, natural inclination and other principiant
causes, which proceeding from the natural weakness of human constitution, are the
fountain and proper causes of many consequent evils … saith Job, “How can a clean thing
come from an unclean?” We all naturally have great weaknesses, and an imperfect
constitution, apt to be weary, loving variety, ignorantly making false measures of good and
evil, made up with two appetites, that is, with inclination to several objects serving to
contrary interests, a thing between angel and beast, and the later in this life the bigger
ingredient … so Cicero as St Austin quotes him, “Nature hath like a step-mother sent man
into the world with a naked body, a frail and infirm mind, vexed with troubles, dejected
with fears, weak for labours, prone to lusts, in whom the divine fire, and his wit, and his
manners are covered and overturned.” And when Plato had fiercely reproved the baseness
151 UN, Works vol.7 p307.
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of men’s manners, by saying that they are even naturally evil; he reckons two causes of it,
which are the diseases of the soul (but contracted he knew not how) ignorance and
improbity; which he supposes to have been the remains of that baseness they had before
they entered into bodies, whither they were sent as to a prison. This is our natural
uncleanness and imperfection, and from such a principle we are to expect proper and
proportioned effects; and therefore we may well say with Job, “What is man that he should
be clean, and he which is born of a woman that he should be righteous?” That is, our
imperfections are many, and we are with unequal strengths called to labour for a
supernatural purchase; and when ‘our spirit is very willing’, even then ‘our flesh is very
weak’: and yet it is worse if we compare ourselves, as Job does, to the purities and
perfections of God; in respect of which, as he says of us men in our imperfect state, so he
also says of the angels, or the holy ones of God, and of the heaven itself, that it is also
unclean and impure: for the cause and verification of which, we must look out something
besides original sin. Add to this, that vice is pregnant and teeming, and brings forth new
instances, numerous as the spawn of fishes; such as are inadvertency, carelessness,
tediousness of spirit, and these also are causes of very much evil.152
Taylor portrays embodiment as the basic cause of all these: “From hence it follows, that
naturally a man cannot do or perform the law of God; because being so weak, so tempted
by his body; and this life being the body’s day, that is, the time in which its appetites are
properly prevailing; to be born of Adam is to be born under sin, that is, under such
inclinations to it, that as no man will remain innocent, so no man can of himself keep the
law of God”.153 “But to this we may superadd that which Plutarch found to be
experimentally true … the foot moves at the command of the will and by the empire of
reason, but the passions are stiff even then when the knee bends, and no bridle can make
152 Unum Necessarium Works vol 7 p278.
153 Ibid vol 7 p307.
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the passions regular and temperate. And indeed, this is in a manner the sum total of our
abused and corrupted nature; our soul is in the body as in a prison … it is a sojourner, and
lives by the body’s measures, and loves and hates by the body’s interests and inclinations;
that which is pleasing and nourishing to the body, the soul chooses and delights in; that
which is vexatious and troublesome, it abhors … Now because many of the body’s needs
are naturally necessary, and the rest are made so by being thought needs, and by being so
naturally pleasant, and that this is the body’s day, and it rules here in its own place and
time; therefore it is that the will is so great a scene of passion, and we so great servants of
our bodies.”154 Therefore, embodiment, and natural, finite limitations, existing in the
context of temporality and change, are sufficient to account for the human proneness to
sin, according to Taylor. We may compare, for example, the Phaedo 65c - 66e.
For Augustine, this is indeed a description of the state deriving from the fall,
which contributes to sin in fallen humans;155 but he includes a further element, which he
regards as the cause of the fall, and the origin of this state; an element which continues to
constitute much of the willingness to sin, aside from, or even behind, directing and
shaping, the influence of the passions: the distinctive disease of the rational soul, pride.
For Augustine sin does not simply involve giving in to, or allowing oneself to be
dominated by, forces ‘external’ to the conscious mind; it begins from a trait of the mind
itself. The will, for Augustine, is the mind’s inclination to something, not simply the
power to choose, to act or not act, to assent or resist. An evil will is not just a wrong
154 Deus Justificatus Works vol 7 p499.
155 ‘Do not ask [O soul] what truth is; immediately a fog of bodily images and a cloud of fancies will
get in your way and disturb the bright fair weather that burst on you the first instant when I said “truth”.
Come, hold it in that first moment in which so to speak you caught a flash from the corner of your eye
when the word “truth” was spoken, stay there if you can. But you cannot; you slide back into these familiar
and earthly things. And what weight is it, I ask, that drags you back but the birdlime of greed for the dirty
junk you have picked up on your wayward wanderings?’ de Trin VIII.1.3. Truth is obscured by the greedy
love of temporal, material things, which the soul compulsively chases, like Hobbes’s man who endlessly
pursues “desire after desire”, ending “only in death”. Compare also Bacon’s sceptical view of the natural
world in ch.1.
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choice, but an evil inclination of the self, involving assent.
Taylor’s account is more reminiscent of the Republic’s tripartite soul in which
appetite is the problem for the higher, rational part, which reasons and chooses; the view
which we saw influencing Gassendi’s view of the relationship between the passions and
the rational mind in chapter 1. ‘Matter’ external to the soul is the problem in the Platonic
tradition, though there is an incipient idea of will in Augustine’s sense, as we have seen.
Taylor has Augustine’s idea of will, but the insight behind the doctrine of original sin is
still understood by him to be something external, not internal, to the will. For Augustine,
original sin, as opposed to the fallen state, is internal to the will. For Taylor, the will is
influenced by external forces (traditionally identified with the effects of original sin, with
the fallen state, but which for Taylor are natural) which often cause it to fall into sin.156
As Coleridge points out in a discussion of Jeremy Taylor on original sin, there
seems no very good ground for using the phrase “original sin” to refer to this condition:
“the phrase Original Sin, is a Pleonasm, the epithet not adding to the thought, but only
enforcing it. For if it be sin, it must be original: a State or Act, that has not its origin in
the will, may be a calamity, deformity, disease or mischief; but a Sin it cannot be.”157 For
both Coleridge and Taylor, notwithstanding the rhetoric in the passage quoted at the
beginning of this section, sin must be a personal, responsible act, an act of libertarian
freedom:
A Sin is an Evil which has its ground or origin in the Agent, and not in the compulsion of
156 Sometimes, though, Taylor is more Augustinian: he says of the pre-conversion Augustine in the
Confessions, “his perverse will made his lust grow high”, UN, Works vol 7 p167. Taylor makes extensive
use of Augustine’s account of habit, as we’ll see; indeed, our nature is effectively formed out of a lifetime
of habits, for Taylor. But the will’s “love and adhesion” is the result of the general habituation of the
passions, drawn by their own objects, which will understood as power of choice chooses as a result; not
Augustinian perverse will, deeper at the back of this.
157 Aids to Reflection p199.
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Circumstances. Circumstances are compulsory from the absence of a power to resist or
control them: and if this absence likewise be the effect of Circumstance (ie if it have been
neither directly nor indirectly caused by the Agent himself) the Evil derives from the
Circumstances; and therefore (in the Apostle’s sense of the word, Sin when he speaks of
the exceeding sinfulness of Sin) such evil is not sin; and the person who suffers it, or who
is the compelled instrument of its infliction on others, may feel regret, but cannot feel
remorse.158
the universal wickedness of man is no argument to prove our will servile, and the powers
of election to be quite lost in us, excepting only that we can choose evil … the contrary
doctrine is a destruction of all laws, it takes away reward and punishment, and we have
nothing whereby we can serve God. And precepts of holiness might as well be preached to
a wolf as to a man … There would be no use of reason or of discourse, no deliberation or
counsel: and it were impossible for the wit of man to make sense of thousands of places of
scripture, which speak to us as if we could hear and obey, or could refuse.159
However, Taylor can’t see how to safeguard the insight behind original sin in the
Augustinian/Pauline sense, and preserve responsibility, except to make ‘original sin’
“metonymic”, as he puts it: that is, except to place the insight behind original sin in the
influence of other aspects of human nature, such as the passions, and natural limitations
such as ignorance, on the soul; in those factors that bring sin about, which are necessary
but not sufficient conditions of sin, on Taylor’s account.160
But then the condition is not original or sin. Taylor reduces the insight behind
original sin to “the restraint lying upon our natural appetites, and we being by ill
158 Coleridge, Aids to Reflection p 194-5.
159 Taylor, UN, Works vol 7 p279.
160 This perhaps influenced Locke: see P.Quinn, Original Sin, Blackwell Companion to the
Philosophy of Religion p545f.
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education determined upon, and almost engaged to vicious actions, we suffer under the
inconveniences of idle education, and in the meantime rail upon Adam and original sin.”
Or again, “our nature is not contrary to virtue, but the instances of some virtues are made
to come cross our nature.”161 But this is what Augustine thought of as the fallen state of
human nature caused by Adam’s sin: not original sin, peccatum originatum, as a feature
of that nature; and it is a view that is either Pelagian, if the external influence is resistible,
or, as Heber argues in his Life of Taylor, “he falls into the highest supralapsarian
Calvinism, by merely throwing a little further back the origin of man’s misery, and
representing him as coming immediately from the hand of his Maker with the same load
of invincible corruption (invincible unless by superadded grace) which his descendents in
their present state carry about with them.”162
As we shall see later in this chapter, Taylor argues that while we are not
responsible for our natural tendencies in the sense of originating them, we become
responsible for them in the sense of having responsibility for their direction, exercise and
control. But as Coleridge says:
It cannot be said, We know what the Bishop means, and what matters the name? For the
nature of the fact, and in what light it should be regarded by us, depends on the nature of
our answer to the question, whether Original sin is or is not the right and proper
designation. I can imagine the same quantum of Sufferings, and yet if I had reason to regard
them as symptoms of a commencing Change, as pains of growth, the temporary deformity
and misproportions of immaturity, or (as in the final sloughing of the Caterpillar) as throes
and struggles of the waxing or evolving Psyche, I should think it no stoical flight to doubt,
how far I was authorized to declare the Circumstance an Evil at all. Most assuredly I would
161 Works vol 1 p 118.
162 Heber, Life, Works vol 1, cxxix
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not express or describe the fact as an evil having an origin in the Sufferers themselves or as
Sin.163
Taylor thinks that he can avoid such a consequence by effectively arguing that we sin
inevitably, but not in any given instance; but the solution will not quite do. Original sin,
for Augustine, is something we are in the grip of, and have inherited, and yet are
individually guilty of; it does not merely represent the struggle of the will with natural
influences (which for Augustine were brought about by Adam’s sin), as for the Platonists,
Pelagians and Manicheans; or, indeed, in the account of man’s developing responsibility
in Irenaeus, which as we shall see in the next chapter was an important influence on
Taylor.
The paradox of original sin is well summed up by Coleridge’s philosophical
mentor, Kant.
Now the ground of this evil cannot be placed, as is so commonly done, in man's sensuous
nature and the natural inclinations arising therefrom. For not only are these not directly
related to evil (rather do they afford the occasion for what the moral disposition in its
power can manifest, namely, virtue); we must not even be considered responsible for their
existence (we cannot be, for since they are implanted in us we are not their authors). We are
accountable, however, for the propensity to evil, which, as it affects the morality of the
subject, is to be found in him as a free-acting being and for which it must be possible to
hold him accountable as the offender - this, too, despite the fact that this propensity is so
deeply rooted in the will that we are forced to say that it is to be found in man by nature.164
163 Aids to Reflection p200.
164 Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, I.III, trans. Greene and Hudson London 1960. In a
way, is this not the Kantian version of the paradoxical situation Augustine identifies in DLA 1.11: “The
conclusions that we have reached thus far indicate that a mind that is in control, one that possesses virtue,
103
Original sin must be our act, not the resistible or compelling influence on us of our
sensuous nature; yet it is a propensity, in the will as if by nature. This paradox was not
understood by the Pelagians: hence Pelagius’s criticism of Augustine, that sin is “not a
substance, but an evil deed” (quoted by Augustine, DNG 21).
However, although Augustine is not a ‘Manichean’ in the way the Pelagians
portray him - the will is not compelled by forces external to it, but rather, sin still, as
Coleridge says, “has its ground or origin in the Agent, and not in the compulsion of
Circumstances” - he still ends up denying to the fallen human will the freedom to choose
against its own inclination to sin, so in a way the effect is the same. In seeking to
reconcile the general guilt of the human race with the responsibility of the individual,
Augustine effectively makes sin natural for the will without grace. The problem he is
trying to solve is well summarised by Reinhold Niebuhr:
Sin is to be regarded as neither a necessity of man's nature nor yet as a pure caprice of his
will. It proceeds rather from a defect of the will, for which reason it is not completely
deliberate; but since it is the will in which the defect is found, and the will presupposes
freedom, the defect cannot be attributed to a taint in man's nature.165
Taylor, like Kant and Coleridge, insists we need liberty of indifference for
genuine responsibility. Taylor often recognises Augustine’s position on the nature of a
cannot be made a slave to inordinate desire [libido] by anything equal or superior to it, because such a thing
would be just, or by anything inferior to it [such as the libido itself], because such a thing would be too
weak. Just one possibility remains: only its own will and free choice can make the mind a companion of
cupidity [cupiditas].” Why would Adam’s will, abiding in virtue, have given in to temptation by the
“inferior” force of appetite? Taylor argues that Adam had concupiscence before the fall (that Adam’s nature
was no different from ours, or, is nothing more than an exemplar of human nature in its natural state, as we
shall see in the next chapter); but Augustine would not have accepted this as a sufficient explanation of why
the fall eventually occurred.
165 The Nature and Destiny of Man, London 1941, vol 1 p257.
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sinful will, and rejects it, precisely because he thinks that the will is in effect no more free
on this account, than on that of the Manicheans:
When it is affirmed in the writings of some doctors that the will of man is depraved, men
presently suppose that depravation is a natural or physical effect, and means a diminution
of powers; whereas it signifies nothing but a being in love with, or having chosen, an evil
object, and not an impossibility or weakness to do the contrary, but only because it will not;
for the powers of the will cannot be lessened by any act of the same faculty, for the act is
not contrary to the faculty, and therefore can do nothing towards its destruction.166
As Taylor recognises, for Augustine, the fallen will sins because it delights in sin; it will
not turn to the good, because it doesn’t want to, not because its nature is distorted as such,
still less because it is overpowered by ‘external’ forces. But the effect is the same.
Freedom, for Augustine like the Platonists, is freedom from the passions, from
compelling external forces, Coleridge’s “compulsion of Circumstances”;167 the fallen will
retains freedom in this sense, though it has lost libertas, the “freedom to abide in the
good”, which was lost at the fall.168 Taylor, on the other hand, contends that the will must
also have liberty of indifference for genuine responsibility. Here, confusingly, he uses
libertas to mean liberty of indifference:
For voluntas and libertas, “will” and “liberty” in philosophy are not the same: I may will it,
166 UN, Works vol 7 p315-6.
167 Plotinus on freedom, VI.8.4: “that is enslaved which is not master of its going to the Good”; for
“where there is no compulsion to follow another, how can one speak of slavery? How could something
borne towards the Good be under compulsion since its desire for the Good will be voluntary if it knows that
it is good and goes to it as good?”
168 On libertas, see Burnaby 1938 p227f, Clark 1994 p49f, Rist 1994 p132f. Taylor’s understanding
of what Augustine called libertas, might best be understood by a comparison with Plotinus’s account of the
highest kind of freedom, that of the One, and of the soul in its contemplation, in Enn.VI.8; as for Augustine
himself.
105
when I cannot will the contrary; as the saints in heaven, and God himself wills good; they
cannot will evil, because to do so is imperfection, and contrary to felicity; but here is no
liberty; for liberty is with power to do or not to do, to do this or the contrary; and if this
liberty be not in us, we are not in the state of obedience or disobedience; which is the state
of all them who are alive, who are neither in hell nor heaven.169
What Taylor calls libertas in this passage is not what Augustine calls libertas; for
Augustine that term refers to the higher freedom enjoyed by the saints in heaven, to
which Taylor also refers in this passage. Instead, Taylor uses the term to refer to liberty of
indifference. He provocatively says liberty of indifference is the doctrine of St Augustine,
though of course he knows that is just who his opponents are basing themselves upon.
This rule is taken from the doctrine of St Austin, who makes freedom and election to be of
the constitution and definition of sin. [Cites an anti-Manichean work of Augustine, de
duabus animabus ch2]; the will is the mistress of all our actions, of all but such as are
necessary and natural; and therefore to her it is to be imputed whatsoever is done. The
action itself is good or bad by its conformity to or difformity from the rule of conscience;
but the man is good or bad by the will [by his choice for or against conscience] … If the
actions be natural and under no command of the will, they are good by creation and the act
of God; but if it be a moral action it is conducted by another economy. For in these it is true
what the wise man said, Deus posuit hominem in manu consili sui: God intending to be
glorified by our free obedience hath set before us good and evil: we may put our hand to
which we will; only what we choose that shall be our portion: for all things of this nature
169 Works vol. 10 p552. Gassendi uses libertas in the same sense, to mean liberty of indifference as
opposed to liberty of spontaneity. An important English predecessor of Taylor in representing the natural
power of the will to include liberty of indifference was Richard Hooker: Laws bk I ch.VII. See chapter 4
below, and Nigel Voak’s important study of Hooker on free will, Richard Hooker and reformed theology: a
study of reason, will, and grace, Oxford University Press, 2003.
106
he hath left to ourselves; not to our natural strengths, but to our one choice; He hath
instructed us how to choose; He hath opened to us not only the nature of things, but the
events also of all actions, and invited the will with excellent amabilities and glorious
objects; and by all the aids of the spirit of grace hath enabled it to do its own work well.
Just as nature is by physic enabled to proceed in her own work of nutriment and increase
by a removing of all impediments, so does the Spirit of God in us, and to us, and for us;
and after all the will is to choose by its own concreated power.170
In this passage, both Augustinian senses of ‘will’ are recognised; the will is attracted, as
well as being the power of choice: grace makes the will “do its own work well”, in the
sense of loving what it ought to love and thus enabling the choice of it. But Taylor insists
on the power to co-operate or resist, on liberty of indifference in status viae; otherwise, in
effect, the will acts by natural necessity.
Coleridge says: “The Will is ultimately self-determined, or it is no longer a Will
under the law of perfect freedom, but a nature under the mechanism of cause and effect”;
Augustine agrees, but came to think that the will could be cause of itself, causa sui, and
yet still not be free to will the good in fallen man, or to sin in man redeemed. However, in
De Libero Arbitrio, Augustine seems to defend liberty of indifference as a natural
characteristic of the will. Augustine expresses the same idea as Coleridge, and similarly
applies it to liberty of indifference: “our will would not be a will if it were not in our
power”; he argues concerning a putative objector, “by assuming necessity he tries to
abolish will. For if his willing is necessary, how does he will, since there is no will?”
(DLA 3.3).171 Augustine thinks that we know intuitively that our will is “in our power”:
“we can deny that something is in our power only if it is not present even when we will
170 Ductor Dubitantium vol. 2, Works vol. 10 p548.
171 Compare CD V.10.
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it; but if we will, and yet the will remains absent then we are not really willing at all …
So our will would not be will if it were not in our power.” The will is under our control,
because we can deliberately will or not.172
Thus in DLA, and not only in book 1, but in the later books 2 and 3, Augustine
does seem to hold a power of indifferent choice to be a basic natural characteristic of the
will in itself. However, as we have seen, in other texts he seems to move away from this
view. It seems likely, as Carol Harrison173 has recently argued, and as John Burnaby
suggested many years ago, that Augustine already held that while in principle our will
ought to be in our own control in the sense of being able to will one or another, in reality
as we experience it, it is not:
If the will has a cause to which resistance is impossible, moral responsibility disappears,
and sin with it … But in the De Libero Arbitrio the statement leads at once to the
consideration that in man as he is we find states of ignorance and infirmity of which it must
be allowed that the victim ‘has it not in his power to be good’. And the conclusion is
immediately drawn that this condition ‘is not the nature of man as he was made, but the
punishment to which he has been condemned. When we speak of the freedom of the will to
do right, the freedom of which we speak is that in which man was made.’ 174
There is a basic tension between Augustine’s two ideas of will. In his first
discussion of will from DLA cited above, having established the existence of will,
172 Kant’s defence of free will is a development of Augustine’s in DLA: for Kant, not only do we
know intuitively that we are free, but we cannot live our lives on any other principle. Roger Sullivan, An
Introduction to Kant’s Ethics, Cambridge 1994, p169: “Kant’s claim is that our very ability to exercise
spontaneity by thinking of ourselves as members of the noumenal world (and, more strongly, the necessity
that we do so) is equivalent in cogency, for all practical purposes, to the strength of a theoretical proof of
our being such members, if such a proof were possible.” Yet Augustine ultimately relinquishes the idea that
the will can will or not, at will; we will what we ultimately want the most.
173 Rethinking Augustine's early theology : an argument for continuity, Oxford University Press
2006.
174 1938 p187-8.
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Augustine goes on to ask Evodius whether he has a good will. Evodius asks what a good
will is. Augustine replies that it is
a will by which we desire to live upright and honourable lives and to attain the highest
wisdom. So just ask yourself: Do you desire an upright and honourable life and fervently
will to be wise? And is it indisputable that when we will these things, we have a good will?
Evo: My answer to both questions is yes. I now admit that I have not just a will, but a good
will.175
A good will is in the first instance, again, a desire; we either have, it, or we do not.
Augustine’s next question is “How highly do you value this [good] will”? This is really
another way of asking Evodius again whether he has a good will at all; a little later in the
dialogue Augustine asks, “tell me: When [those who have a good will] love their own
good will and value it as highly as we have said, doesn’t that in itself constitute a good
will?” And Evodius agrees that it does. However, having a good will, and placing a
proper value in it, involves more than an approving inclination of the mind towards the
notion of an upright and honourable life and the possession of wisdom (this is, as we
might say, a mere velleity). Our love does not simply draw us to perform good actions
smoothly and naturally. It requires positive action on the part of the individual. If Evodius
acknowledges that “we have something in our souls - this very thing that I call a good
will - in comparison with which [wealth, honours and physical pleasures, or even all of
these together, things that a great many human beings will spare no effort and shirk no
danger to obtain,] are utterly worthless”, then surely he also realises “that it is up to our
will whether we enjoy or lack such a great and true good. For what is so much in the
175 DLA 1.12.
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power of the will as the will itself?”
According to Augustine, someone who desires an upright and honourable life, is
free to adopt this good will as the basis for further action. If we do this, then we have a
good will in a fuller, more strict and proper, sense. We can have this good will “simply by
willing to have one”: we are good, not according to whether we actually succeed in
achieving good consequences by our actions, which may or may not be within our power
to obtain; but according to our positive intention and efforts to do so, which we can adopt
simply by choosing to do so. In book 3, Augustine reasserts the same position: a good
will can be ours simply by willing to have it: “we can deny that something is in our
power only if it is not present even when we will it; but if we will, and yet the will
remains absent then we are not really willing at all … So our will would not be will if it
were not in our power.”176 We know that the will is under our control, because we can
deliberately will or not. A good will is unlike the will to be happy, in that it does not
depend on the attainment of any object external to the will itself. We can be good simply
by choosing to be good, but we cannot be happy in the same way.
However, the idea that nothing is so much in the power of the will as the will
itself in this sense, does not follow logically from the definition of will that began the
discussion in book 1. There would be nothing contradictory about a creature that freely -
that is, without any external compulsion - acted intentionally, according to what it
wanted, without being able to choose to refrain, or act otherwise. In DLA Augustine
apparently holds that we know intuitively, as a matter of fact, that we are not such a
creature. The conscious mind which knows from its own intuitive knowledge of itself that
it wants certain things, also knows, from the same internal vision, whether or not it is free
to choose or refuse them. But we know something else about ourselves, too. Referring to
176 DLA 3.3.
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the movement by which the will turns away from the “common and unchangeable good”
to the private and selfish, Augustine says:
But since that movement is voluntary, it has been placed under our own control. If you fear
it, do not will it; and if you do not will it, it will not exist. What greater security could there
be than to have a life in which nothing can happen to you that you do not will?177
But as Burnaby and Harrison observe, he immediately follows this with “But since we
cannot rise voluntarily as we fell voluntarily..” Again, at the beginning of book 3,
Augustine says that the will can check the “downward movement” from the uncreated
and infinite Good, to the particular love of itself and other finite things for its own
gratification:
This movement of the will is similar to the downward movement of the stone in that it
belongs to the will just as that downward movement belongs to the stone. But the two
movements are dissimilar in this respect: the stone has no power to check its downward
movement, but the soul is not moved to abandon higher things and love inferior things
unless it wills to do so. And so the movement of the stone is natural, but the movement of
the soul is voluntary.178
But if Burnaby and Harrison are correct, perhaps Adam could check his sinful will; but
we cannot get up voluntarily as we fell. Fallen humans without grace can still do what
they want; they are not compelled, but their twisted will wants evil more than good.
Therefore, there is a tension between Augustine’s two senses of “will” in DLA,
177 DLA 2.20.
178 DLA 3.1. The issue raised in note above, concerning the inevitability or otherwise of the fall, is
raised by this passage. Adam could have checked his sinful will, but lacked the will to do so.
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and the different sorts of freedom that go with them: one might argue that if someone
really has a good will in the first sense, if they really value it, then they will act on it. (If
you really wanted to do that, you’d do it..) This tension causes Augustine considerable
trouble, and not just philosophical trouble. As John Rist says, “He had said in On Human
Responsibility that the will is in its own power, but he had already experienced that it is
not (Confessions 8.9.21)”. Rist rightly recognises that this does not just mean that the will
is enslaved to forces outside itself. The human will suffers from a strange kind of internal
slavery, according to Augustine; a slavery that is not wholly slavery, but self-imposed;
our own will, what we at some level want and positively will for ourselves. This will
resists our attempts to choose on the other hand what is objectively right and good.
Why this monstrousness? And what is the root of it? The mind gives the body an order, and
is obeyed at once: the mind gives itself an order and is resisted. The mind commands the
hand to move and there is such readiness that you can hardly distinguish the command
from its execution. Yet the mind is mind, whereas the hand is body. The mind commands
the mind to will, the mind is itself, but it does not do it. Why this monstrousness? And what
is the root of it? The mind I say commands itself to will: it would not give the command
unless it willed: yet it does not do what it commands. The trouble is that it does not totally
will: therefore it does not totally command. It commands insofar as it wills; and it disobeys
the command insofar as it does not will. The will is commanding itself to be a will -
commanding itself, not some other. But it does not in its fullness give the command, so that
what it commands is not done. For if the will were so in its fullness, it would not command
itself to will, for it would already will.179
“The trouble is that it does not totally will … if the will were so in its fullness, it would
179 Confessions VIII.9.21.
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not command itself to will, for it would already will.” If the will fully willed the good, it
would not need to make an active choice; choice would come easily and naturally. The
good that I would I do not, and the wickedness that I would not, that I do, cried St Paul;
Augustine subtly observes that what really lies behind this is often not just weakness of
will, or a helpless will, but a lack of will, due essentially to an opposite will. If you really
wanted to do something, you’d do it; the problem is that you don’t altogether want to do
it, not that you are overwhelmed by forces beyond your control. Augustine seems to be
contradicting his assertions in DLA that we have the power to choose or refuse our
inclinations of will.
As we have seen, up to a point, on Augustine’s analysis, our will itself is beyond
our conscious control, despite being an essential, constitutive aspect of ‘us’, of the
conscious self who is intuitively aware of being able to deliberately will or not. The self
is essentially appetitive, for Augustine; to live, is to desire. And as we have seen, what we
desire, is not wholly within in our power to choose. In the passages we considered from
DLA, Augustine apparently argues that although we cannot entirely choose what to want,
we can choose between our wants, and to pursue them further or restrain them. But in the
Confessions passage, doubt has crept in. Dividedness of will is not just the condition for a
genuine choice; it is a threat (to our true peace, to settled intention and love, a good will,
to the “good that we would”). Perhaps the will only commands itself to will insofar as it
really wants to. We are still doing the wanting; this will, our will, “not some other”. But
do we really know what we really want? Are we - the conscious bit of us - really doing
the choosing? What implications does this have for our responsibility? At any rate, it
seems to Augustine that the will that consciously - conscientiously - tries to be
unambiguously good in its own intention, fails to successfully make this its whole (or
even primary) motivation. This can only be because at some level it is not really trying. It
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wills to be good, and goodness is internal to the will, and yet it fails to become wholly
motivated by goodness; this must be because “it does not totally will” to be so.
Augustine is thrown back on God:
the grace of God is always good; and by it, it comes to pass that a man is of a good will,
though he was before of an evil one. By it also it comes to pass that the very good will,
which has now begun to be, is enlarged, and made so great that it is able to fulfil the divine
commandments which it shall wish, when it shall once firmly and perfectly wish. This is
the purport of what the Scripture says: so that the man who wills but is not able knows that
he does not yet fully will, and prays that he may have so great a will that it may suffice for
keeping the commandments. And thus, indeed, he receives assistance to perform what he is
commanded. Then is the will of use when we have ability; just as ability is also then of use
when we have the will. For what does it profit us if we will what we are unable to do, or
else do not will what we are able to do?180
When we will what we are unable to do, we are unable because fundamentally we aren’t
really willing. Fallen man does what he wants to do; but he has no power to choose the
good instead, because deep down he does not want the good enough to do so, rather, he
wants evil. He lacks a will towards good, and has a positive will towards sin. Such human
efforts as there are to will the good will be half hearted, and fail, without divine grace;
under which the opposite process takes place. John Rist says of Plotinus, that “for the
Platonist real knowing involves willing”.181 For Augustine, real willing has come to
involve choosing; the same concept of freedom is involved. As Peter Brown says,
“Freedom, therefore, for Augustine, cannot be reduced to a sense of choice: it is a
180 Grace and Free will 31. My italics.
181 1967 p132.
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freedom to act fully. Such freedom must involve the transcendence of a sense of choice.
For a sense of choice is a symptom of the disintegration of the will: the final union of
knowledge and feeling would involve a man in the object of his choice in such a way that
any other alternative would be inconceivable.”182 Grace begins to restore the freedom to
act fully towards the good.
Taylor, on the other hand, thinks that the will acts naturally if it does not possess
liberty of indifference: at any rate, in the context of time and chance.183 And indeed
Augustine’s account does effectively seem to amount to this. Responding to Julian of
Eclanum, Augustine suggests that either “both [soul and body] are faulty when derived
from man, or one is corrupted in the other as in a faulty vessel” (Against Julian 5.3.17). It
is difficult to see how the soul, as understood by Augustine, could suffer from an
intrinsic, heritable fault, as if it were a physical substance: as Taylor says, “sin is the
action of a free faculty, it can no more take away the freedom of that faculty than virtue
can; for that also is the action of the same free faculty.”184 An act of will cannot harm the
will, any more than an “act of the understanding can lessen the understanding”. Even if it
could, then that would seem to compromise the personal originality of the delight in sin
that Augustine continued to insist that fallen man was guilty of, precisely by virtue of it
being the sinner’s own will. If, on the other hand, the soul is inevitably corrupted by the
disordered passions of the body (indeed, if it can’t help delighting in them, finds them
irresistibly delightful), which were either caused by Adam’s sin, or inflicted as a
punishment, then surely that reduces to effectively the Manicheanism Julian (and
Pelagius) accused Augustine of.
In any case, if the will is unable to do otherwise, responsibility seems to be
182 Augustine of Hippo London 1967 p374.
183 On natural necessity and the will in heaven, Thomas Aquinas in ST 1a1ae q2.
184 UN, Works vol 7 p 281.
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compromised. Even if fallen man does not sin by compulsion, it seems that he does sin by
what has become (‘in Adam’) a natural necessity of will, according to Augustine. In
DLA, Augustine said that a will would not be a will if it was not in its own power, or its
own cause. We have seen how the will could be uncaused by anything outside itself, and
yet not be able to choose otherwise, and how Augustine seems to have effectively reached
this position. But it seems that he did not advance this view in DLA with reference to the
human will prior to the fall, at least: “when we speak of free will to act rightly, we mean
the will with which human beings were created.” So even if Augustine denies that such a
natural necessity of will (regarding sin, anyway) belongs to the will by nature as
originally created, he does think that it has effectively become natural. Likewise, he says
that the effects of the fallen condition are not natural for man: “to accept falsehoods as
truths, thus erring unwillingly; to struggle against the pain of carnal bondage and not be
able to refrain from acts of inordinate desire: these do not belong to the nature that human
beings were created with; they are the penalty of a condemned prisoner.” Yet he
elsewhere admits that this has, in effect, since the fall, become natural for man: “the
disagreement of flesh and soul through the transgression of the first man turned to
nature”.185
Our good nature, both soul and body, is vitiated by the damage done by Adam’s
original sin; so in effect, the damage, though accidental to our nature as such, has become
natural to us, and we are born with it. Writing against Julian, Augustine sets out their
contrasting positions using the example of sexual desire and marriage. He sets out
Julian’s view as follows: “If God creates men, they cannot be born with any evil. If
marriage is good, nothing evil arises from it. If all sins are forgiven in baptism, those
born of the reborn cannot contract original sin. If God is just, He cannot condemn the
185 Against Julian IV.14.11.
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children for the sins of the parents, since He forgives the parents their own sins as well. If
human nature is capable of perfect justice, it cannot have natural faults.” Augustine’s own
view is this: “To this we reply that God is the creator of men, that is, of both soul and
body; and that marriage is good; and that through the baptism of Christ all sins are
forgiven; and that God is just, and human nature is capable of perfect justice. Yet,
although all these things are true, men are born subject to the vitiated origin which is
contracted from the first man, and therefore go to damnation unless they are reborn in
Christ.” (Against Julian 2.9.31.) Human nature is good, marriage is good, but both are
under the power of sin, introduced into creation by the Fall. This is ominously close to
violating an important principle Augustine stated earlier in the same text: “If sins do not
arise from a thing which is free from sin, then as the Manicheans say, sins have a nature
of their own from which they arise.” (Ibid 5.16.59.) If sins arise from the human will by
natural necessity, then the will is naturally sinful. Though evil remains accidental to
human nature in itself, the human will, and human nature as a whole, have effectively
become evil by nature through the damage inflicted by original sin.
What Augustine is trying to do, is defend not only the necessity of baptism and
the Christian economy of salvation, but the Pauline insight that besides referring to
discrete choices and actions, sin is also both our will, and yet somehow not our will; an
internal contradiction in our desires that we struggle with, which is a universal
experience. It is something that we want, not something simply imposed from outside,
even by our bodily desires, which are external to the mind, which for Augustine must
always retain its causal priority for a person to be considered responsible. Yet if there is
no sense in which human nature, notably - though outrageously and mysteriously - the
human will, has “natural faults”, as Julian, and before him Pelagius, insisted, then sin is
reduced to a matter of discrete, particular choices, which seems to be a na;ve and
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inauthentic view of the human experience, with attendant spiritual and moral dangers.
The Pelagian view of the will is too simple, and too sanguine: “Inasmuch, says
[Pelagius], as not to sin is ours, we are able to sin and to avoid sin. What, then, if another
should say: Inasmuch as not to wish for unhappiness is ours, we are able both to wish for
it and not to wish for it? And yet we are positively unable to wish for it.”186 We can no
more wholly avoid sin by the mere choice of the will, than we can choose to seek
unhappiness, instead of the happiness our will naturally desires.
The Pelagians were far from denying that man’s bodily nature is sometimes a
source of temptation, which the will must struggle with and restrain; but they think of the
will as purely the power of choice, engaged with external temptations, and not as itself
the source of the problem, in its own divided inclination, and this has consequences for
their anthropology. Ironically, for Augustine, the Pelagians have the same anthropological
paradigm as the Manicheans: the soul sins because of it immersion in the flesh, though
for the Pelagians, the soul can resist and remain pure, and in the right context - that of
marriage, for example - there is nothing intrinsically objectionable about the present
condition of the flesh, which remains in its created integrity. With equal irony, for Taylor,
fallen man is no more morally responsible for Augustine than he was for the Manichees,
though Augustine is no Manichean in the sense the Pelagians thought.
B. Taylor’s attempt to reconcile an ‘Augustinian’ anthropology with libertarian
freedom, and Coleridge’s Kantian critique
Taylor insists with the Pelagians that sin must belong to the will, to choice, that it
presupposes libertarian freedom; or sin is not sin, because the will acts either by an
186 DNG 57.
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internal necessity or external compulsion. But he wants to preserve the Augustinian and
Pauline insight he finds in the doctrine of original sin, that sin is in a sense something that
has us in its grip, which we do instead of the “good that we would”. However, he
underestimates the extent to which for Augustine this is the product of a self-interested
will, rather than the ‘external’ force of feelings and passions, which is “sin” only in an
extended, improper sense, without assent. Taylor agrees with the Pelagians that the
“flesh”, understood essentially as the body and the passions of the animal soul, is the
challenge for the moral will; again, like them, to an extent he thinks that these natural
passions and appetites are morally neutral in themselves, and good or bad according to
the moral context.
But his view of human nature as a whole is more dynamic, and less rigidly
delineated, than it is for the Pelagians. To this extent his account more closely resembles
Augustine’s; we have already touched on this, in chapter 2, concerning Taylor’s view of
marriage, and we shall return to his views on sex and marriage in comparison to those of
Augustine and Julian of Eclanum to develop this point in the next chapter. First, we must
look at the ways in which Taylor’s somewhat ‘Pelagian’ anthropology concerning free
will and the ‘flesh’ retains Augustinian characteristics, and consider the solution offered
by Coleridge to the problem of original sin and libertarian freedom, in the light of his
critique of Taylor.
As we have seen, Taylor tries to preserve the insight behind original sin by
placing it in the external influence on the will, not within the will itself: and this reduces
to either ‘Pelagianism’ or ‘Manicheanism’, depending on whether such influence is
resistible. However, his account is of more depth and interest than that of Pelagius, and
has important affinities with Augustine’s view. Indeed, precisely what Taylor is trying to
do is reconcile Augustine’s anthropology with libertarian freedom.
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We have noticed Taylor claim that for Pelagius, “nothing but an act could be a
sin”. This is manifestly also true for Taylor; but what he means, to a certain extent, is
similar to Warfield’s meaning: for Pelagius, sin has no broader reference beyond
particular acts; we cannot be in a state of sin, by which Taylor means in the grip of selfinduced
sinful habits.
By a sinful habit, I mean the facility and easiness, the delight and custom of sinning
contracted by the repetition of the acts of the same sin … that is, a quality inherent in the
soul, whereby we work with pleasure: for that Aristotle [Nic Eth bk2 c2] calls the infallible
and proper indication of habits … And so long as any man sins willingly, readily,
frequently, and upon every temptation, or most commonly; so long he is an habitual sinner:
when he does his acts of religion with pain, and of his sin with pleasure, he is in the state of
death, and enmity against God. And as by frequent playing upon an instrument a man gets
a habit of playing; so he does in renewing the actions of the same sin, there is an evil
quality produced, which affects and corrupts his soul.187
We have seen that Pelagius does accept sinful habits, which form an evilly-disposed
character; including ones acquired over the course of life, from bad education and
custom, and before our reason, the ability to understand and opt to obey the gospel and
the moral law was fully developed, which we must now break, resetting our nature
towards obedience to the gospel using the “file of the law”.
There are passages in which Taylor’s view seems to be very similar to the position
in fact maintained by Pelagius. He can even describe human nature as being of a “middle
constitution” prior to habit; but what he means by this seems to be rather different from
187 UN, Works vol. 7 p160-1. By “an evil quality”, Taylor apparently means a physical tendency, a
habituation of the passions: p165. It is no sin in itself, but it disposes us to sin; either in the sense of being
resistible, or such that we need to become aware of it, and work against it through prayer and discipline.
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Pelagius in important respects.
For till habits supervene, we are of a middle constitution … We are divided between good
and evil; and all our good or bad is but a disposition towards either: but then the sin is
arrived to its state and manhood, when the joints are grown stiff and firm by the
consolidation of a habit. So Plutarch defines a habit, a habit is a strength and confirmation
to the brute and unreasonable part of man gotten by custom.’ ‘the brutish passions in a man
are not quickly mastered and reduced to reason.’ ‘custom and studies efform the soul like
wax, and by assuefaction introduce a nature.’ … For as experience is to notices, and tutors
to children, so is custom to the manners of men; a fixing good or evil upon the spirit: that
as it was said of Alexander, when he was a man he could not easily want the vices of his
tutor Leonidas, which he sucked into his manners and was accustomed to in his youth; so
we cannot without trouble do against our habit and common usages; Usus magister, “use is
the greatest teacher”: [Jer 13.23,] ye which are accustomed to do evil, commonly read, ye
which are taught to do evil; and what we are so taught to do, we believe infinitely, and find
it very hard to entertain principles of persuasion against those of our breeding and
education. For what the mind of man is accustomed to, and throughly acquainted with, it is
highly reconciled to it; the strangeness is removed, the objections are considered or
neglected, and the compliance and entertainment is set very forward towards pleasures and
union. This habit therefore when it is instanced in a vice, is the perfecting and improving of
our enmity against God, for it strengthens the lust, as a good habit confirms reason and the
grace of God.188
Even in this passage Taylor displays a deeper view of custom and habit than Pelagius. For
Pelagius, the rational soul provides a stable centre which, informed of the law by reason,
188 UN, Works vol 7 p166-7.
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can resolve to endeavour against its dispositions of character, which affect the soul itself
from outside, from the influence of the passions, in contrast to the way that our loves
draw our soul this way and that for Augustine. Habit, for Taylor, is deeper-seated than for
Pelagius. Our nature is plastic in its earliest state, but quickly forms quite basic and
fundamental traits “before reason and the grace of God are well attended to”, on the basis
of what attracts the tendencies of mind and body: as we have seen, Taylor understands the
will as something that is attracted, and delights or enjoys, in the Augustinian sense, and
not simply as the pure power of rational choice. Mind and body are more dynamically
related for Taylor than they are for Pelagius, in a way more reminiscent of Augustine.
One might even say the distinction between them is less clear for Taylor than for either
Augustine or Pelagius, at any rate in the context of this discussion; Taylor is a more acute
moral theologian than he is a scrupulous philosopher. On occasion he reduces will in the
Augustinian sense of what we want or desire, as opposed to choice, which as for Pelagius
is always a faculty of the soul for Taylor, to appetite, like Hobbes.189
This doctrine of habitual sin is Taylor’s principal substitute for the positively
sinful state in which fallen humanity subsists according to St Augustine. We are ‘fallen’,
in the grip of sin, through the bad habits we have formed, according to Taylor.
The natural capacity of sinful habits is a facility or readiness of the faculty to do the like
actions; and this is naturally consequent to the frequent repetition of sinful acts, not
voluntary, but in its cause, and therefore not criminal but by a distinct obliquity …
[Aristotle says, bk3c8] “actions are otherwise voluntary than habits: we are masters of our
actions all the way, but of habits only in the beginning; but because it was in our choice to
do so or otherwise, therefore the habit which is consequent is called voluntary:” not then
189 DJ, Works vol.7 p499; UN, vol.7 p431; compare Leviathan ch.6.
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chosen, because it cannot then be hindered; and therefore it is of itself indifferent; an evil
indeed, as sickness, or crookedness, thirst or famine, and as death itself to them that have
repented them of that sin for which they die; but no sin if we consider it in its mere natural
capacity.190
No sin in its own nature, a natural effect; but the capacity of resistance is never wholly
lost, and human nature is never altogether lacking divine assistance according to Taylor.
We remain morally responsible, then, for our condition, if we persist in it:
For such persons have a supreme habit, a habit of disobedience, and may for want of
opportunity or abilities, for want of pleasure, or by the influence of an impertinent humour,
be kept from acting always in one scene. But so long as they choose all that pleases them,
and exterminate no vice, but entertain the instances of many, their malice is habitual, their
state a perfect aversation from God. For this is that which the apostle calls “the body of
sin”, a compagination of many parts and members; just as among the lawyers, a flock, a
people, a legion, are called bodies: and corpus civitatis we find in Livy, corpus collegiorum
in Caius, corpus regni in Virgil; and so here, this union of several sins is “the body of sin,”
and that is, “the body of death.”191
Taylor sets up a contrast between St Paul’s “body of sin”, and the body of Christ, corpus
Christi, on the basis of whether one is habituated to sin or righteousness. In the case of
the “regenerate”, which for Taylor means not simply the baptised, but those consciously
endeavouring to habituate themselves to righteousness, this idea refers to both the
individual Christian who is a temple of the Holy Ghost, and the Church which is
190 UN, Works vol 7 p162.
191 Ibid. p161.
123
corporately the ‘body of Christ’, into which single body the regenerate are fashioned by
their moral and spiritual life and corporate participation in the sacraments. [Compare
Augustine, CD X.3.] The state of habitual sinners, the “unregenerate”,
is signally described by St Paul, who calls it “a concupiscence wrought by sin”: “for sin”
(saith he) wrought in me all manner of concupiscence”: it is called by him, “a law in the
members fighting against the law in my mind”: and the man he calls “carnal, sold under
sin, dead, killed”; and the sin itself … “sin dwelling in me”, and “flesh in which dwelleth
no good” … “the carnal mind”. These things (as is evident) cannot be spoken of the single
actions of sin, but of the law, the power, the dominion, the reign, of sin. It is that which was
wrought by sin, viz., by the single actions of sin.192
Habit, for Taylor as for Augustine - apparently based directly on Augustine - creates a
“second nature”,193 of dispositions towards certain actions, such that “you cannot leave it
if you would”. Taylor cites Augustine as a famous example of the condition, in the
Confessions: “This mischief ought to be further expressed, for it is bigger than yet
signified. Not only an aptness, but a necessity is introduced by custom: because by a
habit sin seizes upon the will and all the affections; and the very principles of motion
towards virtue are almost broken in pieces. It is therefore called by the apostle ‘the law of
sin’. S. Austin represents himself as a sad instance of this particular [quotes Conf bk8 c7
and c5]”.194 Evil habits are only disposed of with time and effort, just as the contrary habit
is obtained only with difficulty, against the resistance of both natural and acquired
inclinations:
192 UN, Works vol.7 p173-4.
193 UN, Works vol. 7 p151. There is a sense in which, for Taylor as for Augustine, we are not merely
breaking habits, but re-orientating the habitual inclination of our whole nature, built up through the course
of life. For Augustine’s altera natura or “carnal custom” see Rist 1994, p175f.
194 UN, Works vol. 7 p167.
124
For a vicious habit is a new concupiscence, and superinduces such contradictions to the
supernatural contentions and designs of grace, it calls back nature from its remedy and
purifications of baptism, and makes such new aptnesses, that the punishment remains even
after the beginning of the sin’s pardon: and that which is a natural punishment of the sinful
actions … [The repenting sinner] is forced to do his duty, as he takes physic, where reason
and the grace of God make him consent against his inclination, and to be willing against his
will. He is brought to that state of sorrow, that either he shall perish forever, or he must do
more for heaven than is needful to be done by a good man, whose body is chaste, and his
spirit serene, whose will is obedient and his understanding well informed, whose
temptations are ineffective, and his strengths great, who loves God and is reconciled to
duty, who delights in religion, and is at rest when he is doing God service.195
But given our plastic nature which is habituated towards what naturally delights
us the most, given our embodied state, we are all necessarily in this condition to some
extent at first, and must acquire the state of habitual righteousness. Taylor calls this
process metanoia, the usual term used by the Greek Fathers for both moral regeneration
and the effects of grace (as well as for the change wrought in the Eucharistic elements, a
connected point for Taylor and some of his contemporaries, as we shall see in the next
chapter). For Taylor, as for the Greek Fathers, it is the whole purpose of the Christian
economy. And indeed, as we have already seen, our mere nature in itself is part of the
challenge, as well as the corrupt habits we have formed.
3.4 Metanoia
195 Ibid p168-9.
125
In the 1960s C. F. Allison argued that Taylor held salvation to be dependent on a works
righteousness that merely makes allowance for unavoidable infirmities.196 There is some
justification for this view, but there is more to Taylor’s account. Although in many ways
Taylor can be accused of a rigorous moralism, there is a more subtle dimension to his
teaching. “Infirmity” is a natural feature of our moral condition, for Taylor:
Concerning our infirmities, they are so many that we can no more account concerning the
ways of error coming upon that stock, than it can be reckoned in how many places a lame
man may stumble that goes a long journey in difficult and uneven ways. We have
beginning infant strengths, which are therefore imperfect because they can grow: Crescere
posse imperfectae rei signum est; and when they are most confirmed and full grown, they
are imperfect still. When we can reckon all the things of chance, then we have summed up
the dangers and aptnesses of man to sin upon that one principle; but so as they can they are
summed up in the words of Epiphanius, … ‘the condition of our nature, the inconstancy of
our spirits, the infirmity of our flesh, the distraction of our senses, are an argument to make
us with confidence expect pardon and mercy from the loving kindness of the Lord,
according to the preaching of truth, the gospel of Christ.’197
Sins are often, of the necessity of our condition, “innumerable and undiscernible”; to say
that “a man might, if he pleased, live without sin”,198 was of the essence of the Pelagian
heresy, for Taylor: he thinks the tolerance shown to this view by St Augustine and “some
African bishops” as long as it was acknowledged to be the work of grace, “was worse
than that of Pelagius, save only that these took in the grace of God, which (in the sense
196 CF Allison, The Rise of Moralism: The Proclamation of the Gospel from Hooker to Baxter.
London: SPCK; New York: Seabury, 1967.
197 Works vol 7 p27.
198 Works vol. 7 p30.
126
which the church teaches) the Pelagians did not.” The temporal, embodied, changeable
human condition, is not one in which precise legalistic accountability can properly apply.
Taylor’s distinction between the moral law “in its latitude and natural extension”199 and
the “covenant of grace” does not simply make the latter represent a kind of equity: the
former sets out the absolute “degrees of perfection”, the other enables us to better, though
still remotely, approximate to them, by a change of mind or heart; we simply cannot do
this when they are considered as law “in its latitude and natural extension”.
Taylor moves away from too exact a view of sin as particular acts for which we
are responsible, and towards an understanding of the Christian revelation as a means of
being “renewed in the spirit of [our] minds”, setting the heart right, or “renewing a right
spirit”, rather than inculcating a moralist keeping of accounts. Indeed, this is a dangerous
distortion of the gospel, for Taylor: “fear” is “apt to multiply eternal scruples, and they
are equivocal effects of a good meaning, but are proper and univocal enemies to piety and
a wise religion.” In our natural condition,
Every passion of the soul is a spring and a shower, a parent and a nurse to sin: our passions
either mistake their objects, or grow intemperate; either they put too much upon a trifle, or
too little upon the biggest interest: they are material and sensual, best pleased and best
acquainted with their own objects. And we are to do some things which it is hard to be told
how they can be in our power; we are commanded to be angry, to love, to hope, to desire
certain things, towards which we cannot be so affected ever when we please. A man cannot
love or hate upon the stock of a commandment.
Christianity, according to Taylor, exists to effect just this; to orientate the mind, and direct
199 Ibid p35.
127
and habituate the passions, towards the good. It is to draw us from sin and make us love
the good; not to make abatements for unavoidable infirmities under a legal code. He uses
the Greek term metanoia to refer to this process, which he translates “repentance”. This is
the ‘one necessary thing’ of his book’s title, Unum Necessarium: On the doctrine and
practice of Repentance.200 Taylor’s sense of this word is not simply leaving or avoiding
sin; he quotes Tertullian to the effect that “to repent among the Greeks signifies not a
confession of our fault, but a change of mind.”201 The practice of repentance involves
endeavouring to live a life according to the Gospel precepts; but this means a spirit of
humility and charity, and habitual virtue, not moralism.
Taylor conceives the beginnings of metanoia partly on the model of St
Augustine’s plea, “order my love in me”. The change of mind, at least initially, is no
work of ours; it is the effect of the divine goodness, revealed in the Incarnation, on our
mind and feelings: “He does not only give us all our being and all our faculties, but
makes them also irriguous with the dew of his divine grace; sending His holy Son to call
us to repentance, and to die to obtain for us pardon, and resurrection, and eternal life;
sending His holy spirit, by rare arguments, and aids external and internal, to help us in
our spiritual contentions and difficulties.”202 These “contentions and difficulties” are the
result of the state of our mere nature, as it is in itself: Taylor can even say that in “the first
constitution of our nature” we are “so perfectly given to natural vices, that by degrees we
degenerate into unnatural, and no education or power of art can make us choose wisely or
honestly: … said Phalaris, ‘there is no good nature but only virtue’: till we are new
created, we are wolves and serpents, free and delighted in the choice of evil, but stones
200 Compare Meister Eckhart’s “detachment” as the one thing needful, in his sermon of the same
title.
201 Works vol. 7 p61.
202 Works vol. 7 p54.
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and irons to all excellent things and purposes.”203
3.5 Natural propensities and the freedom of the will
We see, then, that what was for Augustine the fallen state is true not just of habitually
sinful state, but even of our merely natural one, for Taylor. This nature has a liability
towards the formation of habits, which Augustine put down to original sin, but which for
Taylor is natural; inspired by grace, we must break our evil habits, and form our nature
anew according to virtue.
According to Augustine, the disorder of the passions consequent upon original sin
created a certain liability towards the formation of sinful habits. As one leading Augustine
scholar puts it, the “effects of the fall are primarily death and the characterization of the
soul by a ‘carnal quality’, typically visible in a sexual ‘dereglement’ … our carnal quality,
our weakness (concupiscentia) for the flesh”.204 “In Augustine’s mature writings
concupiscentia is not so much the active attitude, the lust of a man which constitutes his
sin, but a defect in man which is the effect of sin, the permanent weakness which we have
inherited from Adam … as we might speak of having a weakness for wine, or for men”.
“It is as a result of the fall that we have a permanent weakness for sin … We are now …
more liable to be corrupted by bad habits … than to be benefited (and indeed ‘liberated’)
by good ones”.205 This weakness is not a sin in itself, unless consented to.
A similar liability is an important part of our purely natural state for Taylor,
though Taylor does not distinguish clearly between concupiscence as a weakness, and as
a certain positive ‘lusting’, in the sense of a strong influence of passion on, or appeal to,
203 Works vol. 4 p125.
204 Rist 1994 p182.
205 Rist 1994 p176.
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the soul. As for Augustine, this is no sin unless consented to.
But when we consent to and actuate our evil inclinations, we spoil our natures and make
them worse, making evil still more natural … And this is the doctrine of S. Austin,
speaking of concupiscence. ‘Concupiscence or the viciousness of our nature is after a
certain manner of speaking called sin; because it is made worse by sin, and makes us guilty
of sin when it is consented to (vol 7, 289; Aug., de Nup. et Concup.1.23).
For Taylor, this state is a natural consequence of our open, freely-inclining nature,
blindly orientated to its own natural objects and in need of habituation according to
righteousness and the things of the Spirit. It is both this natural condition, and the
condition of actual, habitual sin, that Christianity, according to Taylor, is designed to
reform.
Now this is a state of infirmity; and all sins against which there is any reluctancy and
contrary desires of actual reason, are sins of infirmity. But this infirmity excuses no man:
for this state of infirmity is also a state of death; for by this S. Paul expressed that state
from which Christ came to redeem us: … “when we were yet in infirmity,” or without
strength, “in due time Christ died for us”; that is, when we were aseBeis, “impious”, or
“sinners,” such as the world was before it was redeemed, before Christ came. These are the
sick and weak whom Christ, the great physician of our souls, came to save. This infirmity
is “the shadow of death”: and it signifies that state of mankind which is the state of nature,
not of original and birth, but in its whole constitution, as it signifies not only the natural
imperfection, but the superinduced evil from any principle; all that which is opposed to
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grace.206
This weakness, or liability, to bad habits, which our natural state necessarily involves,
means that we all form a ‘second nature’ positively opposed, in some measure, to grace; a
state that we delight in, and choose though we could resist, that “reason and the grace of
God” must constantly oppose. All of this condition, is what the Spirit works in us, and
with us, to change. It is Taylor’s ‘non-lapsarian’ version of what Professor Rist describes
in Augustine: “From desires and loves strengthened by the constant series of assents
promoted by habit and easy familiarity arises what we may call a cast of mind, a mindset,
or, in the traditional but ambivalent term, our ‘will’.”207
For our nature was not made evil but by ourselves; but yet we are naturally evil, that is, by
a superinduced nature; just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to
drink extremely, and their nature requires it, and it is health to them; they die without it,
because they have made themselves a new constitution, and another nature but much worse
than that which God made; their sin made this new nature; and this new nature makes sin
necessary and unavoidable: so it is in all other instances; our nature is evil, because we
have spoiled it; and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in, is the way to
cure our nature: for this evil nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid; we made it and
therefore we must help it; but as in the superinducing of this nature we were thrust forward
by the world and the devil, by all objects from without and weakness from within; so in the
curing it we are to be helped by God and His most holy Spirit; … we must have a new
nature put into us, which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes, of holy
actions and great devotion; and this nature is derived from God, and is a grace and a favour
of heaven. The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange
206 Works vol.7 p342.
207 Rist 1994 p176-7.
131
manner, must also descend upon us, and cause us to be born again, and to begin a new life
upon the stock of a new nature. [This happens through the Incarnation; Taylor quotes
Origen]: “from Him it first began that a divine and human nature were weaved together,
that the human nature by communication with the celestial may also become divine; not
only in Jesus, but in all that first believe in Him, and then obey Him, living such a life as
Jesus taught”: and this is the sum total of the whole design; as we have lived to the flesh, so
we must hereafter live to the Spirit: as our nature hath been flesh, not only in its original
but in its habits and affection; so our nature must be spirit in habit and choice, in design
and effectual prosecutions; for nothing can cure our old death but this new birth: and this is
the recovery of our nature and the restitution of our hopes.208
Our nature in itself inclines towards its own ends, which makes it liable to the formation
of sinful habits. Grace inspires and assists the will to break and re-form the habitual
structure of our nature, fashioning a new order of feeling. The object of the Christian
economy is not simply to indicate the right choices, or even create a habitual disposition
towards them, but to reform our whole nature, to purify and transfigure the natural; as
Taylor puts it, to make a new nature, a graced nature, out of the merely natural state. We
shall return to this in the next chapter; first, it remains to consider the problem of
libertarian freedom in relation to original sin, wrestled with by Taylor.
3.6 Taylor, Coleridge and Kant on the propensity to sin
The above passage is curiously reminiscent of Kant on the “propensity to evil”
identified in his Religion within the Limits of Mere Reason. Kant also uses the analogy of
a latent propensity for intoxicants, which is actuated and made worse by the agent. Philip
208 Sermon XI, The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol.4 p130-1.
132
Quinn summarises Kant’s view very well:
According to Kant, there is in all humans, as far as we can tell, a morally evil propensity to
evil, and he once even calls it peccatum originarium.
A propensity, as Kant defines it, is a predisposition to crave a delight which, when once
experienced, arouses in its possessor an inclination to it. People with a propensity for
whiskey, for example, do not desire whiskey before they first drink it, but once they have
tried it they develop a craving for it. Kant regards propensities of this sort as physical
because they belong to people considered as determined by laws of nature. Since what is
determined by laws of nature is morally indifferent, physical propensities are morally
indifferent. Hence if all propensities were physical, a propensity to evil in humans would
not itself be morally evil. So there must be non-physical propensities if there is to be a
morally evil propensity in humans.209
Unlike Taylor, but very like Augustine, Kant means a propensity not of human nature
generally, but specifically of the will itself. Taylor thinks of all propensities as physical;
he is struggling with the paradox which we have already observed in Kant’s account, as
in Augustine’s: for Kant the propensity to evil is both the responsibility of the agent, and
yet is found in the will, of all places, “by nature.” Taylor’s resolution is to prioritise the
will understood as choice, and put the propensity in the influence of our physical nature.
We have already seen that Kant expressly denies that the propensity can be identified
with our “sensuous nature” in this way.
On account of this, Coleridge still objects to Taylor, that “Original Sin, according
to [Taylor’s] conception, is a Calamity which, being common to all men, must be
supposed to result from their common Nature: in other words, the universal Calamity of
209 Philip Quinn, Original Sin, Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Religion, 1999 p546.
133
Human Nature!”210 Whereas for Coleridge as for Augustine and Kant, the “scriptural
article respecting Original Sin … the belief which alone is required of us as Christians”
refers to “the corrupt and sinful Nature of the Human Will” itself; to “that state and
constitution of the Will which is the ground, condition and common Cause of all Sins”.
However, against Augustine, Kant and Coleridge insist that this “state and constitution of
the will” must itself be an act of libertarian freedom of choice in every individual; or it
would again become, as surely as if the will was compelled by external “Circumstances”,
a “calamity of nature.”211
As we have seen, Taylor very accurately understands the Augustinian view of the
will: as, for example, in this passage:
Sin is seated in the will, it is an action, and transient; and when it dwells or abides, it abides
nowhere but in the will by approbation and love, to which is naturally consequent a
readiness in the inferior faculties to obey and act accordingly; and therefore sin does not
infect our mere natural faculties, but the will only, and not that in the natural capacity, but
in its moral only.212
Augustine thought that moral evil was the result of pride, and that pride arose from a
finite rational soul becoming too “pleased with itself”; this then affects the ‘lower’
faculties, which in the state of innocence were naturally temperate (or followed the good
will). But the implication of this is that the origin of the propensity to moral evil lies
wholly within the soul, and therefore, according to Taylor, it cannot be inherited. Thus,
for Taylor, on Augustine’s own account, “to him that considers it, it will seem strange and
210 Aids p201.
211 Ibid.
212 UN, Works vol 7 p258
134
monstrous that a moral obliquity, in a single instance, should make a universal change in
a natural suscipient”; namely, that Adam’s proud will could in any sense either be
inherited by his descendents, or that this will could have an effect on Adam’s nature
which was then transmitted: as Taylor says, “No man can transmit a good habit, a grace,
or a virtue by natural generation”, nor a bad one. On Augustine’s account of the nature of
consciousness, “the soul is from without, and is a divine substance”, in the sense that it is
not reducible to or identifiable with the material aspects of human nature; a view which is
more compatible with the idea that “the soul is immediately created, not generated”.213 So
the traducian theory cannot account for the propensity of will; indeed, it seems
unnecessary, on Augustine’s own view - but at the expense of libertarian freedom, which
Taylor wants to preserve.
Kant also distinguishes between ‘moral’ as opposed to ‘natural’ capacities in the
contrast he draws between nature and will; and it is precisely on the basis of this
distinction that he, like Taylor, argues that “however the origin of moral evil in man is
constituted, surely of all the explanations of the spread and propagation of this evil
through all members and generations of our race, the most inept is that which describes it
as descending to us as an inheritance from our parents.”214 Quinn continues:
According to Kant, nothing is morally evil but libertarian free acts and their products, and
so a morally evil propensity to evil has to be a product of an exercise of libertarian
freedom. He tells us that, though the propensity to evil can be represented as innate, it
should not be represented as merely innate, for it should also be represented as brought by
213 UN, Works vol 7 p259. As John Rist says, Augustine needs a theory in which two “essential” facts
about our nature and fallen state are reconciled: “that ‘we’ are guilty (in or as Adam); that our souls are non
material and cannot be reduced to any body. Any theory which can maintain both these contentions and
combine them with either traducianism or creationism could be acceptable to Augustine.” 1994 p318.
214 Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone I.IV.
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humans upon themselves.
But as Quinn says, Kant also claims that it is “antecedent to all such actions” and is the
ground of them; how can it be both a propensity and innate in this rather Augustinian
sense, and an act of morally evil libertarian freedom? Kant’s explanation is not, at first
sight, particularly helpful. According to Kant, the human will acts by means of the
adoption of maxims; rules for conduct, which are either consciously adopted, or we may
infer them from someone’s behaviour: as Coleridge says, “We call an individual a bad
man, not [simply] because an action is contrary to the law, but because it has led us to
conclude from it some principle opposed to the law, some private maxim or by-law in the
will contrary to the universal law of right reason in the conscience, as the ground of the
action.” [Aids p213.] Kant explains the propensity to evil, as a sort of super-maxim
governing a person’s general behaviour:
But the subjective ground or cause of this adoption [of such a maxim] cannot further be
known (though it is inevitable that we should inquire into it), since otherwise still another
maxim would have to be adduced in which this disposition must have been incorporated, a
maxim which itself in turn must have its ground. Since, therefore, we are unable to derive
this disposition, or rather its ultimate ground, from any original act of the will in time, we
call it a property of the will which belongs to it by nature (although actually the disposition
is grounded in freedom). Further, the man of whom we say, "He is by nature good or evil,"
is to be understood not as the single individual (for then one man could be considered as
good, by nature, another as evil), but as the entire race; that we are entitled so to do can
only be proved when anthropological research shows that the evidence, which justifies us
in attributing to a man one of these characters as innate, is such as to give no ground for
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excepting anyone, and that the attribution therefore holds for the race.215
Kant’s problem, as Coleridge, too, recognises, is that “this evil Principle again
must be grounded in some other Principle which has been made determinant of the Will
by the Will’s own self determination. For if not, it must have its ground in some necessity
of Nature, in some instinct or propensity imposed not acquired”; “thus we might go back
from act to act, from evil to evil, ad infinitum, without advancing a step”.216
Perhaps what Kant means, is that all human beings, almost reflexively but
actually deliberately, if they were honest with themselves, from the earliest days of their
consciousness, in fact adopt self love as their fundamental maxim.217 When Kant
describes this propensity as “subjectively necessary”, he intends to suggest that it is freely
chosen, but equally that all in fact do so; the propensity is always an accident, a freely
chosen act, not a causally determined one, and it possible to overcome, if not wholly
extirpate, through the adoption of the categorical imperative as one’s alternative ruling
maxim. But it remains something the species universally does from the first.
On this account the Kantian propensity resembles the Augustinian “deficient
cause”. Kant refers to an infinite regress of acts of will, not simply to underline the
mystery, but to point out that acts of will are genuinely original. We can’t seek an
absolute causal explanation for the propensity in the limits of our nature, that is, we
cannot say that the finite limits of our nature necessarily cause us to adopt such a maxim
in any given instance - or if they do, then the act is not original, and not sin, as Heber and
Coleridge point out concerning Taylor. Yet we perceive, that implicitly, all human beings
215 Ibid.
216 Aids p213.
217 Sullivan (1994) excellently summarises Kant’s understanding of an evil will, and the
resemblance to Augustine is unmissable: “The real opponent and opposite of virtue is [not weakness of will
but] vice, which consists in embracing the principle of self-love as one’s basic principle, adopting the
intention or disposition to transgress the moral law whenever it conflicts with the possibility of pleasures
one wants.” p135.
137
have in fact done so.
138
Chapter 4: Taylor on Nature and Grace
Taylor’s conception of our mere nature as it is in itself, aside from or prior to grace, can
sound an extremely negative one. One might even see it as analogous to Platonic
‘matter’, a corrupting force unless it receives form through spiritual and moral discipline.
However, we have also seen (in chapter 2) that Taylor thinks that natural appetites and
passions are neutral in themselves, and can even be acceptable in the right moral context,
and indeed, be integrated into the renewed order under grace, notably in the case of
marriage.
We shall see in this chapter that grace, for Taylor, is never altogether lacking to
human nature; but this does not imply that God created man in a corrupt state. Our
natural condition is merely the inevitable consequence of that indifference of intellect,
will and passion which is necessary for meaningful freedom and responsibility, and is
even good on its own level: though we shall also see that Taylor’s conception of the
moral acceptability of natural passions is in some respects more an adapted Augustinian,
than a Pelagian, view: the passions are not simply acceptable in the right moral context,
but also need to be integrated with a good will, in something more like the Augustinian
sense of a right orientation of the whole person, beyond discrete choices.
4.1 Taylor on nature and grace
There is a useful comparison, and two important contrasts, between Taylor, and
Augustine as he is interpreted by Henri de Lubac in his history of the idea of “pure
nature” in Scholastic writers, in respect of the relationship between nature and grace. De
139
Lubac observes that
St Augustine held the entire dependence, in all circumstances of the rational creature on his
Creator; [and] that this dependence was, on his view, not a yoke of wretchedness, but the
sign of a greatness that is in some way infinite, since it raises the creature up to God.218
For Augustine, according to de Lubac, the dependence of the creature on the Creator is “a
universal principle”; there is nothing in it “that implies the fall”.219 Augustine “never
attributes to man in any good work either the initiative or the principal role,”220 either in
the fallen state, or in innocence. De Lubac cites the following passage of Augustine:
Not only free will, which may be used well or badly, but also good will, which can never
be used badly, can only come from God. If our free will, by which we can do good or evil,
nevertheless comes from God because it is a benefit, and our good will comes from
ourselves, it will follow that what we have of ourselves is of greater value than what is
given by God, which is the height of absurdity: this can only be avoided by acknowledging
that good will is a gift of God.221
Free will is a created property of human nature; but good will is from grace, even in the
state of innocence. But there is a difference between Adam in the state of innocence, and
his fallen descendents, which is illustrated by de Lubac with reference to prayer. Adam
prayed, in the sense that his “attitude had certainly to be one of thanksgiving and of
continual humility. Augustine does not tell us that Adam had no need of God’s help”; he
218 Augusitnianism and Modern Theology, trans. L. Sheppard, New York: Herder & Herder 2000
[rep. of London: Geoffrey Chapman 1969].p80-1.
219 p81.
220 Ibid.
221 de Lubac p81; On merit and the remission of sins bk 2 n.118.
140
was not, as de Lubac puts it, a “monster of self-sufficiency”; Pelagianism was not the
condition of man in innocence. Rather, “Grace was there, near at hand, proffered, already
even within the will, predisposing it to good: in this sense Adam had no need to ask for it;
he did not have to pray … ‘In that place of beatitude, he did not have to cry, ‘Lord deliver
me from evil!’”222
The first difference with Taylor concerns free will, following on from the previous
chapter. Taylor agrees that good will in the sense of the internal disposition of the will
comes from grace; but as an Arminian, he thinks that the will must be able to co-operate
or resist, and if it is not able to do so, then the natural power of free will, the power to
will or not to will, which according to Augustine in DLA we know intuitively that we
have as a natural property of the will, has been lost: as indeed, we saw Augustine
essentially accept that it had, in the previous chapter. Whereas according to Taylor:
The grace of God is a supernatural principle, and gives new aptnesses and inclinations,
powers and possibilities, it invites and teaches, it supplies us with arguments, and answers
objections, it brings us into artificial necessities, and inclines us sweetly: and this is the
semen Dei spoken of by S. John, “the seed of God” thrown into the furrows of our hearts,
springing up (unless we choke it) to life eternal. By these assistances we being helped can
do our duty, and we can expel the habits of vice, and get the habits of virtue: but as we
cannot do God’s work without God’s grace; so God’s grace does not do our work without
us. For grace being but the beginnings of a new nature in us, gives nothing but powers and
inclinations. “The Spirit helpeth our infirmities”, so St Paul explicates this mystery. And
therefore when he had said, “By the grace of God I am what I am”, that is, all owing to His
grace; he also adds, “I have laboured more than they all; yet not I”, that is, not I alone, [but]
“the grace of God that is with me”. For the grace of God “stands at the door and knocks”;
222 Ibid. p90-1.
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but we must attend to His voice, and “open the door, and then He shall enter and sup with
us, and we shall be with Him.” The grace of God is like a graff put into a stock of another
nature; it makes use of the faculties and juice of the stock and the natural root, but converts
all into its own nature.223
There is a clear comparison between Taylor’s view on the relationship between free will
and grace and that of Erasmus, cited in the introduction to chapter 1 above. Taylor
perhaps has a more optimistic view of the will’s capacity than Eramsus. Taylor surely
also has Augustine’s distinction between libertas and liberum arbitrium in mind. We have
seen how liberum arbitrium did not mean liberty of indifference for Augustine, though in
DLA he often seems to suggest that the will did possess the capacity to will one thing or
another in this way before the fall;224 but that for Taylor, the power to choose or refuse is
essential to the will, or moral responsibility is lost. However, Taylor agrees with
Augustine, against Pelagius, that the created power of choice is not all that we receive
from God; a good will, in the sense of “new aptnesses and inclinations, powers and
possibilities”, comes from divine grace. But Augustine calls the created will an
“intermediate good”, by which he means that the will in itself is a natural faculty which
can be used in a good way or an evil one: “when the will cleaves to the common and
unchangeable good, it attains the great and foremost goods for human beings, even
though the will itself is only an intermediate good. But when the will turns away from the
unchangeable and common good toward its own private good, or towards external and
inferior things, it sins. It turns towards its own private good when it wants to be under its
own control”.225 Taylor thinks that this intermediate, created nature of the will, must
223 UN, Works vol 7 p189.
224 Burnaby 1938 p227.
225 DLA 2.19.
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include the power to choose or refuse: as Richard Hooker, an important influence on
Taylor, said concerning free will, quoting Augustine in DLA: “Aptness, freely to take or
refuse things set before it, is so essential to the will, that being deprived of this it loseth
the nature, and cannot possibly retain the definition, of will: ‘Voluntas, nisi libera sit, non
est voluntas’”.226
The other difference between Taylor and Augustine is more dramatic, in doctrinal
terms. For Augustine, according to de Lubac, human nature is always dependent upon
grace, though grace is never owed to nature, and always represents a gratuitous elevation.
In this there is a comparison with Taylor. But grace relates to fallen and innocent nature
in different ways, for Augustine; and here the other difference with Taylor appears. Taylor
makes no such distinction. Taylor’s whole doctrine is essentially contained in the
following, highly convoluted passage, apparently written at some speed, as if Taylor were
speaking:
if we will suppose there must now be a cause in our nature determining us to sin by an
irresistible necessity, I desire to know why such principle should be more necessary to us
than it was to Adam? What made him to sin when he fell? He had a perfect liberty, and no
ignorance, no original sin, no inordination of his affections, no such rebellion of the
inferior faculties against the superior as we complain of; or at least we say he had not, and
yet he sinned: and if his passions did rebel against his reason before the fall, then so they
may in us, and yet not be long of [owing to] that fall; it was before the fall in him, and so
may be in us, and not the effect of it. But the truth of the thing is this, he had liberty of
choice and chose ill, and so do we … But it is said, that as Adam chose ill, so do we; but he
226 Dublin Fragment. It should be emphasised that Taylor’s “new powers and possibilities” means
capacities of the will itself, from within; not from a force acting on the will. Grace acts from within,
empowering the will; we shall touch on this further below. See Burnaby p233 on Augustine on this.
143
was free to good as well as to evil, but so are not we [and this] is the result of original sin. I
reply, that we can choose good, and as naturally love good as evil … Here only is our
nature defective; we do not naturally know, nor yet naturally love, those supernatural
excellencies which are appointed and commanded by God as the means of bringing us to a
supernatural condition. That is, without God's grace, and the renovation of the Spirit of
God, we cannot be saved. Neither was Adam's case better than ours in this particular. For
that his nature could not carry him to heaven, or indeed to please God in order to it, seems
to be confessed by them who have therefore affirmed him to have had a supernatural
righteousness: which is affirmed by all the Roman party. But although in supernatural
instances it must needs be that that our nature is defective; so it must needs have been in
Adam: and therefore the Lutheran (who in this particular dream not so probably as the
other) affirming that justice was natural in Adam, do yet but differ in the manner of
speaking, and have not at all spoken against this; neither can they, unless they also affirm
that to arrive at heaven was the natural end of man. For if it be not, neither we nor Adam
could by nature do things above nature; and if God did concreate grace with Adam, that
grace was nevertheless grace for being given him as soon as he was made: for even the
holy Spirit may be given to a chrisom child … The result of which is this; that the necessity
of grace does not suppose that our nature is originally corrupted, for beyond Adam’s mere
nature something else was necessary, and so it is to us.227
While Taylor agrees with Augustine that human nature is in need of grace, though
grace is never owed to it, he does not distinguish between fallen and innocent nature: he
collapses them together. Grace, for Taylor, always relates to the one state of human
nature, in the same way; yet he seeks to avoid making that state one of intrinsic
227 UN, Works vol 7 p275-6. Taylor denies that “heaven was the natural end of man”; but this is an
unguarded statement. As we have seen in chapter 2, he thinks that man’s supernatural end is ‘naturally
desired, but not naturally attained’; what he means is essentially the same as Augustine according to de
Lubac: namely, that the Lutherans do not mean that Adam could obtain heaven by his natural powers before
the fall, without grace.
144
corruption. Grace is needed to attain our “supernatural” end, which is not naturally
known or loved, though the capacity, and even a certain desire for this end, is a natural
one, implicit in our nature. As we saw in chapter 2, Taylor thinks that we have endless
desires, by virtue of being capable of God (and which make us capable of God); though
in itself, this does not help us in the attainment: man “was designed to an immortal
duration and the fruition of God forever”, but “he knows not how to obtain it; he is made
upright to look up to heaven, but he knows no more how to purchase it than to climb it”.
Thus, “Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and final interest, that at first it cannot
move one step towards God unless God by His preventing grace puts into it a new
possibility.” In this sense “our nature of itself” has “nothing in it which can bring us to
felicity: nothing but an obediential capacity; our flesh can become sanctified as the stones
can become children of Abraham, or as dead seed can become living corn; and so it is
with us, that God must make us a new creation if he means to save us”.228
But our nature is perfect before grace, as nature, just as “matrimonial chastity was
no law before Eve was created, and yet our nature was perfect before”.229 For Taylor,
there was no state of innocence or “original justice”. Natural passions and appetites are
good in themselves, or at any rate, morally indifferent. Their moral goodness or otherwise
depends on the will; and Taylor effectively means two things by this. On the one hand, he
means the choices made by the will according to the moral context; on the other, he
means something more like the Augustinian idea we considered in the previous chapter,
that feeling can be rightly or wrongly ordered. Although Taylor tends to consider our
freely-inclining natural tendencies as constituting the whole insight behind the
Augustinian doctrine of original sin, his view of nature and will, as we have seen, still
228 Sermon On the Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol 4 p119-20.
229 Works vol 9 p There is no moral law derivable from nature alone, for Taylor; an issue with wide
ranging theological implications, which we shall consider in the next chapter.
145
owes a great deal to Augustine.
For Taylor, ‘fallen’ man is simply natural, temporal man, in need of grace to attain
his supernatural end, and even to confirm us in our temporal fulfilment; but even so, the
natural state as it is can be considered good, or at least morally neutral and potentially
good, on its own level; it is not a state of intrinsic corruption. For Taylor, as for orthodox
Catholic tradition according to de Lubac, our mere nature never wholly lacks divine
grace. Taylor observes that it is generally held that the words of St Paul, “The natural man
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither indeed can he know them”, mean
“that there is in our natures an ignorance and averseness from spiritual things, that is, a
contrariety to God.” As we have seen, there is indeed a certain “ignorance and averseness
from spiritual things”, according to Taylor, in human nature as it is in itself, considered
apart from grace; but this does not derive from Adam’s sin, nor does it represent a
corruption of human nature which is a positively immoral state of “contrariety to God”,
as his Calvinist opponents hold. The term St Paul uses for the “natural” man, says Taylor,
is physikos:
it certainly means a man that is guided only by natural reason, without the revelations of
the gospel … An animal man, that is, a philosopher, or a rational man, such as were the
Greek and Roman philosophers, upon the stock and account of the learning of all their
schools could never discern the excellencies of the gospel mysteries, as of God incarnate,
Christ dying, resurrection of the body and the like. For this word physikos, or ‘animal,’ and
another word used often by the apostle, sarkikos, ‘carnal,’ are opposed to pneumatikos,
‘spiritual;’ and are states of evil, or of imperfection, in which while a man remains he
cannot do the work of God. For 'animality', which is a relying upon natural principles
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without revelation, is a state 'privatively' opposed to the spirit; and a man in that state
cannot be saved, because he wants a vital part, he wants the spirit, which is part of the
constitution of a Christian in that capacity, who consists of body, and soul, and spirit, and
therefore anima without spiritus, the soul without the spirit, is not sufficient. For as the soul
is a sufficient principle of all the actions of our life in order to our natural end and
perfection, but it can bear us no further: so there must be another principle in order to a
supernatural end, and that is the spirit; called by St Paul, nea kristis, “the new creation”, by
St Peter, “a divine nature”; and by this we become renewed in the inner man: the infusion
of this new nature into us is called 'regeneration'; and it is the great principle of godliness,
called 'grace’, or ‘the spirit’, sperma theou, ‘the seed of God,’ and by it we are begotten by
God, and brought forth by the church, to the hopes and beginnings of a new life, and a
supernatural end. And although I cannot say that this is a third substance distinct from soul
and body, yet it is a distinct principle put into us by God, without which we cannot work,
and by which we can; and therefore if it be not a substance, yet it is more than a metaphor,
it is a real being, permanent and inherent; but yet such as can be lessened and
extinguished.230
“Animality” is “not a state of enmity or direct opposition to God, but a state insufficient
and imperfect”. “Carnality”, on the other hand, “is indeed a direct state of sin”, “not only
‘privatively’ opposed but ‘contrarily’ also to the spiritual state, or state of grace.” “But as
the first is not a sin derived from Adam: so neither is the second”; “carnality” is always
an individual’s own responsibility. “Animality” is “an imperfection, or want of
supernatural aids”, in which state a person “cannot go to heaven, but neither will that
alone bear him to hell: and therefore God does not let a man alone in that state” (my
italics). “Animality” is mere human nature as such, in itself, rather than a real state of
230 UN, Works vol 7 p268-9.
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human persons: human beings are never wholly without access to grace.231 The “state of
grace” is not merely a state without positive sin, but a state of habitual righteousness, as
we have seen. And as we shall see in the next chapter, grace is not, for Taylor, restricted
to Christians.
Taylor’s state ‘privatively’ opposed to the Spirit may usefully be compared with
Dominic de Soto’s theoretical state of man “with a mind considered in pure nature (in
puris naturalibus)” [compare Taylor’s use of the phrase, vol 1 p117], “without grace as
without fault”, discussed by de Lubac. For Soto, according to de Lubac, this “man as the
ancient philosophers pictured him”, “cut off from his transcendent finality” - that is, “a
man who had not at the outset been endowed with supernatural means” is a “mere
working hypothesis”, rather than a “realisable state”.
He is a “physical man” (homo physicus) who, if we imagine him as real, will have as his
sole ideal to live according to reason, that is - for the word “reason” is equivocal - to
contribute his share to the smooth running of the community, without any prospect of a
future life. He is therefore, apparently, a mere “political animal” (animal politicum); it is
for him that laws and ordinances are made, that the magistracy is established.
Fundamentally, if he really existed, he would be a man like us, and able to raise himself
naturally to a certain knowledge of God, but condemned for want of light to be mistaken
about his real end. Soto was well aware that for real man there is only one last end, the end
intended by St Augustine when he exclaimed, “You have made us for yourself, Lord!” He
knew, also, that there is only one state of [perfect or complete] blessedness, the blessed
vision of God. Among the arguments which he brings forward to establish this a place of
importance is given to the argument which was a favourite of St Thomas [Aquinas] on the
231 He repeats this contention in his correspondence with Bishop Warner concerning his views on
original sin: Works vol.7 p545.
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natural desire which otherwise would be in vain. But the chief argument … comes from the
teaching of the Bible. When God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”,
it was our very nature that he designated thus; by this he placed in us not only a certain
capacity, but by that very reason a “natural inclination”, an appetite, and, as St Augustine
used to repeat insistently, he who is made in the image of God is made to see God: “for like
naturally seeks like”.232
As we saw in chapter 2, Taylor agrees with Augustine, Aquinas and de Soto that man is
made in the image of God, for the vision of God; and like them, he also recognises that
this is what he calls “an end above our natural proportion”: we have a natural desire for,
or openness to, something we cannot attain; according to what de Lubac calls “that
venerable maxim”, our supernatural end is “natural with respect to appetite, supernatural
with respect to attainment”. Yet this does not mean our nature is incomplete or imperfect
or inadequate as nature.
But by this state “without grace as without fault” rather different things could be
understood. In the “natural” (naturalia) or “purely natural” (pura naturalia), frequently
mentioned in medieval texts, it was possible to introduce “original justice” with its gifts of
completeness and immortality, or else, taking the expression “purely natural” (pura
naturalia) in its strictest sense, to apply this only to the properties owing to nature and
deriving from its principles. And in line with this thought, it was then wondered whether it
was possible to envisage - although we know it did not happen this way - a creation of man
“in pure nature” (in puris naturalibus) in the strictest sense, that is, not only without
sanctifying grace, but without even the gifts of justice, completeness, immortality, and with
none of the “grace freely given”. Could man have come from the hands of the Creator with
232 de Lubac 2000 [1969] p129.
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only the constituent elements of his nature as man? In this new question it was no longer a
matter of knowing whether original justice was independent or not of sanctifying grace -
itself a question much debated throughout the scholastic period - and whether Adam
enjoyed the former before the latter was conferred upon him; but could original justice
have been refused to him before any sin on his part, as it was actually taken away from him
after his sin?233
Taylor’s animal or purely natural man, or human nature “privatively opposed” to
the Spirit, applies, as de Lubac puts it, “only to the properties owing to nature and
deriving from its principles”, lacking the gifts of “justice, completeness, immortality”.
But like de Soto and the earlier Scholastic tradition (including Aquinas) according to de
Lubac, Taylor does not envisage a real state of man “with only the constituent elements
of his nature as man”. We have seen that he is sceptical about a state of “original justice”,
but this does not mean that he thinks human nature has ever simply existed in a merely
natural state in which grace was altogether lacking to it: rather, grace always relates to
nature in the same way, the way in which it operates in the Christian economy. Taylor’s
animal man, or privative opposition, refers to mere nature as such; it isn’t a realisable
state, it is just human nature as it is in itself, inherited from Adam as the first human. We
have seen how this becomes a moral challenge for the will in certain contexts, and can be
harnessed and integrated by it in a positive way in others, with the help of grace
4.2 Taylor's use of the Fathers in his ‘non-lapsarian’ account of nature and grace
As this, and the discussion of our nature and its liability to habit in the previous
233 Ibid. p218.
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chapter, would lead us to expect, the distinction between “animality” and “carnality” is
not quite as clear cut for Taylor as he suggests in the passage above. A “carnal”, or
“unregenerate” person, is properly speaking always someone who is in the grip of selfinduced
sinful habits - we have seen Taylor make extensive use of Augustine’s ideas
about habit in this context, and we have seen that there is also a definite sense in which
human nature is opposed to the Spirit in itself, in its natural condition, in many moral
contexts; and although this is not a state we have brought about, it is certainly one we are
obliged to take responsibility for. Christianity, for Taylor, is partly to reorientate human
nature from its natural inclinations, and habituate it to a higher calling, to virtue, and the
spiritual life, as well as to restore us from our positive sins and the condition induced by
them. Natural inclinations are not bad or corrupt in themselves, they have their role; but
quite naturally, as they incline without proportion to their natural objects, they inevitably
cut across the demands of morality and religion, and must be harnessed and directed in
accordance with it. Taylor’s devotional and pastoral works, notably his once-celebrated
treatises Holy Living and Holy Dying and his prayers and sermons, have as their object,
as Taylor himself puts it, to “turn nature into grace”.234 At their heart is an Incarnationcentred
piety, with a central role for the sacraments, and this is rooted in Taylor’s patristic
learning.
The theological anthropology and the understanding of the work of grace in the
extended passage quoted above on the divisions of human nature owes something to the
mysterious reflections of St Irenaeus, as well as to Origen. According to Irenaeus:
There are three elements of which … the complete man is made up, flesh, soul, and spirit;
one of these preserves and fashions the man, and this is the spirit; another is given unity
234 Sermon XI, The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol 4 p120.
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and form by the first, and this is the flesh; the third, the soul, is midway between the first
two, and sometimes it is subservient to the spirit and is raised by it: while sometimes it
allies itself with the flesh and descends to earthly passions…All who fear God and believe
in the coming of his Son, and through faith establish in their hearts the Spirit of God, are
rightly given the name of men. They are purified and spiritual, and live for God, because
they have the Spirit of the Father, who cleanses man and lifts him up to the life of God.235
Soul and spirit can be constituents of man; but they certainly cannot be the whole man. The
complete man is a mixture and union, consisting of a soul which takes to itself the Spirit of
the Father, to which is united the flesh which was fashioned in the image of God…men are
spiritual not by the abolition of the flesh…there would be then the spirit of man, or the
Spirit of God, not a spiritual man. But when this spirit is mingled with soul and united with
created matter, then through the outpouring of the Spirit the complete man is produced; this
is man made in the image and likeness of God. A man with soul only, lacking spirit
[?Spirit], is ‘psychic’; such a man is carnal, unfinished, incomplete; he has, in his created
body, the image of God, but he has not acquired the likeness to God through the spirit
[?Spirit].236
The idea of the Spirit as the principle of forming and purifying the blindly inclining,
natural inclinations of the flesh, and assisting the rational will to habituate them to virtue,
as well as their integration with a view to the higher human end, is central to Taylor’s
revised account of what the Augustinian tradition held to be the effects of original sin,
and the Christian economy which restores “fallen” humanity from those effects:
the great effect of [the effluxes of the Holy Spirit] is this: that as by the arts of the spirits of
235 Irenaeus Adv. Haer. V.ix.1, trans. Bettenson.
236 Adv. Haer. V.vi.1.
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darkness and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh, not in the natural sense but in
the moral and theological, and animalis homo is the same with carnalis, that is, his soul is a
servant of the passions and desires of the flesh, and is flesh in its operations and ends, in its
principles and actions: so on the other side by the grace of God, and the ‘promise of the
Father,’ and the influences of the Holy Ghost, our souls are not only recovered from the
state of flesh and reduced back to the entireness of animal operations, but they are
heightened into spirit, and transformed into a new nature.237
For Taylor, as for Irenaeus and Augustine, in contrast to the Platonists, human beings are
made “spiritual not by the abolition of the flesh”, but by the ‘spiritualising of the flesh’;
this is in its natural state according to Taylor, good or bad according to context, assent
and habit, and in a corrupt one according to Augustine. This is partly attained by fleshly
means: the Incarnation and its “extension” in the sacraments.
However, the flesh in this sense is not merely indifferent, and good or bad
depending on the moral context, as it is for the Pelagians; it needs ‘spiritualising’. A more
dynamic conception of human nature seems to be at work, as we saw in Taylor’s
discussion of our nature, and its liability to sinful habit. The moral and spiritual life is
about forming and directing human nature, for both Taylor and Irenaeus; not mere good
choices and dispositions. In this respect both writers have more in common with
Augustine.
In contrast to both, for Augustine, however, the origin of sin is the temporal soul
that loves itself, not the external influence of the flesh. Nevertheless, Irenaeus has a view
which is in a way completed by Augustine’s doctrine, not contradicted by it, as the
Pelagian anthropology is.
237 Sermon On the Spirit of Grace, Works vol 4 p347.
153
According to Irenaeus, “soul” and “spirit” are “constituents of man”, but they are
not “the whole man”. “The complete man is a mixture and union” of flesh as well as soul
and spirit. In language reminiscent of Platonic teaching about the relationship between
soul and ‘matter’, the flesh is “given unity and form” by the spiritual principle; the soul
meanwhile “is midway between the first two, and sometimes it is subservient to the spirit
and is raised by it: while sometimes it allies itself with the flesh and descends to earthly
passions”. As for Taylor and the Platonic tradition, the influence of the passions and the
“flesh” is the (resistible) cause of sin in the soul. “All who fear God and believe in the
coming of his Son, and through faith establish in their hearts the Spirit of God … are
purified and spiritual, and live for God, because they have the Spirit of the Father, who
cleanses man and lifts him up to the life of God.” This is reminiscent of Taylor on human
nature being “taken up into the cabinet of the mysterious Trinity” (ch2 above). This refers
not to the spirit and soul alone, of course: if “the flesh is not to be saved, then the Lord
did not redeem us by his blood, nor is the ‘cup of blessing the partaking of his blood’, nor
is the ‘bread which we break the partaking of his body’ … How then can [those
‘Gnostics’ who deny the resurrection of the body] allege that flesh is incapable of the gift
of God, which is eternal life, seeing that the flesh is fed on the flesh and blood of the
Lord and is a member of him?”
The central mystery of the Christian faith for Taylor is the Incarnation: the “glory
and eminencies of the divine love” are “manifested in the incarnation of the Word
eternal”, which occurred to “remedy … human miseries, to ennoble our nature by an
union with divinity, to sanctify it with His justice, to enrich it with His grace, to instruct it
with His doctrine, to fortify it with His example, to rescue it from servitude [to sinful
habits], to assert it into the liberty of the sons of God [that liberty found in the new
powers and inclinations of the will towards the good, which is a foretaste of Augustinian
154
libertas], and at the last to make it partaker of a beatifical resurrection … For thus the
Saviour of the world became human, alluring, full of invitation and the sweetness of love,
exemplary, humble and medicinal.”238 Faith in the incarnation is the “first great
instrument of changing our whole nature into the state of grace, flesh into spirit”.239 The
incarnation inspires our will, to turn from and break its sinful habits, and strive to acquire
for our whole nature an habitual likeness to Christ.
For Taylor, the Eucharist ‘extends’ the Incarnation to us, by which Taylor means it
helps to conform Christians to Christ, turn our naturally liable and habitually sinful flesh,
into a likeness of Christ’s habitual righteousness (which came ‘naturally’ to Christ, as a
consequence of his divinity):
Christ’s body, His flesh and His blood, are therefore called our meat and drink, because by
His incarnation and manifestation in the flesh He became life unto us: so that it is
mysterious indeed in the expression, but very proper and intelligible in the event, to say
that we eat His flesh and drink His blood, since by these it is that we have and preserve life
… His body was … an operatory of life and spiritual being to us; the sacrament of the
Lord’s supper being a commemoration and exhibition of this death which was the
consummation of our redemption by His body and blood, does contain in it a ‘visible word’
… Consonant to which doctrine, the fathers by an elegant expression call the blessed
sacrament ‘the extension of the incarnation’.240
The bread represents and conveys Christ’s saving power, in much the same way that
according to Augustine, Christ’s human flesh made the Word visible:
238 GE, Works Vol.2 p52.
239 Sermon XI, The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol.4 p132.
240 Worthy Communicant, Works vol.8 p23.
155
The fact is that it is not the flesh which is the 'principle' [of purification], nor the human
soul in Christ, but the Word, through whom everything came into existence. And therefore
the flesh does not purify by itself, but through the Word by which it was assumed, when
'the Word became flesh and dwelt among us'.241
The relationship between the grace of the sacrament, and the elements, is like that
between Christ’s flesh and his divinity, according to Taylor, following Augustine:
When Christ spoke in a mystical sense about 'eating his flesh' some of his
uncomprehending hearers were shocked ... Jesus said to those who stayed behind, 'It is the
spirit which gives life, the flesh is of no help to anyone'. The 'principle' then, having
assumed a soul and flesh, purifies the soul and flesh of believers.242
So Taylor:
Christ, besides His spiritual body and blood, did also give us His natural, and we receive
that [spiritual] by means of this [natural]. For this [natural] He gave us but once, then when
upon the cross He was broken for our sins ... by the virtue of that death Christ is become
the author of life unto us and of salvation ... Christ left to us symbols and sacraments of this
natural body; not to be or convey that natural body to us, but to do more and better for us;
to convey [bodily to our souls, we who are body-and-soul ‘hypostatically’ united] all the
blessings and graces procured for us by the breaking of that body, and the effusion of that
blood: which blessings being spiritual are therefore called 'His body' spiritually ... and are
therefore called our food, because by them we live a new life in the Spirit, and Christ is our
241 Civ Dei X.24; whether Augustine knew some version of the 'Athanasian' creed or whether his
influence affected its composition, is still debated.
242 Ibid.
156
bread and our life, because by Him after this manner we are nourished up to life eternal.
[Bodily: for we are both body and soul.] That is plainly thus, - Therefore we eat Christ's
spiritual body, because He hath given us His natural body to be broken and His natural
blood to be shed for the remission of our sins, and for the obtaining the grace and
acceptability of repentance. For by this gift and by this death He hath obtained this favour
from God, that by faith in Him and repentance from dead works ... we may be saved.243
The “spirit of a man”, says Taylor, is “nourished with the consecrated and mysterious
[and bodily, material] elements”.244 He refers to the “pious and reasonable” meditation of
St John Chrysostom in a homily on Matthew: “If we were wholly incorporeal, God would
have given us graces unclothed with signs and sacraments; but because our spirits are in
earthen vessels, God conveys His graces to us by sensible ministrations”.245 The intention
of the sacraments, as of the whole Christian economy, is to conform us to the likeness of
Christ, and by so doing make us participate in the divine nature by an acquired, habitual
likeness to the divine goodness revealed in the person of Christ:
243 WC, Works vol.8 p25.
244 Sermon Of the Spirit of Grace, Works vol.4 p332.
245 WC, Works vol.8 p 31. Compare with Taylor’s doctrine on the Eucharist and its intended effect,
John Cosin, another Laudian contemporary, in his History of Transubstantiation: “St. Ambrose, (A.D. 380.)
explaining what manner of alteration is in the Bread, when in the Eucharist it becomes the Body of
CHRIST, saith, "Thou hadst indeed a being, but wert an old creature, but being now baptized or
consecrated, thou art become a new creature." The same change that happens to man in baptism, happens to
the Bread in the Sacrament: if the nature of man is not substantially altered by the new birth, no more is the
Bread by consecration. Man becomes by baptism, not what nature made him, but what grace new-makes
him; and the Bread becomes by consecration, not what it was by nature, but what the blessing consecrates it
to be. For nature made only a mere man, and made only common bread; but Regeneration, of a mere man,
makes a holy man, in whom CHRIST dwells spiritually; and likewise the Consecration of common Bread
makes Mystic and Sacramental Bread. Yet this change doth not destroy nature, but to nature adds grace”.
For Cosin and Taylor alike, grace transforms and elevates nature by being added to it, and the sacraments
are on important means of this. Their views are derived from their patristic learning, but also from aspects
of Reformed theology, and from Richard Hooker: “The mixture of His bodily substance with ours is a
thing which the ancient Fathers disclaim. Yet the mixture of His flesh with ours they speak of, to signify
what our very bodies through mystical conjunction receive from the vital efficacy which we know to be in
His; and from bodily mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the truth, than the manner of
coherence between His sacred and the sanctified bodies of saints.” Laws bk V.lvi.
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God … hath attested the holy Jesus to be the fountain of sanctity ... and the guide of our
manners ... and if anything in the world be motive of our affections or satisfactory to our
understandings, what is there in heaven or on earth we can desire or imagine beyond a
likeness to God, and participation of the divine nature and perfections? And therefore as,
when the sun arises, every man goes to his work, and warms himself with his heat, and is
refreshed with his influences, and measures his labour with his course; so should we frame
all the actions of our life by His light who hath shined by an excellent righteousness, that
we no more walk in darkness or sleep in lethargies, or run a gazing after the lesser and
imperfect beauties of the night (Great Exemplar, Works vol.2 p.41).
Every action of the life of Jesus, as it is imitable by us, is of so excellent merit, that by
making up the treasure of grace, it becomes full of assistances to us, and obtains of God
grace to enable us to its imitation, by way of influence [on us] and impetration [towards
God]. For as in the acquisition of habits, the very exercise of the action does produce a
facility to the action, and in some proportion becomes the cause of itself; so does every
exercise of the life of Christ kindle its own fires, inspires breath into itself, and makes an
univocal production of itself in a different subject. And Jesus becomes the fountain of
spiritual life to us, as the prophet Elisha to the dead child; when he stretched his hands
upon the child's hands, laid his mouth to his mouth, and formed his posture to the boy, and
breathed into him, the spirit returned again into the child at the prayer of Elisha; so when
our lives are formed into the imitation of the life of the holiest Jesus, the Spirit of God
returns into us, not only by the efficacy of imitation, but by the merit and impetration of
the actions of Jesus (Great Exemplar p.43).
If we have communicated worthily, we have given ourselves to Christ; we have given him
all our liberty and our life, our bodies and our souls, our actions and our passions, our
affections and our faculties, what we are, what we have; and in exchange have received
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Him; and we may say with St Paul, 'I live; but not I, but Christ liveth in me' So that we
must live no more unto the world but unto God; and having fed upon manna, let us not
return to Egypt to feed on garlick (Worthy Communicant, Works vol.8 p.227).
Like Irenaeus, Taylor is positive about the flesh, but both also see it as the
problem: the inclinations of the flesh need to be habituated according to virtue, to be
‘spiritualised’. For both there remains a certain dichotomy between the ‘flesh’ understood
as the purely physical, and the mind, which is less true of Augustine. For Augustine, as
we have seen, an evil will or a good will, a fundamental orientation of the mind, directs
the passions. For Taylor, there is usually a more simplistic dichotomy between the ‘flesh’
and the ‘spirit’, as for the Platonists and the Pelagians, and the earlier Fathers, like
Irenaeus. But human nature is more dynamic for Taylor and Irenaeus than for the
Pelagians: it is always moving in the right or the wrong direction, as we saw one
commentator describe Augustine’s anthropology in chapter 3;246 rather than simply
involving good or bad choices by a static reasoning soul for whom the flesh is good or
bad merely according to the moral context, as for the Pelagians. Yet the flesh is not an
intrinsically corrupting force, for Taylor and Irenaeus: it is capable of being formed
according to good dispositions; the influence of the flesh is not to be simply dispensed
with, as for the Platonists.
According to Taylor, the statement in Ephesians 2.3 that “we were by nature heirs
of wrath”,
does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention, but to the evil state of sin in which
the Ephesians walked before their conversion, it signifies that our nature of itself is a state
246 Edmund Hill, de Trin. ed. p261. Compare Burnaby 1938 p37.
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of opposition to the Spirit of grace; it is privatively opposed, that is, there is nothing in it
which can bring us to felicity: nothing but an obediential capacity; our flesh can become
sanctified as the stones can become children of Abraham, or as dead seed can become
living corn; and so it is with us, that God must make us a new creation if he means to save
us; He must take our hearts of stone away, and give us hearts of flesh; He must purge the
old leaven, and make us a new conspersion; He must destroy the flesh, and must breathe
into us spiritum vitae, the celestial breath of life, without which we can neither live, nor
move, nor have our being. 247
Human nature pursues its own course, its own natural objects, and moral
considerations may cut across this; what we saw Taylor call “crossing” our natural
inclinations, in chapter 2. This is not the result of original sin; human nature is simply
ordered towards its own particular natural ends, and although it has an intrinsic openness
to the supernatural in respect of its endless mental inclinations which are mirrored in the
physical, this does not mean that these unfixed desires are naturally directed to it; they
may be very resistant to it in themselves; or indeed even to our temporal good, since the
inclinations of nature are not naturally proportioned to any fixed temporal end, in
themselves.
And it is no wonder that while flesh and blood is the prevailing ingredient, while men are
in the state of conjunction, and the soul serves the body, and the necessities of this are more
felt than the discourses of that, that men should be angry and lustful, proud and revengeful,
and that they should follow what they lust after, not what they are bidden to do. For
passions and affections are our first governors, and they being clearly possessed of all
mankind in their first years, have almost secured to themselves the soul of man, before
247 Sermon The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol 4 p119-20.
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reason is heard to speak: and when she does speak, she speaks at first so little and so low,
that the common noises of fancy and company drown her voice. This I say is the state of
nature. And therefore Lactantius brings in a pagan complaining, … “I would fain avoid sin,
but I am compelled. I am invested with a frail and weak flesh: this is it which lusteth,
which is angry, which grieves, which fears to die. Therefore I am led uncertainly, and I sin,
not because I will, but because I am constrained. I perceive that I do ill, but the necessity of
my weakness drives me on, and I cannot resist it.” … This is the state of the natural man in
his mere naturals, especially as they are made worse by evil customs and vile usages of the
world.248
The part of human nature that is resistant to the Spirit is principally the flesh, then,
understood as the body and what the Platonists and the Fathers thought of as the lower
parts of the soul.
Taylor thinks that grace and revelation help the will to restrain, form, direct, and
‘elevate’ the passions, which naturally blindly incline to their own proper objects, without
any intrinsic limit; it is up to us, endowed with reason and will, to habituate them
according to the divinely-revealed moral ideal for the natural man, who by himself,
knows not the things of the spirit (according to the “pattern seen in the mount”, as we
might say). We have observed the plasticity of human nature in its earliest condition,
according to Taylor, in the last chapter. Echoing Plato, Taylor compares this process with
artistic production; “imitation” recalls the Greek word mimesis:
For first we are naturally pleased with imitation, and have secret desires to transcribe the
copy of the creation, and then having weakly imitated the work of God in making some
kind of production from our own perfections, such as it is, and such as they are, we are
248 UN, Works vol 7 p341-2.
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delighted in the imagery, as God is in the contemplation of the world. For we see a nature
brought in upon us by art and imitation. But what in natural things we can but weakly
imitate, in moral things we can really effect. We can efform our nature over anew, and
create ourselves again, and make ourselves bad when God had made us good: and what
was innocent in nature, we make to be vicious by custom and evil habit; or on the contrary,
what was crooked in nature, we can make straight by philosophy, and wise notices, and
severe customs; and there is nothing in nature so imperfect or vicious, but it can be made
useful and regular by reason and custom, and the grace of God; and even our brute parts
are obedient to these.249
This idea recalls a work of St Gregory of Nyssa, On the Making of Man; for example V.1,
about how the human image of the divine Creator acquires His likeness through the
acquisition of the virtues:
As then painters transfer human forms to their pictures by the means of certain colours,
laying on their copy the proper and corresponding tints, so that the beauty of the original
may be accurately transferred to the likeness, so I would have you understand that our
Maker also, painting the portrait to resemble His own beauty, by the addition of virtues, as
it were with colours, shows in us His own sovereignty [shows that we are his image, in
being conscious and free]: and manifold and varied are the tints, so to say, by which His
true form is portrayed: not red, or white, or the blending of these, whatever it may be
called, nor a touch of black that paints the eyebrow and the eye, and shades, by some
combination, the depressions in the figure, and all such arts which the hands of painters
contrive, but instead of these, purity, freedom from passion, blessedness, alienation from all
evil, and all those attributes of the like kind which help to form in men the likeness of God:
249 UN, Works vol 7 p 151.
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with such hues as these did the Maker of His own image mark our nature.
We are to complete the picture using the image of the divine sovereignty in us, free will,
to acquire the virtues. Free will, for Gregory as for Taylor, Kant and Coleridge, and as we
shall see in a moment, as for Origen and Irenaeus, is principally understood as externally
uninhibited freedom of choice.250We may also compare a later passage in the same text:
I may be allowed to describe the human image by comparison with some wonderful piece
of modelling. For, as one may see in models those carved shapes which the artificers of
such things contrive for the wonder of beholders, tracing out upon a single head two forms
of faces; so man seems to me to bear a double likeness to opposite things— being moulded
in the Divine element of his mind to the Divine beauty, but bearing, in the passionate
impulses that arise in him, a likeness to the brute nature; while often even his reason is
rendered brutish, and obscures the better element by the worse through its inclination and
disposition towards what is irrational; for whenever a man drags down his mental energy to
these affections, and forces his reason to become the servant of his passions, there takes
place a sort of conversion of the good stamp in him into the irrational image, his whole
nature being traced anew after that design, as his reason, so to say, cultivates the beginnings
of his passions, and gradually multiplies them; for once it lends its co-operation to passion,
it produces a plenteous and abundant crop of evils. (18.3).
For Taylor there is a sense in which the relationship between man’s bodily nature and his
mental powers, reason and will, is analogous to the old Platonist idea of his participation
in both logos and ‘matter’. For Gregory as for Taylor, the rational part of human nature
250 Rist translates Augustine’s title “de libero arbitrio voluntatis” as “on the externally uninhibited
power to choose” and suggests a Greek version of it as a possible title for one of Gregroy’s books! 1994
p186.
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can take control of and model the “passionate impulses”. The purpose of the Incarnation
for both Taylor and Gregory is to make us a mimesis of Christ, out of man as he is in
himself, which in the final section of this chapter we shall see Taylor call the likeness of
the ‘first Adam’, by means of ‘forming’ and elevating the ‘matter’ of our nature,
according to the divine ideal revealed in the sensible, the Incarnation, through word and
sacrament.
For Taylor, naturally, the human mind is, as St Athanasius describes it, “fallen to
things of sense”, or, in Taylor’s words, naturally “apt to comply with” things of sense, due
to its embodiment; this is not the result of the fall. In order to raise it, as Athanasius
continues, “the Word disguised himself by appearing in a body, that He might, as Man,
transfer men to Himself, and centre their senses on Himself, and, men seeing Him
thenceforth as Man, persuade them … that He is not Man only, but also God, and the
Word and Wisdom of the true God.”251
However, Augustine has a more subtle, developed scheme in certain important
respects. Unlike the earlier and the contemporary Eastern Fathers, the flesh refers to the
pride of the self which then loves temporal and material things for itself; and not just to
the external influence of lower soul on higher.
In the City of God Augustine takes up a similar theme to Irenaeus, concerning the
essential unity of man despite the distinctions that can be made within human nature, and
the relationship of this unity and distinction in human nature to human redemption. Like
Irenaeus, Augustine is interpreting St Paul; he too distinguishes between body and soul
and spirit, as well as between an ‘animal body’ and a ‘spiritual body’. Human nature is
constituted of body and soul; spirit is more definitely to do with grace than is clearly the
case for Irenaeus.
251 On the Incarnation of the Word 16.1.
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For Augustine in CD 13.23.1, “Bodies which have a living soul, but not yet a lifegiving
spirit, are called animal”; but “living soul” in this sense is not just the vivifying
soul common to humans and animals: man who is “out of the earth”, has what Augustine
calls animus or mens. The “life-giving spirit”, meanwhile, is the divine likeness imparted
to the rational soul by grace; not the divine image, the “living soul”, the animus or mens,
which is created. These distinctions are less clear in Irenaeus. Moreover, for Augustine,
the term “flesh” can refer not only to the body and the animal soul, but to the whole man:
Scripture does not confine the application of the term “flesh” to the body of an earthly and
mortal living being … among [scripture’s] different usages [of the term “flesh”] is its
employment to denote man himself, that is, the essential nature of man, an example of the
figure of speech known as “part for whole”. (14.2)
In an anachronistic use of terminology, but not perhaps of substance, Augustine’s
conception of the “essential nature of man” can be called a ‘hypostatic union’ of body and
soul:
It is on these lines that we interpret this passage, “And the Word was made flesh”, that is,
“became man”. Some people have misunderstood it and therefore have supposed that
Christ had no human soul.’ (14.2)
So the “works of the flesh” are the works of man, the works of individuals who are a true
union of body and soul without confusion or separation. As such the “works of the flesh”
include purely spiritual offences as well as those stemming from bodily affections;
though the two cannot be separated, they should not be confused. Expounding Galatians
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5.19-21 Augustine has this to say:
[A]mong the works of the flesh which [St Paul] said were obvious, and which he listed and
condemned, we find not only those concerned with sensual pleasure, like fornication,
impurity, lust, drunkenness and drunken orgies, but also those which show faults of the
mind, which have nothing to do with sensual indulgence. For anyone can see that devotion
to idols, sorcery, enmity, quarrelsomeness, jealousy, animosity, party intrigue, envy - all
these are faults of the mind, not of the body. (14.2)
Augustine observes that “a man may refrain from sensual indulgence” and still remain a
wicked man; “still be convicted, by the authority of the Apostle, of living by the rule of
the flesh.” (ibid.) The purely spiritual vices are in fact the worst; for they are the vices of
the Devil (14.3).
All sins, whether they derive from bodily passions or are of a more purely
spiritual kind, are sins because they represent a life lived with the self (a ‘hypostatic
union’ of soul and body) as its own final end and highest good. Augustine calls this
“living by the standard of man”, and equates it with the “human standard of behaviour”
(he gives non-sensual examples, jealousy, quarrelsomeness) which St Paul said showed
the Corinthians were still “of the flesh” (CD 14.4; 1 Cor 3.3. In the same chapter,
Augustine, like Taylor, says that St Paul uses “animal man” and “carnal man”
interchangeably.)
[I]t is not good to forsake the good creator, and to live by the standard of a created good,
[in this case, oneself as the first and best-loved created good] whether a man chooses the
standard of the flesh, or of the soul, or of the entire man, who consists of soul and flesh and
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hence can be denoted by either term, soul or flesh, by itself. (14.5)
This turn towards the created good stems from the will being created out of
nothing, as we have already seen. It is a positive choice of a positive thing, the created
good, beginning with the love of oneself; but it stems from something negative, from notbeing,
finitude, and not from external temptation, the influence of ‘matter’ or the ‘the
flesh’. This self-will leads to a kind of mistake about the correct order of being, on the
part of a human being who, in the sense of the Greek eudaimonia tradition, naturally wills
their own “happiness”:
So when a man lives by the standard of truth, he lives not by his own standard, but by
God’s … we can say with meaning that every sin is a falsehood. For sin only happens by an
act of will; and our will is for our own welfare, or for the avoidance of misfortune. And
hence the falsehood: we commit sin to promote our welfare, and it results instead in our
misfortune … What is the reason for this, except that well-being can only come to man
from God, not from himself? And he forsakes God by sinning; and he sins by living by his
own standard. (14.4.)
So unlike the Socratic tradition, and unlike the Pelagians, passion does not cloud or
overpower intellect; bad will retains priority over passion in the phenomenology of sin.
Augustine advances this view as opposed to both the Pelagian view that sin is the result
of bad choices made under the temptation of passion (implicit in what he says), and the
ultimately similar “Platonist” view that sin is caused in the soul by its entanglement with
the body and its passions, which is the explicit target of his critique in CD book 14. The
difference between the Pelagians and the Platonists is that the Platonists are closer to the
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right view of will, but have a more negative view of the body and its passions; and the
Pelagians recognise Christ the mediator, of course; but “make his cross of none effect”.
So pace Virgil, the eloquent spokesman of “Platonism”, according to Augustine in
this chapter, concerning the origins of vicious desires:
we must infer that there can have been no truth in the claim that all their culpable and
perverted emotions that arise in them are derived from their earthly bodies. For we see that,
on the admission of the Platonists themselves, this “dread lust”, as their renowned
spokesman puts it, is so far from deriving from the body that of its own accord it urges the
soul towards a bodily existence, even when the soul has been purified from all bodily
infection, and been placed in a situation outside any kind of body. Thus on their own
confession, it is not only from the influence of the flesh that the soul experiences desire and
fear, joy and distress; it can also be disturbed by those emotions from a source within itself.
(14.5; compare, as we saw in chapter 3, Plotinus Enn.VI.8.4 and V.1.1, and Plato in the
Phaedrus, on the fall and embodiment of the souls.)
Although flesh primarily means the whole man, for Augustine, one can of course
make the distinction by the “part for whole” figure of speech.
Scripture [generally uses man for the whole man but also] … calls the soul the ‘inner man’
and the body the ‘outer man’, as if there were two men, whereas the two elements together
make up one man. We must, in fact, understand what is meant by speaking of ‘man made in
the likeness of God’, and ‘man who is earth, and destined to return into earth’. The former
refers to the rational soul, as God implanted it in man (in his body, that is) by breathing on
him - ‘by inspiration’ might be a more suitable phrase. While the latter statement applies to
man’s body, as devised by God out of dust, the thing which was given a soul so that it
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should become an animal body, that man should be made into a living soul.
But notwithstanding what he believes to be an essential difference of kind between soul
and body, Augustine uses the terms “inner man” and “outer man” not so much to
reinforce this distinction - as if they were, as he says, in a sense “two men” - but to
emphasise them as distinct within the one single, whole man. The distinction of soul and
body within the unity of man is vital to Augustine’s account of human redemption. He
uses the Greek term “harmonia” to help describe how the union of divine and human
natures in Christ, analogous to that between the “outer man” and the “inner man” in
human nature, works through our outer man to renew the inner man, which renewal is
completed when it is manifested through the outer man to ensure the ultimate salvation of
both.252 The spiritual man, even after the resurrection, is still of flesh, for Augustine, just
as for Irenaeus, though it is an exalted, “spiritual” body.
According to Taylor, commenting on the text, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is
weak”,
“The spirit”, that is … ‘the inward man’, or the reasonable part of man, especially as
helped by the Spirit of grace, that “is willing”; for it is the principle of all good actions; the
energetikon, ‘the power of working’, is from the spirit; but the flesh is but a dull
instrument, and a broken arm, in which there is a principle of life, but it moves uneasily;
and the flesh is so weak, that in scripture to be ‘in the flesh’ signifies a state of weakness
and infirmity; so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being ’in the flesh’ … but here
the flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy, but as a weak servant: for if the flesh
be powerful and opposite the spirit stays not there … the old man and the new cannot dwell
252 de Trin IV.1.4.
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together; and therefore here, where the spirit inclining to good, well disposed, and apt to
holy counsels, does inhabit in society with the flesh, it means only a weak and unapt nature
or a state of infant grace.253
Again, he tends to distinguish them in a cruder way than Augustine: the struggle is
between the flesh, as flesh, and the graced mind; not in a dividedness of mind, of will.
But the flesh is understood in a more negative sense in the first instance than it is by the
Pelagians; in a more Platonic way, we might say. But it also has a more dynamic
relationship with the spirit, and at least the potential for a more integrated orientation of
the whole person towards the good, than for the Platonists.
Similarly, though Origen is apparently unsure about the Platonic tripartite
division,254 he thinks that what Augustine calls “animosities”, the sins of the spiritual soul,
which Augustine distinguishes from “carnalities”, the sins of the flesh, come from the
influence of the corporeal, animal “soul of the flesh”; they do not, as for Augustine, arise
from within the reflexive rational soul itself. In this respect Origen remains closer to the
traditional Platonist view.255
Again, although for Origen, freedom is principally the power to be free of the
external, this freedom means the ability to choose, rather than will in Augustine’s wider
sense. After distinguishing between animate things, which have the cause of movement in
themselves, or are self-moved, in response to “phantasia”, and inanimate things, which
are moved by something else, Origen says:
253 Sermon The Flesh and the Spirit, Works vol 4 p118. Compare UN p361.
254 De Prin. III.4.1.
255 Ibid. III.2.2,3; III.4. Sometimes Origen partly anticipates Augustine’s view of will, while, like
Taylor, continuing to assert indifferent choice: “But a man receives the energy, that is, the working, of a
good spirit, when he is stirred and incited to good, and is inspired to heavenly or divine things; as the holy
angels and God Himself wrought in the prophets, arousing and exhorting them by their holy suggestions to
a better course of life, yet so, indeed, that it remained within the will and judgment of the individual, either
to be willing or unwilling to follow the call to divine and heavenly things.” III.3.4.
170
The rational animal, however, has, in addition to its phantasial nature, also reason, which
judges the phantasies, and disapproves of some and accepts others, in order that the animal
may be led according to them. Therefore, since there are in the nature of reason aids
towards the contemplation of virtue and vice, by following which, after beholding good
and evil, we select the one and avoid the other, we are deserving of praise when we give
ourselves to the practice of virtue, and censurable when we do the reverse. 256
In III.1.4, Origen argues that we know intuitively that it is up to us whether we give our
assent to an external influence or not; possibly Augustine knew this work in Rufinus’s
Latin translation, and it influenced his similar argument in DLA. Irenaeus takes the same
position as Origen: “If it was by nature that some are bad and others good, the latter
would not be praiseworthy for their goodness … nor would the bad be responsible,
having been so created.”257
In this respect they resemble Taylor, and are precursors of Pelagius as much as of
Augustine. Origen is faced with the same paradox as Augustine, Taylor and Coleridge
and Kant: when the Platonist Celsus says evil is from matter, Origen rejects the view that
nature and matter are in any way intrinsically evil;258 but he also recognises sin as a force
in a person’s life. Like Taylor he identifies it with the struggle between free choice and
external forces, instead of one’s own perverse or divided will as well, or behind
everything else.
For Taylor, Origen and Irenaeus, Augustine and the Pelagians alike, the flesh is
not bad in itself, but good in its own place: “There is no need then, in the matter of our
256 De Prin bk III.1.3.
257 Adv Haer. IV.xxxvii.1.
258 Contra Celsum IV.66.
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sins and faults, to do our Creator the injustice of laying the blame on the nature of the
flesh which is good, in its own kind and on its own level.”259 However, the earlier Fathers
and Taylor assign the origin of sin to the influence of the flesh: but they do not see it as
intrinsically bad thereby, and they have a more dynamic and integrated view of the
relation between soul and body than the Pelagians, in a way closer to Augustine. But the
earlier Fathers lack Augustine’s doctrine of the will, as a mediating element in the soul,
between the soul and the flesh, in something analogous to the way in which Christ’s
human soul is a mediating element between His humanity and divinity. To an extent,
Taylor has reverted to something more like the earlier view. Ironically, given his views on
our passionate inclinations and appetites since the fall, Augustine’s doctrine of the proud
will is designed to absolve the created flesh of the blame for our “sins and moral
failings”.
4.3 Taylor’s revised Augustinianism on the goodness of the flesh: the example of sex and
marriage
Taylor shares the common patristic concern to defend the goodness of the flesh
against Platonist, ‘Gnostic’ or Manichean critiques. As Augustine points out in CD 14.9
when arguing against the Stoic and Platonic views, the Christian writers are interested in
integrating the flesh and the spirit, thought and feeling; creating good affections, as
opposed to getting rid of feelings, stripping away flesh, or aiming for apatheia. The
Pelagians depart from this common concern to the extent that they tend to see moral
choices as the central feature, rather than the direction of a person’s whole nature.
Taylor, however, thought that Augustine had effectively allowed that the ‘flesh’ -
259 CD XIV.5.
172
in the sense of both the whole man, by virtue of his fallen will, and the corrupt state of
the passions - had become evil in itself as a result of the fall. We saw in the last chapter
that this does indeed seem to be the effect of Augustine’s view, which we illustrated with
reference to Augustine’s own comparison of his view of marriage with Julian of
Eclanum’s. Taylor, too, uses the example of marriage. In his reply to a letter from an
erstwhile episcopal patron, who tried to remonstrate with him over his views on original
sin, Taylor argues that
the doctrine of original sin, as it is explicated by S. Austin, had two parents; one was the
doctrine of the Encratites, and some other heretics, who forbade marriage, and supposing it
to be evil, thought they were warranted to say it was the bed of sin, and children the spawn
of vipers and sinners. And S. Austin himself, and S. Hierome whom your Lordship cites,
speaks some things of marriage, which if they were true, then marriage were highly to be
refused, as being the increaser of sin rather than of children, and a semination in the flesh
and contrary to the Spirit, and such a thing which being mingled with sin produces
univocal issues; the mother and daughter are so alike that they are the worse again. For if a
proper inherent sin be effected by chaste marriages, then they are in this particular equal to
adulterous embraces, and rather to be pardoned than allowed; and if all concupiscence be
vicious, then no marriage can be pure. … But the other parent of this is the zeal against the
Pelagian heresy, which did serve itself by saying too little in this article, and therefore was
thought fit to be confuted by saying too much.260
Taylor does not, in fact, exactly ascribe to Augustine the “Encratite” view (for which we
might substitute Julian’s “Manichean”); as John Rist says, and as we have seen Taylor
acknowledge, Augustine’s phrase concupiscentia carnis refers to “a generalized weakness
260 Works vol. 7 p567.
173
of the ‘flesh’, to which we can improperly assent … a defect, not a sin”; whereas
according to Julian, “Augustine’s ‘real’ view is that sexual desire is sinful in itself”,261 and
that sin generally is unavoidable because the passions overpower our will. Taylor
understands that for Augustine, concupiscence only becomes a sin, when we assent; and
the same is true for Taylor himself, when the desire occurs in an immoral context.
But he thinks that in practice, Augustine’s view of the present state of human
sexual desire as wholly the result of original sin effectively reduces to the “Encratite” or
“Manichean” view, of the ‘flesh’ understood as natural passions in themselves: for
Augustine, while marriage does not effect “a proper inherent sin” in itself, the state of
fallen sexuality means that at least venial sin is always involved, and taking pleasure in
sex is always immoral. All human sexual desire, in the post-lapsarian state, is intrinsically
disordered and corrupt, even though actual (at any rate, mortal) sin can be avoided (by
the baptised) by restraining it, or directing it wholly for the purposes of procreation.
Augustine argued against Julian that in his book On Marriage and Concupiscence “is
found the defence rather than the censure of marriage.”262 Marriage is good in itself:
Carnal concupiscence, however, must not be ascribed to marriage: it is only to be tolerated
in marriage. It is not a good which comes out of the essence of marriage, but an evil which
is the accident of original sin.263
But for Augustine, this refers to all physical desire, at least in its present form: the natural
good of marriage is entirely bound up with procreation; for Augustine, there is a simple
alternative between procreation and sensual gratification, with no conception of a higher
261 Rist 1994, p321.
262 ATLP 1.9
263 DNC 1.13
174
integration with personal love, of the sort which we saw Taylor refer to in chapter 2:
The union, then, of male and female for the purpose of procreation is the natural good of
marriage. But he makes a bad use of this good who uses it bestially, so that his intention is
on the gratification of lust, instead of the desire of offspring.264
The best Augustine can say about marriages since that of Adam and Eve before the fall is
this:
A man turns to good use the evil of concupiscence, and is not overcome by it, when he
bridles and restrains its rage, as it works in inordinate and indecorous motions; and never
relaxes his hold upon it except when intent on offspring, and then controls and applies it to
the carnal generation of children to be spiritually regenerated, not to the subjection of the
spirit to the flesh in a sordid servitude.265
As Rist says, Augustine is a sort of “sexual Calvinist” (p324 note 15): “Augustine hardly
notices that sexual activity within marriage … can have a beneficial unitive effect and
develop marital affection.”266 Taylor does notice exactly these points, as we shall see in a
moment. The only sort of higher integration Augustine seems to think of is one where
everything is perfectly controlled by conscious will, as in the passages from the City of
God cited in chapter 2:
if there had been no sin, marriage would have been worthy of the happiness of paradise,
and would have given birth to children to be loved, and yet would not have given rise to
264 DNC 1.1.
265 DNC 1.1.
266 1994 p249.
175
any lust to be ashamed of; but, as it is, we have no example to show how this could have
come about. Yet that does not mean that it should seem incredible that the one part of the
body could have been subject to the will, without the familiar lust, seeing that so many
other parts are now in subjection to it. We move our hands and feet to perform their special
functions, when we so will..267
Yet this is a rather Pelagian view of the will, given Augustine’s broader understanding of
it; as well as a Platonist or even Manichean view of the flesh, as Taylor observes.268
Augustine does understand lust in terms of his broader understanding of will,
however. For Augustine, sexual desire isn’t just a matter of purely sensual desire;
“According to Augustine intercourse for pleasure is simply a form of exploitation
(Confessions 3.1.1; 4.2.2; 6.15.25). He says he exploited his concubine’s body as if she
did not have a soul.”269 But this often stems from an evil will, that is, a “possessive” love
on the Platonist model, which is caused by pride; the cupidity of the mind, which is the
consequence of original sin, stirs up the lower appetite, to possess someone merely for
the sake of bodily gratification alone. Worse, there is another, if anything more insidious
form of pride, that can be identified in this connection: what Augustine calls the libido
dominandi. “The proud soul wants like God to ‘have others under her control’ (On
Genesis Against the Manicheans 6.13.41), thus again both challenging God as an equal
and wishing to disrupt the order which God has established.”270
However, for Augustine as for the Platonists, all physical desire, desire for bodies,
is regarded as bad in itself: Plotinus contends that “Once there is perfect self-control, it is
267 In this respect Aquinas diverges from Augustine, and is more ‘Aristotelian’ than ‘Platonist’: all
the natural inclinations of human nature existed, but the mean came naturally, perhaps at the deliberate
behest of the will.
268 Moreover, children for Augustine are in fact ‘naturally’ sinners by inheritance, whether it is by
nature or will.
269 Rist 1994 p323.
270 Ibid p189.
176
no fault to enjoy the beauty of earth; where appreciation degenerates into carnality, there
is sin.” “Carnality” refers to the “lawless” desire of the Symposium and the Phaedrus.
Ultimately there is no legitimate sexual love for the beloved in the Symposium and the
Phaedrus; it is always a distortion of, and distraction from, the cerebral love for Beauty.
We may compare Augustine on admiring the beauty of bodies in the resurrection (CD
XXII.24).
Given his account of the will as rightly ordering or distorting feelings, Augustine
could perhaps have made a distinction between physical desire in the context of an evil
will, and a good sort of love that could also involve physical desire. Even allowing for his
view that sexual desire in itself simply leads to using the other as a body, not a person,
Augustine could still distinguish between physical desire integrated with a love for the
person, and the mere desire for purely physical gratification, or the libido dominandi.
Rather, in his account, sexual desire seems to be bad in itself, simply because out of
conscious, rational control: Rist notes that “Augustine is worried about orgasm because it
seems to imply a loss of the highest form of integration of the personality”.271
As we have already touched on in chapter 2, Taylor develops an understanding
along just these lines. We have observed (at the beginning of this chapter, and in chapter
3) that for Taylor as much as for Augustine, the characteristic activity of the will is to
love or delight, as well as to choose; and grace, for both Augustine and Taylor, makes the
will “do its own work well” in the sense that it repairs the ability of the will to love
rightly, ennabling it to choose good over evil. To be in the Spirit, or in the power of the
Spirit, says Taylor,
is a similitude taken from persons encompassed with guards; they are in custodia, that is in
271 1994 p322.
177
their power, under their command, moved at their dispose; they rest in their time, and
receive laws from their authority, and admit visitors whom they appoint, and must be
employed as they shall suffer: so are men who are in the Spirit; that is, they believe as He
teaches, they work as He enables, they choose what He calls good, they are friends of His
friends, and they hate with His hatred: only with this difference, that persons in custody are
forced to do what their keepers please, and nothing is free but their wills; but they that are
under the command of the Spirit do all the things which the Spirit commands, but they do
them cheerfully; and their will is now the prisoner, but it is in libera custodia, the will is
where it ought to be, and where it desires to be, and it cannot easily choose any thing else
because it is extremely in love with this; as the saints and angels in their state of beatific
vision cannot choose but love God, and yet the liberty of their choice is not lessened
because the object fills all the capacities of the will and the understanding. Indifferency to
an object is the lowest degree of liberty, and supposes unworthiness or defect in the object
or the apprehension; but the will is then the freest and most perfect in its operation when it
entirely pursues a good with so certain determination and clear election that the contrary
evil cannot come into dispute or pretence. Such in our proportions is the liberty of the sons
of God … Christ’s yoke is like feathers to a bird, not loads, but helps to motion..272
In other words, the will freely determines itself towards something on the
acknowledgement of it as good; not because it is compelled, by intellect or by feeling, but
because of the value it accords to something, upon the understanding’s recognition of it
as good. In status viae, as we have seen, we must co-operate with this disposition, for
272 Works vol. 4 p335. Taylor is no Jansenist; grace empowers the will, it does not overpower it.
Burnaby 1938 p223f. (For the Jansenist view, see Pascal, Provincial Letter XVIII, p283 in the Penguin ed.;
in relation to the question of the influence of grace in this respect, see also John Donne's great sonnet,
'Batter my heart, Three Person'd God'.) Rist (1994) compares Augustine’s view with Platonic “inspiration”
(p152f) and contrasts it with “Kantian obligation” (p153); but perhaps there is a comparison between this,
Augustine’s ‘love as what we value’, and Kantian “respect”.
178
Taylor; for Augustine, with enough grace, ultimately we will do so.273
For Taylor, physical desire is indifferent in itself, but as we saw in chapter 2, good
if integrated with the Platonist “unreasoned consciousness of friendly relation”274 between
two souls, which he also uses as a natural analogy for the relationship between the soul
and God. The idea that all physical desire in itself is bad, is a Platonist or Manichean
notion, for Taylor. He shares this view with Julian of Eclanum; but Taylor’s view of
human sexuality is rather more nuanced than Julian’s. Julian tends to regard it as simply
legitimate in itself, in the context of marriage, while Augustine regards this as an
exploitative use of marriage. For Taylor, humans are creatures of body and soul, and
bodily desire and intimacy is natural and good as long as it is integrated with its spiritual
analogue, even as body and mind are integrated in human nature.
The marital love … is a thing pure as light, sacred as a temple, lasting as the world;
Amicitia quae desinere potuit nunquam vera fuit, said [St Jerome, of all people]; … it is
homilia, so Moses called it; it is eunoia, so St Paul; it is philotes, so Homer; … it contains
in itself all sweetness, and all society, and all felicity, and all prudence, and all wisdom. For
there is nothing can please a man without love; and if a man be weary of the wise
discourses of the apostles, and of the innocency of an even and private fortune, or hates
peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of
paradise; ‘for nothing can sweeten felicity itself, but love’; but when a man dwells in love
then the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings upon the hills of Hermon, her eyes
are fair as the light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he can quench his thirst, and
273 The Incarnation is, of course, supposed to introduce love of the immaterial, by means of a
material sign or expression of it; and to direct our feelings, by directing the fundamental disposition of the
will, through what that sign reveals, to a mind that is already able to form a conception of eternity through
the illumination of those principles and “forms” which are ‘above’ the mind: De Trin VIII.3.7,8. See ch.5
below on Augustine and illumination.
274 Plotinus, Enn.III.5.1. See the beginning of chapter 3, for the relationship between this idea and
Augustine on the will.
179
ease his cares, and lay his sorrows down upon her lap, and can retire home as to his
sanctuary and refectory, and his gardens of sweetness and chaste refreshments.275
The whole person can be loved, mind and body, in proper ways, without separation. To an
extent the two desires operate independently, of course; and we are inclined towards
things before we can choose or refuse them. But one aspect of the moral life is to strive
for their integration, by means of inculcating good habit.
Diarmaid MacCulloch points out the influence of the marriage service in the Book
of Common Prayer on Taylor, in respect of his views on marriage and family life:
right from its 1549 version the service emphasised that marriage could be enjoyable for
human beings - that one of its purposes was ‘for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that
the one ought to have of the other’. Cranmer’s was the first marriage liturgy in Christian
history to say this …
With Cranmer’s sonorous liturgical encouragement, England’s Protestant clergy
cheerfully celebrated their family lives. By the mid-seventeenth century Jeremy Taylor, an
Anglican bishop of Laudian outlook and therefore sympathetic in many respects to
traditional Catholic spirituality, nevertheless spoke from enjoyable experience of marriage
when he spoke of children in one of his marriage sermons: ‘no man can tell’, he said, ‘but
he that loves children, how many delicious accents make a man’s heart dance in the pretty
conversation of those dear pledges; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers,
their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are so many little emanations of joy
and comfort to him that delights in their persons and society’. In what was surely a
275 Marriage Ring sermon, Works vol. 4 p224. This rather purple passage is far from congenial to
21st century views, in certain respects; though Taylor advocates a surprising mutuality and equality
between husband and wife in this sermon, by the standards of the time. See p228 for a comparison of
husband and wife with soul and body; this is derived from Augustine, and again, reflects the common view
of male authority in the period.
180
conscious refutation of Cardinal Bellarmine’s catechism, Bishop Taylor commented in
another of his sermons that ‘Single life makes men in one instance to be like angels, but
marriage in very many things makes the chaste pair to be like Christ.’276
Augustine doesn’t dismiss love for children, or even the help and comfort involved in
marriage;277 though he is somewhat inclined to the view that “he loves Thee too little,
who loves anything beside Thee”, in this context as in others. Again, his views are
reminiscent of the Platonist idea that earthly beauties distract from Beauty, unless treated
purely as reminders of it.
In words which can still bring tears to the eyes, St Augustine describes the desolation in
which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confessions IV, 10). Then he draws a
moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one’s heart to anything but God. All human
beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is
to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away …
There is no escape along the lines St Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. There
is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable.278
Augustine is not very interested in the goodness of natural love, even in man as
redeemed; the greatest love parents show their children appears in their baptising them
and bringing them up Christians.279 Augustine’s view of the natural, is coloured by
regarding it as corrupted by sin.
276 MacCulloch 2003, p651-3. MacCulloch goes on to observe that Taylor advocated breast feeding,
and comments, “One cannot imagine a bishop of the Counter-Reformation entertaining his flock with such
rhapsodies.”
277 DNC 1.11.
278 C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves, London 1960, pp137, 138. In a different context, compare
Confessions X.33, on his enjoyment of music in church.
279 DNC 1.4.
181
Taylor agrees with Julian that the traditional Augustinian view of the effects of
original sin on sexuality necessarily denigrates marriage; but, while he doesn’t think there
is anything wrong with sexual pleasure in itself, he agrees with Augustine that by itself it
is exploitative: he doesn’t think a person should be used as a body: he wants to integrate
the physical desire with personal love.
4.4 Flesh and sinful flesh
Taylor’s account of human nature in terms of passions and “the flesh” is a
‘naturalised’ version of Origen and Augustine on “sinful flesh”: Origen anticipates
Augustine in some of what he says about the flesh:
If the Apostle, in speaking of ‘this body of sin’, is to be understood as meaning this body of
ours [due to its corporeal nature] he will be interpreted as meaning the same as David when
he said of himself, ‘I was conceived in sin, and in sin hath my mother conceived me’. …
[St Paul also says that Christ came] ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ … thus showing that
while our flesh is sinful flesh, Christ’s flesh is like sinful flesh.280
Origen is striking a similar balance to that set out by Augustine, arguing against both the
Manicheans on the one hand, and the Pelagians on the other, concerning the flesh:
The Manicheans dishonour Christ's flesh by blaspheming the birth from the Virgin; but the
Pelagians by making the flesh of those to be redeemed equal to the flesh of the Redeemer.
Since Christ was born, not of course in sinful flesh, but in the likeness of sinful flesh, while
280 Origen, Commentary on Romans V.9.
182
the flesh of the rest of mankind is born sinful. The Manicheans, therefore, who absolutely
abominate all flesh, take away the manifest truth from the flesh of Christ; but the Pelagians,
who maintain that no flesh is born sinful, take away from Christ's flesh its special and
proper dignity.281
Taylor is trying to strike the same balance, but without conceding the Augustinian view
that the flesh itself has been corrupted in Adam; a view which he regards as crypto-
Manichean. But at the same time, he is attempting to avoid the Pelagian view that “no
flesh” is in any sense “sinful”. Although Augustine has a deeply negative view of fallen
nature, it is capable of deification; one of the extraordinary things about fallen man is that
he remains capable of God, of being restored and drawn by grace into the life of the
Trinity. Taylor agrees that mere nature is negative, in a way, yet denies that it is spoiled
by sin; he offers a naturalised account of Augustine’s ‘fallen’ state that treats limitations
as natural, things we need to overcome with the help of grace, not as sin and punishment;
and is, again, capable of grace. For Taylor, this is the condition of our nature from the
beginning.
For Taylor, all flesh is called sinful, by extension, like Christ’s according to
Origen and Augustine; though all sin, as a result of this flesh, except Christ. Taylor relates
his view of the state of human nature and the purpose of Christianity to St Paul’s words at
the beginning of Romans 8:
What the law could never do, because our lower nature had robbed it of all potency, God
has done: by sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as a sin-offering, he has
passed judgement against sin in that very nature; so that the commandment of the law
281 Augustine, ATLP 2.3.
183
might find fulfilment in us, who live not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
The state of “sin” refers to both actual sins and habits of sin, and by an extension of
meaning to our natural state itself. Our lower nature, “concupiscence, or the first motions
and inclinations to sin, is called sin, and said to have the nature of sin, that is, homoioma
tes [sarkos] hamartias [Rom 8.3, the likeness of sinful flesh], the likeness, it may be,
[because it is] the material part of sin, or something by which sin is commonly known”
(p249): because it is the cause, albeit the resistible cause, of particular sins. Likewise
according to the English Article,282 concupiscence “[according to the confession of the
Apostle, that is, St Paul,] hath of itself the nature of sin”: which Taylor elastically
interprets to mean “it is the material part of sin, a principle and root from whence evil
may spring, according to St Austin’s words [in DNC 1.23: ‘concupiscence or the
viciousness of our nature is after a certain manner of speaking called sin; because it is
made worse by sin and makes us guilty of sin when consented to.’ Taylor’s trans.].”
Just as if a man have a natural thirst, it may tempt him, and is apt to incline him to
drunkenness; if he be of a sanguine disposition, it disposes him to lust; if choleric, to anger;
and is so much a sin as the fuel is part of a fire; but because this can be there where the
damnation shall not enter, this nature of sin is such as does not make a proper guiltiness.283
In this respect Taylor retains a limited 'biological' resemblance to original sin. To the
extent that we inherit bad dispositions, “not only Adam, but every father may transmit an
‘original sin’, or rather an ‘original viciousness’ of his own; for a vicious nature, or a
natural improbity when it is not consented to, is not a sin, but an ill disposition:
282 Ninth of the Thirty Nine Articles, Of Original, or Birth-sin.
283 UN, Works vol 7 p339.
184
philosophy and the grace of God must cure it; but it often causes us to sin, before our
reason and higher principles are well attended to.”284 This is also true of natural
compassion, what we might call moral sentiments; they are certainly helpful, and the
state of habitual righteousness, regeneration, which we aim to achieve, is essentially a
state of habitual disposition to virtue, for Taylor; but in itself this state is not strictly
moral; that depends on our co-operation and choice (Duc. Dub. Vol 1, p79f).
Our nature in itself, then, is not the corrupt state descending from the fall, which
Taylor like the Pelagians regards as a crypto-Manichean conception, as we have seen;
rather, this is the very nature that Christ took to Himself, though without sin, as we have
already seen; that very “likeness of sinful flesh”, which includes concupiscence, though
Christ was always able to perfectly resist it when it inclined to anything immoral. Christ
was able to perfectly harness and direct his nature; the Incarnation is to enable us to do
the same, as well as to confirm reasonable natural morality by revelation (as we shall see
in the final chapter); we are enabled by grace to imperfectly imitate Christ, just as we
imitate Adam in sin.
By his insistence that the state from which we need to be raised is that very nature
which we share with Adam as our progenitor, Taylor is attempting to avoid the Ninth
Article’s anathema against the Pelagians, who “vainly” hold that original sin consists in
no more than the “following”, that is, the imitation “of Adam”. On Taylor’s account, we
do not merely imitate Adam when we actually sin, but we share his nature; we are in the
same natural condition as Adam, which can be called “sin” in the improper sense, as a
state of limitations which are part of the cause of sin - what Augustine called the state of
“ignorance and difficulty”. However, this is not a state of intrinsic corruption, or actually
intrinsically sinful.
284 Ibid p289.
185
Taylor’s account again resembles Irenaeus, in the sense that one might call it a
‘bottom up’ version of Augustine and Origen on sinful flesh and its restoration and
elevation, that includes libertarian freedom. Irenaeus is clearly a source for Taylor.
Irenaeus poses the question of whether God could have made man perfect from the
beginning. Taylor asks the same question, and replies that he could have done this only
by removing our freedom of indifference - that is, never giving it to us at all.285 Irenaeus
answers:
But contingent things have their beginning in course of time, and for this reason they must
needs fall short of their maker’s perfection; for things which have recently come to birth
cannot be eternal; and … they fall short of perfection for this very reason.286
Similarly, Taylor:
For the nature and constitution of man is such, that he cannot perpetually attend to any state
of things: voluntas per momenta variatur, quia solus Deus immutabilis: variety and change,
inconstancy and repentance, are his in very nature.287
Our natural, temporal condition is not intrinsically bad at its own level, but contains the
inevitability of error and sin. As Irenaeus says:
Because of [God’s] kindness he bestowed his gift upon us, and made us free, as he is free.
Because of his foresight he knew men’s weakness, and the results of that weakness; but
because of his love and his goodness he will overcome [the weakness of] the nature of
285 UN, Works vol 7 p189.
286 Adv. Haer. IV.xxxviii.1.
287 Works vol 7 p26.
186
created man. It was necessary that [the weakness of] men’s nature should first be shown
and afterwards be overcome, and mortality be swallowed up by immortality, corruptibility
by incorruptibility, and man become conformed to the image and likeness of God, having
received the knowledge of good and evil.288
We may usefully compare Augustine on the virtual inevitability of the fall: as a temporal
and mutable particular self, Adam was always liable to the sin of pride, though when he
fell he did so “in full knowledge and by free choice”.289 However, as the near-inevitability
of the fall for Adam indicates, to an extent this condition is simply a natural one,
notwithstanding Augustine’s insistence that it is the product of our fallen state: we could
not, says Augustine in de Trinitate IV.4.24, “pass from being among the things that
originated to eternal things, unless the eternal allied himself to us in our originated
condition, and so provided us with a bridge to his eternity.” To an extent, our love of
“temporal and material things” above “eternal” things is a simple corollary of our
temporal and material existence, even for Augustine. The Incarnation is a “bridge” from
the vicissitudes of time, to eternity: “we by pressing on imitate him who abides
motionless; we follow him who stands still, and by walking in him we move towards
him, because for us he became a road or way in time by his humility, while being for us
an eternal abode by his divinity.” (de Trin. VII.2.4).
For Taylor, as for Irenaeus on human nature in general, and Augustine on Adam in
the state of his creation in innocence, the bestowal of free will implies the inevitability of
sin; but for Taylor and Irenaeus, as in a way for Augustine, this also constituted the only
means whereby God could achieve free human co-operation in the process of
288 Adv Haer. IV.xxxvii.4.
289 Rist 1994 p282, cf CD XIV.11.
187
“divinisation”:290 “it is so far from being true that man after his fall did lose his natural
power of election, that it seems rather to be increased. For as a man’s knowledge grows,
so his will becomes better attended and ministered unto. But after his fall his knowledge
was more than before … by which … he grew better able, and instructed with arguments
to obey God, and to refuse sin for the time to come.”291 Irenaeus says something similar:
Man received knowledge of good and evil … man learnt the good of obedience and the evil
of disobedience; his mind perceived by experience the distinction between good and evil,
so that he might exercise his own decision in the choice of the better course … First the
mind learns that disobedience is evil and bitter; and by penitence spits it out. Then it learns
by realisation what sort of thing is contrary to goodness and sweetness.292
4.5 Taylor’s understanding of the ‘first Adam’ as human nature in itself
Irenaeus argues that “God could have offered perfection to man at the beginning,
but man, being yet an infant, could not have taken it”;293 Taylor transfers this to the
individual level: conscious experience through the course of time and chance is a
necessary condition of human beings choosing one course over another for themselves.
Adam, says Taylor,
290 See Rist 1994 pp278-83 on Augustine on this.
291 UN, Works vol 7 p 279. Compare Plotinus, Enn. IV.8.5: the soul acquires a useful knowledge of
evil by its entanglement in matter.
292 Adv. Haer. IV.xxxix.1,2. Compare Augustine: “For it is certain that if man ignores God's will he
can only employ his own powers to his own destruction; and thus he learns what a difference it makes
whether he gives his adherence to the good that is shared by all, or finds pleasure only in his own selfish
good. In fact, if he loves himself, a man is given over to himself so that when as a result he has had his fill
of fears and griefs he may use the words of the psalm (that is, if he is aware of his evil plight) and sing, 'My
soul is troubled within me', and then, when he is set right, he may then say, 'I shall keep watch for you, my
strength.'” CD XIII.21. Also the end of XIV.13. Augustine represents this as own story in the Confessions;
as Taylor recognises, Works vol.7 p165.
293 Adv. Haer. IV.xxxviii.1.
188
had this advantage over us, he was created in full use of reason; we his descendents enter
into the world in the greatest imperfection [ie as infants], and are born under a law which
we break before we can understand, and it is imputed to us as our understanding increases:
and therefore by this very economy, which is natural to us, we must needs in the condition
of our nature be very far from Adam’s original righteousness, who had perfect reason
before he had a law, and had understanding as soon as he had desires.294
As we have seen, we become responsible; must take responsibility for natural tendencies
that have a strong hold on us, but are a resistible, though inevitable, cause of sin in those
who have attained the age of reason. By Adam’s original righteousness, Taylor means
“his doing many actions of obedience and intercourse with God”, prior to his sin; as well
as that “natural innocence” which “is but negative”, which we have when “we have not
consented to sin”. This is an adaptation of the usual meaning of “original righteousness”,
[which is more than original justice, includes sanctifying grace,] which Taylor dismisses.
“That Adam had any more [supernatural] strengths than we have, and greater powers of
nature”, says Taylor, “and by his fall lost them to himself and us … ought not to be
pretended till it be proved. Adam was a man, as his sons are, and no more; and God gave
him strength enough to do his duty; and God is as just and loving to us as to him”.295
Adam is not the model in respect of our supernatural end, for Taylor; and he never was.
If Adam had stood, yet from him we could not have by our natural generation obtained a
title to our spiritual life, nor by all the strengths of Adam have gone to heaven: Adam was
not our representative to any of these purposes, but in order to the perfection of a temporal
life. Christ only is and was from eternal ages designed to be the head of the church, and the
294 UN, Works Vol 7 p335.
295 Ibid p260.
189
fountain of spiritual life.296
Adam, for Taylor, exemplifies human nature in its natural condition: there was no state of
original justice or righteousness in the usual sense. Grace related to Adam, in the same
way it relates to us. Christ exemplifies the only possible ideal of human nature under
grace; not Adam in the state of innocence.
There is a sense in which Adam lost supernatural grace, for Taylor, but his
account of this seems to be a way of sidelining the fall; and he is clear that Christians,
under grace in the redemptive economy, are in as good a state or better than Adam can be
supposed to have been before it (and we shall see later that grace is not limited to
Christians). The most dramatic difference between Taylor and his predecessors and
contemporaries, both Catholic and Protestant, regarding the effects of the fall, is what we
have already considered: “concupiscence” is not the result of original sin:
in original sin we are to consider the principle, and the effects. The principle is the actual
sin of Adam; this being to certain purposes by God’s absolute dominion imputed to us, hath
brought upon us a necessity of dying, and all the affections of mortality; which although
they were natural, yet would by grace have been hindered. Another evil there is upon us,
and that is concupiscence; this also is natural, but it was actual before the fall, it was in
Adam, and tempted him. This also from him is derived to us, and is by many causes made
worse, by him and by ourselves. And this is the whole state of original sin, so far as is
fairly warrantable [from scripture].297
Taylor distinguishes between two aspects of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin: the
296 UN, Works vol.7 p304.
297 UN, Works vol 7 p251-2. Compare p289.
190
“principle”, being “the actual sin of Adam”; and the “effects”, “a necessity of dying, and
all the affections of mortality”, along with “another evil”, “concupiscence”, which
Augustine held to be also a result of Adam’s sin - either a direct effect, or a punishment
inflicted as a consequence - but which Taylor controversially claims “was actual before
the fall, it was in Adam, and tempted him”. Mortality and its “affections” and
concupiscence are all natural, for Taylor; but the former “would by grace have been
hindered” before the fall, while concupiscence would not, and played a role in causing
the fall.
This is a radical departure from the tradition: for Augustine and for most of those
who followed him, mortality was natural, but hindered by grace before the fall; but
various of what Taylor calls the “affections” of mortality, and especially concupiscence,
were disruptions, or damage, caused in human nature by the fall, or inflicted as a
punishment for it. Duns Scotus agreed with Taylor that concupiscence was natural, but
even he thought that it was restrained by grace prior to the fall.298 Taylor can allow that
mortality, though natural in itself, was caused by the loss of the grace that restrained it
prior to the fall, because unlike concupiscence it is morally innocuous, it is not the cause
of particular sins; so whether or not it was caused by original sin is irrelevant to our
moral condition (compared to concupiscence, anyway). And Taylor goes on to argue that
while death may have been a punishment for Adam, it is no such thing for his
descendents:
This evil which is a condition of all our natures, viz., to die, was to some a punishment, but
to others not so. It was a punishment to all that sinned both before Moses and since; upon
the first it fell as a consequent of God’s anger upon Adam, as I before discoursed; upon the
298 Richard Cross, Duns Scotus, Oxford 1999 p
191
latter it fell as a consequent of that anger which was threatened in Moses’ law [that is, for
breaches of that law which they themselves were responsible for]. But to those who sinned
not at all, as infants and innocents, it was merely a condition of their nature, and no more a
punishment, than to be a child is. It was a punishment of Adam’s sin; because by his sin
human nature became disrobed of their preternatural immortality, and therefore upon that
account they die; but as it is related to the persons, it was not a punishment, not an evil
inflicted for their sin, or any guiltiness of their own, properly so called.299
Taylor implicitly recognises the injustice inherent in making mortality a
‘punishment’ for a ‘guilt’ that is imputed, not personally acquired. The criticism Taylor
makes of the traditional view of original sin, including the more mitigated view generally
held by Roman Catholics at the time, that it involves a mere deprivation of grace and the
effects of that, rather than any actual damage to human nature, is equally applicable to his
own doctrine of mortality alone as consequent upon a deprivation of grace:
But suppose this to be a mere privative state, yet it cannot be inflicted upon infants as a
punishment of Adam’s sin, and upon the same account it cannot be inflicted upon anyone
else. Not upon infants, because they are not capable of a law for themselves, therefore
much less of a law which was given to another, here being a double incapacity of
obedience: they cannot receive any law, and if they could, yet of this they were never
offered any notice till it was too late. Now if infants be not capable of this, nor chargeable
with it, then no man is; for all are infants first, and if it comes not by birth, and at first, it
cannot come at all.300
At any rate, Taylor ostensibly agrees that the effect of Adam’s sin was to deprive
299 UN, Works vol 7 p250.
300 UN, Works vol 7 p252.
192
human nature of certain “gifts and graces” which Adam possessed; but these gifts
supplied him only with an “endless duration and abode in this life”, which God had not
promised and was under no obligation to continue to bestow on Adam’s posterity; they
did not ensure temperance in Adam’s appetites. Aside from mortality, supposing this to
have been graciously restrained, Adam and his descendents have the same nature, for
Taylor. Human nature is in no way distorted in post-lapsarian man, it merely lacks certain
supernatural gifts; but these gifts did no more than restrain mortality, and anyway, of
course, Christians do not, in Taylor’s view, lack the grace which makes a “supernatural
end” possible for them:
This sin brought upon Adam all that God threatened, but no more. A certainty of dying,
together with the proper effects and affections of mortality, was inflicted on him, and he
was reduced to the condition of his own nature, and then begat sons and daughters in his
own likeness, that is, in the proper temper and constitution of mortal men. For as God was
not bound to give what he never promised, viz., an immortal duration and abode in this life;
so neither does it appear in that angry entercourse that God had with Adam, that He took
from him or us any of our natural perfections, but His graces only.
Man being left in this state of pure naturals, could not by his own strength arrive to a
supernatural end (which was typified in his being cast out of paradise, and the guarding it
with the flaming sword of a cherub). For eternal life being an end above our natural
proportion, cannot be acquired by any natural means. Neither Adam nor any of his
posterity could by any actions or holiness obtain heaven by desert, or by any natural
efficiency; for it is a gift still, and it is neque currentis, neque operantis, ‘neither of him
that runneth, nor of him that worketh, but of God’ who freely gives it to such persons
193
whom He also by other gifts and graces hath disposed toward the reception of it.301
So the difference between Adam before the fall and his successors in respect of
either their common nature or the grace that provides moral insight and strength, is
minimised. Taylor in fact immediately goes on to express scepticism about what “gifts
and graces or supernatural endowments God gave to Adam in his state of innocence”,
which would have given him greater moral strength or insight than Christians now have;
indeed, the post-lapsarian state of those under grace, at any rate, may actually be better
than that of Adam before his sin:
God hath nowhere told us, and of things unrevealed we commonly make wild conjectures.
But after his fall we find no sign of any thing but of a common man. And therefore as it
was with him, so it is with us; our nature cannot go to heaven without the helps of the
divine grace; so neither could his: and whether he had them or no, it is certain we have,
receiving more by the second Adam than we did lose by the first: and the sons of God are
now “spiritual”, which he never was that we can find.302
For Taylor, the “first Adam” seems to typify human nature as it is itself, prior to, or as
distinct from, that nature in receipt of grace; rather than an original individual, in a state
301 UN, Works vol 7 p243. In a way this is Taylor’s version of Augustine, CD XIII.13-14: “For after
their disobedience to God’s instructions, the first human beings were deprived of God’s favour … The soul,
in fact, rejoiced in its own freedom to act perversely and disdained to be God’s servant; so it was deprived
of the obedient service which its body had at first rendered … This then was the time when the flesh began
to “lust in opposition to the spirit”, which is the conflict that attends us from our birth. We bring with us, at
our birth, the beginning of our death, and with the vitiation of our nature our body is the scene of death’s
assault, or rather of his victory, as the result of that first disobedience. God created man aright, for God is
the author of natures, though he is certainly not responsible for their defects. But man was willingly
perverted and justly condemned, and so begot perverted and condemned offspring. For we were all in that
one man, seeing that we all were that one man..” The opposition between the flesh and the spirit is not the
result of original sin for Taylor, but natural; and we receive mere nature as it is in itself from Adam, not a
vitiated, corrupted version. We are one with Adam to the extent that he is the exemplary “first man, the man
from earth”, whose nature we share; but this nature never lacks access to grace.
302 UN, Works vol 7 p243-4.
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of divinely-preserved moral integrity which was lost through sin. Taylor directly
compares the “first Adam” and St Paul’s “natural man that knoweth not the things of the
Spirit of God”, and continues:
There are two great heads of mankind, the two Adams; the first and the Second. The first
was framed with an earthy body, the Second had (viz, after His resurrection, when He had
died unto sin once) a spiritual body. The first was earthly, the Second is heavenly; from the
first we derive an earthly life, from the Second we obtain a heavenly; all that are born of
the first are such as he was naturally, but the effects of the Spirit came only upon them who
are born of the Second Adam: from him who is earthly we could have no more than he was,
or had; the spiritual life, and consequently the heavenly, could not be derived from the first
Adam, but from Christ only. All that are born of the first, by that birth inherit nothing but
temporal life and corruption; but in the new birth only we derive a title to heaven. For
“flesh and blood”, that is, whatsoever is born of Adam, “cannot inherit the kingdom of
God”.303
Indeed Adam himself received grace in lieu of the coming of Christ, immediately after
his fall; and Adam’s loss of grace can have no implications for the baptised anyway:
Now although the sin of Adam left him in his nakedness, and a mere natural man, yet
presently this was supplied; and we were never in it, but were improved and bettered by the
promise, and Christ hath died for mankind … and therefore now no infant or idiot, or man
or woman shall for this alone be condemned to an eternal banishment from the sweetest
presence of God.304
303 UN, Works vol 7 p304. Compare Augustine, CD XIII.23, above, commenting on the same verses
of St Paul.
304 Ibid p253.
195
According to Jeremy Taylor, human nature was not damaged by the first sin; its
present condition is natural; and we never lack access to grace, which always works with
and relates to human nature in the same way, the way it operates in the Christian
economy of redemption and ‘deification’. Human nature in itself is incapable of arriving
at our “supernatural end”, but God supplies grace through the Christian economy - and,
as we shall see in the next chapter, also outside it - to enable us to do so. All this applies
to Adam before his fall quite as much as it applies to his posterity after it; any difference
between the two, seems to have been entirely dispensed with. The Incarnation, for Taylor,
apparently provides mere human nature as such, typified by the ‘first Adam’, with the
means of attaining its supernatural end:
For if we will speak of what is true and plainly revealed; from all the sins of mankind
Christ came to redeem us; He came to give us a supernatural birth; to tell us all his Father’s
will; to reveal to us those glorious promises upon the expectation of which we might be
enabled to everything that is required. He came to bring us grace, and life, and spirit; to
strengthen us against the powers of hell and earth; to sanctify our afflictions, which from
Adam by natural generation descended on us; to take out the sting of death, to make it an
entrance to immortal life; to assure us of resurrection; to intercede for us, and to be an
advocate for us, when we by infirmity commit sin; to pardon us when we repent. Nothing
of which could be derived to us from Adam by our natural generation. Mankind now taken
in his whole constitution and design is like the birds of paradise which travellers tell us of
in the Molucca islands; born without legs, but by a celestial power they have a recompense
made to them for that defect; and they always hover in the air and feed on the dew of
heaven: so are we birds of paradise, but cast out from thence, and born without legs,
without strength to walk in the laws of God or go to heaven; but by a power from above we
196
are adopted in our new birth to a celestial conversation, we feed on the dew of heaven.
“The just does live by faith”, and breathes in this new life by the spirit of God. For from the
first Adam nothing descended to us but an infirm body, and a naked soul, evil example and
a body of death, ignorance and passion, hard labour and a cursed field, a captive soul and
an imprisoned body; that is, a soul naturally apt to comply with the appetites of the body
and its desires, whether reasonable or excessive: and though these things were not direct
sins to us in their natural abode and first principle, yet they are proper inherent miseries and
principles of sin to us in their emanation. But from this state Christ came to redeem us all
by His grace and by His spirit, by His life and by His death, by His doctrine and by His
sacraments, by His promises and by His revelations, by His resurrection and by His
ascension, by His interceding for us and judging of us. .305
Taylor is disassociating a state that he thinks the tradition is right to identify as the
source of human sin and imperfection (though he thinks that the state is a natural and in
itself morally neutral one) from Adam’s sin as its cause. The problem for Taylor is not the
inherited effects of Adam’s sin, but simply our natural state, inherited from him; though
nothing in this natural state is a sin properly, many aspects of it can become “proper
inherent miseries and principles of sin”. We might usefully compare a text of Origen: “we
receive as it were the beginning, the seeds, so to say, of sins, from those things which are
an essential part of our natural life. But when we indulge beyond what is enough, and do
not resist the first motions of intemperance, then the hostile power seizes the chance
offered by this first wrongdoing, and incites us, and urges us on”. (De Principiis, III.ii.2.)
4.6 Conclusion to chapter 4
305 DJ, Works vol 7 p516-7.
197
For Taylor, the state from which “Christ came to redeem us” is that of ‘sin’ in an
improper, extended sense, that is, what causes sin, the state of the “first Adam”, the “man
from earth”; as well as that brought about by our own actual sins and habits of sin. We are
born in a state in which the soul is “naturally apt to comply with the appetites of the body
and its desires”, and while this is not intrinsically evil, it becomes an instrument of
temptation and struggle in morally illicit contexts; at the same time, as we have seen, the
passions are also “instruments of felicity for this duration”, and capable of integration and
elevation towards a morally acceptable natural good and to our supernatural end. Taylor
is adapting the classical Thomist idea that grace completes, perfects or elevates nature, to
explain how our natural created condition can be good in itself, on its own natural level,
and yet the source of the moral challenge traditionally associated with the effects of
original sin.
As we have seen, for Taylor, sin must always be an act, and a free act, or it is not
sin. But for Taylor we also live in a condition of limitations, which to some degree is a
state of evils and imperfection, and contributes to actual sin. Taylor argues that we don’t
all sin in the same way, though we all sin one way or another; sin is inevitable, but not in
any given instance.
So Taylor’s version of the fallen state is the consequences of temporal finitude
and the necessities of embodiment, which are not in themselves actually sinful in the
imputable sense, unless we could have done otherwise. As we saw him argue in chapter
3, we fall short of the “law in its [ideal] latitude and extension”. This state of our nature
can be called sin in the improper sense; a state we become responsible for; we must take
responsibility for our nature. Naturally we are inclined to many things which are sinful,
and become involved “before reason and the grace of God are well attended to”, and we
form habits due to this, constituting a positively sinful state that needs to be reformed.
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But we are not compelled, according to Taylor; or if we are, then our action
cannot properly be described as sin. His point is simply that we are free in the sense of
responsible for taking control; something is not sin until it could have been resisted. Just
as for Plotinus - and Irenaeus - “the soul becomes free when it moves through intellectual
principle towards the good”; that is, when it takes control of itself, without allowing itself
to be dominated by passions or anything external.306 Taylor, like Plotinus, ascribes our
propensity to sin to this influence, and not to the soul’s own self-love, which is a vital
feature of Augustine’s account. But unlike Plotinus, and like the ante-Nicene and Eastern
Fathers, Taylor defends a libertarian account of human freedom. This is similar in a way
to the writings of Pelagius and Julian of Eclanum; but Taylor’s account of human nature
is more dynamic in structure and subtle in terms of the relation of soul and body than that
of the Pelagians; and sin or the avoidance of it is far from being a matter simply of good
and bad choices, or even habit, for Taylor, as for the Greek Fathers as well as Augustine.
In a sense, for Taylor, we are all Adam; rather than being, at one time, as for
Augustine, “in Adam” (Taylor accurately translates the notorious “inasmuch” of Rom.
5.12). Taylor still distinguishes between Adam as a historical individual and humanity in
general, and therefore doesn’t make Adam an archetypal figure. But still, there is a sense
in which the human nature we all share, is the first Adam; rather than Adam, being an
example of it.
However, Taylor’s account of human nature is arguably subject to the criticism de
Lubac makes of the seventeenth century theologian Michael Baius; this aspect of Baius’s
work was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church:
306 “Self-disposal, to us, belongs to those who, through the activities of Intellectual-Principle, live
above the states of the body.” Enn.VI.8.3.
199
Baius understood the gift of the Spirit to innocent nature as being owed to it, and not as a
gratuitous gift: “owed from a natural exigency and the condition of human nature, not the
gratuitous kindness of God.” Quite certainly, in his view there was something lacking in
man which, without belonging to him essentially, was indispensable to him as the logical
complement of his being, just as wings were necessary to a bird to fly; and so his Creator
owed it to him.307
Coleridge makes a similar point: “to have been born with a body prone to sickness, and a
Soul surrounded with temptation, and having the worst temptation within itself in its own
temptibility! To have the duties of a Spirit with the wants and appetites of an Animal!”308
Coleridge understands Taylor to believe that this condition is the result of the loss of
supernatural grace; Taylor does on occasion hold this to be the case, which would align
his doctrine very closely with what had become the usual Roman Catholic teaching on
original sin at the time.309 However, elsewhere, and overall, as we have seen, Taylor
dismisses the idea that concupiscence and difficulty are the consequence of any
deprivation of supernatural aids. Nevertheless, the point Coleridge is making is the same:
307 de Lubac 2000 [1969] p29; emphasis original, quote from another scholar, Fr Feret.
308 Aids p208.
309 Admirably summarised by Newman in his reply to Pusey’s Eirenicon: 'Our doctrine of original
sin is not the same as the Protestant doctrine. "Original sin", with us, cannot be called sin, in the ordinary
sense of the word "sin"; it is a term denoting the imputation of Adam's sin, or the state to which Adam's sin
reduces his children; but by Protestants it is understood to be sin, in the same sense as actual sin. We, with
the Fathers, think of it as something negative, Protestants as something positive. Protestants hold that it is a
disease, a change of nature, a poison internally corrupting the soul, and propagated from father to son, after
the manner of a bad constitution ... by original sin we mean ... something negative, viz., this only, the
deprivation of that supernatural unmerited grace which Adam and Eve had on their creation, - deprivation
and the consequences of deprivation.' (Newman, Letter to Pusey p.51.) Whether Newman is correct in
thinking that “the Fathers” - certainly Augustine - regard original sin as a “mere deprivation”, is a moot
point. As we have seen, “original sin” for Augustine strictly always means a sinful will - or, as Coleridge
says, it is “not original, and not sin” - as opposed to the effects of Adam’s original sinful will, such as
mortality and concupiscence. Taylor denies that anything which is not an act of libertarian freedom is a sin:
so he places the insight behind original sin in the influence of “concupiscence” (etc) on the will. But this
reduces to either ‘Pelagianism’ or ‘Manicheanism’ as we have seen, and as the quote from Heber once more
underlines.
200
it is the one we saw Heber make in chapter 3: “he falls into the highest supralapsarian
Calvinism, by merely throwing a little further back the origin of man’s misery, and
representing him as coming immediately from the hand of his Maker with the same load
of invincible corruption (invincible unless by superadded grace) which his descendents in
their present state carry about with them.”310 The Kantian understanding of original sin,
which, as we saw in chapter 3, is in one sense more faithful to Augustinianism, is
supposed to evade such a criticism; given the “subjective necessity”, the actual
universality of the maxim of radical evil, it is not altogether clear whether it does so.
In the final chapter we shall see some of the consequences of Taylor’s rather
‘Baian’ view of human nature, in relation to his denial of any natural morality, and
ascription of all to grace: a view which certainly, as de Lubac says, makes the ethical
order wholly supernatural, even for a rational animal; and grace something “owed from a
natural exigency and the condition of human nature”.
310 Heber, Life, Works vol 1, cxxix.
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Appendix to Chapter 4: Newman and Taylor on human nature, nature and grace
and faith and reason
A similar view of the natural passions and other inclinations of human nature as having
their own proper and indefinite inclination, independent of instigation and perfect
direction by the rational will, and this as intrinsic to our natural condition, not a wholly
negative consequence of original sin, and the relationship of human nature so understood
to grace, can be found in a later writer, who was a close reader of Taylor during his
Anglican years: Cardinal Newman, here discussing “reason” as a faculty of human nature
compared to others, in his lectures on the idea of a university.
Right Reason, that is, Reason rightly exercised, leads the mind to the Catholic Faith, and
plants it there, and teaches it in all its religious speculations to act under its guidance. But
Reason, considered as a real agent in the world, and as an operative principle in man’s
nature, with an historical course and with definite results, is far from taking so straight and
satisfactory a direction. It considers itself from first to last independent and supreme; it
requires no external authority; it makes a religion for itself. Even though it accepts
Catholicism, it does not go to sleep; it has an action and a development of its own, as the
passions have, or the moral sentiments, or the principle of self-interest. Divine grace, to use
the language of Theology, does not by its presence supersede nature; nor is nature at once
brought into simple concurrence and coalition with grace. Nature pursues its course, now
coincident with that of grace, now parallel to it, now across, now divergent, now counter, in
proportion to its own imperfection and to the attraction and influence which grace exerts
over it. And what takes place as regards other principles of our nature and their
202
developments is found also as regards the Reason. 311
Newman has a similar idea of human nature and its inclinations to that of Taylor;
as well as a similar view of nature’s relationship to grace to both Taylor and de Lubac.
For Newman in this passage, the inclinations of human nature go their own way; they
have their own proper objects, which they pursue without any inherent natural restraint
relative to other considerations. In the Aristotelian terminology of the Scholastics, in
human nature, the ‘natural appetite’ does not follow the ‘natural power’. Human persons,
of course, are capable of restraining and directing and cultivating their inclinations,
whether of the mind or the body; but the inclinations themselves, including our reason,
are not naturally proportionate to our rational judgement concerning any moral or other
teleological scheme. Possibly Newman does think of this as a consequence of original
sin; but he does not seem to regard it as a bad thing in itself, a corruption relative to a
prior state of golden moderation and clear and distinct reasoning that came easily and
naturally to human beings in their original state. In fact, it appears that such a state is both
undesirable and grounded in an unreal view of human nature and its inclinations, on
Newman’s model, just as on Taylor’s. It is worth following this theme in the Idea of a
University a little further, to better illustrate this point in respect of Taylor’s view as well
as Newman’s.
Newman draws an analogy between reason as an inclination of human nature, and
the different subject areas taught in a university. His understanding of reason is not that of
the Roman Schools; indeed this is a view he is implicitly opposing. Newman’s idea of
reason is much more like Taylor’s; it achieves certainty by accumulated probabilities, and
a kind of phronesis, good judgement; as a result reasoning is not a straightforward,
311 Lecture VII, Liberal Knowledge viewed in relation to Religion, Everyman ed. p176.
203
demonstrative process, at any rate in the ‘moral sciences.’ Like reason itself, according to
Newman, the physical and moral sciences alike have no direct bearing on revealed truth:
natural science, as Galileo said, tell us how the heavens move, not how to arrive at
heaven; the humanities, meanwhile, lead us to an understanding of “man and his history”,
not directly as fallen and redeemed, the subject of salvation history and moral theology,
but simply man as we find him and experience him. But this does not make them
intrinsically opposed to Christianity [Catholicism] or invalidate their importance as fields
of study for Christians [Catholics]. On the contrary. Newman takes the (controversial, for
Catholics at that time) example of literature, by which he partly means ‘humanities’
subjects in general:
Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to nature; it is his history. Man is
composed of body and soul; he thinks and he acts; he has appetites, passions, affections,
motives, designs; he has within him the lifelong struggle of duty with inclination; he has an
intellect fertile and capricious; he is formed for society, and society multiplies and
diversifies in endless combinations his personal characteristics, moral and intellectual. All
this constitutes his life; of all this Literature is the expression; so that Literature is to man in
some sort what autobiography is to the individual; it is his Life and Remains. Moreover, he
is this sentient, intelligent, creative, and operative being, quite independent of any
extraordinary aid from Heaven, or any direct religious belief; and as such, as he is in
himself, does Literature represent him; it is the Life and Remains of the natural man, or
man in pura natura. I do not mean to say that it is impossible in its very notion that
Literature should be tinctured by a religious spirit; Hebrew Literature, as far as it can be
called Literature, certainly is simply theological, and has a character imprinted on it which
is above nature; but I am speaking of what is to be expected without any extraordinary
dispensation; and I say that, in matter of fact, as Science is the reflection of Nature, so is
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Literature also - the one, of Nature physical, the other, of Nature moral and social.312
There is an important distinction between the two (modern scientists would not altogether
agree with the static, Newtonian portrayal of physical nature, but perhaps this only
reinforces Newman’s argument): “while Nature physical remains fixed in its own laws,
Nature moral and social has a will of its own, is self-governed, and never remains any
long while in that state from which it started into action. Man will never continue in a
mere state of innocence; he is sure to sin, and his literature will be the expression of his
sin, and this whether he be heathen or Christian … from the nature of the case, if
Literature is to be made a study of human nature, you cannot have a Christian Literature
[that is, a literature that is simply morally edifying]. It is a contradiction in terms to
attempt a sinless literature of sinful man”.313 In a sense, then, there is no “pure nature,”
without sin as without fault, for Newman; but perhaps, as for Taylor, a state of “original
justice” makes little sense, too.
On Newman’s account, self-governed, wilful nature moral and social, is not
312 Ibid p222.
313 p223; 224. Augustine makes a similar claim for literature - secular, not sacred - that it draws our
attention to insights we somehow implicitly know already about human life; or, if we do not know them,
then we recognise the rightness, or authenticity, of what we are being shown: “[It is like someone who
shows us something, and says,] ‘You know this, but you do not know that you know it; I will remind you,
and you will discover that you know what you supposed you did not know.’ Literature performs precisely
this function, when it is about things that the reader discovers under the guidance of reason to be true, not
simply believing the writer that they are true as when he reads history, but himself discovering with the
writer that they are true, and discovering it either in himself or in truth itself guiding the mind.” de Trin
XIV.2.9. Augustine - and Newman - also think that sacred scripture functions this way; notwithstanding
what both say about the truths of faith being believed on authority, like those we accept in a more qualified
way from historians and scientists. The difference with secular literature is that the truths scripture
communicates include things that transcend what we already know, or experience, even implicitly;
however, like the Trinity itself in Augustine’s great work, they connect with things we do know already: we
can understand the Trinity that God is, to a limited extent, because we already know our own mind, and the
mind is capable of participation in God, because it already possesses the divine image in the structure of its
consciousness of memory, understanding and will: de Trin 14.3.11. (For a large part of the work, Augustine
seeks to prove to us that we do indeed know intuitively that we are memory, understanding and will.)
Revealed truths are thrown into propositional form by the church. What Christians believe on authority, for
Augustine and Newman, is an abstract, propostional description of a spiritual reality that is communicated
in a more subtle way.
205
simply a realistic assessment of how things are in our fallen state: it reflects our nature in
itself, as created by God. Literature is the reflection of every aspect of human nature, of a
“sentient, intelligent, creative, and operative being”, with “appetites, passions, affections,
motives, designs”, and “an intellect fertile and capricious”, which is the source of
intellectual vitality and vigour and the ground of human achievement, as well as the
source of sin and religious infidelity. The two aspects are not separable; they belong to
the same essential nature of human reason: “Knowledge, viewed as Knowledge, exerts a
subtle influence in throwing us back on ourselves, and making us our own centre, and our
minds the measure of all things.” This is necessary for the unbiased pursuit of truth, at
any rate of natural truth, aside from divine revelation; but a side effect, is that “Liberal
Knowledge has a special tendency, not necessary or rightful, but a tendency in fact, when
cultivated by beings such as we are, to impress us with a mere philosophical theory of life
and conduct, in the place of Revelation … Pursue [knowledge] … to its furthest extent
and its true limit, and you are led … to the Eternal and Infinite, to the intimations of
conscience and the announcements of the Church. Satisfy yourself with what is only
visibly or intelligibly excellent, as you are likely to do, and you will make present utility
and natural beauty the practical test of truth, and the sufficient object of the intellect.”
(p212.)
Newman illustrates how the necessary and rightful operation of natural reason can
be ostensibly opposed to Revelation, using the example of the “opposition between
Theology and Physics” noted by Francis Bacon, whose importance for Taylor we
considered in chapter 1. “Lord Bacon’s justification, and an intelligible one, for
considering that the fall of the atheistic philosophy [Epicureanism] in ancient times was a
blight upon the hopes of physical science” is that the “inquiry into final causes … passes
over the existence of established laws [of nature]; [and] the inquiry into physical, passes
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over … the existence of God”. Final causes “are properly alleged in metaphysics; but in
physics, are impertinent, and as remoras to the ship, that hinder the sciences from holding
on their course of improvement, and introducing a neglect of searching after physical
causes”. (p217, quoting from Bacon). Newman contrasts the empirical method in science,
with the “deductive” method (from the truths of faith) in theology: “Christian Truth is
purely of revelation; that revelation we can but explain, we cannot increase, except
relative to our own apprehensions … Avowals such as these fall strange upon the ear of
men whose first principle is the search after truth, and whose starting-points of search are
things material and sensible. They scorn any process of inquiry not founded on
experiment; the Mathematics indeed they endure, because that science deals with ideas,
not with facts, and leads to conclusions hypothetical rather than real; ‘Metaphysics’ they
even use as a by-word of reproach; and Ethics they admit only on condition that it gives
up conscience as its scientific ground, and bases itself on tangible utility”. (p219.)
Reason has its own space, then, exemplified by the study of both science and the
humanities, upon which theological doctrines and church authority have no immediate
claim. This is not simply a consequence of the fallen state; it is basic to the natural
created order, to the way that human reason works, and to the independent operation of
all natural processes; as such, it is good in itself, and worthy to be cultivated. Yet the
same state of things is the cause of sin and apostasy; indeed, without completion by
revelation, scientific and philosophical reason, belonging to man in his natural state,
almost inevitably runs into a position opposed to Christianity: Newman’s penultimate
lecture, Liberal Knowledge viewed in relation to religion, is subtly devoted to this issue,
chiefly with reference to a secular moral ideal, created by a liberal education: “the beau
ideal of the world”. Here is his conclusion, or peroration:
207
Such are some of the lineaments of the ethical character, which the cultivated intellect will
form, apart from religious principle. They are seen within the pale of the Church and
without it, in holy men and in profligate; they form the beau ideal of the world; they partly
assist and partly distort the development of the Catholic. They may subserve the education
of a St Francis de Sales or a Cardinal Pole; they may be the limits of the virtue of a
Shaftesbury or a Gibbon. [St] Basil [of Caesarea] and [the Emperor] Julian [‘the Apostate’]
were fellow-students at the school of Athens; and one became a Saint and Doctor of the
Church, the other her scoffing and relentless foe.314
For Newman, there is no definable state of pure nature in contrast to fallen nature: nature,
considered in itself, is always dynamic and unformed, and grace always works with it in
the same way: the Church works like “some moral factory, for the melting, refining, and
moulding, by an incessant, noisy process, of the raw material of human nature, so
excellent, so dangerous, so capable of divine purposes”.315
Human nature and academic disciplines alike have their own momentum and
direction; indeed, the latter derive their right to their own independence and integrity
from the natural tendencies of the former. Newman thinks that in the university as in the
individual, this is a good thing, which drives our understanding of the world; but he also
thinks that the authority of the Church has a role to play, in a Catholic university as in
relation to Catholic believers, in setting out the boundaries of theological truth relative to
other disciplines, as it does relative to the tendencies of human nature and the
speculations of human reason in general, which pursue their “course, now coincident with
that of grace, now parallel to it, now across, now divergent, now counter”. It is vital that
reason be allowed to go its own way; it is equally vital that the truths of faith be
314 Ibid p205.
315 Apologia p284.
208
established as a counterweight. The tension between private judgment and magisterial
authority can be a creative one if wisely managed (which it wasn’t being, in Newman’s
view, at the time Newman was writing).
For Taylor reason exercises the same control on faith, and faith on reason, as for
Newman, though there is no formal magisterium in Taylor’s view beyond scripture and
the united witness of the “undivided church”:
Whatsoever is against right reason, that no faith can oblige us to believe. For although
reason is not the positive and affirmative measures of our faith, and God can do more than
we can understand, and our faith ought to be larger than our reason, and take something
into her heart that reason can never take into her eye; yet in all our creed there can be
nothing against reason. If true reason justly contradicts an article, it is not “of the
household of faith”.316
This is because “The authority of scripture is superinduced, but right reason is the eternal
word of God; ‘the kingdom of God’ that is ‘within us’ … and therefore in whatsoever [a
man] goes against his reason he must needs go against his conscience, because he goes
against that by which he supposes God did intend to govern him, reason not having been
placed in us as a snare and a temptation, but as a light and a star to lead us by day and
night”.317 However, we “cannot safely conclude thus, This is agreeable to right reason,
therefore this is so in scripture, or in the counsel of God; not [because] one reason can be
against another, when all things are equal, but [because] the state of things, and of
discourses is imperfect”; and “whatsoever is above our understanding is not against it”:318
316 Worthy Communicant, Works vol 8 p106.
317 Ductor Dubitantium vol 1 p69
318 Ibid p69,70.
209
The reason of man is a right judge always when she is truly informed; but in many things
she knows nothing but the face of the article: the mysteries of faith are oftentimes like
cherubim’s heads placed over the propitiatory, where you may see a clear and a bright face
and golden wings, but there is no body to be handled; there is light and splendour upon the
brow, but you may not grasp it; and though you see the revelation clear, and the article
plain, yet the reason of it we cannot see at all; that is, the whole knowledge which we can
have here is dark and obscure.319
Reason exercises a certain control on faith; faith begins, we may say, where reason leaves
off; or, faith completes, and can transcend, but not contradict, reason. Taylor bases his
view on Richard Hooker and Thomas Aquinas; with their Scholastic understanding of
reason adapted by Grotius and probabilism. Similarly, in The Idea of a University
Newman argues that the truths of faith come from revelation, not reason; but “Nature and
Grace, Reason and Revelation, come from the same Divine Author, whose works cannot
contradict each other.” (p214-5.) But as we have seen, this is far from immediately
obvious to reason, starting from the bottom, operating by itself, going its own way.
Reason is a negative test, where revealed truth is concerned.
That the new and further manifestations of the Almighty, made by Revelation, are in
perfect harmony with the teaching of the natural world, forms indeed one subject of the
profound work of the Protestant Bishop Butler; but they cannot in any sense be gathered
from nature, and the silence of nature concerning them may easily seduce the imagination,
though it has no force to persuade the reason, to revolt from doctrines which have not been
authenticated by facts, but are enforced by authority. In a scientific age, then, there will
319 Ibid p64.
210
naturally be a parade of what is called Natural Theology, a widespread profession of the
Unitarian creed, an impatience of mystery, and a scepticism about miracles. (p221.)
By natural theology, Newman means reducing religion to what can be known by, or
reasonably believed on the basis of, reason alone; and he associates it with
Latitudinarianism, and the Socinian divines of the 18th century who pursued a scientific,
or pseudo-scientific, approach to theology; such as that associated with William Paley.
Taylor influenced Newman’s principle source, Bishop Butler, but as we shall see in the
next chapter, Taylor is actually more sceptical than Newman and Butler about the
“teaching of the natural world”. The natural world gives little indication, at first, of any
moral governorship by a wise and beneficent Providence. This is most apparent from
Taylor’s account of natural law.
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Chapter 5: Taylor on natural law
In this chapter, I consider Taylor’s ideas about nature and grace in the context of natural
law. Taylor’s views on natural law follow a humanist tradition, based on the idea of a
“state of nature”; instead of the common Christian narrative of fall and corruption, this
tradition posited a theoretical state of nature in which animal appetites were naturally
unconstrained in man, and built a structure of morality and law on top of this. Grotius and
his followers, notably Hobbes, sought to build a purely natural law from sceptical
beginnings, to some extent aiming to construct a non-teleological, post-Aristotelian
version of Aquinas’s natural law theory, which made use of Augustine’s ideas about the
“temporal law” and the “peace of the earthly city”: a non-salvific natural law for fallen
man whose reasoning is fallible, which is built on self interest, since the fallen world is
one of ignorance and passion. Like Taylor, Grotius and Hobbes effectively identify fallen
nature and pure nature, naturalising what were traditionally held to be the result of the
fall. Taylor, however, rejects the notion of natural law developed by Grotius and other,
due to his belief that a law founded on self interest, like a law derived from natural
teleology, would compromise the unqualified nature of morality, and human freedom. But
this leads him to what we called a “Baian” view, at the end of chapter 4. However, Taylor
is not simply a divine command ethicist or voluntarist; he is also much influenced by the
intuitionism characteristic of Platonism and the Church Fathers.
Taylor, like some modern theologians in the high Anglican and Roman Catholic
traditions, despite the Catholic natural law tradition, thinks that ultimately morality, and
even law and political authority, requires revelation. This seems somewhat analogous to
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Baius, and what de Lubac calls “strict traditionalism”.320 Grotius and Hobbes looked for
purely natural foundation for the state and society: like Augustine’s temporal law and
earthly peace. Taylor makes use of their account to defend the idea of the natural as good,
aside from grace and revelation; but not natural law. But this brings the idea of a natural
good at all into question.
5.1 Taylor’s idea of nature in the context of questions of natural right and natural law
Taylor also expresses his idea of pure human nature in the abstract, nature as it is in itself,
by means of the ancient legal concept of the ius naturale, the “right of nature”. According
to the Digest, “ius naturale” refers to “the natural facultas of doing what one wants, as
long as it is not prevented by force or law (ius).” Taylor follows earlier legal and political
thinkers in the humanist tradition, and notably two influential contemporaries, John
Selden and Thomas Hobbes, in understanding this to refer, in the first instance, to a
purely negative freedom, a theoretical state in which there is no law or restraint on the
natural desires and impulses of the individual. These impulses are effectively in a ‘postlapsarian’
state, understood as natural. Given Taylor’s acceptance of libertarian freedom,
the fact that this is how nature is in itself, as opposed to containing any natural teleology,
provides a morally neutral background for freedom of choice: nature in itself determines
us to no particular moral end. We must choose by our own free will to organise and
discipline our freely-inclining natural tendencies according to moral standards which are
supervenient upon the state of nature.
320 There is no conflict between Taylor’s idea of a freely inclining, dynamic nature, which is always
in relation to grace, and the possibility of a purely natural morality. Indeed, Cardinal de Lubac says that
insofar as St Augustine denied “a purely rational morality … St Augustine was wrong”, 1969 p105-6,
agreeing with those critics who suggest that in this respect Baius and Jansenius followed Augustine, but
denying that this constituted the essence of their heresies.
213
Taylor rejects the idea of a natural law partly on the grounds that it compromises
moral freedom, and partly on similar grounds to those which Pope Benedict XVI has
highlighted as the basis for modern scepticism about traditional ideas of natural law:
Natural law has remained - especially in the Catholic Church - one element in the arsenal
of arguments in conversations with secular society and with other communities of faith,
appealing to shared reason in the attempt to discern the basis of consensus about ethical
principles of law in a pluralistic, secular society. Unfortunately, this element has become
blunt, and that is why I do not wish to employ it to support my arguments in this
discussion [about the moral foundations of a free state]. The idea of the natural law
presupposed a concept of nature in which nature and reason interlock; nature itself is
rational. The victory of the theory of evolution has meant the end of this view of nature.321
Taylor had not, of course, heard of the theory of evolution, but the concept of nature with
which he is dealing is no longer one in which “nature and reason interlock”, in Pope
Benedict’s sense.322 Nature has no intrinsic rational or teleological order capable of
providing moral guidance. An examination of ‘nature’ as it is in itself with a view to
deciding how to live yields nothing more than a course driven by the fulfilment of natural
impulses and survival. Taylor takes the traditional categories of the “right” of nature, and
the “law” of nature, and dismisses the idea that the former represents any kind of inherent
positive right:
The right of nature or jus naturae, is no law, and the law of nature is no natural right. The
321 Values in a time of Upheaval, San Francisco: Ignatius 2006, p38-9.
322 The Pope, and Taylor, apparently think this means morality and law need theological
presuppositions. This is just what Aquinas, Grotius and Hobbes, and even Augustine, don’t think, as we
shall see.
214
right of nature is a perfect and universal liberty to do whatsoever can secure me or please
me. For the appetites that are prime, original and natural, do design us towards their
satisfaction, and were a continual torment, and in vain, if they were not in order to their
rest, contentedness and perfection. Whatsoever we naturally desire, naturally we are
permitted to. For natures are equal, and the capacities are the same, and the desires alike;
and it were a contradiction to say that naturally we are restrained from any thing to which
we naturally tend. Therefore to save my own life, I can kill another, or twenty, or a
hundred, or take from his hands to please myself, if it happens in my circumstances or
power; and so for eating, and drinking, and pleasures. If I can desire, I may possess or
enjoy it; this is the right of nature. Jus naturae, by jus or right understanding not a
collated or legal right, but a negative right, that is, such a right as every man hath without
a law, and such as that by which the stones in the streets are mine or yours; by a right that
is negative, because they are nullius in bonis, they are appropriate to no man, and may be
mine; that is, I may take them up and carry them to my bed of turf, where the natural,
wild or untutored man doth sit. But this is not the law of nature, nor passes any obligation
at all.323
The jus naturae is a purely negative liberty or licence, “such a right as every man hath
without a law”. Human appetites in their present state are “prime, original and natural”,
and not the consequence of original sin. They incline blindly towards their own
satisfaction, and there is no rationally-discernible internal scheme for their regulation;
therefore, on the basis of nature alone, “whatsoever we naturally desire, naturally we are
permitted to”. One person has as much ‘right’ to something as anyone else, on this basis:
for “natures are equal, and capacities are the same, and desires alike”, at any rate nearly
enough to make little difference. As Taylor’s contemporary, the great materialist political
323 Ductor Dubitantium vol 1, Works vol 9 p280.
215
philosopher Thomas Hobbes, said:
Nature hath made men so equall, in the faculties of body, and mind; as that though there
bee found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than
another; yet when all is reckoned together, the difference between man, and man, is not so
considerable, as that one man can claim to himselfe any benefit, to which another may
not pretend, as well as he. For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough
to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are
in the same danger with himselfe. [All things considered, strength of mind doesn’t
adequately set anyone apart, either.]
From this equality of ability, ariseth equality of hope in the attaining of our Ends.324
This is a very different notion of “equality” from that described by the greatest exponent
of classical Christian natural law theory, Thomas Aquinas, on which he bases his account
of justice and right (ius):
It is proper to justice, as compared with the other virtues, to direct man in his relations with
others, because it denotes a kind of equality, as its very name implies; indeed we are wont
to say that things are adjusted when they are made equal, for equality is in reference of one
thing to some other.325
The virtue of justice is “the firm and stable will to render to each their own”, or their
“right”, and on the Aristotelian account adapted by St Thomas “each man’s own is that
which is due to him according to equality of proportion.” (ST 2a2ae q58 art11).
324 Leviathan 13.
325 ST 2a2ae q57 art1.
216
For Taylor, in contrast, it is not possible to derive a notion of justice from natural
proportion, or from anything else in nature; at least not with such quasi-mathematical
certainty:
Justice is natural, as all virtues are, that is, reasonable and perfective of our nature, and
introductive of well-being. But nature alone hath not enjoined it originally, any more than
matrimonial chastity was a natural law, which could not be before Eve was created, and yet
our nature was perfect before.326
Justice, according to Taylor, like grace according to Aquinas, completes or perfects
nature. But it is not demonstratively derivable from it; “neither can any man be sure that
any thing is a law of nature, because it seems to him hugely reasonable, neither if it be so
indeed, is it thereby a law.”
Taylor is making quite a radical distinction between the ethical sphere, and a
purely natural one in which blind processes and animal instincts are morally indifferent in
themselves, until consciousness, and with it an intuitive sense of freedom and thus moral
responsibility,327 introduce the question of right and wrong: reason, says Taylor, “is that
which distinguishes us from beasts, and makes us capable of laws”,328 though “reason is
326 DD vol 1, Works vol 9 p281.
327 Compare Coleridge: “whatever originates its own acts, or in any sense contains in itself the cause
of its own state, must be spiritual, and consequently supernatural: yet not on that account necessarily
miraculous. And such must the responsible Will in us be, if it be at all”. “Spirit”, or “spiritual” or
“supernatural” mean for Coleridge “That which is not comprehended in Nature: or in the language of our
elder divines, that which transcends Nature” in this sense of not being subject to cause and effect.
328 As Taylor argues against Aquinas and others, “that a thing is common to men and beasts is no
indication of a law of nature, but only of a common necessity, instinct or inclination respectively. For they
do it without a law, and therefore so may we, unless something else besides nature makes it a law to us; for
nature or natural desire in them and us is the same, but this desire is in them where a law cannot be, and
therefore in us also it may be without a law. Beasts do all that they can do, and can love, and are no more
capable of law than of reason; and if they have instincts and inclinations, it is no otherwise than their
appetites to meat, concerning which nature hath determined all, but without proper obligation … “Fishes
and birds eat one another, because they have no justice or laws amongst them”, said Hesiod; and the like is
in Homer.” Works vol 9 p284. The reference to Hesiod and Homer’s conceptions of nature is interesting;
217
not itself the law, or its measure”.
Right reason is the instrument of using the law of nature, and is that by which together with
the conscience (which is also reason) we are determined to a choice and prosecution of it
ourselves, or to a willingness of obeying the obliging power … “reason entertains the
divine laws (of nature), and so is made a most vigilant judge”, said Hierocles. This is that
which distinguishes us from beasts, and makes us capable of laws.329
Reason and free will are natural to human beings, but there is no natural moral law, either
derivable from the natural order by reason, or from the principles of reason alone.
Taylor seems to think that the existence of such a law would compromise the
unqualified nature of morality; that is, people would choose to behave ethically on
account of its truthfulness, rather than on account of an unqualified perception of its sheer
goodness: in Kantian language, they would be driven by factors other than the law’s
“own exceeding lawfulness” (with the vital difference that for Kant, truthfulness and
goodness are identifiable; unqualified respect for the moral law comes precisely from a
perception of its rationality. It ought to be pointed out that Taylor seems to mainly have in
mind the Thomistic idea of natural law, as he understands it, and theories based on what
he refers to as “well-being”, or, as we shall see, self-interest, rather than any proto-
Kantian account, such as Stephen Darwall identifies in the work of Taylor’s
contemporaries the Cambridge Platonists;330 at least one of whom, Henry More, was a
friend of Taylor).
However, it is clearly the case that without a rational basis for morality and law,
Taylor could equally have mentioned Lucretius or Epicurus. Compare the view of nature in Montaigne’s
Apology for Raymond Sebond.
329 D.D. vol 1, Works vol. 9 p293.
330 The British Moralists and the Internal Ought Cambridge 1995.
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divine law, or even merely human positive law, can become wholly arbitrary, based for its
authority entirely on sanction and enforcement, rather than a good reason (whatever that
may be, and however it may be assessed). This has both theological and political
implications.
5.2 Taylor’s rejection of natural law and its implications
To “well-being”, or as an essential part of it, Taylor might have added “self
interest” or “self preservation”; it seems clear that a theory of justice founded on this
would have been still less to Taylor’s taste. Yet Taylor’s account of the “right of nature” is
largely based on a tradition that derived a theory of natural law from precisely this.
Taylor’s discussion is principally indebted to the English legal theorist John Selden,
whose work also influenced Hobbes; Selden and Hobbes were both profoundly
influenced by Grotius. Grotius rejected the idea of a natural justice based on equality of
proportion as both absurd and contrary to conventional ideas of justice,331 and sought a
basis for law and morality that could be regarded as valid on the most sceptical analysis,
even in the event of “what could not without the greatest impiety be maintained”, the
non-existence of God. The trouble with Grotius, from the point of view of Selden and
Taylor, was that he didn’t identify an adequate source of obligation.332
Grotius identified the desires for one’s own preservation and flourishing as basic
facts about human nature which even the ancient sceptics of the New Academy accepted.
In the Prolegomena to his De Indis, he describes what one might call a sceptical version
331 'This … was correctly observed by the teacher of Cyrus. For when Cyrus had given to the smaller
boy a smaller tunic although it belonged to another, and on the other hand had given a larger tunic to the
larger boy, his teacher thus instructed him: ‘That would have been a proper course to pursue in case a
referee had been appointed to decide what would be suitable for each; but when the question to be settled
was, to which boy the tunic belonged, then only one point was to be considered, which boy was more justly
entitled to it - whether the object should belong to him who had violently taken it away, or to him who had
made or purchased it.’” (De Iure Belli, Prol. 3; Xenophon, Training of Cyrus II.ii.18.)
332 Parkin 1999 p60.
219
of Aristotelian appetition, to the extent that the appetition is for oneself and one’s own
interest:
Since God fashioned creation and willed its existence, every individual part thereof has
received from Him certain natural properties whereby that existence may be preserved
and each part guided for its own good, in conformity, one might say, with the
fundamental law inherent in its origin. From this fact the old poets and philosophers have
rightly deduced that love, whose primary force and action was directed to self-interest, is
the first principle of the whole natural order. Consequently, Horace should not be
censured for saying, in imitation of the Academics, that expediency might perhaps be
called the mother of justice and equity. For all things in nature, as Cicero repeatedly
insists, are tenderly regardful of self, and seek their own happiness and security. This
phenomenon can be observed not only in the human race, but among the beasts also, and
even in connexion with inanimate objects, being a manifestation of that true and divinelyinspired
self-love, which is laudable in every phase of creation. As for the philautia
which is classified as a vice - in other words, immoderate self-interest - it is an excess of
such love.333
For Grotius in this passage, the good is “that at which all things aim”: but this specifically
means one’s own good. Grotius also seeks to found natural law on other natural human
inclinations, notably sociability, and in this respect is reminiscent of Aquinas. In the
Prolegomena to his late masterpiece, the De Iure belli ac Pacis, Grotius argues that
human beings have an "impelling desire for society, that is, for the social life - not of any
and every sort, but peaceful, and organised according to the measure of his intelligence,
with those who are of his own kind; this social trend the Stoics call 'sociableness'".
333 de Indis, Prol. p.9; cit. Tuck 1993 p.172-3.
220
(Prol.6). According to Grotius, "maintenance of [this] social order…consonant with
human intelligence" is the "source of law properly so-called" (Prol.8).
Since over other animals man has the advantage of possessing not only a strong bent
towards social life, of which we have spoken, but also a power of discrimination which
enables him to decide what things are agreeable or harmful (as to both things present and
things to come), and what can lead to either alternative: in such things it is meet for the
nature of man, within the limits of human intelligence, to follow the directions of a welltempered
judgement, being neither led astray by fear or the allurement of immediate
pleasure, nor carried away by rash impulse. Whatever is clearly at variance with such
judgement is understood to be contrary also to the law of nature, that is, to the nature of
man. (Prol.10).
However, in Book I Chapter I section III Grotius states that "law in our use of the
term here means nothing else than what is just, and that, too, rather in a negative than an
affirmative sense, that being lawful which is not unjust". And "that is unjust which is in
conflict with the nature of society of beings endowed with reason". The lawful is that
which is not unjust; and we discover what is not unjust with reference to whatever
undermines the social life towards which we are inclined by nature:
Thus Cicero declares that to take away from another in order to gain advantage for
oneself is contrary to nature; and in proof he adduces the argument that, if this should
happen, human society and the common good would of necessity be destroyed … "Just as
all the members of the body agree with one another", says Seneca, "because the
preservation of each conduces to the welfare of the whole, so men refrain from injuring
one another because we are born for community of life. For society can exist in safety
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only through the mutual love and protection of the parts of which it is composed."
So individual preservation and flourishing alike are threatened by unsocial behaviour:
For society has in view this object, that through community of resource and effort each
individual be safeguarded in the possession of what belongs to him ... It is not, then,
contrary to the nature of society to look out for oneself and advance one's own interests,
provided the rights of others are not infringed; and consequently the use of force which
does not violate the rights of others is not unjust. ( I.II.I.5,6).
Hobbes took the idea of self preservation as the foundation of natural law to the
extreme, specifically to develop a basis for law and morality out of even the most
sceptical analysis. Hobbes describes the same theoretical state of liberty and right in the
most absolute and negative sense, a state of unconstrained licence and anarchy, described
by Taylor. Hobbes, the keener philosophical mind, defines his terms more closely.
The Right of Nature, which writers commonly call Jus Naturale, is the Liberty each man
hath, to use his own power, as he will himselfe, for the preservation of his own Nature; that
is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own
Judgement, and Reason, hee shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto.
By Liberty, is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of
external Impediments: which Impediments, may oft take away part of man’s power to do
what hee would; but cannot hinder him from using the power left him, according as his
judgement, and reason shall dictate to him …
because the condition of Man … is a condition of Warre of every one against every one; in
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which case every one is governed by his own Reason; and there is nothing he can make use
of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemyes; It followeth,
that in such a condition, every man has a Right to every thing; even to one anothers body.334
But due to equality of natures in his sense of no one being able to get the upper hand over
anyone else, it is contrary to one’s own interests not to respect others: from this Hobbes
derives certain “laws of nature”, namely that people should “seek peace, and follow it”,
insofar as others are willing to do so to - otherwise such a course would do no more than
expose those who pursued peace “to prey”. The pursuit of peace involves laying down
our “right to all things”, insofar as we may safely do so, and being “contented with so
much liberty against others men, as he would allow other men against himselfe”.335
In addition, human co-operation is mutually beneficial in a more positive sense:
In such condition [the state of nature], there is no place for Industry; because the fruit
thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of
the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instrument of
moving, and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the
Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all,
continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty,
brutish, and short.336
Perhaps this approach to natural law is not so different from that of Aquinas as is
sometimes claimed. When attempting to identify an idea of “good [that ] is to be done,
and evil [that is to be] avoided” on the basis of a consideration of natural human
334 Leviathan 14.
335 Ibid, original emphasis.
336 Lev.13.
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inclinations alone, Aquinas also begins from self-preservation; and like Grotius in de Iure
Belli ac Pacis, or even Hobbes on the subject of arts, letters, navigation and the like, he
also thinks that the fundamental characteristics of our nature leads us to certain
conclusions about what is good for humans in a more positive sense. But essentially, for
Aquinas as for Grotius and Hobbes, even what is good for humans communally is
ultimately good for the individual on the basis of their own self-love or self-interest (even
where it is not a matter of self preservation), when natural inclinations alone are taken
into account. At any rate, one could certainly interpret the following passage in these
terms, bearing in mind that Aquinas is discussing a purely natural law, that makes no
contribution in itself to salvation:
Since good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all
those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason
as being good, and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and
objects of avoidance. Wherefore the order of the precepts of the natural law, is according
to the order of natural inclinations. Because in man there is first of all an inclination to
good in accordance with the nature which he has in common with all substances:
inasmuch as every substance seeks the preservation of its own being, according to its
nature: and by reason of this inclination, whatever is a means of preserving human life,
and of warding off its obstacles, belongs to the natural law. Secondly, there is in man an
inclination to things that pertain to him more specially, according to that nature which he
has in common with other animals: and in virtue of this inclination, those things are said
to belong to the natural law, "which nature has taught to all animals" [Pandect. Just. I, tit.
i], such as sexual intercourse, education of offspring and so forth. Thirdly, there is in man
an inclination to good, according to the nature of his reason, which nature is proper to
him: thus man has a natural inclination to know the truth about God, and to live in
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society: and in this respect, whatever pertains to this inclination belongs to the natural
law; for instance, to shun ignorance, to avoid offending those among whom one has to
live, and other such things regarding the above inclination.337
Indeed, Grotius ascribes to Aristotle himself the view that there is a difference
between good in the absolute sense, and what is good for oneself; in the following
passage, Grotius manages to make Aristotle sound quite ‘Hobbesian’:
there is one kind of good that is so called in an absolute sense, and there is another that is
good from the standpoint of a particular individual. Indeed, to borrow Aristotle’s
admirable explanation, “whatever each person’s understanding has ruled for him
regarding a given matter, that for him is good.” For God created man autoexousion, “free
and sui iuris”, so that the actions of each individual and the use of his possessions were
subject not to another’s will but to his own … For what is that well-known concept
“natural liberty”, other than the power of the individual to act in accordance with his own
will? And liberty in regard to actions is equivalent to dominium in material things.338
In a way the humanists accept Aquinas’s first kind of ius naturale, the merely
negative kind, but not his second; indeed, Grotius and Hobbes seek to derive the second
simply from the first:
A thing is said to belong to the natural law in two ways. First, because nature inclines
thereto; for example, that one should not do harm to another. Secondly, because nature did
not bring in the contrary; thus we might say that for man to be naked is of the natural law
337 ST 1a2ae Q94 art2. Avoiding offending those among whom one has to live is in every individual’s
best interest; for the reasons Hobbes gives, and for the sake of the flourishing of the whole community -
which is also in one’s own interest.
338 de Iure Praedae trans. Williams 1950, p18, cit. Tuck 1979 p60.
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because nature did not give him clothes, but art invented them. In this sense, “the
possession of all things in common and universal freedom” is said to be of the natural law,
because the distinction of possessions and slavery were not brought in by nature but
devised by human reason for the benefit of human life.339
Professor Tuck points out that the first kind of right is not a prima facie right of any kind,
for Aquinas; in contrast to Scotus, who thought that individual dominium was excluded
by the common use of the state of innocence.340 (Compare Augustine in CD 19.15.) For
the humanist writers, there is no state of innocence; just the state of nature: natural
liberty, is simply the ability to take whatever you want. This is not a positive right as such
either; but in effect it becomes one, in the absence of force or law.
“Natural liberty” for Grotius means to do what one wants, and this can be divided
into two senses: it refers to both free will, and to living as one pleases, in the absence of
any law or other constraint, in the external sense (as for Hobbes in his discussion of right
and liberty in Leviathan, above; we are also free to do as we want, internally, for Hobbes,
but he rejects liberty of indifference). Grotius uses the Greek terms autoexousion, which
we have already encountered as used by the Neoplatonists and the Church Fathers, to
refer to both kinds of freedom. We have seen in chapter 3 that free will can have two
senses: either the power to choose one thing or another, or simply the freedom to do what
you want unhindered, irrespective of whether you can choose between competing wants.
Hobbes accepts the latter sense of freedom but not the former; the Arminian Grotius, like
Taylor, also accepts the former.341
339 ST 1a1ae q94 art5.
340 Tuck 1979 p20-1.
341 The Platonists mean externally uninhibited freedom (including freedom from one’s own passions
and appetites), but not necessarily liberty of indifference; the Fathers liberty of indifference; as we have
seen in ch.4.
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Grotius claims that living as one pleases, in the absence of law, represents a kind
of dominium, analogous to the power we have over our own will (the power Augustine
claims, at least for man in innocence, in DLA): we have a kind of mastery, power, control
over something, if we own it; and in the absence of law, no one owns anything: Taylor’s
“stones in the streets” can be “mine or yours”, precisely because they are “appropriate to”
no one, beyond whoever can take them. Something can become ‘one’s own’ simply
because there is no restriction on our power to use or possess it; just as an unimpeded will
is in our power, so also things are absolutely in our power when there is no controlling or
regulating force or law. In a curious way, then, a negative right to something due to the
mere absence of any force or law, becomes a kind of positive right, based on one’s
unhindered power to take it or control it.
But, as Taylor says, “this is not the law of nature, nor passes any obligation at all”.
It is “such a right as every man hath without a law”. Grotius, like Taylor, rejects any
positive conception of an inherent ius naturale, other than the dominium anyone may
have, where there is no force or law to prevent them. The Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla,
cited by Taylor as an example of a writer who rejects ius naturale,342 does so because he
thinks ius must refer to something positive: “it is ridiculous to call ius naturale what
nature teaches to all animals. Who will call the desire for association, and even more the
desire to harm weaker animals, ravage and kill, a ius?”343 Yet this is just what Grotius and
his followers, including Taylor, refer to using the term ius.
For when God made man a free agent, He by nature gave him power to do all he could
342 Works vol.9 p283.
343 cit. Tuck 1979 p34. Contrast with Taylor on fish and animals and ius in Hesiod and Homer, above,
note 327. Animals have no free will in the sense defended by Grotius and Taylor, but they are certainly free
to pursue their appetites. Valla also defended the compatibility of free will and divine foreknowledge; and
was more interested in Stoicism and Epicureanism, and reconciling them in Christianity, than in
Aristotle/Scholasticism. See Sarasohn 1996 p22 on Valla.
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desire: and all that is jus naturale, a natural right or power: it needs no instances; for it is
everything he could desire in eating and drinking and pleasures and rule and possession:
but the law was superinduced upon this. Right is liberty, but law is a fetter. Nature is free
to everything which it naturally desires; … “that’s the right of nature, to be free, to be
subject to no law, to do absolutely whatever pleases us.”344
Like Hobbes, Taylor has St Paul in mind in his context of right and liberty in their most
basic sense: “But for the law, I had not known sin.” For Taylor, the law, and the capacity
to understand and choose to obey it, is what introduces the question of morality, and the
idea of ‘sin’. One consequence of this is that, as Hobbes says, “The Desires, and other
Passions of man, are in themselves no Sin. No more are the actions, that proceed from
those Passions, till they know a Law that forbids them”.345 The “desires and passions of
man” are in themselves neither good nor bad; their relationship to the supervenient moral
law determines whether they are legitimate or must be resisted. Again, Taylor is rejecting
the Augustinian idea that the present state of human passions and appetites derives from
the Fall; they are natural, and prior to any question of law or morality, or in an allowable
moral context, they are innocent. We might say that the only real sense which the idea of
an original “state of innocence” has for Taylor, is of a state in which right and wrong did
not apply, due to the absence of conscious freedom and law: nothing is either good or bad
but thinking - the ability to reason and make conscious choices in the light of some
recognisable binding moral obligation - makes it so. Prior to that, or without that, all is
morally neutral.346 But this brings us to the question of the origin of obligation.
The radical natural liberty of will and appetite found in the state of nature is
344 Works vol.9, p295.
345 Lev.13.
346 Compare Hobbes on the absence of right and wrong in the state of nature, at the end of Lev.ch.13.
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restrained by a natural law grounded on the preservation and flourishing of each
individual, for Grotius and Hobbes; but Taylor follows Selden in rejecting this solution.
For Taylor, the basis for morality, and even law, lies wholly with divine revelation.
Reason “makes us capable of laws”; but “reason is not the law, or its measure; neither can
any man be sure that any thing is a law of nature, because it seems to him hugely
reasonable, neither if it be so indeed, is it thereby a law”. Reason makes us capable of
understanding and choosing to obey the law, but the obligatory force of the law comes
from an “obliging power”. Taylor is a voluntarist, that is, the source of law is not reason
or a rationally-discernible order in nature, but will; however, he is a voluntarist of a rather
curious kind. Firstly, he does allow a role, sometimes quite a significant role, for reason.
Reason, says Taylor, “can demonstrate, and it can persuade and invite, but not compel
anything but assent, not obedience, and therefore is no law.”347 Law requires enforcement,
or it cannot properly be considered law; and perfect sanction can only come from God:
“It was God that gave justice to mankind: He made justice by his sanction.”348
This would seem to suggest that while reason can indeed indicate the divine law,
its conclusions cannot be regarded as law, only because the conclusions of reason cannot
enforce obedience by themselves; and we cannot be sure that something is a law, simply
because it seems to us to be “hugely reasonable”, because fallible human reason can
always reach erroneous conclusions. Law is rational, but not law, strictly speaking,
without sanction.
This is Hobbes’s view; but in fact, not quite Taylor’s. He is more sceptical about
the power of reason to reach certain conclusions at all, even aside from the possibility of
error, than he sometimes sounds; however, he is not altogether convinced that moral
347 DD vol 1 p293.
348 Quoting Cicero, DD vol 1, Works vol 9 p295.
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obligation, at least, arises from sanction. By reason, Taylor chiefly has in mind empirical
reasoning, as Aquinas and Hobbes; being a latter-day form of what Augustine called
“scientia.” But we shall that for Taylor, what Augustine called “sapientia”, can give us a
law, which we make a ‘law to ourselves’. This law is from grace, for Taylor, not pure
nature; the situation is more complicated for Augustine.349
For Hobbes, while reason can not just persuade and invite, but even demonstrate,
it cannot enforce. Hobbes argued that there were indeed rationally-demonstrable
principles of natural law, but that they had no force as law, unless they could be
enforced.350 This is a basis for law that is both natural and artificial, in a way; it has been
called “natural positive law”. Hobbes is an empiricist; he derives his natural laws from
nature, but as for Taylor, they are not rationally discernible in nature; they are rational -
that is, in one’s own self interest - on the basis of nature as it is. Hobbes does seem to
think that given natural human desires for survival and flourishing, these “laws of nature”
are objectively rationally valid: that is, given the essentially equal dangers of the state of
nature, only by adopting these rules can security for any given individual actually be
secured, and only in the context of peace and security can people safely fulfil their
desires. Despite this, they are meaningless in practice, mere “theorems of reason”, unless
everyone agrees to adopt them; which means in practice, unless they can be enforced.351
Taylor does not think that there are any demonstrable natural laws. Hobbes’s
349 Compare Augustine’s distinction between scientia and sapientia with Coleridge’s between
“understanding” and “reason”; as well as the difference between different rational functions in de Trin.
XII.1.3. Compare Enn. V.3.3.
350 “These dictates of Reason men use to call by the name of Lawes, but improperly: for they are but
Conclusions, or Theoremes concerning what conduceth to the conservation and defence of themselves;
whereas Law, properly is the word of him, that by right hath command over others.” Lev.14, end. See
Parkin 1999 p67-8.
351 So there is a sense in which Hobbes agrees with Aquinas about law being the product of reason;
but strictly speaking it is not law, for Hobbes, without enforcement. Aquinas: “Law is a certain rule and
measure of acts whereby a man is induced to act or is restrained from acting … Now the rule and measure
of human acts is reason, which is the first principle of human acts … since it belongs to reason to direct to
the end, which is the first principle in all matters of action, according to the Philosopher … Consequently, it
follows that law is something pertaining to reason.”
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natural laws are demonstrative; Taylor only really allows for demonstrative reasoning in
mathematics, elsewhere, probability is always the measure.352 Moreover, for Taylor,
assent to moral or religious truths involves the whole personality, not simply the reason.
The law of nature is a transcript of the wisdom and will of God written in the tables of our
minds … a product of experience, but written with the finger of God, first in the tables of
our hearts. But those tables we, like Moses, brake with letting them fall out of our hands,
upon occasion of the evil manners of the world: but God wrought them again for us, as He
did for Moses by His spirit, in all the ages of the world, more or less, by arts of instruction
and secret insinuation, by all the ways proportioned to a reasonable nature; till from an
inclination it came to a firm persuasion, and so to a law: God, in this, ruling in our hearts
something after the manner by which He reigns in heaven, even by significations of what is
fit, by inspirations and cogenite notices, by natural necessities: but this thing was yet no
law till God also had signified it to men, after the manner of men, that is, by discourse and
human communications, by something that taught them and obliged them.353
Taylor is much influenced by the idea that sanction is needed for something to be law in
the strict sense; but it will be noticed that the sense of obligation towards certain moral
principles is not reliant on God as the ultimate enforcement in this passage. People come
to a firm persuasion of the rightness or wrongness of something by “all the ways
proportioned to a reasonable nature”; thus, the law is not based merely on divine fiat.
For the law of nature is nothing but the law of God given to mankind for the conservation
352 “And yet it is without peradventure that all laws which are commonly called natural are most
reasonable, they are perfective of nature, unitive of societies, necessary to common life, and therefore most
agreeable to reason. But if you make analysis of these, and reckon backward, you cannot wisely and
demonstratively reckon from reason, or consent, or natural inclinations, up to natural laws.” DD vol 1 p295.
353 Works vol.9 p295-6.
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of his nature and the promotion of his perfective end: a law of which man sees a reason
and feels a necessity. God is the lawgiver, practical reason or conscience is the record; but
revelation and express declaring it was the first publication and emission of it, and till then
it had not all the solemnities of law, though it was passed in the court, and decreed and
recorded.354
God wills to bring his reasonable creatures to their end and well-being by appealing to
their own mind and reason, by convincing them and teaching them concerning what their
true happiness and well-being consists in. People are endowed with an intuition, a sense
of what is good and bad, by the Spirit of God in their conscience. From a prompting of
the conscience, underscored by reason or some desire arising through the interplay of
reason, conscience, natural appetite and experience, a stronger sense of what is good
arises, and this “firm persuasion” guides and helps to determine the will towards the
good.
However, mere reason does not provide certainty concerning the moral law, for
Taylor; only revelation can do that. But reason is one important means of access to it, and
a control on what belongs to it, like reason in relation to the truths of faith, discussed in
the appendix to the previous chapter. This is, says Taylor, “the perfect meaning of those
words of St Paul, ‘but for the law I had not known sin’; that, “although by natural reason
and the customs of the world I had or might have reasons to dislike many actions; yet till
the law declared it I could not call anything a sin … therefore neither could the gentiles
know it merely by nature.” (My italics.) The “gentiles” know the law by grace, by having
the law written on their hearts:
354 D.D. vol 1., Works vol.9 p296. My italics.
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But yet a man may become a law unto himself: so St Paul observes of the gentiles, who
“not having a law do by nature the things contained in the law, and so become a law unto
themselves.” So does every man who believes any thing to be necessary, though it be not
so; yet he “becomes a law to himself”, because by his conscience and persuasion he makes
to himself a law or obligation … so St Paul, 'their conscience bearing witness'; for either
God published these laws by express declaration ... or else by imprinting upon the
conscience such fears and opinions that passed upon the man the reverence and obligation
of laws. In both these there was variety, though in the latter there was amongst the better
sort of men a more regular and universal influence and effect: and although it is very
probable that all the measures of justice and natural laws of honesty were expressly
published ... these laws were maintained by more imperfect relations, and kept up by fears
and secret opinions which the Spirit of God, who is never wanting to men in things
necessary, was pleased in his love to mankind to put into the hearts of men, that men might
be governed by instruments which would not fail.
Conscience, for Taylor, is a conviction or persuasion that something is right or wrong,
and a consequent sense of obligation: an autonomous, self-imposed obligation, which is
the product of neither demonstrative reasoning nor enforcement. This comes about by a
certain mysterious sense of its rightness or wrongness, but this is not independent of any
relation to reason, welfare and sociability. The graciously enlightened intellect does not
compel assent to moral truths, or indeed the truths of faith, in the way that a syllogism or
mathematical formula, for example, does; rather it must strive for a moral certainty,
analogous to probabilism in science, but with room for the will, for a free decision
according to goodness not simply truthfulness. (However, the problem with this, as we
shall see in a moment, remains, that if reason is not the test of what is good, what is?)
Assent is brought about, then, by a complex process including probabilistic reasoning,
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very similar to Newman’s idea of it in the Grammar of Assent.355
It is in this way, says Taylor, that “St Hierome affirms that Pharaoh knew his sins
by the law of nature ... by this the fathers lived, by this Noah was 'found just', and
Abraham the 'friend of God’”. The Christian revelation confirms and extends what is
universally suggested by the activity of the Spirit in the world:
When God sent the blessed Jesus into the world to perform all righteousness, and to teach
the world all his Father's will, it was said and done, 'I will give my laws in your hearts, and
in your minds I will write them': that is, you shall be governed by the law of natural and
essential equity and reason, by that law which is put into every man's nature; and besides
this, whatsoever else shall be superinduced shall be written in your minds by the Spirit,
who shall write all the laws of Christianity in the tables of your consciences. He shall make
you to understand them, to perceive their relish, to remember them because you love them,
and because you need them, and cannot be happy without them: He shall call them to your
mind, and inspire new arguments and inducements to their observation, and make it all as
natural to us, as what we were born with.
Our mind being thus furnished with a holy rule, and conducted by a divine guide, is
called conscience; and is the same thing which in scripture is sometimes called 'the heart' ...
Sometimes it is called 'spirit', the third ingredient of the constitution of a Christian; the
spirit, as distinct from soul and body.356
So the morality associated with the Christian revelation is not entirely arbitrary,
355 Compare Apologia p100: “It is faith and love which give to probability a force which it has not in
itself.” And Austin Farrer, in Faith and Speculation: “The gospel offers God to me as good, not simply as
fact. In embracing the good I am convinced of the fact.” Preliminary rational considerations are
inconclusive; one opts to believe out of a conviction of the goodness of the gospel, when arguments
regarding truthfulness are inconclusive in themselves. Something similar can be found in Hooker, on the
relation between reason and scripture.
356 Works vol.9 p.6-7
234
any more than the teaching of ‘natural’ conscience; which is not wholly natural. For
Taylor, Christian morality is connected with “the consummation of man’s last end, which
was first intended, and is always the same”:
For the natural law [that is, the law revealed in the conscience] being a sufficient and a
proportionate instrument and means to bring a man to the end designed in his creation, and
this law being eternal and unalterable ... it was not imaginable that the body of any law
should make a new morality ... [the purpose of the natural law being] the consummation of
man's last end, which was first intended, and is always the same. It is, as if there were a
new truth in an essential and a necessary proposition ... there can be no new justice ... [or]
proper and natural relations ... between God and us, but what always were ... Hence it
comes, that that which is the most obvious and notorious appellative of the law of nature,
that it is a law 'written in our hearts', was also recounted as one of the glories and
excellencies of Christianity. Plutarch, saying that 'kings ought to be governed by laws',
explains himself, that this law must be "a word, not written in books and tables, but
dwelling in the mind, a living rule, the interior guide of their manners, and monitor of their
life'. And this was the same which St Paul expresses to be the guide of the gentiles, that is,
of all men naturally [in Romans 2.14]. And that we may see it was the law of nature
returned in the sanctions of Christianity, God declares that in the constitution of this law,
He would take no other course than at first, that is, he would write them in the hearts of
men: indeed with a new style, with a quill taken from the wings of the holy Dove; the
Spirit of God was to be the great engraver and the scribe of the new covenant, but the
hearts of men should be the tables: 'I will put my laws into their hearts, and into their
minds will I write them: and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more', that is, I
will provide a means to expiate all the iniquities of man, and restore him to the condition
of his first creation, putting him into the same order towards felicity which I first designed
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to him, and that also by the same instruments.357
The “law of Jesus Christ” is the completion and consummation of the “law of nature”,
that is, of conscience. Christianity fully reveals God’s design for us, supplementing and
perfecting the notion we were already able to form from our conscience, from past
revelation, and from our reasoning concerning the inclinations of nature and the customs
of wise and civilized people and nations. The moral state of “gentiles” who live by the
light of ‘nature’ and Christians who have the law of Jesus Christ, then, is not so very
different:
Nomos kai logos, so Christ is called by St Peter and the Greek fathers, he is the ‘word of
the Father’, and ‘the law’; and it is remarkable, this word or law of the Father was the
instrument of teaching mankind in all periods of the world.358
For Taylor, conscience is the image of God in man; as we saw in the last two
chapters, consciousness and the powers of reason and free will that arise from it
constituted the divine image for Irenaeus and Origen, as well as Augustine in the de
Trinitate.
God governs the world by several attributes and emanations from Himself. The nature of
things is supported by His power, the events of things are ordered by His providence, and
the actions of reasonable creatures are governed by laws, and these laws are put into a
man's soul or mind as into a treasury or repository: some in his very nature, some by afteractions,
by education and positive sanction, by learning and custom: so that it was well said
357 GE,Works vol.2 p.20-1
358 D.D. vol 1, Works vol.9 p300. Taylor cites examples of the ‘universal logos’ teaching from Justin
Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and even Tertullian.
236
of St Bernard, 'conscience is the brightness and splendour of the eternal light, a spotless
mirror of the divine majesty, and the image of the goodness of God' ... God is in our hearts
by His laws: He rules in us by His substitute our conscience ... So Lactantius: 'let him
remember that he hath God for his witness, that is, I suppose, his mind; than which God
hath given to man nothing that is more divine'. In sum, it is the image of God: and as in the
mysterious Trinity we adore the will, memory, and understanding, and theology
contemplates three persons in the analogies, proportions and correspondencies of them; so
in this also we see plainly that conscience is that likeness of God in which He was pleased
to make man (Taylor, Ductor Dubitantium Works vol.9 p.3-4)
As such, morality, for Taylor, in Christianity and outside, is based on the “natural relation
between God and us”; he relates this to his view of nature, which has no intrinsic order,
but relies on that introduced by reason and will, from conscience and revelation:
all the law of nature is adopted into religion, and by our love and duty to God we are tied to
do all that is reason, and the parts of our religion are but pursuances of the natural relation
between God and us. And beyond all this, our natural condition is, in all senses, improved
by the consequents and adherences of this religion: for although nature and grace are
opposite, that is, nature depraved by evil habits, by ignorance and ungodly customs, is
contrary to grace, that is, to nature restored by the gospel, engaged to regular living by new
revelations, and assisted by the Spirit; yet it is observable, that the law of nature and the
law of grace are never opposed. "There is a law in our members", saith St Paul; that is, an
evil necessity introduced into our appetites by perpetual evil customs, examples and
traditions of vanity; and there is a law of sin, that answers to this; and they differ only as
inclination and habit, vicious desire and vicious practices. But then contrary to these are,
first, "a law of my mind", which is the law of nature and right reason, and then the law of
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grace, that is of Jesus Christ, who perfected and restored the first law, and by assistances
reduced it into a law of holy living: and these two differ as the other; the one is in order to
the other, as imperfection and growing degrees and capacities are to perfection and
consummation. The law of the mind had been so rased and obliterate, and we, by some
means or other, so disabled from observing it exactly, that until it was turned into the law of
grace, (which is a law of pardoning infirmities, and assisting us in our choices and
elections,) we were in a state of deficiency from the perfective state of man to which God
intended us.359
Grace works with nature in the same way within the Christian dispensation and without
to reform our nature, especially as that nature has acquired vicious habits. The “law of the
mind” and the “law of grace” are the same, but the latter extends and completes the
former and enables us to fulfil it according to the spirit, if not the letter, as we saw in ch.3
above on metanoia.
One might call Taylor an intuitionist, as much as a voluntarist, concerning
morality. Augustine is a form of intuitionist, in the Platonist tradition. In book 8 of De
Trinitate, Augustine discusses our knowledge of various things. Taking the example of a
just man, he observes that we know what a man is from experience; the experience of
encountering them, and of being one.
But this is not how I search for what “just” is, nor how I find it, nor how I look at it when I
express it, nor how I am agreed with someone when I express it, nor how I agree with
someone when I hear him, as though I had seen such a thing with my eyes or learnt it by
any of my senses or heard about it from others who had so learnt it. For when I say, and say
with full knowledge, “That mind is just which knowingly and deliberately, in life and in
359 GE, Works vol 2 p29.
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conduct, gives each man what is his own”, I am not recalling something absent like
Carthage [which Augustine had visited], or fabricating it as best I can like Alexandria [from
the general notion of a city; Alexandria being a city Augustine had not visited]; but I am
perceiving something that is present to me, and it is present to me even if I am not what I
perceive. And anyone who hears me and knowingly agrees with me also perceives the same
thing in himself, even if he is not what he perceives.360
Justice, for Augustine, is a “form” perceived by the mind, which like mathematical
proportion is an intrinsic truth about the world which transcends the mind. Such forms
illuminate the mind, like light illuminating the eye; all perceive it, even the unjust have a
conception of justice, by this intuitive knowledge, according to Augustine. Taylor draws
on this view.
Philo says, the law of nature is a law … ‘engraven in an immortal understanding by an
immortal nature.’ In this whole affair, God is as the sun, and the conscience as the eye: ..
God … being the intellectus agens did inform our reason, supplying the place of natural
faculties and being a continual monitor (as the Jews generally believe, and some Christians,
especially about three or four ages since): which Adam de Marisco was wont to call ‘Helias
his crow’: something flying from heaven with provision for our needs. And [others,
including Maimonides] affirm this to be the meaning of David in the fourth Psalm, “Offer
the sacrifice of righteousness”; it follows “who will show us any good?” Who will tell us
what is justice, and declare the measures of good and evil? He answers … “Thou hast
consigned the light of Thy countenance upon us” … “that in Thy light we may see light”.361
For Augustine, even natural knowledge relies to some extent upon divine
360 de Trin. VIII.4.9.
361 DD vol 1, Works vol 9 p298.
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illumination; grace, for Augustine, seems to involve a more intense, or more extensive,
enlightenment, as well as aid which enables the will to love what the soul knows.362 In de
Trinitate, Augustine often represents the fallen condition as one in which God has been
“forgotten”; by which he seems to mean that God’s presence to the mind, in a way
analogous to the mind’s own presence to itself, has been lost:
This trinity of the mind [the internal structure of the conscious mind, ‘memory’, that is,
naked self awareness, and understanding and will which arise from it] is not really the
image of God because the mind remembers and understands and loves itself, but because it
is also able to remember and understand and love him by whom it was made. And when it
does this it becomes wise. If it does not do it, then even though it remembers and
understands and loves itself, it is foolish.363
Grace remedies this “foolishness” by a fresh enlightenment, but this is the same in kind to
that by which all, just and unjust alike, know what justice is:
Not that [the soul] remembers [God] because it knew him in Adam, or anywhere else
before the life of this body, or when it was first made in order to be inserted into this body.
It does not remember any of these things at all; whichever of these may be the case, it has
been erased by oblivion [through the fall]. Yet it is reminded to turn to the Lord, as though
to the light by which it went on being touched in some fashion even when it turned away
from him. It is in virtue of this light that even the godless can think about eternity, and
rightly praise and blame many elements in the behaviour of men.364
362 See Burnaby 1938 p155.
363 de Trin XIV.4.15. Its own excessive love of itself, which it remembers and loves aside from God,
makes it “foolish”.
364 Ibid XIV.4.21.
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For Taylor, in an even stronger way than for Augustine, all morality is from grace.
Taylor is trying to be universalist, to open up the possibility of salvation to all, even those
outside the Christian dispensation, without being a Pelagian. But he does this by making
even what is possible for the unjust, on Augustine’s account, depend on supernatural aid;
he makes what for Augustine is common to all men, albeit from divine illumination, part
of the supernatural dispensation. Conscience is not natural to the soul, but in the case of a
right conscience at least, is always an aspect of the “spirit”, in other words, a product of
grace.365 Taylor cites Origen to this effect, in his own translation:
The apostle says, that they use the testimony of their conscience who have the law written
in their hearts. Hence it is necessary to enquire what that is which the apostle calls
conscience, whether it be any other substance than the heart or soul? For of this it is
otherwise [also] said, that it reprehends, but is not reprehended … ‘Our glorying is this,
even the testimony of a good conscience.’ … in good things it is always glad and rejoices,
but in evil things it is not reproved, but reproves and corrects the soul itself to which it does
adhere; I do suppose that this is the very spirit which by the apostle is said to be with the
soul, as a pedagogue and social governor, that it may admonish the soul of better things,
and chastise her for her faults … ‘Because no man knows the things of a man but the spirit
of a man which is in him’; and that is the conscience, concerning which he saith, ‘That
Spirit gives testimony to our spirit.’366
365 The possession of a right conscience, along with a good disposition of the will, relies on our cooperation
to be effectual in terms of moral action, according to Taylor. For Augustine, one who sees what
justice is but does not do it, ultimately lacks the grace to love justice more than themselves.
366 Works vol.9, p7. Origen, Comm. on Romans II.ii. Augustine thought that we have a conscientia
about ourselves, that highlights our fallen condition: one of the things he becomes introspectively aware of
in the Confessions, is that his will is monstrously divided between an inclination to good, and an inclination
to sin. For Pelagius, too, the doctrine of conscience is central: To Demetrias 4.2: “There is, I maintain, a
sort of natural sanctity in our minds which, presiding as it were in the mind’s citadel [the rational soul: see
Aug., CD XIV.19], administers judgment equally on the evil and the good, and … distinguishes the one
side from the other by a kind of inner law.” But we are not aware of our helplessness and need of grace, for
Pelagius: “let us approach the secret places of our soul, let everyone examine himself more attentively, let
us ask what opinion our own personal thoughts have of this matter, let our conscience itself deliver its
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Conscience, for Taylor, is the product of grace; this would have seemed a strange doctrine
to Augustine, and more strange still to Aquinas. (Newman has a more ‘personal’ idea of
conscience: "not a mere law of my nature, but the echo of a person speaking to me … an
echo implies a voice, and a voice a speaker. That speaker I love and I fear.” From his
novel, Callista. But even Newman wasn‘t quite suggesting that this “echo” was solely
from grace.)
Ironically enough, in this respect Grotius and Hobbes follow Thomas Aquinas:
“justice” is natural for human beings, or at any rate it is possible to advocate it on a
purely natural, and empirical, basis. As we have seen, Aquinas thought justice could be
derived from natural inclinations by created reason, without any direct divine aid:
Hence the Psalmist, after saying “offer up the sacrifice of justice”, as though someone
asked what the works of justice are, adds: “Many say, who shows us good things?”, in
answer to which he says: “The light of Your countenance, O Lord, is signed upon us”; thus
implying that the light of natural reason, whereby we discern what is good and what is evil,
which pertains to the natural law, is nothing else than an imprint on us of the divine light.367
Created human reason forms an understanding of good and evil through its own capacity
to establish what is good for human beings, and what is bad for them; this is not the result
judgement on the good of nature, let us be instructed by the inner teaching of the mind, and let us learn
about each of the good qualities of the mind from no other source but the mind itself.” (ibid. 4.1.) What we
learn, is that we are good or bad by our mere choices and acts, and acquired dispositions; not that we have
an evil will, in Augustine’s deeper sense: “The only freedom before God is freedom not to be a slave to sin,
the highest form of nobility before God is to be distinguished for virtue.” (ibid 21.) For Augustine’s
response, see for example, on the Spirit and the Letter 12: "This reflection does not issue in self-esteem.
That fault arises when each man trusts in himself, and takes himself to be the source of his life … By doing
so man withdraws from that well of life, whence alone righteousness can be derived; withdraws himself
from that unchanging light by sharing in which the rational soul is in a manner kindled, and itself becomes
a created light".
367 ST 1a2ae q91 art2. For Taylor, what Thomas calls synderesis comes from grace; Taylor also uses
the term, DD vol 1, Works vol 9 p14.
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of direct divine illumination. Reason is a created resemblance to God’s own intellectual
capacity, in the sense that through it, we come to understanding. The similarity between
Aquinas and Grotius and Hobbes is well illustrated by Stephen Darwall’s comments on
Hobbes:
Hobbes aimed to understand morality’s normative grip in entirely naturalistic terms. The
laws of nature are dictates of reason, but this does not mean that they structure an
independent, irreducible normative order grasped by an intuitive faculty. Right reason is
right reasoning - the correct use of calculative, theoretical reason. And it dictates not by
discovering norms but through the practical force of its discoveries from an agent’s point of
view, indicating unavoidable means to an inescapable end … Reason discovers, for
instance, that keeping covenants is essential to maintaining peace, which is necessary to
self preservation.368
Aquinas, too, is a kind of empiricist; concerning the natural law, at any rate. What he
calls the “divine law” completes and extends the natural law, and illumination by grace,
as well as revelation, are necessary for this. The assistance of grace is necessary for fallen
man to be just, and it is necessary absolutely for charity; but mere justice - rendering to
each their due, or like for like - was possible for man in innocence without the assistance
of grace - though man in innocence was never without grace: therefore, for example,
“man even before sin required grace in order to attain eternal life, which is the principle
reason for the need of grace; but man after sin requires grace beyond this, even for the
remission of sin and the support of his weakness.”369
The absence of any purely natural basis for morality exposes Taylor to the idea we
368 Darwall 1995 p81.
369 ST 1a1ae q95 art4 ad1.
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saw de Lubac identify in Baius at the end of the last chapter: grace becomes something
owed to nature, is needed by nature in order for nature to be itself, to function effectively
as nature. Moreover, for Taylor, even civil justice and social order ultimately rely directly
on God; and where all is adiaphora, indifferent, aside from an enforced law -
notwithstanding obligations we may or may not conscientiously impose on ourselves - in
effect, nothing is adiaphora at all: “This right of nature being now almost wholly taken
from us, part of it is taken up to God, and part of it is deposited in the hands of the civil
power, but we have none of it”.370
The same is not true of Augustine. Firstly, “justice” is known intuitively even by
the unjust, by the illumination all human beings have in order to attain natural
knowledge.371 Secondly, Augustine actually has a kind of empirical natural law, which is
necessary for the peace and flourishing of fallen humanity, though it is of no value for
salvation. In DLA, he calls it the “temporal law”, as opposed to the “eternal law”, which
is known intuitively.372 In the City of God, he develops a similar notion, the “earthly
peace”, or peace of the “earthly city”. Peace is central to Augustine’s theory in both texts,
because peace is ultimately necessary for the security and flourishing even of the godless.
Grotius and Hobbes seem to owe a great deal to Augustine’s ideas in their own theories of
a purely natural, secular, empirical basis for law and morality.
In DLA, bk 1 Augustine distinguishes between two laws, the “eternal” law and
the “temporal” law. What Augustine regards as true morality can only be based on the
370 Works vol.9 p304. A result of this is Taylor’s very radical royalist absolutism, see D.D. vol 2 ch1,
Of Human Laws, Works vol.10. For Taylor man is above all born free. But that freedom is negative: liberty
is just the absence of constraint; there is no prima facie right to it. In the pre-moral world, that which is
‘purely natural’ (instinct, passion) is morally indifferent. Law intrudes to introduce law-breaking, and the
duty to curtail and transcend one’s natural impulses. Because Taylor is a voluntarist, almost anything can be
matter for a law. Contrast the Thomist view, where something is indifferent, and bindable by human law,
only where nature (reason) does not determine the contrary.
371 See Clark 1994 ch.2, “Search for Truth”, and bibliography, on Augustine on divine illumination,
natural knowledge, and grace.
372 Even by the godless, as we have seen; but it is not effectually loved and performed by them, and
perhaps not always adequately known without additional illumination, which those under grace possess.
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eternal law, which we know intuitively and which “demands that we purify our love by
turning it away from temporal things and towards what is eternal”. But since the fall,
human beings are obsessed with, and distracted by “temporal and material things”. For
fallen humans - some of whom are under grace, and lovers of justice, and some not - to
live together harmoniously, each in safety from the others, they must be governed
according to a law guaranteeing certain temporal things:
But when human beings in their cupidity cleave to things that can be called ours only for a
time, the temporal law demands that they possess those things in accordance with the law
by which peace and human society are preserved - insofar as they can be preserved on the
basis of such things. The first such good is the body, along with all of the things associated
with it that are called goods, such as health, keen senses, strength, beauty, and other
qualities, some of which are necessary for good deeds and are therefore to be regarded
highly, and others of which are less valuable. The second such good is freedom. Now the
only genuine freedom is that possessed by those who are happy and cleave to the eternal
law; but I am talking about the sort of freedom that people have in mind when they think
they are free because they have no human masters, or that people desire when they want to
be set free by their masters. Then come parents, brothers and sisters, a spouse, children,
neighbours, relatives, friends, anyone who is bound to us by some need. Next is the city
itself, which frequently takes the place of the parents, together with honours and praise and
what is called popular acclaim. And finally comes property, which includes anything over
which the law gives us control and which we have a recognised right to sell or give
away.373
The measure of the “temporal law” is the preservation of “peace and human
373 DLA 1.15.
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society”. It demands that human beings have secure possession of certain temporal
“goods”, “things that can be called ours only for a time”; that is, during our temporal life.
These include bodily integrity and health, “freedom” in the sense of having “no human
masters” - as we might say, ‘external autonomy’ - family life and other peaceful social
relations, property, and, in effect, citizenship and the pursuit of harmless, and, preferably,
socially beneficial ambitions.374 We might call these ‘rights’, though as we shall see
Augustine is very far from ascribing them absolutely to human beings in the way that
later moralists and lawyers sought to do. However, these ‘rights’ do seem to entail certain
responsibilities: essentially, respecting the same rights in others, and recognising that
one’s own possession of them relies on the preservation of the polis, and as a
consequence seeking its welfare. Augustine is quite clear that these principles, this “law”,
applies to the fallen state: when human beings, “in their cupidity”, “cleave to things that
can be called ours only for a time”, instead of “purifying their love” by turning away
from temporal things and towards eternal. Notwithstanding this, the temporal goods
which the temporal law concerns are still properly called goods; they may be “necessary
for good deeds”, but even besides this they are good in themselves, good for us to
possess.
Augustine discusses the same idea again in book 19 of the City of God, though he
no longer uses the term temporal law; he speaks of earthly or temporal peace. But this is
effectively the same thing: he still sees it as the basis for human society and the
individual possession and enjoyment of worldly goods, and a civil law to govern this.
God, then, created all things in supreme wisdom and ordered them in perfect justice; and in
374 His treatment of Regulus in the City of God (CD V.18,19) suggests that Augustine - good Roman
that he was - thinks the pursuit of honour, praise and acclaim usually entails some form of noble, even
generous, in a certain way, public service.
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establishing the mortal race of mankind as the greatest ornament of earthly things, he has
given to mankind certain good things suitable to this life. These are: temporal peace, in
proportion to the short span of a mortal life - the peace that consists in bodily health and
soundness, and in fellowship with one’s kind; and everything necessary to safeguard or
recover this peace - those things, for example, which are appropriate and accessible to our
senses: light, speech, air to breathe, water to drink, and whatever is suitable for the feeding
and clothing of the body, for the care of the body and the adornment of the person.375
As in DLA, in the City of God Augustine regards temporal things as good in themselves,
but there is a difference between those who are citizens of the “earthly city” alone and
those who are also citizens of the “Heavenly City” as to the proper value and estimation
of temporal things, and as a consequence what “use” is made of them: “all man’s use of
temporal things is related to earthly peace in the earthly city; whereas in the Heavenly
City it is related to the enjoyment of eternal peace.” 19.14.
Man’s use of temporal things, is not, of course, necessarily just; but peace is still
the motivation. “Anyone who joins me in an examination, however slight, of human
affairs, and the human nature we all share, recognises that just as there is no man who
does not wish for joy, so there is no man who does not wish for peace.” 19.12. This is not
necessarily a just peace; Augustine makes the point that wars are waged with peace as
their object, even if that peace is simply “the conquest of the opposing side”, that is, the
imposition of one’s own power; and “even when men wish a present state of peace to be
disturbed they do so not because they hate peace, but because they desire the present
peace to be exchanged for one that suits their wishes.” The libido dominandi itself, then,
has in view not war, but peace; that just means own peace, the peace that best suits it, its
375 CD XIX.13.
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own repose in dominance of others. “Thus pride is a perverted imitation of God. For
pride hates a fellowship of equality under God, and seeks to impose its own dominion on
fellow men, in place of God’s rule. This means that it hates the just peace of God, and
loves its own peace of injustice. And yet it cannot help loving peace of some kind or
other. For no creature’s perversion is so contrary to nature as to destroy the very last
vestiges of its nature.” 19.14. Augustine argues that bandits and subversives wish for
peace with their confederates and their families, and even a single one who suspected all
others and was able to succeed by himself would wish for the peace of domination.
We see, then, that all men desire to be at peace with their own people, while wishing to
impose their own will on those people’s lives. For even when they wage war on others,
their wish is to make those opponents their own people, if they can - to subject them, and
impose on them their own conditions of peace.
Finally, Augustine cites the figure of Cacus from Virgil’s Aeneid, “such a man as
is described in the verse of epic legends, a creature so unsociable and savage that they
perhaps preferred to call him a semi-human than a human being.”
Now although his kingdom was the solitude of a dreadful cavern, and although he was so
unequalled in wickedness that a name was found for him derived from that quality [Cacus,
from the Greek kakos]; although he had no wife with whom to exchange endearments, no
children to play with when little or to give orders to when they were a little bigger, no
friends with whom to enjoy conversation … although he never gave anything to anyone,
but took what he wanted from anyone and removed, when he could, anyone he wished to
remove; despite all this, in the very solitude of his cave, the floor of which, in the poet’s
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description
reeked ever with the blood of recent slaughter
his only desire was for a peace in which no one should disturb him, and no man’s violence,
or the dread of it, should trouble his repose.376
For Augustine, a peaceful and ordered society requires the guarantee of certain temporal
things. “The basis for [true peace among men] is the observance of two rules: first, to do
no harm to anyone, and secondly, to help everyone wherever possible.” 19.14. True peace
of this kind is only possible in a community united by the objects of its loves, 19.23-24,
which is found in this world only in a partial way, in the Church, the “heavenly city on
pilgrimage in this mortal life”. But an image of this peace is possible even for the earthly
city: like Hobbes, it is based on seeking a peace between “clashing wills”. Augustine sets
out the relationship between this peace, which can still be thought of as a distorted
shadow of the peace of heaven, in CD 19.17. He begins by pointing out that sociability is
natural for human beings, using the example of the household, based on the family (like
Grotius, he points out that even animals show endearment to their offspring, and even
beyond; “How much more strongly is a human being drawn by the laws of his nature, so
to speak, to enter upon a fellowship with all his fellow men and to keep peace with them,
as far as lies in him.”)
[A] household of human beings whose life is not based on [Christian] faith is in pursuit of
an earthly peace based on the things belonging to this temporal life, and its advantages,
whereas a household of human beings whose life is based on faith looks forward to the
blessings which are promised as eternal in the future, making use of earthly and temporal
things like a pilgrim in a foreign land, who does not let himself be taken in by them or
376 CD 19.12.
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distracted from his course towards God, but rather treats them as supports which help him
more easily to bear the burdens of “the corruptible body which weighs heavy on the soul”;
they must on no account be allowed to increase the load. Thus both kinds of men and both
kinds of households alike make use of the things essential for this mortal life; but each has
its own very different end in making use of them. So also the earthly city, whose life is not
based on faith, aims at an earthly peace, and it limits the harmonious agreement of citizens
concerning the giving and obeying of orders to the establishment of a kind of compromise
between human wills about the things relevant to mortal life. In contrast, the Heavenly City
- or rather that part of it which is on pilgrimage in this condition of mortality, and which
lives on the basis of faith - must needs make use of this peace also, until this mortal state,
for which this kind of peace is essential, passes away. And therefore, it leads what we may
call a life of captivity in this earthly city as in a foreign land, although it has already
received the promise of redemption, and the gift of the Spirit as a kind of pledge of it; and
yet it does not hesitate to obey the laws of the earthly city by which those things which are
designed for the support of this mortal life are regulated; and the purpose of this obedience
is that, since this mortal condition is shared by both cities, a harmony may be preserved
between them in things that are relevant to this condition …
Thus even the Heavenly City in her pilgrimage here on earth makes use of the earthly
peace and defends and seeks the compromise between human wills in respect of the
provisions relevant to the mortal nature of man, so far as may be permitted without
detriment to true religion and piety. In fact, that City relates the earthly peace to the
heavenly peace, which is so truly peaceful that it should be regarded as the only peace
deserving the name, at least in respect of the rational creation; for this peace is the perfectly
ordered and harmonious fellowship in the enjoyment of God, and of each other in God.
When we arrive at that state of peace, there will be no longer a life that ends in death, but a
life that is life in sure and sober truth; there will be no animal body to “weigh down the
soul” in its process of corruption; there will be a spiritual body with no cravings, a body
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subdued in every part to the will. This peace the Heavenly City possesses in faith while on
its pilgrimage, and it lives a life of righteousness based on this faith, having the attainment
of that peace in view in every good action it performs in relation to God, and in relation to
a neighbour, since the life of a city is inevitably a social life.377
The earthly peace which is essential for the security and peaceful flourishing of both the
earthly city, and the heavenly city which is on pilgrimage in the earthly city and as part of
it, is the product of a “compromise of between human wills about the things relevant to
mortal life”. Augustine thinks that in the fallen state, human beings selfishly pursue
various kinds of inordinate desires, some from the “animal body” which “weighs down
the soul” with its cravings and corruptibility, and some, as we have seen, from the soul
itself; and this brings people into conflict. The laws of the earthly city regarding “those
things which are designed for the support of this mortal life” are based on a compromise
between such “clashing wills”, the object of which is to preserve peace between
individuals so that a society can flourish in which all can pursue whatever they hold to be
the human good, without coming into conflict.378 This is a sort of purely natural good, a
non-salvific ethic lacking authentically moral motivation, but still, in entirely natural
terms, a certain form of good, for Augustine. Christians, of course, ought not to pursue
temporal goods greedily and for their own sake, and should love their neighbours as
themselves; they should not need the temporal law; but the temporal law is necessary in a
world where not all are Christians, and where not all Christians live according to the
grace they have received [19.27].
377 CD XIX.17.
378 Augustine, unlike Taylor, thinks that even the highest pagan virtue - self sacrifice such as that of
Regulus - is driven by what are in absolute terms, under the eternal law, morally bad motives; in the case of
Regulus, the desire for glory, for endless fame. The motivation resembles the Platonic reason for the desire
to beget children, stated by Diotima in the Symposium: to achieve a kind of immortality. Ironically, for
Augustine, personal immortality is achieved through selflessness.
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The principle Augustine extracts, then, concerning the “temporal law” or “earthly
peace” is markedly similar to that of Hobbes: for the sake of their own preservation and
secure flourishing, everyone ought in effect to pursue a peace based on the laying aside of
the radical liberty of the state of nature, which Augustine’s examples of bandits, Cacus
and the like recall, and “be contented with so much liberty against others men, as he
would allow other men against himselfe.”379 Augustine, like Hobbes, seems to regard this
as an argument for absolute obedience to (in Augustine’s case) the Roman Emperor;
perhaps it is a better argument for a state based on the guarantee of “the sort of freedom
that people have in mind when they think they are free because they have no human
masters” (DLA 1.15 passage above).
Taylor’s doctrine has no such potential. Although he sets a very high importance
by free choice - internal autonomy, we might say - he does not see the external kind as an
important correlate; this despite the importance for him of a contingent and morally
ambiguous universe as a context for meaningful moral choice. For Taylor, both God and
the state can ultimately rule what they like: God is just in a way analogous to everyday
human notions of justice, for Taylor, but this is known only by intuition, revelation and,
ironically, a rather empirical form of probabilism.
So a purely natural basis for law, and for guarantees of and restrictions on
personal liberty, in the political sphere, is important for this reason; and a purely rational
morality is important for the theological equivalent, to ensure equivalence between
ordinary notions of the good, and divine commands. Intuition is not enough to preserve
this. For the proto-Kantians like the Cambridge Platonists, a compelling moral obligation
- perhaps it would be better to say, a morally compelling obligation, which the will can
adopt or reject according to either acquiescence in objective goodness, or its own
379 Hobbes, Leviathan 14. Original emphasis.
252
selfishness - provides the latter;380 liberal theories of “negative” freedom, partly derived
from Grotius and Hobbes, have been seen in the western tradition as the basis for the
former.
380 Darwall 1995 p110: “it can be shown that the idea of self-determination played a very significant
role in the thought of a number of early modern British philosophers and, indeed, that some of those writers
advanced versions of a thesis we are much more familiar with in Kant: that moral obligation is selfimposed
in the practical reasoning of a self-determining agent.” For Kant, in addition, the liberty of the
rational agent implies the freedom of having no human master. Inner self-determination is a form of
libertas, as well as an act of indifferent choice: a higher freedom of being truly free in ourselves only when
we act according to the exceeding lawfulness of the law. This seems to better fit Augustine’s Christian
Platonist metaphysic than Augustine’s own intuitionism: for Kant, our highest freedom is precisely to freely
determine ourselves according to the moral law, which is both within, and yet above us.
253
Conclusion
For Taylor, the atomic swerve, or at least, the free indifferent state of nature in general
and human nature in particular, including the free inclining of the passions to their own
objects, and sceptical probabilism concerning reason, provides a neutral context for
meaningful moral choice (which to some extent needs to be achieved, just as a maturing
child achieves a measure of rational independence of the effects of nature and nurture).
The natural order is not wholly determined by cause and effect but contains a real
element of contingency, allowing for free choice. However, ironically, the moral
indifference of intellect, will and nature, as well as guaranteeing freedom, also inevitably
involves error and sin, though not in any given instance.
Grace always relates to nature in the same way, ‘redemptively’, and is never
wholly lacking to nature; whether explicitly in the Christian revelation, or in making
those outside a “law to themselves”. There is never any state of innocence except a premoral
one in which right and wrong do not apply; but this does not lead to the
Manichean-like conclusion that nature is intrinsically evil and corrupting without grace:
the natural passions, for example, are natural goods in the right moral context, and
coupled with the right disposition of the person.
Taylor is, however, vulnerable to the criticism that in theological terms, nature in
effect requires or is owed grace, given the disproportion between its natural condition and
the demands of morality, which for Taylor is wholly “supervenient” upon mere nature.
We always possess free will naturally; but not for supernatural things. Taylor is exposed
to the criticisms of Heber and Coleridge: if the supernatural is demanded of us, then grace
is owed, if grace is required to fulfil it; and if not, he is a Pelagian. To a certain extent,
254
grace enables the sort of legal righteousness that de Lubac suggests Baius held it to
enable in Adam in innocence and in humanity under grace: a form of Pelagianism
enabled by grace, one might say. But this is not the whole story for Taylor, as we saw in
chapter 3.
The conclusion that moral standards are based purely on divine commands or a
certain higher intuition is an alarming one; but Taylor found the attempt to derive
morality from self-interest or preservation equally alarming, would doubtless have found
the utilitarian calculus so too. Dr Darwall has drawn attention to the appearance of proto-
Kantian theories, but they seem to have had little influence on Taylor, despite his personal
contacts with some of their progenitors. Aspects of Taylor’s moral ideas resemble virtue
ethics, notably concerning the acquisition of good habits that contribute to individual and
collective “well-being”.
So Taylor makes use of Epicurean, sceptical, and voluntarist ideas to preserve
both free will, and the insight behind the traditional doctrine of original sin, but certain
difficulties arise from this, notably concerning his voluntaristic view of God and His
relations with His creatures, which a dose of Christian Platonist theological and ethical
intuitionism fails to quite resolve.381
Taylor’s use of Platonist and Epicurean ideas in working out a ‘naturalistic’ view
of original sin tends to shift the emphasis from Augustine’s central idea, that original sin
abides in the will of fallen humanity, in the rational soul itself, as pride, or a delight in or
attraction to one’s own selfish good above all; and instead makes this the result of
influence from the ‘lower’ parts of human nature, from appetites and passions, swaying
the will or clouding moral judgement. We are brought back to Heber and Coleridge’s
381 Compare my conclusions on this with an old article by Robert Hoopes, "Voluntarism in Jeremy
Taylor and the Platonic Tradition," Huntington Library Quarterly 13 (1950): 341-54.
255
criticism: if such influence is resistible, and can be overcome, then Taylor’s view simply
resembles Pelagianism; if not, his view is no different from, or is even still more
Manichean than, that of his Calvinist opponents (to the extent that sin is the result of
nature itself, as Heber points out, not even the fallen, corrupted condition of it). However,
Taylor is surely right that on Augustine’s account, sin is from what has become a natural
tendency of the will, after Adam, albeit ‘free’ in the sense of uncaused by anything
outside the soul itself. Either that, or Manicheanism has in effect become true after the
fall: the soul is corrupted in the body, “as in a corrupted vessel”.382
However, Taylor observes, and attempts to preserve, the Augustinian idea of will
as more than mere choice, and the anthropological considerations that flow from this.
Professor Hilary Armstrong identifies two kinds of freedom in the Greek tradition: we
might label them Platonist/Stoic, and Epicurean: or even, Augustinian, and Pelagian:
On one side the essence of freedom is perceived as being free to be oneself, which means
… to be oneself at one’s best, to energise according to one’s full and complete energeia, to
realise which is one’s good and goal; and to be so without external limitation, constraint or
impediment - external, that is, to one’s true nature or selfhood. On the other hand, the
essence of freedom is seen as consisting in an absolutely undetermined power of choice
between alternatives, a liberty of opinion not restricted or determined even by one’s own
nature …
The Epicureans [were] the Hellenic philosophers who passionately championed the view
that the power of absolute undetermined choice is the essence of human freedom. For them
indeterminacy is built into our nature by the famous (though none too clearly attested)
382 Calvin is probably an Augustinian, not a ‘Manichean’: the will delights in sin, it is not overborne
by other forces. Wendel, Calvin, p189f.
256
doctrine of the atomic ‘swerve’. 383
Taylor wants both; Augustine’s liberum arbitrium, the natural, created power of the will,
must include liberty of indifference, “Epicurean” freedom, as a necessary condition of
moral responsibility, even if the will is also an inclination of the mind to something, a
wish or a delight, and the former kind of freedom the ultimate aim. Taylor belongs to a
wider movement in both Catholicism and Protestantism, beginning with Erasmus and
flowering through the influence of Molina and Arminius, that sought to reconcile the two
kinds of freedom. Some English divines began to pursue this, even before the influence
of Arminius; Hooker is a paramount example, though whether he ever quite reached the
view that the elect could fall from grace, is debatable. However, there is no doubt that
Taylor and his fellow Laudians held precisely this view.
In a way, pure freedom of indifference without the freedom to energise according
to the good, is precisely the origin of the problem: in a sense this is just what Plotinus
means we are too pleased with, when we are too pleased with being “in our own power”:
the power to determine for ourselves entirely what we will do, without reference to any
higher good assessed according to any standard beyond our own capacity to choose;
which ironically ends up meaning, according to any standard other than our own will in
the sense of what pleases us most, just as for Augustine, delight in one’s own power,
leads to pride.384 However, Taylor is surely right that liberty of indifference is a necessary
condition of moral responsibility, just as ‘negative liberty’, autonomy in the external
383 Two Views of Freedom: a Christian objection in Enn.VI.8? in Hellenic and Christian Studies
London 1990 p397-8.
384 The view that freedom means pure liberty of indifference is often ascribed to Kant, and often by
Roman Catholic scholars eager to defend a more ‘Augustinian’ notion of freedom in contradistinction to a
perceived amoral licence inherent in Western liberalism (including de Lubac; see also D.C. Schindler’s
otherwise excellent Communio article, Freedom beyond choosing: Augustine on the will and its objects.)
That I think this a travesty of Kant’s actual views, will be apparent from my various earlier allusions to
him.
257
sense, is a necessary condition of a free society (something which Taylor fails to
appreciate, as we saw in chapter 5); though neither are a sufficient condition of some
more positive vision.
The will understood merely as the power of choice tends to certain
anthropological implications: there is a loss of integration between the thinking and
choosing mind, and the ‘lower’ features of human nature; feelings become purely
external to definition of the self, and the mind rather 'static', purely rational. We have seen
Taylor endeavour to preserve libertarian freedom while avoiding such a disjunction of
thought and feeling. For Taylor as for Augustine, the objective of the Christian economy
is the direction of the whole man in the right, rather than the wrong, direction; though for
Augustine the 'wrong' direction began in the ruling part, with pride, not in the influence
of passion or feeling. And for both Taylor and Augustine, this is an endless process; finite
humanity falls infinitely short of the divine perfection. For neither is there any Pelagian
good nature or Stoic bonum naturae, good or bad simply by its choices.
Finally, Kant and Augustine think original sin - that is, for both, self-love as the
basic principle of conduct, and its consequences - arises from pure will; though Augustine
also thinks it is inherited. Kant, with Taylor, thinks that if it belongs to the thinking self,
this cannot be, on Augustine’s own principles concerning the nature of the rational soul.
However, as the primatologist Frans de Waal has written, after quoting the passage of
Hobbes on human desire we considered towards the end of chapter 2:
The desire to dictate the behaviour of others is such a timeless and universal attribute of
our species that it must rank with the sex drive, maternal instinct, and the will to survive in
terms of the likelihood of its being part of our biological heritage.385
385 Good Natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals, Harvard UP 1996.
258
Scientific research shows us that there is a sense in which we inherit our minds, and their
tendencies, as well our more obviously ‘physical’ traits. The relation between the two,
and the merit of the ‘subtle dualist’ arguments of Augustine and Coleridge and many
others, remains, of course, a matter of intense debate.
For de Waal, the drive to dominate is ultimately a survival strategy: just as for
Hobbes, human acquisitiveness is a way of guaranteeing “the way of [our] future desire”,
and so our future preservation. But the natural tendency towards sociability and cooperation
(observed by Grotius, and even Augustine, as much as Aristotle) is the same; de
Waal observes in chimpanzees what Hobbes suggests concerning humans: the desire for
domination ends up being a strategy for self-destruction, not survival, as the other
members of the group begin to avoid the cheat in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and co-operate
to bring down the bullying alpha male. Grotius had already made the same point in
relation to states. Taylor observes that whatever our natural inclinations, of mind or body,
may dispose us towards, for good or ill, only a conscious choice to act in a certain way,
when we could have done otherwise, can be considered strictly moral.
Whether the origin of what Taylor calls our “strange propensity” to our own
selfish good is the ‘external’ influence of instinct, or the by-product of a reflexive
consciousness that knows itself, and so loves itself, better than anything else, and how far
instinct is shaped by this, or whether the distinction is essentially false, is a debate of the
most involved kind, and possibly insoluble, if anything is. However, we have seen that
for Augustine, the appetitive nature of the rational soul contributes to a more dynamic
and integrated view of human nature as a whole, in which the distinctions are controlled
by analogy with Christological dogma: material and immaterial are hypostatically united,
they may be distinguished, but not separated.
259
At any rate, as Armstrong argues,
What the Platonic tradition [and others, the “older Greek” and “more authentic Christian”,]
wish their followers to get rid of is the acquisitiveness which not only makes it impossible
to start the ascent to the divine but breeds envy, hatred and strife among mankind.386
Iris Murdoch has suggested how a form of “Platonic inspiration” might complement
“Kantian obligation”387 in assisting human beings who desire a good will, and value it
above “wealth, or honours, or physical pleasures”,388 to be better than they generally find
themselves to be: “a place”, she says, “for the idea of grace”:
386 Compare Rist 1994, p152: “In the Symposium Plato had written that all that is beautiful, and
above all beauty itself, arouses desire for a kind of possession. But one of the differences between desire for
passing goods, like beautiful bodies, and desire for immaterial goodness, is that desire for the immaterial
has no need to be possessive; there is as much and to spare for everyone. The gods, Plato tells us in both the
Phaedrus (247a) and the Timaeus (29e1-2), are neither envious nor grudging. So a proper understanding of
the good and the beautiful will bring us (some of us) to an inspired and godlike condition which Plato calls
a form of madness (Phaedrus 244a-245c). As Diotima puts it (Symposium 206e), when we have seen the
vision of beauty, we shall beget in the beautiful, produce many noble and splendid ideas (210d), engender
true virtue (212a): that is, in plainer terms, we shall do good deeds and know what we are doing and why
we are doing it. Furthermore, this love brings its necessities, obligations and responsibilities. Beauty is both
Destiny and the Goddess of the labours of childbirth. Eros is a compelling force, and Diotima’s remarks
about begetting in the beautiful suggest a double analogy for good works: the inevitability of orgasm when
a certain stage has been passed in the confrontation with beauty, and the subsequent conception.” Plainly,
this is an important source for Augustine’s idea of a good will: “We can all enjoy [truth] equally and in
common; there is ample room, and it lacks for nothing. It welcomes all of its lovers without envy; it
belongs to them all but is faithful to each. No one says to another, ‘Step back so that I too can get close; let
go of it so that I too can embrace it.’ They all cleave to it; they all touch it. No one tears off a piece as his
own food; you drink nothing from it that I cannot also drink. For what you gain from that communion does
not become your own private property; it remains intact for me. When you breathe it in, I need not wait for
you to give it back so that I can breathe it too. No part of it ever becomes the private property of any one
person; it is always wholly present to everyone.” DLA 2.14. We have seen in ch.4 how even temporal
goods can be rightly loved, on Taylor’s developed version of Augustine’s account: that is, not in a
possessive, acquisitive, greedy way, but for the sake of their own created value and goodness. Feelings, and
even appetites, can be integrated with, given their direction by, a rightly-directed will, and in their own
measure help to motivate the will itself. “The Augustinian saint will not separate his lower sensible interests
from his higher, but will blend his heart into a new but ordered unity, with God’s help.” Rist 1994 p185.
This is important in the context of what we have just discussed concerning the relation between ‘material’
and ‘immaterial’ in human nature, and relates directly to both the purpose and the general significance of
the sacramental principle, for Taylor as for the Fathers. Taylor, like Augustine, wants our will to be in its
own power, and not driven by our feelings; but he also wants our feelings to be rightly directed, following a
good will, and thinks the right feelings can have a legitimate motivational role.
387 As John Rist contrasts them, 1994 p153.
388 DLA 1.12.
260
Any religion or ideology can be degraded by the substitution of self, usually in some
disguise, for the true object of veneration. However in spite of what Kant was so much
afraid of I think there is a place both inside and outside religion for a sort of contemplation
of the Good, not just by dedicated experts but by ordinary people: an attention which is not
just the planning of particular actions but an attempt to look right away from self towards a
distant transcendent source of perfection, a source of uncontaminated energy, a source of
new and quite undreamt of virtue. This attempt, which is a turning away from the
particular, may be the thing that helps most when difficulties seem insoluble, and especially
when feelings of guilt keep attracting the gaze back towards the self. …
Love is the general name of the quality of attachment and it is capable of infinite
degradation and it is the source of our greatest errors; but when it is even partially refined it
is the energy and passion of the soul in its search for the Good, the force that joins us to
Good and joins us to the world through the Good. Its existence is the unmistakable sign
that we are spiritual creatures, attracted by excellence and made for the Good. It is a
reflection of the warmth and light of the sun.389
Taylor, as well as Augustine, would have found a reflection of many of his ideas in this
passage. But for Taylor, like Augustine, “our goodness, unlike the fictitious perfection of
the Platonic and Stoic sage, remains fragile, and carnal customs can easily set in again.
389 The Sovereignty of Good, London 1970, p101, 103. For Murdoch, like Augustine according to
John Rist, “Logically correct thinking can aim at all sorts of goals, but if we are to say that one of these
goals is superior to another, it seems right to think of it as more valuable, more worthy of love and respect,
rather than as more intelligible. Augustine certainly held that the more lovable is also the more intelligible,
but if we are talking about human motivation, we need an object which is desirable as well as intelligible,
Augustine knew that as well as Hume or Plato.” 1994 p184.
Murdoch also has an ‘Augustinian’ idea of the role of humility: “Simone Weil tells us that the
exposure of the soul to God condemns the selfish part of it not to suffering but to death. The humble man
perceives the distance between suffering and death, and although he is not by definition the good man
perhaps he is the kind of man who is most likely of all to become good.” p104. Augustine on the humility
of God's example in Christ, designed to subvert human pride: “Just as the devil in his pride brought proudthinking
man down to death, so Christ in his humility brought obedient man back to life ... Christ came
humble and lowly, he rose, and raised up man who believed in him.” de Trin. IV.3.13.
261
The Pelagians are wrong to imagine that [sinlessness is attainable] on earth”.390 Perhaps
he can help to remind us that, as part of an approach such as Murdoch describes, we
might find ready help in “signs” in the old patristic sense of the term, clothed in material
form and celebrated and administered in a community which they help to foster; signs
which can help to empower and enable, to give what they signify.
77,173 words.
390 Rist 1994 p179, on Augustine “after about 415”.
262
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АНГЕЛОЛОГИЯ, ДЕМОНОЛОГИЯ И ВОСКРЕСЕНИЕ ТЕЛА
У АВГУСТИНА И АНСЕЛЬМА
Симус Дж. О'Нил
1. Введение
Второе мистическое видение Августина в «Исповеди» происходит в общении с его матерью, святой Моникой, во время разговора о том, «какое качество будет иметь вечная жизнь святых, жизнь, которую «ни глаз не видел, ни ухо не слышало, и не вошло оно в сердце человека». .2 Несмотря на общее нежелание Августина и Ансельма высказываться окончательно по таким загадочным и непостижимым вопросам, они, тем не менее, будучи вынуждены участвовать в связанных с этим спорах, часто высказываются по этой теме больше, чем кажутся склонными. Хотя откровение является основным источником нашей веры в то, на что мы должны надеяться, а вера и надежда являются сверхъестественными добродетелями, оба героя приводят философские аргументы, чтобы раскрыть небесную жизнь, а внимательный читатель подбирает драгоценные детали, включенные в различные дискуссии, раскрывающие их понимание славы небес. Учитывая заявление Христа о том, что избранные «равны ангелам и являются сынами Божиими», и Августин, и Ансельм исходят из предпосылки, что все небесные граждане после Общего суда будут наслаждаться нынешней жизнью святых ангелов; подобным же образом вечное блаженство верных ангелов объясняется пониманием небесного искупленного состояния человека: как равные, каждый раскрывает природу другого.3
Далее я рассматриваю аспекты позиций Августина и Ансельма относительно первоначального состояния ангелов, их падения и подтверждения. Затем я исследую состояние Адама до падения и трансформацию избранных, чтобы попытаться понять, как эти мыслители представляют себе загробную жизнь. Мы увидим, как ангелология (и демонология) Августина и Ансельма помогает объяснить, до какой степени искупленное состояние человека отличается от первоначального состояния в Эдеме, в чем небесная цель человеческой жизни и почему не существует искупления для падших ангелов. Хотя некоторые анализы являются спекулятивными, поскольку анализ Августина и Ансельма по этой теме аналогичен, вопрос не рождается из тщеславного любопытства; ни ангелология, ни демонология не являются просто метафизическими и гипотетическими испытательными полигонами, но, скорее, их понимание того, почему часть величайшего творения Божия дошла до такой порочности и как остальная часть возвысилась, имеет далеко идущие последствия для сотериологии, христологии, теодицеи доктрины искупления и, действительно, основ онтологии и этики этих гигантов западной мысли. Мы здесь не занимаемся прыжками на остриях булавок 4.
2. Сотворение и падение ангелов
Падение ангелов с небес - история столь же захватывающая, сколь и ужасающая. То, что часть вершины разумной жизни может опуститься с таких высоких высот до пропорционально глубокой развращенности, не сулит ничего хорошего нам, людям, слабым и маленьким. Для тех, кто не знаком с этой историей, хотя рассказы и предположения в христианской традиции и ее ответвлениях различаются, основная идея заключается в том, что Бог создал ангелов в первый день возгласом «Да будет свет».5 Произошло ли это мгновенно, или в период между их рождением и сотворением людей, часть этих созданий, вершина творения, свободно, сознательно и добровольно отреклась от Бога и Его порядка и отпала от своего положения. Согласно одной из пугающих интерпретаций Луки 10:18, Христос имеет в виду именно это падение, когда утверждает, что перед своим воплощением «видел сатану, павшего с неба, как молния,». Добрые ангелы остались и были вознаграждены, тогда как падшие под предводительством Люцифера, «носителя света», самого яркого и прекрасного из ангелов, превратились в демонов или дьяволов.6 Таким образом, серафический Люцифер стал «Сатаной» - титул, означающий «противник».
На лекции 2009 г. в Университете Иллинойса в Урбана-Шампейн о. Винсент Ламперт, экзорцист Индианаполисской епархии, хладнокровно рассказал, что его наставник, о. Кармине Де Филиппис однажды сам сатана сообщил, что он больше не носит имя «Люцифер»: из-за своего сознательного упрямства Люцифер становится кем-то и чем-то другим, больше не соглашаясь с рациональным порядком Бога. Со своего высокого положения добрые ангелы теперь благосклонно вмешиваются в человеческие дела, в то время как дьявол и его приспешники до Последнего Дня бродят по миру ради гибели душ. Независимо от того, верите ли вы в эту историю или считаете ее скорее вымыслом, чем фактом, рассказ как о падении, так и об утверждении ангелов в любом случае служит моделью для рассмотрения четырех последних вещей: смерти, суда, рая и ада.
Чтобы понять, как Августин и Ансельм понимают нынешнее блаженство ангелов, то есть нашу ожидаемую цель, мы можем начать с рассмотрения первоначального ангельского устроения. По мнению Ансельма, наивысшее достижимое блаженство внутри творения могут обрести только его величайшие создания: те, кто обладает способностью разума. По Аристотелю, смысл достигается, когда человек достигает предназначенной ему Богом цели. Поэтому Ансельм предупреждает, что «не следует сомневаться, что природа разумных существ создана Богом праведной для того, чтобы, радуясь Ему, она могла быть блаженно счастлива». И если человек, достигнув такого блаженства, не знает с уверенностью, что оно никогда не будет утрачено, он не сможет обеспечить себе полнейшего блаженства, ибо всегда будет бояться его утраты. Таким образом, истинное блаженство разумного существа требует двух вещей: 1) наслаждения высшим благом, которым является Бог, и 2) уверенности в постоянстве этого блаженства. Лучше тому, кто испытывает телесные мучения, оставаясь при этом уверенным в своем вечном союзе с Богом в загробной жизни, чем тот, кто «даже в этом великом блаженстве Рая не был уверен в своей судьбе».
Августин и Ансельм уверены, что верные ангелы обладают этой полной, вечной радостью; эта часть ортодоксальности служит богословской предпосылкой. Падение Михаила и Гавриила теперь невозможно, так же как нет и осуществимого искупления для Вельзевула и Бегемота. Как пишет Августин: «Ибо какой христианин-католик не знает, что никакой новый дьявол никогда не возникнет среди добрых ангелов, поскольку он знает, что этот нынешний дьявол никогда больше не вернется в общение добрых?»10 Мы будем иметь дело с некоторыми аргументы в пользу этой догмы ниже. Однако сначала, чтобы понять ангельский итог, мы должны ответить на более основополагающий вопрос, фундаментальный для ангелологии Августина и Ансельма: были ли верные ангелы изначально уверены в том, что они никогда не падут? Что касается потерянных ангелов, то они никогда не могли быть уверены в своем будущем блаженстве, потому что никогда не достигли его; если они этого ожидали, то поверили в ошибку. Однако, возможно, они знали, что падут, а может быть, их судьба была неясна. В любом из этих трех случаев, пишет Августин, их «судьба была несовместима с полнотой блаженства, которым, как мы верим, наслаждались святые ангелы»11.
Таким образом, Августин склоняется к убеждению, что верные ангелы всегда видели свое вечное постоянство. Однако это создает проблему, поскольку кажется, что с самого начала существовало два класса ангелов: 1) те, кто был уверен, что они останутся обладателями высшего блага, и 2а) те, которые либо не знали своего будущего, 2б) были уверены, что они падут, или 2в) верили, что устоят, но были обмануты. Если хвалить решительных и порицать отступников, то справедливость требует, чтобы они, по крайней мере, начали на равных12. И Ансельм, и Августин признают наличие проблемы: это одновременно запятнало бы славу верующих и уменьшило бы вину отступников, если бы было различием между их первоначальными рядами, в результате чего падшие резко отпали из более низкого порядка.
Августин предлагает решение, которое он, тем не менее, не склонен принять. Он пишет: «И поскольку злые ангелы не могли быть уверены в [своем блаженстве], из этого следует, что либо ангелы были неравны, либо, если они были равны, добрые ангелы были уверены в вечности своего блаженства [только] после погибели остальных»13. То есть первоначальное равенство может быть сохранено только в том случае, если и ныне падшие, и ныне верные с самого начала также не были уверены в продолжительности своего блаженства. Подтверждение и отступничества, и верности пришло лишь позднее, после какого-то непостижимого испытания. Августин поднимает вопрос об этом возможном решении в De civitate Dei (413/427 г. н. э.) и идет дальше, не останавливаясь на его вероятности.14 В аналогичном позднем тексте De correptione et gratia (426/427) Августин прямо обращается к той же проблеме. Опять же, поскольку мы знаем из Писания, что мы, достигнув вечной жизни в единении с Богом, будем знать, что мы, подобно ангелам, что никогда после этого не падем, так и святые ангелы должны еще полнее знать ту же истину относительно своего постоянства: «они познали то, что мы познали верою»15. Затем Августин обращается к дьяволу и его приспешникам, относительно первоначального состояния которых он совершенно ясен: хотя они были весьма благословенны, они изначально не знали о их будущих страданиях, однако тогда они были свободны гарантировать себе полное блаженство стойких ангелов: «Было что-то, что могло бы быть добавлено к их блаженству, если бы по свободной воле они стояли в истине до тех пор, пока не получили бы эту полноту высочайшего благословения как награду за эту стойкость, а именно, что они не смогут снова пасть и будут знать эту истину с уверенностью. Текст предполагает переход, когда Августин переходит к рассмотрению дьявола и падших ангелов, но ничего с уверенностью сказать нельзя.
Петр Ломбардский, как и следовало ожидать, замечает двусмысленность Августина именно в этом вопросе и взвешивает загадку. Ломбарднц ссылается на аналогичную дискуссию в третьем тексте, De Genesi ad Litteram (401/415), в которой Августин предполагает, что, возможно, Бог не открыл потенциальным падшим ангелам, что они падут, но открыл верным ангелам что они будут занимать свой пост.17 И снова, однако, это создает две группы ангелов, если не онтологически, то, по крайней мере, эпистемологически различных, тем самым стирая изначально равное начало. Ломбардец предполагает, однако, что Августин выдвигает это только как мнение, и сам не верит этому, а, скорее, действительно верит (что удобно) в то, что будет утверждать Ломбардец: первоначально ни один из ангелов не был полностью благословлен, и утверждение верных появилось лишь позже.18 Проблема, однако, в том, что Августин явно отвергает этот вариант в De Genesi. Хотя он тоже желает сохранить один, равный род ангелов в момент творения, он, тем не менее, заключает: «Но меня заставил вопрос, имел ли [Люцифер] какое-либо предвидение о своем падении до того, как он пал, чтобы настаивать на том, что хотя бы на мгновение ангелы были таковы, так как Бог, добрый Автор и Творец всех сущностей, сотворил их обоих, но по различию их воли и желаний в этом невозможно сомневаться».
Решение Ломбардца откладывает подтверждение ангельской уверенности, и Августин, по крайней мере в этом тексте, не потерпит такого умаления их первоначального блаженства. Однако это решение, впервые предложенное, но отвергнутое Августином, является именно тем объяснением, которое примет Ансельм. их дальнейшая судьба. Для Ансельма наше блаженство состоит в том, чтобы привести нашу собственную волю в соответствие с волей Бога. Он пишет: «Когда такое [разумное] существо желает того, что правильно... оно добровольно подчиняет себя [Божьей] воле и правлению, сохраняя свое надлежащее положение в жизни внутри естественной вселенной и, в меру своих способностей, сохраняя красоту самой вселенной».21 Если ангел знает, что падет, но не желал этого, он несправедливо падет, хотя и заслужил счастье. Это не только жестоко, но и одной только ангельской воли должно быть достаточно, чтобы оставаться стойким.22 С другой стороны, если ангел желает пасть, то он делает это справедливо. И преданность, и отступничество зависят от воли: в любом случае человек получает то, что выбирает. В истинно католической манере наказание за зло - это получение того, что вы хотели, - идея, лежащая в основе контрапассо в "Комедии" Данте. В конце концов, Ансельм не так озабочен этой ангелологической загадкой, как Августин.
Несмотря на такой уход от проблемы, Ансельм тем не менее утверждает, что ангелы были созданы на равных основаниях. Если 1) полное блаженство требует уверенности в своем вечном постоянстве, и 2) некоторые ангелы пали, то 3) отсюда следует, что по крайней мере некоторые из ангелов никогда не были полностью блаженны изначально. Если 4) они были созданы на равных, то 5) отсюда следует, что ни один ангел, не имея уверенности в своей будущей судьбе, изначально не знал, сохранит ли он свое положение. Фактически, Ансельм утверждает, что ангелы, которые остались верными, не только обрели уверенность в своем вечном блаженстве, но, кроме того, произошла дальнейшая трансформация, дополнительное величие, дарованное им при их утверждении. Ансельм пишет: «Ибо возвышение места, принадлежащего человечеству, на уровне добрых ангелов выше прежнего места дьявола в той же степени, в какой эти добрые ангелы заслужили более высокое положение в результате своей стойкости после гибели плохих». 23 Люцифер и Гавриил первоначально занимали одно и то же место: после ангельского падения Люцифер был изгнан, а Гавриил получил повышение. Момент ангельского продвижения был также вспышкой бесовского разрушения. Таким образом, как мы увидим, для того, чтобы падшее человечество могло возвыситься до настоящего ангельского царства, оно должно не только подняться за пределы первоначального состояния Адама, но еще выше первоначального состояния Рафаила, Михаила и всех ангелов. В чем же заключались эти двойные превращения, ангельские и демонические?
3. Ангельское ареображение и тело
По отношению к любому существу, каким бы совершенным и полностью реализованным его потенциал, остается различие между его собственной благостью и Богом, Источником всякого добра. Однако, согласно позиции Ансельма, помимо этого естественного, видового лишения блага, или их «должного» блага, существовало еще какое-то благо, соответствующее их природе, которого ангелам недоставало при их творении - у них все еще было какое-то благо, рассчитанное на рост. Ансельм утверждает, что, хотя потенциальные верные ангелы были счастливы на своем месте, любя дарованную им великую привилегию, неминуемо обреченные ангелы ценили, скорее, это высшее благо, которого им не хватало, больше, чем дар, которым они обладали. Это стремление к добру сверх того, что Бог справедливо дал, было гордым честолюбием, ускорившим их гибель.24 Так эти ангелы пали со своего возвышенного состояния. Однако остальные ангелы, не пожелавшие этого процветания сверх справедливого удела, за стойкость удостоились именно этого венца. Бог продвинул их с самого начала к еще большему росту. Ансельм пишет: «Таким образом, ангелы разделяются на тех, кто, придерживаясь праведности, могут пользоваться всеми благами, которые пожелают, и на тех, кто, отказавшись от праведности, лишается всякого блага, которого они желают»; последние будут первыми, а первые последними.25
То, чем могло бы быть это сверхъестественное добро, находится за пределами человеческого понимания, но, похоже, оно представляет собой нечто большее, чем просто добавление небесного завершения в вечном блаженстве. Если бы дело было только в этом, можно было бы предположить, что Ансельм сказал бы об этом, учитывая его явное обсуждение этого условия в CDH и DCD. Вместо этого он пишет: «Теперь я знаю, каким могло быть [это преимущество], но чем бы оно ни было, достаточно знать, что это было нечто, что могло возрастить их величие, чего они не получили, когда были созданы. чтобы они могли достичь этого своими заслугами»26. Каким бы ни было это величие, оно еще больше отделяет ангелов от демонов, верных от падших. Некоторые пошли вниз, а другие вверх; ни один ангел не сохраняет свою первоначальную конституцию. Действительно, ни одно существо сейчас не занимает этого былого изначального ангельского положения.
Ансельм, насколько мне известно, не обсуждает подробно онтологическое состояние небес или даже вообще не обсуждает, является ли оно каким-то образом локализованным или состоит из какого-то материала. Скорее, он описывает небеса как скорее союз ангельского и человеческого с Божественным; для Ансельма прямота и блаженство разумных существ состоят, как уже говорилось, выше, в свободном подчинении нашей собственной воли воле Бога, августинианская идея, лежащая в основе демонологии Доктора Благодати. Интересно, однако, что пространственная космология Августина довольно хорошо соответствует интерпретации Ансельма как падения, так и возвышения ангелов и заставляет задуматься, имел ли Августин в виду нечто подобное рассуждениям Ансельма, когда располагал небеса среди физических слоев космоса, несмотря на его отказ от позиции Ансельма в отношении ангельского творения.
Так, в «De Genesi ad Litteram» Августин описывает пространственные подразделения внутри иерархии космоса по элементарным линиям, связывая конкретные тела существ, населяющих каждый уровень, с преобладающим элементом, составляющим область. В порядке убывания располагаются элементы: огонь/эфир, воздух, вода и земля. Высший уровень космоса - это эфирное небо, которое Августин без оговорок называет «светящимся», «небесным», «звездным», «эфирным небом» и просто «небом». Эта вершина онтологической иерархии материальна, хотя и создана из самой утонченной материи. Может показаться странным, что Августин представляет небеса как физическое место. Однако материальность небес полностью соответствует пониманию Августином благости материального творения и его требованию, чтобы все существующие вещи, кроме Бога, обладали материей. По мнению Августина, эти небеса - это область верных ангелов, которые сражались (или, возможно, будут сражаться) против Люцифера и его отступнического сообщества, как это описано (в разных источниках) в книге Еноха и (по крайней мере) упоминается во многих местах Писания.
В платоновской и христианской традициях существует долгая история споров об онтологической природе ангелов и демонов. Древние и раннесредневековые позиции платоников и христиан обычно утверждают, что у них есть тела. Это малоизвестный факт, но те, кто знаком с нынешней католической позицией и катехизисами, что ангелы и демоны являются «бестелесными существами», испытали влияние неоплатоника Псевдо-Дионисия (V-VI вв.), переданное и популяризированное Гуго Сен-Викторским (1096-1141).28 Веру в бестелесность ангелов укрепили в конце XIII века Аквинат и Бонавентура. , которые оба согласились, что ангелы не имеют тел, но тем самым оказались в любопытной (и антиаристотелевской) позиции, пытаясь объяснить, как бестелесное существо могло быть индивидуализировано, являться Деве Марии, гулять с Товией или бороться с Иаковом.
Считающаяся устаревшей, но более приземленная позиция Августина позволяет избежать подобных загадок. Если допустить существование ангелов и демонов, что Августин обязан сделать по традиции и Писанию (а может быть, даже и по личному опыту!), то их природу легче понять, если они, как и люди, имеют материальные тела.29 По сравнению с позицией Ангельского и Серафического Докторов, эта позиция менее «метафизически дорогостоящая». Фактически, хотя он был знаком с (преобладавшей в его время) точкой зрения о том, что ангелы бестелесны, даже такой поздний деятель, как Петр Ломбардский (1096-1164), похоже, считал, что позиция Августина была предпочтительнее, чем тогдашний консенсус.30
Так какие же тела у ангелов по Августину? Хотя в «Энхиридионе» он выражает осторожность в отношении проповедей ангельской природы и организации ангельского сообщества, его часто беспокоит строение воскресшего человеческого тела.31 Этот интерес заставляет его комментировать природу ангельского тела немного более подробно, чем он, по-видимому, в противном случае был бы склонен делать. Существа, населяющие каждый сектор космоса Августина, состоят в основном из элементов, входящих в состав каждого уровня. В «De Genesi ad Litteram» Августин называет вершину космоса «светящимся небом», царством «звездного огня». Тела, какими мы надеемся обладать, очень легки и неземны»33. То есть ангелы имеют огненные или эфирные тела.34 В «Опровержениях» Августин непреклонно подчеркивает, что это материальное тело. Там он пишет: «Если понимать эту [эфирность] тела без членов, которые мы сейчас имеем, и без субстанции, хотя и нетленной, но состоящей из плоти, то это ошибка». 35
Многие другие тексты подтверждают веру Августина в то, что ангелы обладают материальными телами. Говоря о загробной жизни в 45-й проповеди, Августин пишет: «Нам не придется вздыхать, потому что мы уже воспеваем хвалу. Так смертная плоть преобразится в тело ангела. Именно так вздохи превратятся в хвалу». 36 В другой проповеди Августин подтверждает: В Священном Писании действительно упоминается, что некоторых ангелов видели человеческие глаза. Но, конечно, Господь подчинил Им созданное тело таким образом, чтобы приспособить его к ним по своему усмотрению. Поэтому, хотя они и не были рождены женщинами, они все же имели истинное тело, которое они могли менять из любого облика в любой другой, как того требовала их служба или должность, но всегда из одной истинной формы в другую истинную форму.37
Августин воздерживается. от размышлений о том, как именно ангел дополняет, увеличивает, трансформирует или иным образом модифицирует свое невидимое эфирное тело, чтобы его могли видеть люди. В «De Trinitate» он признается, что не знает, как это работает, и у него нет времени исследовать это и в этом тексте, что, тем не менее, также подтверждает его веру в ангельское тело. Августин задается вопросом, когда ангелы являются людям в Писании, добавляют ли они к своим телам какую-то более грубую, видимую материю или же они действительно превращают свои тела во что-то видимое. Там он говорит об ангельских «постоянных и неизменных духовных качествах их тел» и «их собственных телах»38. «Духовное» здесь для Августина не означает «отделенное» (от материи), как для Фомы Аквинского. Скорее, когда Августин говорит о «духовном» качестве ангельского тела, он имеет в виду более утонченный, эфирный вид материи, чем тот, который можно найти в материальных земных телах людей или в воздушных телах демонов. В связи с этим Эдмунд Хилл отмечает, что Аквинат не понимает ангельского тела у Августина и считает, что последний думает, что оно создано из воздуха, как и тела демонов, хотя в дополнение к этим августинским текстам существуют ссылки на Священные Писания. чтобы поддержать позицию, согласно которой тела ангелов состоят из огня.39 Фактически Фома Аквинский пытается перетолковать Августина, утверждая, что ангелы и демоны вообще не обладают телами.40
Августин говорит, что нижний сектор неба, область воздуха, «уходит вниз к морю и суше»41. Это подчиненное небо подразделяется на два уровня: верхний и нижний воздух. Будучи самым близким царством к собственно небесам, верхняя часть воздуха выше и чище, чем нижняя .42 Неясно, какие существа обитают в этой области космоса, если таковые имеются, поскольку демоны сейчас обитают в нижнем воздухе. и ангелы обитают на эфирных небесах.43 Несмотря на очевидную сдержанность Августина в отношении подтверждения того, что что ни один ангел изначально не был уверен в своей будущей судьбе, космос Августина прекрасно соответствует этому положению. Это верхнее разделение на уровне воздуха обеспечивает подходящее срединное место для таких существ: ниже территории, на которую были подняты верные ангелы, которые никогда не падали и теперь никогда не могли пасть, и над нижней, мрачной областью нынешнего обитания падших.
Ансельм менее склонен, чем Августин, размышлять об ангельских (и демонических) телах, и, насколько я могу судить, он не признает место ангелов и демонов, а также то, свободны ли они и небо от «места» вообще. Тем не менее, взгляд Ансельма на ангельское, небесное состояние может быть дополнительно прояснен его комментариями о человеческой цели, поскольку они суть одно. По словам Ансельма, «святых людей можно правильно назвать и «ангелами Божиими», потому что они подражают ангельской жизни, потому что на небесах им обещано сравнение и равенство с ангелами 45
4. Адам до падения и воскресение тела
В то время как Эдем вызывает в воображении образы рая, и мы жаждем долгожданного возвращения в «Сад», первоначальный пост Адама, как и пост ангелов, не был для Августина и Ансельма его предназначенным и постоянным домом. То есть людям предназначалось в конечном итоге вечно обитать на небесах вместе с непоколебимыми ангелами на равных. По словам Августина, избранные «будут увенчаны и преображены в небесную славу и будут равны ангелам Божиим». Учитывая его христологические соображения. в CDH Ансельм утверждает, что падшие люди станут рабами того, кто их освободит. Ангелы, подчиняющиеся только Богу, будут более велики, чем человечество, подчиняющееся двум господам, Богу и своему Спасителю. Оставаясь вассалом кого-либо, кроме Бога, пишет Ансельм, Адам «никоим образом не был бы восстановлен в том достоинстве, которое он имел бы в будущем, если бы он не согрешил». Это не то же самое, чем обладают обитатели небес, а именно ангелы», так как ангелы обитают теперь на сидерическом огненном небе, а верхний воздух теперь пуст. Состояние в Эдеме было несовершенным по сравнению с его гипотетической безгрешной будущей формой.
Ансельм здесь озабочен не восстановлением Адама в его первоначальном состоянии, а, скорее, неким перспективным состоянием, которого ему не хватало даже в Эдеме. В другом месте, пишет Ансельм, если бы после падения человечество было восстановлено, «восхождение, которое [оно] совершало бы в случае избранных, было бы от положения столь великой слабости к месту, которое было выше того, с которого пал дьявол». на уровень [нынешних] добрых ангелов». 49 Небеса превосходят и Эдем, и высоту, с которой пал Люцифер и его отступническая свита. Как и у ангелов, сотворенное состояние Адама было намеренно временным: он мог быть поднят до более великого, даже ангельского состояния, или, увы, как он и сделал, погрузиться в испорченную деградацию.50
Так каким же было состояние Адама в саду, которое суждено было превзойти искупленным из его рода? Ансельм пишет: «Ибо [наши прародители] имели в саду своего рода бессмертие, то есть силу не умереть; но это не была бессмертная сила, потому что она могла умереть – в том смысле, я имею в виду, что Адам и Ева не могли не умереть». В противном случае это произошло бы естественным путем. Потребность в средствах к жизни подразумевает уязвимость, неполноценность и зависимость в отличие от человека, для которого смерть уже невозможна. У Адама и Евы не было недостатка в возможности умереть - они действительно умерли!52
Августин излагает эту позицию несколько точнее, и Ансельм явно имеет в виду здесь этот отрывок из De Genesi adlitteram. Августин пишет: «Одно дело, в конце концов, не иметь возможности умереть, как природа, которую Бог создал бессмертной, а совсем другое – иметь возможность не умереть».53 В отличие от естественно бессмертных и огненных тел ангелов и столь же бессмертной, но менее воздушной конституцией демонов земные тела Адама и Евы естественным образом требуют питания и в конечном итоге разлагаются.54 Августин определяет внешнюю силу, способную сохранить бессмертно тела Адама и Евы, несмотря на их естественное вырождение, как помощь Древа Жизни. Их бессмертие не является естественным свойством их конституции, а является сверхприбавленным к ним, пока они могут есть плоды древа.55
Августин также различает одушевленное тело (тело, одушевленное душой) и одухотворенное тело. (тело, оживленное духом). Он говорит, что бессмертия одухотворенного тела «еще не было у человека» при сотворении Адама.56 Таким образом, доступ Адама к Древу Жизни, а не что-то в его изначальной природе, сделало его бессмертным; в его смерти не было необходимости, несмотря на то, что он обладал лишь одушевленным телом. У нас тоже есть тела, воспламененные душой. Однако в результате изгнания из Сада нам обеспечена телесная смерть.57 Избранные, однако, вслед за Общим Судом, пишет Августин, «будут обновлены от застоя греха, и не к первоначальному. «одушевленному» телу, какое имел Адам, но к чему-то лучшему, то есть к «одухотворенному» телу, когда мы будем равны ангелам Божьим, пригодным для небесных обителей…»58 Для Августина и Ансельма, даже в саду, где Адам и Ева не могли умереть, им еще оставалось, как и нам, если Бог даст, преобразиться59.
Обе фигуры противопоставляют это первоначальное человеческое состояние небесной награде. Если бы Адам сопротивлялся греху в тот первоначальный момент искушения, полагает Ансельм, он, как и добрые ангелы, больше не смог бы грешить. Однако, в отличие от тех же ангелов, чье преобразование было немедленным, Адаму пришлось бы ждать перехода к ангельскому статусу до тех пор, пока не будет достигнуто число избранных.60 Пополнение состава небесных граждан приведет к Всеобщему Суду, и природа обновится. Ансельм наследует точку зрения, возможно, исходящую от Августина, о том, что число падших ангелов будет заменено из человеческого рода.61 Августин утверждает, что при воскресении человеческое тело будет преобразовано в ангельское тело «и посредством искупления человека бреши, которые великое отступничество оставило в ангельском воинстве, [будут] заполнены».
Это положение верно и для другого. Ансельм предполагает, что было бы, по меньшей мере, странно, если бы Адам и Ева, пройдя через все трудности при создании Вселенной, просто положили яблоко на землю, если бы все это застопорилось. Но если бы состав разумных существ на небесах изначально был полным, это было бы вполне вероятно.63 Бог создал бы вселенную, а затем немедленно обновил бы ее. Однако, если бы первоначальный состав небесных граждан был неполным, творение все равно имело бы цель и продолжалось бы (как и деторождение), независимо от того, пал ли какой-либо ангел или Адам. Преобразование, заключает Ансельм, откладывается. Он пишет: «Мы верим, что нынешняя физическая масса Вселенной должна быть изменена заново во что-то лучшее. Мы верим, что это не произойдет до тех пор, пока число избранных людей не достигнет своей окончательной суммы и благословенный город, о котором мы упомянули, не будет завершен; а также то, что после завершения строительства города обновление последует без промедления.64
Во время обновления природы, когда дополнение будет достигнуто, тела избранных преобразятся, как утверждает Ансельм, «в телесное бессмертие». 65 Для Ансельма крайне важно, что, если люди заменят падших ангелов и заполнят ангельское число в том виде, в каком они существуют сейчас, тогда человеческие существа должны быть повышены до абсолютно равногоим статуса - что-либо меньшее не будет истинной заменой.66 Учитывая это равенство, какими должны быть или, вернее, во что должны быть обращены такие мужчины и женщины, чтобы не только подняться до первоначального статуса ангелов при сотворении, но и далее составить компанию добрым ангелам после их ангельского утверждения? В чем заключается это состояние, остается загадкой, но мы можем получить некоторое представление о мышлении и предположениях Августина и Ансельма.
Во-первых, оба мыслителя непреклонны в том, что сейчас мы носим те самые тела, которыми наши души (или, скорее, духи) будут обладать в будущей жизни; «Я увижу Бога из своей плоти».67 Ансельм утверждает, что мы должны «наслаждаться вечным блаженством во всей полноте, то есть душой и телом. 68. Для христианина, вопреки некоторым платоническим и неоплатоническим тенденциям, человек, в более аристотелевском смысле, представляет собой союз души и тела.69 Без тела человек является неполным. Однако это тягостное, душвное тело, поскольку оно отвлекает «от этого видения высшего неба», должно быть преобразовано, чтобы достичь и сохранить своей подобающей цели и равенства с ангелами70. Ансельм пишет: «Если бы человек не согрешил, он был бы обязан претерпеть изменение в нетление; также верно и то, что, когда в будущем он будет восстановлен, он будет восстановлен в теле, в котором он живет в этой жизни».71 Неким таинственным образом наша нынешняя плоть станет нетленной.
Во-вторых, Ансельм пишет: «Ибо, если человек должен быть восстановлен в совершенстве, он должен быть воссоздан таким существом, которым он был бы, если бы не согрешил».72 Согласно Августину, это означает, что первоначально одушевленное тело Адама, «не греша.... заслужило бы превращение в «духовное» тело».73 Августин описывает воскресение тела и его метаморфозу, а также приводит некоторые подробности относительно его истинной природы: « оно будет и повиноваться, и повелевать, и оживляться, и оживляться с такой невыразимой легкостью, что то, что когда-то было его бременем, теперь является его славой»;74 И далее: «не будет никакого развращения, никакого щекотания и дразнения чувств».75 Мы видим здесь, что надлежащее, намеченное состояние тела находится за пределами того, чем мы сейчас обладаем. Все бремя, страдания и вырождение нашей нынешней плоти, последствия первородного греха, будут удалены. Наконец, согласно Августину и Ансельму, мы будем навечно уверены, что никогда больше не сможем впасть в ошибку. Подобно ангелам сейчас, мы больше не сможем грешить. Августин пишет, явно связывая ангельское состояние с состоянием искупленного человека: «Но те люди, которые были объяты благодатью Божией и стали согражданами святых ангелов, пребывающих в блаженстве, никогда более не будут ни грешить, ни умирать, облачившись в духовные тела»76.
5. Почему демонов невозможно спасти
Томисты больше, чем августинисты и ансельмианцы, подчеркивают демоническое упрямство и отсутствие покаяния в ущерб строгому правосудию и наказанию любой противоположности до выбора, но не после».79 Однако человеческая воля, по крайней мере в этой смертной оболочке, свободна до выбора и отчасти свободна после этого изменить свое решение.80 В то время как Августин цитирует библейские авторитетные аргументы в пользу вечное проклятие демонов в De civitate Dei, его философские рассуждения о том, почему Люциферу и его демоническим ученикам нет спасения, обычно сосредотачиваются на карательном характере их приговора, а не на их упрямстве во грехе; Божья справедливость равна Его милости. Например, в «Трактате об Иоанне» Августин утверждает, что наказание бесов настолько велико, потому что их первоначальная доля была столь же велика. По сравнению с людьми перед смертью и судом, которые еще способны принять благодать, демоническая вина считалась тем более предосудительной, [потому что] природа совершивших ее имела большую высоту... насколько они меньше, чем мы, должны были бы впасть в грех, если бы они были выше нас по природе. Но теперь, оскорбив Творца, они стали еще более гнусно неблагодарными за Его благодеяние.81 Кому много дано, с того многого и ждут; демоны, однако, растратили свои таланты.82
Аргументы Ансельма, как правило, более технические, но развиваются в том же духе, что и аргументы Августина. В CDH он приводит две причины, объясняющие, почему состояние падших ангелов безнадежно.83 Во-первых, в отличие от людей, унаследовавших первородный грех от Адама, демоны несут прямую ответственность за свое беззаконие. Хотя мы виновны в зле, которое происходит после первородного греха и которое проистекает из его последствий (невежество, страдания, смерть и похоть, то есть склонность к греху), мы не совершили первого преступления, которое ускорило наше настоящее помрачение и немощь. Таким образом, поскольку человеческие существа после падения пали не по своей воле, они могут получить помощь для своего искупления, поскольку они получили свое затруднительное положение как род. Однако для демонов все зависит лично от них. В отличие от людей, ангелы не произошли друг от друга последовательно с течением времени; они не имеют родословной, а, скорее, были созданы все сразу - «lux fiat!» - и тем самым несут прямую ответственность за свои собственные, индивидуальные падения. Таким образом, исправление бесов должно произойти их собственной рукой. Однако католическое антипелагианство распространяется и на демоническую сферу. Бесы пали сами по себе и поэтому должны подняться, что невозможно - слишком велика задача. Таким образом, для демонов игра окончена; они застряли, бессильные спастись и неспособные получить помощь от другого.
Более того, даже если бы демонам была доступна Божественная помощь, христологическая логика не может быть применена в их случае, и этот аргумент подробно разработан в CHD. Короче говоря, чтобы человек мог быть искуплен, согласно христологии Ансельма (и христологии в целом), Искупитель должен быть одновременно Богом и человеком: человеком, чтобы заплатить за антропологический грех всего рода, но Божественным, чтобы быть способным на работу искупления, не добавляя при этом еще одного кредитора, кроме Бога.84 Можно было бы представить подобную фигуру Христа для спасения демонов, своего рода Бога-демона, но потому, что (во времена Ансельма) каждый демон уникален и не принадлежит к расе, в отличие от человеческих существ, принадлежащих к одному и тому же виду, каждому демону понадобится свой спаситель: и это абсурдное количество мессий. Подобно Августину, Ансельм акцентирует внимание на начальном моменте ангельского падения и особой природе ангелов, точнее, демонов, чтобы доказать, почему они не могут быть спасены. Хотя эта позиция в первую очередь соответствует Писанию, Ансельм утверждает, что «неизменная логика противостоит предоставлению облегчения падшим ангелам». Это врата ада: «Оставь всякую надежду входящий сюда».86
6. Заключение
Перед великой процессией в 29-й песне Эдемский сад в «Чистилище» Данте, за исключением паломника, его проводника и Матильды, пуст; грешников не видно.87 Он прекрасен, но в нем никого нет. Этот финал «Чистилища» показывает, что Данте не дает указаний о том, как прожить «хорошую жизнь», поскольку мирской путь добродетели не является предназначенной человеческой целью; это не достаточное стремление ни для одного разумного существа. Вот почему практическая философия Аристотеля с христианской точки зрения в конечном итоге трагична. Поэтому Данте дает обоснование для достижения рая. Падший в Адаме, человек либо глубже погружается в развращенность, никогда больше не достигая своего первоначального состояния, либо восполняет и превосходит то, что потерял. В каком-то смысле пустыня Августина является кульминацией Чистилища Данте: это место теперь пусто, покинуто его первоначальными обитателями и никогда больше не будет заселено.
Ангелология и демонология Августина и Ансельма представляют поучительные параллели для человеческих существ. Кроме того, давным-давно оказавшись перед выбором, ангелы теперь моделируют две цели, все еще доступные человечеству: адское проклятие и небесное возвышение. Запечатанные ангельские судьбы являются для нас парадигмами, ангельские и демонические жизни - нашими альтернативами. Они - наши опоры, крайности. А наши возможности, в конце концов, — это лишь крайности: одна или другая. Мы разделяем эти цели с ангельскими созданиями и идем по проторенной дороге. Наше путешествие разворачивается во времени и для успеха требует посредничества Христа, которое для них либо ненужно, либо невозможно. Они теперь не могут ни упасть, ни подняться, но избранные ими места, райские и адские, точно также и наши.
Наконец, в «Энхиридионе»88 Августин выражает скептицизм относительно того, что мы можем знать об организации ангельского общества, и ставит под сомнение пользу от беспокойства о таких знаниях, ибо выходят за рамки того, что они являются «полезным упражнением для интеллекта».89 В том же духе Ансельм считает, что ссоры из-за определенных ангелологических и демонологических мелочей не представляют «никакой опасности для души», как важные доктрины. Как мог Августин предостерегать от демонов, не ознакомившись предварительно с их действиями? Как мог Ансельм объяснить необходимость Воплощения как средства, не рассуждая об ангельском предназначении человека, которое является его целью? Несмотря на частое нежелание высказываться решительно по таким вопросам, можно увидеть важность влияния ангелологии и демонологии не только на фундаментальные богословские и философские доктрины, но и на сами цели человеческой жизни.
1 Confessions 9.10(23), hereafter abbreviated as conf. I use the English text Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998); “qualis futura esset uita aeterna sanctorum, quam ‘nec oculus uidit nec auris audiuit nec in cor hominis ascendit.’” All Latin citations from Augustine throughout are from Augustine, Corpus Augustinianum Gissense, Prof. Dr. Cornelius Mayer, ed. (Basel: Schwabe, 1995).
2 See 1 Cor. 2: 9.
3 лк 20:36 (all biblical texts Revised Standard Version).
4 Недавнюю дискуссию об относительной важности ангелологии и демонологии для католического богословия в целом см General Introduction to Serge-Thomas Bonino, OP, Angels and Demons: A Catholic Introduction, trans. Michael J Miller (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2016), 1-8.
5 Gen. 1:3.
6 Известный отрывок из Исайи, относящийся к вавилонскому царю Навуходоносору, часто интерпретируется как относящийся к Люциферу, «Носителю света»:: Как ты упал с небес, о Дневная Звезда, сын Зари! Как ты повержен на землю, ты, повергший народы!» (Ис. 14:12).
7 Anselm, Cur Deus homo? 2.1, hereafter, CDH. I use the English text in Brian Davis and G.R. Evans, eds., Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works including Monologion, Proslogion, and Why God Became Man (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008). See also p. 288 and p. 316. Аналогичный аргумент появляется у Ансельма, De casudiaboli, p. 206 в том же издании.
8 См. Августин, Град Божий 11.11-13, далее сокращенно civ. Дей. Здесь вспоминается «Пир» Платона, где Сократ указывает, что человек всегда любит только то, чего ему не хватает. Причина в том, что даже когда человек обладает объектом своего желания, он все равно желает сохранить его в будущем, положение дел, которого еще нет. То есть он по-прежнему желает того, чего ему не хватает, - будущего наслаждения своим нынешним благом, которое он может потерять. Здесь мы видим, что, по мнению Платона, нельзя надеяться на вечное обладание таким благом. Однако у христианина есть такая надежда. Вот почему христианская добродетель надежды есть сверхъестественное совершенство воли. Без откровения возможности вечного конца и благодати желать его невозможно было бы надеяться на такую цель. Логика Симпозиума этого не позволяет; христианская логика, однако, требует этого.
9 Augustine, civ. Dei 11.12. I use the text in Augustine, City of God, trans. Marcus Dodds (New York: Random House, Inc., 1950); “. . . quam erat ille homo sui casus incertus in magna illa felicitate paradisi.”
10 Augustine, civ. Dei 11.13; “quis enim catholicus christianus ignorat nullum nouum diabolum ex bonis angelis ulterius futurum, sicut nec istum in societatem bonorum angelorum ulterius rediturum?” See also Augustine’s On Admonition and Grace 27, hereafter abbreviated as corrept.
11 Augustine, civ. Dei 11.11; “… ipsa de tanta felicitate cunctatio eam beatae uitae plenitudinem, quam in sanctis angelis esse credimus, non habebat.”
12 Августин пишет: «Или, если кажется трудным поверить, что при сотворении ангелов некоторые были созданы в неведении ни об их упорстве, ни о своем падении, в то время как другие были наверняка уверены в вечности своего блаженства – если это так. трудно поверить, что они не все с самого начала были на равных, пока те, кто не злы, сами по себе не отпадут от света добра, конечно, гораздо труднее поверить, что святые ангелы теперь не уверены в их вечном блаженстве . (Град Божий 11.13).
13 Августин, Град Божий 11.13; «…restat, ut aut inpares fuerint, aut, si pares fuerunt, post istorum руины illis certa scientia suae sempiternae felicitatis accesserit».
14 Однако позже в том же тексте он подтверждает первоначальное равенство. См. также Августин, civ. Деи 12.1: «Что противоположные наклонности у хороших и плохих ангелов возникли не из-за различия их природы и происхождения,
15 Augustine, corrept. 27.Текст, Anti-Pelagian Writings, Philip Schaff (ed.), series: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 5 (Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1971).
16 Augustine, corrept. 27.
17 See Augustine, On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis 11.18, далее Gn. litt. and Peter Lombard, Sentences 2. D4. 1(19). 2, hereafter abbreviated as sent. For the former text in English, I use Augustine, On Genesis, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (New York: New City Press, 2002). см. также Peter Lombard, The Sentences, trans. Giulio Silano (Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2008). Также Augustine, Gn. litt. 11. 19, 25.
18 See Lombard, sent. 2. D4. 1(19). 4: Что же касается тех, кто оставался стойким, то либо они заранее знали свое будущее блаженство по Божьему откровению, и поэтому они были в некотором роде благословлены в уверенности надежды; или они не были уверены в своем блаженстве, и поэтому были не более благословенны, чем те, кто пал. Эта последняя точка зрения кажется мне более вероятной».
19 Augustine, Gn. litt. 11.19, 26.
20 See Anselm, De casu diaboli 24-25, далее сокращенно DCD. Знания ангелов подтвердились, и они больше не могли грешить, когда стали свидетелями последствий падения других ангелов.
21 Anselm, CDH 1.15.
22 See Anselm, DCD 21.
23 Anselm, CDH 1.18.
24 A24 По мнению Ансельма, «те, кто предпочел стабильности справедливости, в которой они были созданы, то, что Бог еще не хотел дать им по Своему справедливому решению, потеряли то благо, которое они имели, и не получили того, что побуждало их обесценивать справедливость» (DCD 8). Я использую английский текст в книге Brian Davis and G.R. Evans, eds., Anselm of Canterbury: The Major Works including Monologion, Proslogion, and Why God Became Man (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008). See also DCD 27: “Он отказывается от этого, потому что желает того, чего ему не следует желать, и таким образом, желая того, чего он не должен, он отказывается от этого».
25 Anselm, DCD 8.
26 Anselm, DCD 8.
27 See Catechism of the Catholic Church 328«Существование духовного, не -телесные существа, которых Священное Писание обычно называет «ангелами», есть истина веры. Свидетельство Писания так же ясно, как и единодушие Предания».
28 See, for example, Louis Coulange, The Life of the Devil, trans. Stephen Haden Guest (Whitefish, Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003).
29 См. Августин, Энхиридион о вере, надежде и любви 59, далее сокращенно ench. Августин поднимает вопрос о том, есть ли у ангелов тела.
30 Августин допускает возможность того, что демоны могут быть бестелесными, отделенными субстанциями (например, civ. Dei 21.10), но, похоже, отвергает ее по разным причинам.
31 Sм напр, Augustine, ench. 59.
32 SмAugustine, Gn. litt. 3.14: “luminosi caeli”, “igne sidereo.”
33 33 Августин, о 83 различных вопросах 47, в дальнейшем сокращенно обозначаемых как раздел “что такое тела ангелов, квалификация для тех, кто живет, просветление в мире, суть которого заключается в доверии”. Я использую текст на английском языке из книги Августина "Ответы на разные вопросы", пер. Бонифаций Рэмси (Нью-Йорк: Нью Сити Пресс, 2008. Августин пишет в “Опровержениях”, которые в дальнейшем будут сокращены как "отречение", по поводу этого отрывка, что под "эфирным" не следует понимать "нематериальное". см. Августин, отречение 1.26, и см. также Августин, civ. День 22.29.
34 Августин различает огонь и эфир, но не разделяет их как отдельные элементы, как это делают Апулей и автор "Эпиномиды". Скорее, четырехчастное деление Августина отражает "Тимей".
35 Augustine, retr. 1. 25.Англ. текст , The Retractions, trans. Sister Mary Inez Bogan, R.S.M. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1968).
36 Augustine, Sermon 45.10. Текст Augustine, The Works of Saint Augustine, Boniface Ramsey (ed.), 50 vols. (Hyde Park, New York: New City Press, 1990-).
37 Augustine, Sermon 12.9. I use the text in Augustine, Sermons, Part III, Volume I: Sermons 1-19 series The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century, trans. Edmund Hill, O.P. (Brooklyn, New York: New City Press, 1990).
38 Augustine, Trin. 3.5.
39 See Ps 104:4 and Heb 1:7: «огонь и пламя, служители Твои» и «Об ангелах говорит Тот, Кто делает ангелов Своих ветрами, а рабов Своих — пламенем огненным» соответственно. Августин вслед за Апулеем понимает эфир как некий разреженный огонь, а не отдельный элемент.
40 See, for example, Aquinas, Summa Theologiae 1.50.1, hereafter abbreviated as ST, and Aquinas, On Separated Substances 18. 98
41 Augustine, Gn. litt. 3.15.
42 Августин пишет: «Высшая область воздуха… . . благодаря своей чистоте и спокойствию соединен в общем мире с небом, с которым граничит, и разделяется во имя его» (Быт. Букв. 3.14).
43 Августин упоминает о возможной пустоте этого царства в Быт. немного 3. 6,8. Эдмунд Хилл, однако, ошибается, когда в своем переводе этого текста предлагает в примечании 11, с. 220, что Августин намекает, что верхние слои воздуха «занимают положение, о котором утверждается пустота
4444 А может быть, там обитали только ангелы, которые падали, а затем падали в нижний воздух. (Верные всегда находились собственно на небесах.) Августин пишет: «Возможно, именно в этой области можно было найти ангелов-преступников перед их преступлением вместе с их князем, не дьяволом, а затем архангелом — некоторыми из наших людей, видите ли, подумайте, что они не были небесными или сверхнебесными ангелами, — тогда едва ли удивительно, если они после своего греха были низвергнуты в эту туманную тьму, где еще воздух, но теперь переплетен с тонкой влажностью» (Быт. букв. 3.14). ). Однако это снова разрушает первоначальное равенство между всеми ангелами. Обратите также внимание, что он снова поднимает этот вопрос только как мнение. О падении см. Быт. немного 11.33. Августин подробно пишет и о телах падших ангелов, которые были превращены «в наказание в нечто подобное воздуху» (Быт. букв. 3.15), низвергнутые в облака над нами.
45 Ансельм, CDH 1.18. См. также CDH 1.19: «Конечно, люди, о которых идет речь, должны быть равны добрым ангелам». См. Августин Gn. немного 4. 24, 41: «По этой причине, поскольку святые ангелы, с которыми мы будем приравнены после воскресения 46 Августин, Проповедь 45.10.
47 Ансельм, CDH 1.5. Фактически, абсолютное равенство, которым должны обладать добрые ангелы и избранные, лежит в основе христологии Ансельма в CHD. Если бы люди могли быть искуплены каким-либо существом, они были бы подчинены господину, которому не подчиняются ангелы. Ансельм пишет: «Для человека, у которого была перспектива не быть рабом никого, кроме Бога, и равным добрым ангелам во всех отношениях, он был бы рабом того, кто не был Богом и кому ангелы не были в рабстве» (CDH 1.5). Поскольку ангелы связаны только с Богом, если человек хочет быть искуплен, он также не должен быть связан ни с кем иным, как с Богом, если он хочет сохранить свое положение. Таким образом, искупителем человека должен быть Сам Бог.
48 Ансельм, CDH 1.18.
49 Ансельм, CDH 1.18. Ансельм продолжает: «Ибо возвышение места, причитающегося человечеству, на уровне добрых ангелов выше прежнего места дьявола в той же степени, в какой эти добрые ангелы заслужили более высокое положение в результате своей стойкости после гибель плохих.
50 Августин также согласен по этому вопросу. См. правильно. 28: «И если бы [Адам] по своей свободной воле пожелал продолжать оставаться в этом состоянии праведности и свободы от греха, то, несомненно, без всякого опыта смерти и несчастья, он получил бы по заслугам этого продолжения полноту благословения». которым благословлены и святые ангелы; то есть невозможность дальнейшего падения и знание этого с абсолютной уверенностью».
51 Ансельм, CDH 1.18.
52 Далее в тексте Ансельм утверждает, что Адам изначально был «сильным и потенциально бессмертным», но «заслуженно понес наказание, став смертным» (CDH 1.22). Ансельм повторяет ту же фразу «сильный и потенциально бессмертный» позже в той же книге и главе.
53 Augustine, Gn. litt. 6. 24, 35. Cf. Augustine, corrept. 28.
54 О бессмертии ангельских и демонических тел у Августина см. Быт. немного 3. 10,14. Для Августина огонь и воздух - активные элементы, тогда как вода и земля - пассивные и подчиняются движениям высших элементов.
55 Августин пишет: «Он был отсечен от этого древа жизни, когда согрешил, чтобы он мог умереть, а если бы он не согрешил, то мог бы и не умереть» (Быт. буквально. 6. 24, 35). ). Кажется, Ломбард думает, что Августин не думал, что они все время ели от дерева, но если бы они не согрешили, им только тогда было бы позволено есть от дерева и остаться бессмертными.
56 Августин, там же 6. 24, 35.
57 Августин пишет: «У нас, однако, если бы мы жили справедливо, тело умрет» (Быт.. 6. 26, 37). См. также там же 6, 26, 27: «Это тело, как видите, просто «одушевлено», как и тело первого человека. Но этот, хотя и принадлежит к тому же классу, что и воплощение души, находится в гораздо худшем положении, потому что находится под необходимостью умереть, чего не было у того».
58 Августин, там же 6. 24, 35.
59 Августин, кажется, является источником позиции Ансельма здесь. См. Августин, граждан. Дей 14.10.
60 См. Anselm, CDH 1.18: «И хотя они еще не были повышены до того положения равенства с ангелами, которого должны были достичь люди, поскольку полный состав ангелов должен был восполниться из человеческого рода оказывается, что по условиям справедливости, в соответствии с которой они существовали, если бы они одержали победу и не согрешили при искушении, они были бы утверждены вместе со всем своим потомством, чтобы больше не иметь возможности грешить». Таким образом, Адаму пришлось бы производить потомство. См. «Девственное зачатие и первородный грех» Ансельма 10.
61 Об истории этого учения см. Vojt;ch Novotn;, Cur homo? История диссертации о человеке как замене падших ангелов (Карлов университет в Праге: Karolinum Press, 2014).
62 Августин, англ. 61. Я использую английский текст из книги Августина «Энхиридион о вере, надежде и любви» (Вашингтон, округ Колумбия: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1961).
63 См. Ансельм, CDH 1.18. Ансельм говорит, что Адаму было бы легко не согрешить. Например: «И хотя человек легко был способен сделать это [не согрешив], он позволил себя победить одним лишь убеждением, а не под насильственным принуждением» (ЦДГ 1.22).
64 Ансельм, CDH 1.18.
65 Ансельм, CDH 1.18.
66 Ансельм пишет: «Люди в этом небесном городе - те, кого следует взять в этот город вместо ангелов, - должны иметь такой же характер, как и те, кто должен был там находиться, чьими заменителями они должны быть, то есть , по характеру такие же, как сейчас добрые ангелы. В противном случае павшие не будут «заменены». . . (CDH 1.19).
67 Job 19:26.
68 Anselm, CDH 2.3.
69 See in Augustine, for example, civ. Dei 13.24, Homilies on the Gospel of John 19, 15, hereafter abbreviated as Jo. ev. tr., and Sermon 186.
70 Augustine, Gn. litt. 12. 35, 68.
71 Anselm, CDH 2.3.
72 Anselm, CDH 2.2.
73 Augustine, Gn. litt. 6. 28, 39.
74 Augustine, Gn. litt. 12, 35, 68.
75 Augustine, Sermon 45.10. See also Gn. litt. 12, 35,68: «Соответственно, когда природа получит обратно это тело, теперь уже не просто «одушевленное», но благодаря будущему преображению, «одухотворенное», оно будет иметь полную меру своей собственной природы, оно будет одновременно подчиняться и повелевать, одновременно оживляясь и оживляясь с такой невыразимой легкостью, что то, что когда-то было его бременем, теперь является его славой».
76 Augustine, civ. Dei 13.24.
77 Августин рассматривает ряд отрывков в civ. Дей 21.23.
78 Однако это не только и не изначально томистская позиция. В Катехизисе цитируется святитель Иоанн Дамскин (7-8 вв н.э.). См. Катехизис Католической Церкви 393. Фома цитирует тот же отрывок в ST 1.64.2. См. Joseph Suk-Hwan Dowd, “Aquinas on Demonic Obstinacy,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 89, no. 4 (2015): 699-718. 79 Аквинский, ST 1.64.2.
80 Эта позиция коренится в томистской эпистемологии и различии между человеческими и ангельскими формами мышления по отношению к их соответствующим онтологиям, хотя эта доктрина оспаривается..
81 Августин, Джо. ев. тр. 110.7.
82 Мтф 25:14-30.
83 См. Ансельм, CHD 2.12.
84 Опять же, идея здесь в том, что искупленные человеческие существа должны быть сделаны равными верным ангелам, у которых нет другого кредитора, кроме Самого Бога.
85 Anselm, CDH 2.21.
86 Dante, Inferno 3.9. I use the English text in Dante, The Inferno of Dante, trans. Robert Pinsky (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1994).
87 See Dante, Purgatorio 28.
88 Энхиридион был написан между 421 и 422 годами (по сравнению с «Буквальным комментарием к Бытию», составленным между 401 и 415 годами).
89 См. Августин, англ. 58-59. Августин также утверждает, что он не уверен, «не являются ли солнце, луна и все звезды частью этого же общества, хотя многие считают их просто светящимися телами, лишенными ни ощущений, ни разума».
90 Ансельм, CDH 1.18. Ансельм пишет: «Но есть вопросы, по которым можно без опаски придерживаться различных мнений, и одним из таких является вопрос, который послужил поводом для нашего настоящего исследования. Ибо, предположив, что мы не знаем, должно ли быть избранных людей больше, чем падших ангелов, и предположим, что мы оцениваем одну из этих альтернатив выше, чем другую, я не думаю, что это представляет какую-либо опасность для души». (CDH 1.18).
Перевод (С) Inquisitor Eisenhorn
Ангелология, демонология и воскресение у Августина
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