Saint Augustine (lived 354-430) is the greatest of the early Christian theologians. He lived in North Africa and studied in Rome, where he read and admired Plato and Cicero. He then became a lecturer in Rhetoric, had a mistress and a son, and followed a Manichaean beliefs (see footnote). His life was transformed in 387, when he was baptised a Christian in 391; he was ordained a priest and later appointed Bishop of Hippo, near Carthage. In his autobiography, “ The Confessions”, he tells of his sinfulness before his conversion. As a bishop, he combatted the Arians, Pelagians and other heretics. He came to reject the pagan philosophers, because they had nothing to say about salvation. In 410 the fall of rome to the Goths caused an enormous shock throughout the western world, and caused Augustine to begin writing “The City of God”, setting out his own philosophical ideas.
Augustine's views were as follows:-
There are two cities: the earthly city is what we all live in, good & bad together; but Christians, who know God through Christ, are at the same time members of the City of God. We are pilgrims on this earth, and our ultimate goal is not material wellbeing, but salvation. The Greek and Roman writers are wrong in seeing citizenship in a rational and just state as the best life, because it ignores the question of sin. We all inherit Adam’s original sin, as a result of which we are filled with self-love and lack self-control. All of us deserve eternal damnation, from which we can only be saved by God’s grace.
What part can the earthly state play in this? A just state would be united by love of God instead of material wealth; but any earthly state contains evilly-intentioned people, and can never be entirely just. It can act morally or immorally.
Augustine tells a story of a bandit who was brought before Alexander the Great, who asked him, “How dare you go around killing and robbing people?”, to which the bandit answered, “Well, you go around killing and robbing too; the only difference being that you do it on a far greater scale! So I get called a bandit, and you're called a conquerer!” This leads to the question: what is the difference between a state and a large and well-organised gang of bandits?
The question still merits discussion. One answer might be that we obey the bandit gang merely out of fear, because they have power (in the shape of weapons). But is our motive for obeying the policeman or the tax-collector also based on fear, or is there more to it? Is it based on a broader level of self-interest; namely, that we benefit from living in a peaceful, prosperous society, and would be unlikely to benefit in a chaotic, lawless one. But would we still think like this if we lived under a violent dictatorship, or were part of a persecuted minority group?
We have no moral duty to obey orders given to us by an armed robber. But the state
claims to have authority over us: we ought to obey it. What is the nature of
this authority? Where does it originate? Is it absolute and unlimited? Or is
all obedience ultimately based on self-interest, and are claims to authority
mere propaganda, to induce us to obey?
Augustine’s answer: The state, although a fallible human construct, is capable of doing God’s will if it maintains the peace, prevents crime and violence, promotes moral conduct and rules with justice. Under these circumstances, Christians ought to obey.
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Footnote: Manichaeism is named after Mani, a Persian, who was executed there in 276 A.D. Using ideas from the Persian Zoroastrian religion, Christian Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, he portrayed the world as the scene of a titanic struggle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness, in which we are all involved. Although never officially approved, Manicaeist beliefs have crept into Christianity and also into Islam. Various mystics and some heretical groups have seen the human soul as a fragment of the godhead trapped in the material universe, which is under the control of the forces of darkness, and from which it is always striving to escape.
