Concupiscence In Augustine And Aquinas

Concupiscence in Augustine and Aquinas

INTRODUCTION

Why are human beings evil? The Judaeo-Christian

explanation is in terms of original sin. The notion of

original sin comes from the biblical story in Genesis of how

Adam and Eve lived in paradise, yet how they freely chose to

disobey God, and how they were punished by God by being cast

out of paradise. This casting out was not the only

punishment, however. In the biblical story, the woman is

specifically punished by God in that her childbearing will

now be painful, and also in a loss of equality with her mate,

who will now "rule over" her. In turn, the man is also

punished, in that now he must laboriously work the soil in

order to gain any food from it. Yet all of these punishments

from the biblical story give no inkling of why it is human

beings are inclined toward evil. Many early commentators on

the biblical story, however, began to see how this first or

original turning away from God, who is good, is the first

instance of evil. They then argued that it must be on

account of this first evil or original sin that human beings

are inclined towards evil. Yet few ever attempted to explain

how the punishment for original sin affected this

inclination.

In the Christian tradition, the first thinker to attempt

a coherent explanation in this regard was Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine felt that the punishment for original sin was

visited first upon the will, by weakening it and thus

inclining it towards evil, since it was through this free

will that God had given them that Adam and Eve chose to

disobey and turn away from God. Through the will, the

effects of original sin are visited upon the mind and the

body as well, making the whole person inclined towards evil.

Together, the effects of original sin on the will, mind and

body are covered by modern theologians in the term

"concupiscence". The task of the chapter one, then, will be

to provide the background against which Augustine came to

these conclusions concerning concupiscence.

In the second chapter, the Augustinian conception of

concupiscence will be more rigorously analyzed. The first

task will be to cut away all the religious entailments

underlying concupiscence since they are philosophically

problematic. In the end, concupiscence will be redefined as

the inclination toward evil. Yet, since Augustine's view of

evil as privation, which is presented in the first chapter,

is also problematic because of its religious entailments, a

more coherent view of evil to underlie this leaner definition

of concupiscence will be discussed. This view is that evil

is unjustified harm inflicted on human beings.

Another problem with Augustine's view of concupiscence

that will be presented is that it conflicts in a major way

with his moral theory. Augustine believed that only chosen

actions were morally culpable. Yet his view that

concupiscence entails a radical weakening of the will seems

to point to a lack of free will, and thus, to a lack of

freely chosen actions. In choosing the view entailed by

concupiscence as the more plausible, it will be argued that

unchosen actions, and even the unchosen concupiscence from

which these unchosen actions flow, are morally culpable.

In the third chapter, Aquinas subtle reinterpretation of

Augustine's notion of concupiscence will be presented and

analyzed. Aquinas thought, with Augustine, that human beings

were inclined toward evil after the Fall. Yet Aquinas

differed with Augustine as to the degree of damage original

sin inflicted on humanity. Aquinas felt that concupiscence

was compatible with human beings being inclined also toward

the good. Thus, for Aquinas concupiscence, after once again

cutting away all the indefensible entailments, will be

presented as the pool of all human desires, which can be

either good or evil. This view of concupiscence is even more

plausible than Augustine's, in that it acknowledges the

prevalence of evil in the world, yet also recognizes the

possibility for human goodness.

CHAPTER 1: AUGUSTINE ON CONCUPISCENCE