Augustine's treatment of neighbor - love in De doctrina Christiana has been the subject of much criticism in twentieth-century scholarship. Specifically, Augustine is criticized for reducing neighbor - love to an instrumental "use" of the neighbor as a tool in one's personal project of salvation. This paper argues that careful attention to the relationship between Christ and the uti-frui distinction in book 1 of De doctrina reveals a much different conception of "use." Far from advancing an instrumental treatment of the (...) other, Augustine, when he speaks of "using" the neighbor, is developing language to describe acts of charity. (shrink)

Placing St Augustine's theology in a new context by considering what he has to say about beauty, this shows how a theological understanding of beauty revealed in the created, temporal realm enabled Augustine to form a positive appreciation of this realm and the healing power of beauty within it.

The early church did not provide us with any normative statement on wealth and poverty, but it did give us clear witness to the hazards of wealth and to the abiding necessity of alms for the poor.

Le troisième tome de Bible de tous les temps est entièrement consacré à Augustin d'Hippone. Fidèles aux intérêts majeurs de la collection, Anne-Marie la Bonnardière et ses collaborateurs ont étudié la pratique augustinienne de la Bible, autant que les idées de l'évêque africain sur cette dernière. Cette visée originale vaut à leurs essais d'offrir une initiative neuve à l'univers de pensée tant étudié d'Augustin. En même temps, les apports particulièrement abondants d'Anne-Marie la Bonnardière constituent la somme d'une vie entière vouée (...) à de telles recherches. La fréquentation des Livres saints est vérifiée, décrite, approfondie, dans la carrière intellectuelle et religieuse du converti. Elle est examinée avec une certaine ampleur dans le cadre de la liturgie chrétienne, connue de l'évêque. Elle est éclairée par l'expérience spirituelle de cet homme de prière que fut Augustin. Elle prend tout son sens, dans la vie quotidienne du pasteur d'Hippone, à la lecture des chapitres consacrés à son activité épistolaire, à sa prédication ou à ses polémiques. Enfin, le rôle de la Bible est cerné dans les conceptions politiques et éthiques d'Augustin. Des traductions originales complètent cet ouvrage, dédié par les collaborateurs unanimes à leur maître d'œuvre. (shrink)

"This fine work's ample documentation should gladden the scholarly reader while its accessible prose & well-organized presentation will make it useful for ...

Augustine—for all of his influence on Western culture and politics—was hardly a liberal. Drawing from theology, feminist theory, and political philosophy, Eric Gregory offers here a liberal ethics of citizenship, one less susceptible to anti-liberal critics because it is informed by the Augustinian tradition. The result is a book that expands Augustinian imaginations for liberalism and liberal imaginations for Augustinianism. Gregory examines a broad range of Augustine’s texts and their reception in different disciplines and identifies two classical themes which have (...) analogues in secular political theory: love—and related notions of care, solidarity, and sympathy—and sin—as well as related notions of cruelty, evil, and narrow self-interest. From an Augustinian point of view, Gregory argues, love and sin constrain each other in ways that yield a distinctive vision of the limits and possibilities of politics. In providing a constructive argument for Christian participation in liberal democratic societies, Gregory advances efforts to revive a political theology in which love’s relation to justice is prominent. _Politics and the Order of Love _will provoke new conversations for those interested in Christian ethics, moral psychology, and the role of religion in a liberal society. (shrink)

Consumption--the flow of physical materials in human lives--is an important ethical issue. Be it fair trade coffee or foreign oil, North Americans' consumption choices affect the well-being of humans around the globe, in addition to impacting the natural world and consumers themselves. In this book, Laura Hartman seeks to formulate a coherent Christian ethic of consumption.