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THL 8460.020
IN DIALOGUE WITH AUGUSTINE:
AUGUSTINIAN REALISM(S) AND POLITICS
Villanova University
Summer 2014
Edmund N. Santurri, St. Olaf College, santurri@stolaf.edu
William Werpehowski, Georgetown University, william.werpehowski@villanova.edu
wjw33@georgetown.edu
Course Description
This is a course in Christian theological ethics. It considers Augustine’s political thought
and its modern legacy, especially with regard to a number of ways in which that thought
may be understood to be “realistic,” rather than e.g., naïve, sentimental, “pacifist,”
“idealistic” in one or another sense, “perfectionist,” etc. Following careful consideration
of primary texts in Augustine, we study such topics as the respective “realisms” of
Reinhold and H. Richard Niebuhr, the meaning and character of Christian and especially
Roman Catholic just war theory, the problem of “dirty hands,” and arguments for and
against “Augustinian liberalism.”
Texts to Purchase
Robert Markus, Christianity and the Secular
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0268034907/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i01?ie=UTF8
&psc=1
and
Augustine Political Writings (Hackett)
http://www.amazon.com/Political-WritingsSaint/dp/0872202100/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403117498&sr=11&keywords=augustine+political+writings+hackett
All other course readings are available on Blackboard.
Course Requirements for Graduate Credit
Your learning and your success in this course will depend in good measure on timely,
close, and thoughtful reading of all assigned texts. Please bring daily readings for each
session to class. Your attendance and participation in seminar will count for 50% of your
final grade.
Along with the ten class sessions, course requirements will include two evening sessions
and a research paper, approximately 7000 words, to be completed within three months.
The research paper will count for 50% of your final grade
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Schedule of Topics and Readings (What follows is subject to revision at the instructors’
discretion.)
July 21, a.m. session
Introduction & Augustine’s political ethics
Augustine, Political Writings, vii-xxvi, 3-22,
30-32, 35, 36-47, 95-109 (consult study
questions)
July 21, p.m. sessions
Augustine’s political ethics continued
Augustine, Political Writings, 137-139, 140163 (consult study questions)
July 22, a.m. session
Continued
Augustine, Political Writings, 203-247
(consult study questions)
July 22, p.m. session
“Realism” in Augustine
Reinhold Niebuhr, “Augustine’s Political
Realism;” Herbert Deane, “Conclusion” of
The Political and Social Ideas of St.
Augustine, 221-243; H Richard Niebuhr,
“Augustine and the Conversion of Culture”
in Christ and Culture, 206-218
July 23, a.m. session
An exchange
Santurri and Werpehowski, “Augustinian
Realism and the Morality of War”
(forthcoming in Paffenroth et. al., eds.,
Augustine and Social Justice, Lexington
Books, 2015)
July 23, p.m. session
A closer look at Augustine and just war theory
Paul Ramsey; War and
the Christian Conscience, xv-xxiv, 15-39;
John Langan, “The Elements of St. A
Augustine’s Just War Theory,” The Journal
of Religious Ethics 12/1 (Spring, 1984), pp.
19-38; H. Richard Niebuhr, “War as the
Judgment of God” and “War as Crucifixion”
in War in the Twentieth Century, ed.
Richard B. Miller, 47-55, 63-71
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July 24, a.m. session
Catholic thought in conversation with Augustinian realism
NCCB “Peace in the Modern World:
Religious Perspectives and Principles” in
The Challenge of Peace, par. 27-121;
William Werpehowski, “A Tale of Two
Presumptions”; Keith Pavlischek,
“Reinhold Niebuhr, Christian Realism, and
Just War Theory: A Critique”
http://www.eppc.org/docLib/20080205_palpatterson03.pdf
July 24, p.m. session
Augustinian realism, “dirty hands,” and other conflicts
John Rist, Real Ethics, 130-135, 264-271;
Deane, Poltiical and Social Ideas of St.
Augustine, 166-168, 241; Charles
Mathewes, Evil and the Augustinian
Tradition 219-224; Eric Gregory, Politics
and the Order of Love: An
Augustinian Ethic of Democratic
Citizenship, 28. 183, 368; Johh M. Parrish
Paradoxes of Political Ethics, 92-102;
Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Bombing of
Germany;” Santurri, “Niebuhrian Ethics and
Divine Coherence;” Nigel Biggar, “Love
and War,” in In Defense of War, 61, 7891
July 25, a.m. session
Augustinian Liberalism?
Santurri, “Rawlsian Liberalism, Moral Truth
and Augustinian Politics;” Jean Bethke
Elshtain, “An Unbridgeable
Chasm;” Timothy Jackson “Prima Caritas,
Inde Jus: Why Augustinians Shouldn’t
Baptize John Rawls;” Michael White,
“Peace or Justice,” JPJS 8/2 (1997), 136, 45- 47, 49-62, 69-73; Eric Gregory,
Politics and the Order of Love: An
Augustinian Ethic, 100-107
July 25, p.m. session
The secular and the saeculum
Robert H, Markus, Christianity and the
Secular, pp. 9, 13-69