SINS AND VIRTUE
AUGUSTINE’S DEFINITION OF SIN
 the willful misdirection of love
 evil is the subversion or corruption of the original order of
creation
 sin as a human decision for disorder
o death, disease, and other involuntary disorders Augustine considers these as the penalty for sin.
o these afflictions are from God and are meant to
chasten the prideful, punish the malevolent, and in
general, to contain the corruption of individuals
through various pains in this life.
SIN RESULTS IN CORRUPTION AND DISEASE
 “Sin in a human being is disorder or perversity, that is, an
aversion to the more preferable creator, and a conversion to
the inferior creatures.” - Augustine
AUGUSTINE’S CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING OF SIN
 MANICHEAN BELIEF: All flesh is corrupt
o the Manichaean denigration of the flesh limited
divine creation to spirit
o led the Manichaean Christians away from the
standard or Orthodox understanding of Christ
 PLATONISTS: Realm of Spirit
o spirit as something humans may strive for through the
intellect and the use of reason
o through Philosophy
 EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL: Faith in Christ
o taught Augustine about the humility of the Spirit.
o taught him the moral of the Incarnation
AUGUSTINE DEVELOPED A PSYCHOLOGY OF SIN
 not built in to nature but is freely chosen


PRIDE (SUPERBIA)
o all sin is rooted in pride
o this decision against God and for one's own glory
leads to (existential) death
SIN AS A CHOICE
o “Sin is the will to retain or pursue what justice forbids,
and from which there is freedom to abstain; although
if there is no freedom, there is no will.”
THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND FREE WILL
 redemption from sin is a gift, not a reward for our own
initiative
 a gift to know that one must ask for redemption and to act in
a suitable manner
 Grace as the saving work of Christ
o outside of grace there is no choice except to sin
o originality of the choice is a thing of the past...
Augustine pointed the way of incarnation, opened in
Christ, as the only way beyond the confusions that
knot human freedom to sin
THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS
1. LUST
o unrestrained sexual craving
2. GLUTTONY
o to over-indulge, especially by over-eating
3. PRIDE
o inflated sense of one’s accomplishments
4. SLOTH
o laziness, lack of effort
5. WRATH
o uncontrolled feeling of hatred and anger
6. GREED
o the excessive desire for material things
7. ENVY
o jealousy towards another’s happiness
THE CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
 Mortal Sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave
violation of God’s law; it turns man away from God... by
preferring an inferior good to him. Venial sin allows charity
to subsist, though it offends and wounds it.
 Mortal sin... results in... the privation of sanctifying grace, that
is, of the state of grace. If it is not redeemed by repentance and
God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom
and the eternal death of hell...
 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does
not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when
he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full
knowledge or complete consent.
 Venial sin weakens charity... and... merits temporal
punishment. Deliberate and unrepented venial sin disposes us
little by little to commit mortal sin. However, venial sin does
not break the covenant with God. With God’s grace, it is
humanly reparable. “Venial sin does not deprive the sinner of
sanctifying grace, friendship with God, charity, and
consequently, eternal happiness.”
AUGUSTINE’S DEFINITION OF VIRTUE
 “The ordering of love.”
 the means by which moral order is established in human
actions directing them to their appropriate final end
 how to obtain virtue according to Augustine:
o Using reason for the sake of understanding God and
enjoying God. The enjoyment of God is man’s true
happiness.
o The true essence of the Christian life is to love God
by means of virtue.
REASON ENLIGHTENED BY FAITH
 places the enjoyment of God, the Creator-as the unique and
ultimate human end. Only God is enjoyed, everything else is
useful when ordered to God.
THE 7 VIRTUES
 THE INFUSED VIRTUES
o FAITH - belief in the unseen
o HOPE - attentive and prayerful waiting for the
reward promised by faith, complements and
reinforces it
o CHARITY - love of God, the transforming element
that gives meaning, cohesion, and direction to the
other virtues
 THE CARDINAL VIRTUES
o TEMPERANCE - the practice of restraint
o JUSTICE - orders acts according to a divine standard
o PRUDENCE - weighs the appropriate good in the
light of the gospel message
o FORTITUDE - the disposition of the soul which
enables us to despise conveniences and the loss of
things
VIRTUES
 the habit of loving God in accordance with the divine precepts
revealed in Scripture for human guidance
 the Word of Wisdom
 GOAL of the Virtues: Contemplation of God
 faith and the growth in one virtue onto the next
THE VIRTUES UNDERSTOOD IN LIGHT OF THE LIFE
CHRIST
 as Christians, we have faith that Jesus the Lord died and rose
from the dead
 this brings forth hope for our life with God.
 and this hope generates charity for the beginning of the truly
Christian way of life
APPLICATION
PROBLEMS
TO
SPECIFIC
ETHICAL
THE NATURAL LAW
 served as Augustine’s basis for identifying the sexual norms
 what he identified and taught then is still what the Church
teaches today:
o sexual intercourse is for the sake of procreation
o the conjugal act also serves to unite the husband and
wife on all levels: physically, but also emotionally and
spiritually.
 If the point of marriage is to procreate, to have sex without the
intention of generating children is already a sin.
 However, Augustine does qualify that it is still better for a
married couple to have sex for the sake of sex if only to avoid
fornication, or sex outside of marriage.
 The required intention of the married couple is that they intend
for the union to be permanent. In other words, they intend to
be faithful to each other until one of them dies.
NORMATIVE SEXUAL MORALITY
 sex is reserved between man and woman. = sex is for
procreation or the generation of children
 sex is reserved between husband and wife. = sex is for
marriage
BEFORE AND AFTER CHRIST
 Augustine observes that before Christ became man, the
emphasis of the Old Testament was on procreation, to the
point where the Patriarchs practiced polygamy
 After Christ, the stress is no longer on procreation. With this
understanding, Augustine stresses that celibacy is now the
way to obtain spiritual perfection
NATURAL LAW: SEX IS FOR PROCREATION
 ABORTION & STERILIZATION
o done due to “lustful cruelty” or “cruel lust”
o Augustine called the use of means to avoid the birth
of a child an “evil work”: a reference to either
abortion or contraception
o abortion, medical sterilization and various other
contraceptives were means of frustrating the natural
purpose of sex
 DID AUGUSTINE SAY WE CAN ABORT (FEMALE)
BABIES UP TO 4 MONTHS OLD?
o Yes, but only because he relied on the science of his
time. Back then, they thought that babies did not have
“sensation,” and therefore had no soul, for the first
forty days of gestation for males and 120 days for
females
o ultrasound imaging shows us otherwise
SUICIDE IS AGAINST THE NATURAL LAW
 “The first and greatest urging of nature is that a man should
be at one with himself and therefore should instinctively flee
from death, that he should be so thoroughly a friend to himself
that he vehemently wishes and desires to be alive, a living
being, and to stay alive in this conjunction of body and soul”
 for Augustine, there is no justification for committing suicide.
 it is better to accept the suffering caused by evil rather than to
try and escape it.
 “Augustine says, we should suffer patiently what God wants
us to suffer and look to the examples of Christ and his
followers.”
HUMANITY’S
ESCHATOLOGY
ULTIMATE
END
AND
MAN’S ULTIMATE END IS GOD
 “You have made us for yourself and our heart is restless until
it rests in you”
 “Man desires eternal rest with God since only then will man
enjoy true and lasting happiness. It is a state of “Sabbath that
has no evening”
 FRUI
o God is the only one whom we can enjoy for his own
sake
 UTI
o everything else falls under uti: everything and
everyone should be regarded as a means that can help
us to obtain the enjoyment of God.
HINDRANCES TO THE ULTIMATE END
 “The deed is the evil thing, not the thing of which the sinner
makes an evil use. Evil is making a bad use of a good thing ...
worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator.”
 Real evil is an injustice when things that ought not be loved
for their own sakes are loved in and of themselves.
 These become a violation of the first commandment: You shall
love the Lord your God, the Lord alone. You shall have no
other Gods before me.
 Real evil is an injustice also when things that ought be loved
for their own sakes (God and things relating to God) are
merely used for ones own selfish benefit
THE CARNAL BODY AND THE SPIRITUAL BODY
 EARTHLY CITY
o those subject to death
o those who live not for God but for this life only have
souls configured to this present earthly life and its
goals of power and wealth
o these are destined for eternal death

HEAVENLY CITY
o those who are guided by God’s Holy Spirit
o to reach the Heavenly City, we must allow God to
breathe his life into us
o those who do are slowly being configured to the
likeness of Christ even in the present and will be with
God in the eternal life
AUGUSTINE ON THE SINFUL STAE OF FLESH
 Augustine says that the flesh is not the source of the sinful
passions
 rather, the corruption of the flesh is due to the misuse of
human freedom for the sake of sinning
 the flesh would still be incorrupt (or immortal) had Adam and
Eve not sinned in the Garden of Eden
AUGUSTINE ON DEATH
 DEATH OF THE BODY
o when the soul separates from the body
o the 1st death
o first judgment happens here after bodily death
 HEAVENLY CITY
o when the soul is alienated from the life of God and is
wholly in sin (no charity in the soul)
o the 2nd death. We can be rescued from this by the grace
from Christ. The 2nd death is eternal
o the final judgement is at the end of time
AT THE 1ST JUDGEMENT, SOME SOULS ARE SENT TO
HEAVEN AND OTHERS CONDEMNED
 At the Last Judgement, the souls of the blessed are reunited
with their resurrected bodies restored to incorruptibility for
eternal happiness.
 The souls of the damned are reunited with their bodies and
sent to eternal punishment.
AUGUSTINE’S PHILOSOPHY OF THE BODY
 true happiness consists in possession of the highest good
(summum bonum) in both the body and soul
 the body itself does not weigh down the soul, but the body’s
corruption
 this corruptible body must disintegrate and return to the earth
 there is also the spiritual body that is meant to endure forever.
On the Last Judgement, our “animal bodies” will become
“spiritual as a reward for obedience”
 ANIMAL BODY
o from Adam
o became corruptible through sin
 SPIRITUAL BODY
o from Christ
o “the soul is subordinated to God and the body to the
soul, and both body and soul is subordinated to God”
WHAT FORM WILL OUR RESURRECTED BODIES LOOK
LIKE?
 what one knows of the human body in the present life does not
exclude the possibility that it will be of a totally different type
in the future. The human “flesh” was differently constituted
before Adam’s Fall; it was then capable of not dying. “By the
same token at the resurrection of the dead it will be differently
constituted from the flesh as it is known to us”