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The Four Senses of Scripture

• In Christian biblical interpretation, Scripture is understood in four senses.
• Literal Sense: The text's direct meaning, including historical events and facts, like "God created the heavens and the earth" in Genesis.
• Allegorical Sense (Typological): Events and figures in the Old Testament prefigure Christ and salvation history, such as the sacrifice of Isaac being a "type" of Christ's sacrifice.
• Moral Sense (Tropological): How the text instructs human beings in moral conduct, like the Ten Commandments teaching how to live righteously.
• Anagogical Sense: How Scripture points to eternal realities like heaven and final judgment, such as the Promised Land symbolizing heaven.
• Significance: The four senses reflect the depth of Scripture and were emphasized by medieval theologians like Aquinas.

Privation Theory of Evil

• Largely developed by Augustine.
• Evil is not a substance nor a created thing.
• Evil is the absence (privation) of good in something that should possess it.
• Evil has no independent existence and is a distortion/corruption of good.
• Example: Blindness isn't a substance but the absence of sight in a creature that should see.
• Moral evil (sin) is the lack of proper order in the human will, choosing lower goods over higher ones.
• Augustine rejects Manichean dualism in Confessions, which sees evil as a substance opposed to good.
• All creation is inherently good as it comes from God; evil is a corruption of that good, not an opposing force.

Manichean Theory of Evil

• Manichaeism, a religious sect, influenced young Augustine.
• It holds a dualistic view of the cosmos with two eternal forces: Good (Light) and Evil (Darkness).
• Evil is a substance that exists independently and is equal to good.
• The world is a battleground between light (spiritual, good) and darkness (material, evil).
• The human soul is divine light trapped in the evil material body.
• Salvation comes through gnosis (special knowledge) that frees the soul.
• Augustine rejects Manichaeism because evil cannot be an independent substance (privation theory).
• Material reality is inherently good, as created by God.

Eudaimonism

• Philosophical concept from Greek ethics (Plato, Aristotle).
• Meaning: "human flourishing" or "the highest good".
• Holds that happiness (eudaimonia) is the ultimate goal of human life.
• True happiness comes from virtue and fulfilling one's nature, not just pleasure.

Augustine's Christian Eudaimonism

• True happiness is found only in God.
• Before converting, Augustine pursued worldly things (pleasure, ambition, philosophy) but was restless.
• Famous quote: "Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, O Lord."
• Differences: Classical eudaimonism's human happiness comes from virtue, and Augustine's eudaimonism's true happiness is union with God.

The Four Causes (Aristotle's Causal Framework)

• Explain why things exist or change.
• Material Cause: What something is made of (e.g., a statue's material cause being marble).
• Formal Cause: The shape, structure, or definition of a thing (e.g., the design that makes a statue look like a person).
• Efficient Cause: Brings something into existence (e.g., a sculptor who carves the statue).
• Final Cause: The purpose or goal (telos) (e.g., a statue made to honor someone).
• Aquinas applies Aristotle's causes to God; God is the efficient cause of creation. The final cause of creation is God's glory and divine order.

Primary and Secondary Causes

• Primary Cause (God): The ultimate source of all reality and motion.
• Secondary Causes (Natural/Created Causes): The means through which God works in the world.
• Example: God/Primary Cause creates fire with the property to burn, and fire/Secondary Cause burns wood with God ultimately sustaining it.
• Medieval thinkers saw God as transcendent and immanent.

Analogy of Attribution

• A concept in Aquinas' theology about how human language applies to God.
• God cannot be described directly but analogies based on creation can be used.
• Humans are good, but God is goodness itself so, God is not "good" in the same was as humans.

Essence vs. Existence

• A fundamental concept in Thomistic Metaphysics.
• Essence: What a thing is (its nature or definition) (e.g., a triangle's essence is a three-sided polygon).
• Existence: Whether a thing actually exists (e.g., a unicorn has an essence but doesn't exist).
• For created things, essence ≠ existence, and they need a cause to exist.
• God is unique because in God, essence and existence are identical, being pure.

Natural Evil vs. Moral Evil

• Natural Evil: Suffering caused by nature (earthquakes, diseases).
• Moral Evil: Evil caused by human free will (murder, lying).
• Moral evil comes from disordered will, not God, Natural evil can be part of God's divine plan, serving a greater purpose.

Telos/Teleology

• Telos (Greek: τέλος) means "end" or "goal."
• Teleology is the study of purpose in nature.
• In Aristotle, everything has a goal or final cause (e.g., an acorn's telos is to become an oak tree).
• In Christian thought, the universe's telos is God, and the human telos is union with God (beatific vision).

Augustine's Understanding of Good and Evil, Relationship to Creation/Cosmos, and Role of Human Sin

Good and Evil

• Augustine's transformation in thinking about evil, early life (Manichaean phase): dualistic struggle between Good (Light) and Evil (Darkness).
• Platonist Phase (Book 7): Evil as a corruption of good, not an independent force
• Christian Phase (Conversion & Beyond): fully adopts the privation theory of evil(Evil is not a substance but a lack of good, everything created by God is good by nature, but sin distorts this goodness).

B. Relationship to Creation/Cosmos

• Augustine sees creation as an ordered, hierarchical system, with God as its ultimate source and sustainer.
• Augustine affirms that all creation is good, but it must be properly ordered under God.
• Humans are unique due to free will, which allows them to turn away from God (sin).

C. Role of Human Sin

• Sin is disordered love (concupiscentia) – choosing lesser goods over God.
• "Confessions" examples: The Pear Theft/Book 2 (Sin for sin's sake), Sexual Lust/Books 2-6 (Seeking bodily pleasure rather than divine fulfillment), Ambition and Pride/Books 3-6 (Loving status/fame).
• Divine grace can reorder the will, leading to true peace (Book 8, his conversion).

The Pear Scene and Augustine's Analysis in Book 2

The Story

• Augustine and friends steal pears for thrill in teenage years, but not out of need
• Pears are thrown away.

Augustine's Reflection on the Nature of Sin

Sin for Sin's Sake

• Motivated by doing wrong and contradicts views that people always sin for perceived good

Imitation of God

• All human desires reflect a longing for God
• The desire to break the law was a false attempt to claim divine freedom to set his own rules.

Influence of Peer Pressure

• Sin fueled by desire of approval
• Fore Shadows of later struggles in Rome

Significance

• Original sin from humanity causes people to turn from God
• Only God can change human heart

Augustine's Conversion in Book 8

Internal Struggle

• In Milan, Augustine intellectually accepts Christianity, but emotionally and spiritually struggles to surrender to God.
• Fears giving up ambition, career, especially sexual desires.
• Describes himself as having "two wills:" one for God, one for the world.

Turning point

Story of Victorinus

• Victorinus converts to Christianity and proves faith

Encounter with Ponticianus

• St. Antony left everything which influenced Augustine

Garden Scene

• Augustine weeps for the world, torn with God

Tolle Lege

• Hears child which led to the open bible of Romans which inspired surrendering

Consequences

• Commits to Christianity
• Overjoyed mother

Desire/Longing for God in Confessions

Augustine's Restlessness

• Opening lines of Confessions define Augustine's theme of longing: “"You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in You."”

Misguided Attempts

• Pleasure
• Philosophy
• Power and Presteige

True Fulfillment

• Desire is ordered towards God

True Friendship According to Augustine

Friendship Before Conversion

• Friendship as a powerful dangerous force

True Christian Friendship

• Augustine redefines to lead to God instead of Sin

What Does Augustine Learn from the Platonists in Book 7?

Plato

• Not physical but higher

The Problem Of Evil

• A lack of being; helping Augustine of Manichaen

Platonism Lacks

• Grace and Christ

How This Leads to His Conversion

• Augustine realized he needs Grace

Similarities and Differences Between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1-3

Background of Enuma Elish

• Mesopotamian creation myth (~12th century BCE)
• Marduk defeats Tiamat and creates the world from her body.
• Establishes the Babylonian pantheon and justifies Marduk's rule.

Genesis 1-3: A Different Kind of Creation Story

• Monotheistic
• There is only one God, not a struggle between competing deities.
• Order from chaos, without violence – Unlike Marduk, Yahweh does not fight chaos but simply speaks creation into being.
• Humans are created as servants for the gods
• Humans are made in God's image and given dominion over creation.
• Genesis rejects the violent, polytheistic worldview of Enuma Elish. Instead, it presents a moral order, where creation is declared “good."

Analogy, Including the Analogy of Being

What is Analogy?

• Created things resemble God, but are not the same

The Analogy of Being(Analogia Entis)

• Theological idea developed in Thomas Aquinas.
• All being derives from God, but God's being is infinitely greater.

Implications for Creation

• Reflects Gods Nature and Contingent, as God needs it for every moment

Essence-Existence Distinction and Relation to Aquinas' Argument for God's Existence

Essence vs. Existence

• In God, essence and existence are identical-God's essence is to exist (“I AM” in Exodus 3:14).

Aquinas' Argument for God's Existence Based on This Distinction

• Everything in the world has existence given to it—nothing is self-existent.
• There must be a necessary being whose essence is existence itself-this is God.
• This explains why creation is dependent on God at every moment.

Primary and Secondary Causes – Characteristics of God as Primary Cause

What Are Primary and Secondary Causes?

• God as the Ultimate Source
• God as the Source of Life

How God Acts as Primary Cause

• Creations continuously sustain it

Final Causes and Providence in Medieval Philosophy vs. 17th-Century Natural Philosophy

What Are Final Causes

• Final cause is to cut

The Shift in 17th-Century Natural Philosophy

• Bacon and newton move against final courses

Book of Nature and Book of Scripture; Allegorical Interpretation of Creation

Two Books

• Books of God

Allegorical Interpretation

• There are many interpretations for God

The shift in modernity

• Science is often created separated