Morality
The previous section spoke of Augustine's thoughts about God, free will, and evil. Implied in the development of those ideas are his ideas about morality. If humans are free, it follows that they are responsible for their moral choices. Not all of their choices are moral ones, for they often misuse their free wills.
Augustine wrote that God's “foreknowledge” of all events, human and natural, does not preclude human freedom. “God knows all things before they happen; yet, persons act by choice in all those things where you feel and know that you cannot act otherwise than willingly.” There are two ideas here. Whether you choose to do action A or action B, God knew beforehand what you would do. Second, when you choose you are doing so freely.
Morality and “Loves”
Because people choose freely — unlike nonrational beings that simply fulfill their natural desires — people have the capacity to make moral choices but also the capacity for immoral choices. The theme of love comes into play here. The will is moved in the direction of what it chooses to love. Like a physical object that is pulled by its weight toward the center of the earth, so every person is pulled by the affections of their own hearts toward that which is the center of their lives. As Augustine says, “My weight is my love. Wherever I am carried my love is carrying me.”
On the one hand, you can turn your attention to those matters that represent your true happiness. True happiness requires that you go beyond the natural to the supernatural. Augustine expressed this view both in religious and philosophical language. In his
Augustine was canonized by popular acclaim and later recognized as a Doctor of the Church in 1303 by Pope Boniface VII. His feast day is August 28, the day on which he died. He is still regarded as the patron saint of theologians, printers, sore eyes, and a number of cities and dioceses.
A life of virtue is one in which a person is able to evaluate and order “loves” in accordance with their true worth. A person must discover the truths latent in the human mind that are eternal and unchanging. Such persons know that “Their lives are the better and the more sublime in proportion to the degree of perfection of their contemplating it [God's law] by their minds and keeping it in their lives.” So the understanding and enactment of God's law is the achievement of philosophic wisdom.
But just as people can love God's law, they can love things in the wrong way. Since Adam and Eve people have been slaves to sin. People achieve true moral freedom only when they are given the gift of grace. Though everyone expects to find happiness through love, one can also find misery and unhappiness in love because love is “disordered” and it results in the failure to devote one's ultimate love to God. An individual can love the wrong person. A person can love tobacco or alcohol or excessive eating or gambling, and if he does, he has chosen wrongly.
Augustine thought that progress in wisdom is made when the mind turns upward toward God, away from the things of this world. This is the Platonic element in his thinking. Though for Augustine this movement away from the sensible world to the spiritual world can only be accomplished if the mind has been purified by faith.
