The Spiritual Dialectic of History: Augustine on the Meaning of History

Augustine portrays history as an unfolding dialectic in which the perfection and glory of God provide the central narrative; this marks a departure from the anthropocentric accounts of history.

This is an excerpt from an unpublished, long academic article on Augustine’s philosophy of history. I find this subject provocative and useful because it provides an understanding of history that transcends the individualism and humanism characteristic of late capitalism.

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Augustine’s De Libero unites many themes that pervade his early work. In books I and II, Augustine argues for the reality of the eternal law, a form of illumination theory, and the freedom of the will, among other theses. In book III, he sets out to demonstrate the compatibility of God’s goodness and the existence of evil in the world; in doing so, he formulates a set of distinctions and arguments suggesting that the good of the human person may indeed be subordinated to higher norms in the unfolding of history, namely, the perfection and glory of God.

Throughout his career Augustine was deeply concerned with the origin of evil both in himself and in the wider world and the challenge of reconciling the existence of evil with the existence of God. Simply stated, if everything comes from God, and God is supremely good, how can evil exist in God’s world? In treating this problem, Augustine focuses on two questions in the De Libero: (1) first, whether the existence of unrepentant sinners is compatible with the goodness of God; (2) second, whether it would have been better if God created the universe without unrepentant sinners?[1]

The Pervasive Emanation of the Good