Rezension: Augustinian Studies 39 (2008) 135-138

Gnade — Freiheit — Rechtfertigung. Augustinische Topoi und ihre Wirkungsge­schichte. Internationales Kolloquium zum 1650. Geburtstag Augustins vom 25. bis 27. November 2004 im Erbacher Hof zu Mainz. Ed. C. Mayer, A. Grote, and C. Müller. Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007.

This volume is comprised of five essays on grace, freedom, and justification, topics of perennial interest to students of Augustine. In contemporary German and Belgian scholarship, Augustine has at times been starkly presented, or strongly defended. Represented in the book are two Protestants and three Catholics. Their contributions are at times confessional, but nevertheless thoroughly ecumenical in spirit. The authors are among the finest scholars on the subject of grace and justification on the contemporary German scene. All agree, as indeed they must, that Ad Simplicianum (in my view starting with question 2 of the first book) represents a distinct change in Augustine's conception of grace. Augustine himself says so in Retractationes and De praedestinatione sanctorum.

The first article, authored by V. Drecoll, prominent scholar on Augustine on grace at Universität Tübingen, is entitled “‘Ungerechte Gnadenlehre’: Zeitgenössische Anfragen an Augustin und ihr Einfluss auf seine Gnadenlehre” (“‘Unjust Teaching on Grace’: Contemporary Questions to Augustine and their Influence on His Teaching on Grace”). Drecoll sees Augustine's teaching on grace as something new, although in continuity with the past. Among the innovations, and chief among them, is initium fidei. From the time of Ad Simplicianum even the request for faith depends upon the divine initiative. Throughout man's life, by means both exterior and interior, God influences human beings. Later in De peccatorum meritis et remissione (411), De spiritu et littera (412), De fide et operibus (413), Epistula 217 (416-417), and De gratia et libero arbitrio (426-427), Augustine develops and unfolds his teaching. These works are occasional, addressing various concerns about God's grace. Drecoll finds a transition from a Christology to a pneumatology as a basis for grace between 411 and 412. Man can pray that God bestow the gift of grace on others. Faith must lead to works. In the end God crowns the work he had begun in us. Augustine's central point in his teaching on grace, according to Drecoll, is that all depends upon divine initiative.

Augustine's use of Romans 5:5, caritas dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per spiritum sanctum qui datus est nobis is noted by Drecoll neither here nor in Augustins Handbuch. This text is central to Augustine's understanding of grace. It is cited by Augustine as early as De sermone domini in monte II, 58 (393), and in De fide at symbolo 9, Enarratio in Psalmum 4 2, in Ad Simplicianum I, i, 17 and several other places before bis self-admitted change on grace in Ad Simplicianum I,2. Through the years 396-412 the text is cited numerous times. Augustine's doctrine on grace and pneumatology in an incipient sense predates 396 and is present often in a more developed sense from 396-412 prior to De spiritu et littera. There is harmony between his Christology and pneumatology in his teaching on grace throughout his life.

The second article is authored by A. Schindler and is entitled “‘Rechtfertigung’ bei Augustinus und im reformistischen Streit” (“‘Justification’ in Augustine and the Reformation Controversy”). This article is a Status quaestionis on “Justification” and its background. Justification and grace are, according to Schindler, interchangeable terms. He traces the origins of the term justification in Roman, Old Testament and New Testament usage, then in patristic times from Tertullian through Cyprian to Augustine and Jerome, then in the Council of Trent and various Protestant and Catholic liturgical uses, and finally in the document on justification recently signed by representatives of the Catholic and Lutheran Churches. Schindler draws no conclusions, except to say that Augustine's notions of grace, let us say, from 396-427, should lay the groundwork for a common Catholic and Lutheran understanding of justification.

The third article is authored by Karl Kardinal Lehmann, cardinal archbishop of Mainz and former president of the German Bishops Conference for over twenty years, and is entitled “Augustinus als ‘Lehrer der Gnade’: Ein Blick auf Wirkung und Rezeption in der Gegenwart” (“Augustine as ‘Teacher of Grace’: A View of the Consequences and Reception for the Present”). Lehmann wrote his Habilita­tionschrift on Augustine and Heidegger. He has remained interested in that topic throughout his many years in pastoral administration. Lehmann takes Augustine's starting point in grace from his own experience in Confessiones, as the individual person before God. Augustine searches for the source of his inner strength which gives true freedom. The answer to this search he finds in Paul. The relation of freedom and grace becomes the central point of his theology and of theology unto the present day. More and more Augustine comes to the realization that grace is an unconditional divine gift. Romans 7:15-23 pictures the human struggle with freedom and grace. Augustine emphasizes the gratuitousness of God's grace. More recent considerations of grace and freedom have tended to look upon grace as causing true freedom. Contemporary theologians (read Karl Rahner) have emphasized, unlike Augustine, the universal divine call to salvation. 

The notion of, for example, anonymous Christian — left without specific mention in Lehmann's article — comes directly from consideration of the universal call to salvation. These considerations have led to various conceptions of the church, not all of them compatible. The Second Vatican Council avoided the thorny question of membership in the church. But the concept of anonymous Christian has tended to devalue formal membership in the church. Contemporary theology must search for a theology compatible with the gratuitous nature of the divine initiative in grace on the one hand and the universal call to salvation on the other. The presence of evil in the world is all too evident to have an overly-optimistic view of universal salvation, bordering on apokatastasis.

The fourth article is written by Mathijs Lamberigts of Leuven and is entitled “Julian von Aeclanum und seine Sicht der Gnade: Eine Alternative” (“Julian of Eclanum and his View of Grace: An Alternative?”). For the past twenty years or so, Prof. Lamberigts has been involved in rehabilitating Pelagius and his associates. In this contribution, the object of rehabilitation is Julianum of Eclanum's teach­ing on grace. Augustine himself writes that Julian was the most talented of his opponents in the Pelagian controversy. Julian denied the consequences of Adam's sin for his progeny. Grace brings about the forgiveness of personal sin and gives a new freedom. Children do not need it. Grace through baptism is but a help to their weakness. Julian could not agree to the notion of natura uitiata, the very basis for Augustine's soteriology; nor could he understand, let alone agree, that natura non malum, sed mala est (Contra Julianum opus imperfectum 3, 193, 206). Rather, there is no reference in Scripture to original sin. Death is a natural occurrence, not a result of the first sin; man on his own power can remain sinless. Prof. Lamberigts criticizes Julian for having no theology of the cross, no theology of love, and no pneumatology. Do we not need more?

The Pelagian controversy reaches its third stage with the writings of Julian of Eclanum. He is not a monk, but a married man. The discussion starts with the goodness of marriage, but continues without end concerning the nature of sin, grace, and human nature. Ever and again, Pelagianism arises. Our own age finds a recurrence — the issues of sin, grace, human nature, and salvation remain with us. What our age needs is not so much a rehabilitation of Pelagians as a realization of the human need for divine assistance.

The fifth and final contribution comes from Norbert Fischer, professor for fundamental philosophy in the theological faculty at Universität Eichstätt, and is entitled “Zur Gnadenlehre in Augustins Confessiones — Philosophische Überle­gungen zu ihrer Problematik” (“Teaching on Grace in Augustine's Confessiones — Philosophical Considerations concerning its Problematic”). Fischer’s Opponent in his article is Kurt Flasch, well known in Germany as an opponent of Augustine for the past quarter century. Fischer chooses his opposition wisely — no Augustine commentator to my knowledge agrees with Flasch's extreme interpretations.

According to Fischer, Confessiones, not Ad Simplicianum, should be considered the focus of Augustine's teaching on grace. Fischer follows the Heideggerian hermeneutic whereby meaning arises from a dialectic between interpreter and text. Fischer is aware of the Augustinian hermeneutic in Confessiones XII where many meanings are contained within the scriptural text, some not foreseen by the human author. Fischer, as is his wont, also interprets Augustine through the eyes of Kant. From Confessiones Fischer disputes Flasch's thesis that all good comes from God and that man is responsible only for evil. Fischer sees a dialectic between grace and freedom. Man collects himself from diversity into unity. Augustine's is not a denial, but rather a redemption of the world in the eternal.could question the use of the Kantian ethic and the Heideggerian her­meneutic to interpret Augustine correctly. Apart from that, Augustine's doctrine of grace had not reached its completion in Confessiones. This completion comes only gradually, especially in the almost twenty years of his anti-Pelagian writings. Certainly Confessiones should be read in light of Ad Simplicianum I,2, Augustine's exegesis of Romans 9:9-29. Confessiones is, among other things, an explication of human miseria and divine misericordia. Augustine is still to some large extent a rhetor — exaggeration is not beyond him.

This volume states the question of, and contributes to, the German understanding of freedom and grace in Augustine. As the volume shows, the struggle continues. Were we to consider grace as informing the will, then the question would be one of grace and freedom, not grace or freedom. The harmony between grace and freedom is Augustine's position in de gratia et libero arbitrio. Grace makes the good attractive and delightful. This small volume is a contribution to the on-going understanding of the mystery of God's grace and Augustine's appreciation of it.

Frederick Van Fleteren
La Salle University