St. Augustine's Dichotomy

St. Augustine's dichotomy of forms -- the will of man and the will of God, the needs of the soul and the desires of the flesh, sinful falsehood and the liberation of divine truth -- serves not only to emphasize the direct force and opposition of these forms, but to explore their essential duality, the interplay of distinct but related states and wills existing both separately and reciprocally of each other. Good and evil, however, emerge uniquely in their contrast, in that the opposition of good takes no form beyond that of the negative -- a deficiency of good. Evil, therefore, essentially possesses no force, as it possesses no being. Rather, evil must be ushered in by another force, namely, a will. Indeed, the will of man, imperfect and
violable in its form, ushered in the fall of man with the advent of original sin, that sin which severed man from the perfection of God and further sundered the perfect image of His creation. What remains is those polarizing fates, life and death, eternal peace or eternal torment, refuge in the City of God or the city of man, and those beget by sin, entrenched in stifling disorder and falsehood, are destined to endure the thrashings of tempering providence so long as they fail to surrender their imperfect will to the rule of God. The fate of humanity then, as a certain force of will, may only be determined by the willful intent of each being, the clarity and integrity of one's mind, the resolution and goodness of one's soul, humility and vigilance in face of temptation, and the desire, above all material pleasure, for that divine truth which liberates man from the subjugation of vice and delivers him from the certain death of depravity, truth attained only through purity, peace, and submission to the will of God.

Purity in its traditional sense often implicates matters of sexual virtue, chastity or celibacy, a physical and spiritual rejection of lust in accordance with a higher order of rationality, a natural order dictated by a universal and observable natural Law. Purity in a more encompassing sense, however, may appeal more broadly to that natural Law, an order which dictates not only sexual behaviors, but all of the natural world in accordance with the perfect image of the Creator. The nature of all things therefore, if properly ordered, is affected in the goodness of God by its mere existence and further honored by God in that its perfect order serves to glorify Him. The lack of purity, therefore, can be considered that which diverges from the perfect natural order, the perfect Image of God, and that which also serves to corrupt the perfect state of human nature. Purity of human nature, a cleanliness and devoutness of the mind, a proper humility in face of God's design, is affected only by attendance to that order which was created in Eden before the fall of man. The violability of this order was not intended by God, but rather disorder was introduced by original sin which subsequently plunged The Earthly City into turmoil, forever subject to penitence for disobedience toward God. Hence, the rejection of perfect order, the corruption of purity of human nature, essentially results in the rejection of God which alienates man from all good. Although much of humanity is prone to disorder, St. Augustine assures that pious individuals continue to exist within the City of Man even when troubled by disorder. There remains, therefore, an enduring potential for the individual who manages to oppose the disorder of man and remain pure in the Image of God, for they quickly become eternal citizens of The Heavenly City, unbound by temporal desires and ails and ultimately fulfilled by the perfect truth of the Divine.

While St.
Augustine's elaboration of the two Cities serves as a vivid allegory of the opposing fates of man, his use of civil language in referring to the faithful evokes further concepts of society and hearkens enduring issues of civility and unity. Is the role of the faithful pilgrim in the City of Man that of an active antagonist or passive observer? If an enlightened man must remain in a place of darkness how does he endure the prolonged night? There exists then, in efforts to secure the fate of humanity, an essential want to establish peace among the people, both pure and impure, in order to lessen opposition and encourage sound integration of peoples. The ultimate aim of all creatures, St. Augustine proposes, is the attainment of peace, and temporal peace is ultimately shared by good and bad alike, just as temporal ills are shared. The aim of humanity therefore, in order to protect the freedom and integrity of the pure, should be the attainment of peace and the establishment of harmony among the Church and systems of man that attempt to order society independently of God. Although individuals separate from God will never attain the fulfillment of Divine peace, citizens of The City of God must endure pilgrimage in the City of Man and should be allowed tranquility in their order so they may focus on the will of God. Indeed, although wicked men may be disordered and separate from the goodness of God, no one is exempt from the chastisement of God. This gives evil some
aberrant order in the sense that the punishment of sin is incorporated into the will of God, and therefore the wicked man experiences some degree of harmony in the suffering of his ails. This allows a small degree of peace to be shared by all within humanity, no matter how depraved.

Of course, life in eternal tranquility may only be granted by the ultimate subjection of man to the everlasting Law. Submission to the will of God, essentially the relinquishment of the will of man to divine fate, is not to be feared or mourned as the wisdom of God's will serves only to liberate man from worldly preoccupation. Having accepted the truth of the Divine, man can further accept his purpose in God's will and may rest soundly in the promise of eternal life. Those who surrender temporal desires to the will of God are freed from subservience to sin and corruption of desire and are instead borne anew as servants of Christ. Those wicked others, the disordered, the corrupt and senseless who remain tenants of sin, also remain forever enslaved to the torments engendered by them. The eternal fate of the wicked, the sundering of the soul from God, human Nature bastardized and mutilated beyond recognition, bodies tossed into pits and lakes of fire never to be risen, will be reserved for the final judgement and therefore the wicked may continue in their ways if unswayed by the truth of God. Sin in this sense is an ignorance remedied only by the receptivity of man to his torment. That which turns one man toward God may further harden the heart of another. Faith, then at the center of these forms gives structure to life; man without a soul is worthless and man without God is blameless.

St.
Augustine remained unfailing in his faith once blessed with the light of truth, and his opinion of humanity echoes both stimulating and exacting, for man is bared before God, stripped to his simplest forms, a servant, a citizen, and an unworthy child capable of redemption only by the unfailing grace of God. Man may doubt God, challenge God, curse God, reject God, but the truth of his power, his order, and his providence will be revealed with the final judgment, in which humanity will be splintered and sorted so that the righteous may transcend their ails and the evil may suffer eternally for their faults. The whole of humanity, therefore, is subject only to the wills of the individual, those that seek God submitting themselves to his care and his kingdom and those that wander blindly or spite His name inheriting only death and agony in just penance. For it was through the individual that humanity inherited temporal anguish and as an individual one must seek deliverance. Does not the individual comprise humanity? Ultimately, God in his truest form remains perfectly good, his Creation instilled with that nature integral to Him, each being created in his image with a sense of reason and order. Faithfulness insists that the goodness of God will not fail humanity, that the pious will not fail to rise as their spirits compel them, and that the Divine, the pure, the right, the just will never forsake them in their righteous
endeavors.