Upload
fatin-nazihah-aziz
View
192
Download
0
Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
The Emergence of the Christian Political world
• St. Augustine
05/02/23 mfuzi 1
INTRODUCTION
• Doctrine of Christianity• Subordinated the
temporal to the spiritual• Commitment to the faith
over reason • Believed that the Greeco-
Roman institutions had failed
• Impact:• Next world was far more
important than this• Temporal affairs,
including government, less important
• Divine government under the fatherhood of God
• Secular government was both unnecessary and undesirable
05/02/23 mfuzi 2
The Rise of Christianity• The period of Cristianity
development was considered as one of hardship for the Christian.
• Refusal to worship the gods of the state was considered as treason.
• Christians were deprived of property and citizenship, and their churches were destroyed.
• Emperor Theodosious (379-395): made Christianity the official religion of the state.
05/02/23 mfuzi 3
The Rise of Christianity• Church had grown large
and powerful.• Church had developed
considerable strength and prestige among such people outside of Italy.
• Church became unifying force with Christianity become a common religion
• Christianity warned against the evil of revolution
• The increase in membership of the Church created annoying problems.
05/02/23 mfuzi 4
The Rise of Christianity
• Circumstances soon conspired to change the situation.
• The organization of the Church was developing in size and in the effectiveness of its administration.
• Implication: the issue of divided loyalty.
05/02/23 mfuzi 5
The Early Fathers of the Church
• Spheres of jurisdiction: example in Church property.
• No well-developed theory.
• St. Ambrose (340-397), Bishop of Milan attempted to supply a theory.
05/02/23 mfuzi 6
Rome and Christianity
• 4th Century:– Rome become Christian
government.– Church and state
merged, reconcile itself with political power
– Church became part of political establishment
• How to accommodate church and state authority in a way that recognized the altered social and political context of both.?
• Christians: to articulate a doctrine defending the need for political authority and insist on the true Christian Commonwealth.
05/02/23 mfuzi 7
The Early Fathers of the Church
• St. Augustine• The most influential of the early fathers• A student of St. Ambrose• His most important work is City of God• Purpose: to defense the Church against the charge leveled
against its enemies that Christianity was responsible for the fall of Rome to Alaric and the Visigoths. (first ten books)
• His views of man and the society (12 books)• How to reconcile the religious doctrine and political
authority
05/02/23 8mfuzi
St. Augustine
• Nature of Human Beings– Because of the fall from
grace, humans are not naturally sociable
– They are self-interested and need the state to compel order, obedience, and social cooperation
– Without state, anarchy would result.
– The original sin : emerges the creation and separation of two cities, each with its own political and moral values and loves that hold them together.
– State: the origin is located at a certain point in God’s plan for the universe.
05/02/23 mfuzi 9
St. Augustine
• Theory of the two communities:• (1)The heavenly city and the earthly city
• Like Stoicism: reason was the common tie which make men able to live together and to understand universal natural law.
• For Augustine: the force for mutually was belief in and obedience to God.
• The cities are not heaven and earth, nor church and state, rather they are the forces of good and evil.
• They are the kingdoms of God and of Satan.• History is the struggle between the forces of the earthly city
and heavenly city which would eventually culminate in the establishment of a Christian Commonwealth.
05/02/23 10mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (2) Basis of the two Cities: earthly city– Dominated by the principle of self-love– It devotees are those to whom material interests
are more important than spiritual.
05/02/23 11mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (2) Basis of the cities: The heavenly city:• Dominated by the principle of love of God.• Its inhabitants are those to whom spiritual things are
paramount.• Agencies are provided by God to help achieve
salvation: Church and the state.
05/02/23 12mfuzi
St. Augustine• (3) Functions of each institution :
• State should had a proper function. He suggested a definition of a good commonwealth.
• Commonwealth: an assemblage of a reasonable beings bound together by a common agreement as to the objects of their love.
• Whether it is good or bad it depend on the object of the people’s love.
• It must bring justice to its people.• Justice to be found in the word of God.• It must be a Christian commonwealth: provide the
advancement of God’s cause• Justice is impossible if people did not know the true God.
05/02/23 13mfuzi
St. Augustine(3)Functions; continue• The primary function of a state( Christian or non-
Christian) is to maintain peace and order.• Those of the earthly city wish peace in order to better
enjoy the objects of their love, that is material things, the goods of this world.• Those of the heavenly city wish peace so they can
devote themselves to the worship of God
05/02/23 14mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (4) Justice• The past states lacked justice because they do not
have the Church and Christian doctrine.• All pagan empires must fall in the course of history.• What is important is to learn how to live in the ways
prescribed by God through his church.• Man is born in sin, and life is not supposed to be easy.• Problems man faced can never be solved because the
human mentality is limited.• If God is obeyed perfection will be achieved, and it will
last forever.
05/02/23 15mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (5) Concept of men sinfulness• If man were not sinful he would not be disorderly.• Thus government is needed by man’s sinfulness.• Men’s sin led to an inequality manifested by slavery,
government, and private property.• God himself gave them to men to enable them to live
in a world in which equality was no longer possible and peace no longer normal.• Evil and brutal king is imposed upon people as
punishment for their sins, and still he must be obeyed: doctrine of passive obedience
05/02/23 16mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (4)Concept of men sinfulness; continue• 4 reasons for the development of the doctrine:
» To combat tendencies for anarchism» New Testament writing which suggested all power from
God» The Old testament represent the King as the anointed of
God» The new Christian church was anxious to allay the fears
that the empire had developed concerning the Church as subversive organization.
05/02/23 17mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (5)Function of government:• Not merely to secure and preserve the rights• It is to enforce order• Thus a stable tyranny is better than a disorderly
democracy.• Equality, justice and freedom are goals to be attained
only in in the heavenly city.• In the interest of maintaining order society is and must
be based upon the authoritarian principle.
05/02/23 18mfuzi
St. Augustine
• (6) On slavery:• It is necessitated by human sinfulness
05/02/23 19mfuzi
Conclusion
• The doctrine of two swords may serve as a summary of the development of political thought in the period extending from Christ to the sixth century.
• However, the doctrine failed to provide solution to the problem of relationship between the state and the church.
05/02/23 20mfuzi