St. Augustine's Dilemma: Grace and Eternal Law in the Major Works of Augustine of Hippo

St. Augustine's Dilemma: Grace and Eternal Law in the Major Works of Augustine of Hippo. By Dennis R. Creswell. Studies in Church History 5. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. xiv + 159 pp. $39.95 (cloth).

Since Elaine Pagel's broadside against St. Augustine in Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988), the bishop of Hippo would seem to be one of the least politically correct of the Church fathers today (for his views on original sin, predestination, Eve, and the "just war" theory), yet he may still be the one most written about. The author of this short study, a Lutheran pastor, justifies yet another study amid the "torrent" of words on Augustine (p. 1) by focusing on works that, he says, are largely ignored by scholars: the bishop's last, "anti-Pelagian," period from 415-430. Creswell asks the still-pertinent question: "Why did Augustine come to the position of double predestination in his final works?" (p. 2).

Given Augustine's massive literary output, Creswell focuses on the works that Augustine himself singled out in his Retractiones as being most important, while acknowledging that this choice leaves out some major writings and virtually all of the bishop's correspondence. Creswell organizes this study in historical theology by proceeding chronologically through five periods of Augustine's life that in turn focus on three conflicts: with the Manicheans, Donatists, and Pelagians.

The author rightly wonders whether readers will want a book on the "damnable doctrine of double predestination" (p. 6), but clear, sensible, and straightforward presentations in historical theology are always welcome, and this volume has those welcome virtues. Creswell concisely traces the development of Augustine's thinking on grace and free will, from his Neo-platonic presuppositions to his final Pauline conclusions. The conflict, as the author sees it, and hence Augustine's "dilemma," lay in the bishop's attempt to reconcile his Neo-platonic understanding with the absoluteness of God's grace.

Augustine, through St. Paul, came to see that the will is unable "to choose what is good as a result of original sin" (p. 105); given his Platonic understanding of God's immutability and unchanging law, Augustine came to believe that people's good and bad wills must be "determined before the foundation of the world" (p. 82). Thus, "human beings are able to choose to do what is right because God has changed their evil wills, with which they were born, into good wills.... God chooses from before the foundation of the world, by God's just and eternal predestinating decrees, which wills are going to be changed to the good" (p. 105).

And, of course, which aren't. Creswell notes that, at least for Augustine, this understanding "destroys" the Neo-platonic understanding "of the free choice of the will as an attribute of what it means to be human" (p. 129). If so, that makes me a Neo-platonist. Creswell concludes that Augustine's final theology raises "very grave concerns" (p. 140). He wonders, quite rightly, how the crucifixion, resurrection, and atonement (and, I would add, incarnation) matter in a doubly predestined cosmos. Creswell, one senses, favors Augustine; he most certainly does not have a high opinion of recent attempts to rehabilitate the Pelagians (p. 107)! Yet on the whole he presents a balanced and clear introduction to Augustine's thinking on grace and free will. As the ancient reaction against Augustine (Cassian, Julian of Eclanum) demonstrates, renewed by the recent backlash against the "Doctor of Grace," St. Augustine by no means "won." This book, appropriate reading for seminary, undergraduate, and graduate courses, will allow the interested reader to make up his or her on mind.

TIM VIVIAN

Bakerfeld, California

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