Summary Of Augustine's Doctrine Of The City Of God

Within Augustine’s Doctrine of the city of God, he holds a controversial view of slavery in Book 19, of chapter 15. Which is, “The apostle therefore admonishes servants to be obedient to their master, and to serve them loyally and with good will […] they can at least make their own slavery to some extent free” [944]. This particular notion entails that as long as the individual is in good health, and has time to freely practice their faith towards God, then so be their mortal position as a slave. Since the Christian slave will possess eternal peace, and freedom from pain in the city of God. Nevertheless, Augustine’s statement about serving with good will can become problematic, because he does not hold that there is a moral limitation for the

For, the Christian slave has re-decided their choice, and denied to reveal the location of the church. The punishment from their master could choose instead of death, would be to threaten that they will run an onslaught against all nearby churches, and force the agent to perform sacrilegious actions. However, they will not harm the agent, rather their punishment will be to ensure their damnation. Augustine would then argue, that the agent should then choose the lesser evil. Perform the lesser sin, and in the time of judgment, God will forgive the slave. Additionally, there would be no capability for the slave to reason with their master, given household dynamics (Master to slave). This is given from Augustine’s statement about the mentality of a master’s pride, the attempt to use the faculties of reason would be of no avail (936). Although the slave will not perform a sin, they are left in a position where they will be allowing the act of murder upon their fellow Christian neighbors. For Augustine states the individual must love God, himself, and then their neighbor. Yet there is ambiguity in how Augustine would term, or categorize the closeness of the ‘neighbor’, yet it could be derived from his

As well as upholding their duty as a lawful Christian, rather than an individual who seeks passage in to heaven. For the action of rebelling against the master would be to use reason to deter them from committing any sins, but that would be impossible for the slave. However, given the agent is in a conundrum where they desire to act in good will for themselves, and their Christian neighbor, then the slave ought to consider the choice of killing their enslaver. Whereas, Augustine would strongly reject this mode of thought. Given the slave should not commit their soul to damnation for the actions they themselves will not perform. Whereas Augustine states, the slave can only rightly kill their master unless God commanded, or they were commanded to kill. Yet, in regards to the issue of commands, if the master demanded the slave to murder in their name, Augustine would defend that the slave could do so, and remain free of sin. For this problem originates from following the commands of war, where a soldier is ordered by their general to kill (33). Oddly, Augustine allows that an individual be free from fault when they obey the command to kill, but be damned when they choose to justly kill. “rather, he is like a sword which is the instrument of its user”. For he see’s that the slave isn’t an acting agent of the situation,