Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Augustine
- 2 Faith and reason
- 3 Augustine on evil and original sin
- 4 Predestination, Pelagianism, and foreknowledge
- 5 Biblical interpretation
- 6 The divine nature
- 7 De Trinitate
- 8 Time and creation in Augustine
- 9 Augustine’s theory of soul
- 10 Augustine on free will
- 11 Augustine’s philosophy of memory
- 12 The response to skepticism and the mechanisms of cognition
- 13 Knowledge and illumination
- 14 Augustine’s philosophy of language
- 15 Augustine’s ethics
- 16 Augustine’s political philosophy
- 17 Augustine and medieval philosophy
- 18 Post-medieval Augustinianism
- Bibliography
- Index
10 - Augustine on free will
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 May 2006
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Augustine
- 2 Faith and reason
- 3 Augustine on evil and original sin
- 4 Predestination, Pelagianism, and foreknowledge
- 5 Biblical interpretation
- 6 The divine nature
- 7 De Trinitate
- 8 Time and creation in Augustine
- 9 Augustine’s theory of soul
- 10 Augustine on free will
- 11 Augustine’s philosophy of memory
- 12 The response to skepticism and the mechanisms of cognition
- 13 Knowledge and illumination
- 14 Augustine’s philosophy of language
- 15 Augustine’s ethics
- 16 Augustine’s political philosophy
- 17 Augustine and medieval philosophy
- 18 Post-medieval Augustinianism
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
There is an enormous scholarly literature on Augustine's account of free will, and it is remarkable for the range of views it contains. Historians of philosophy read Augustine on free will so variously that it is sometimes difficult to believe they are reading the same texts. John Rist says: 'There is still no consensus of opinion on Augustine's view of each man's responsibility for his moral behaviour . . . There are those who attribute to Augustine the full-blown Calvinist position that each man has no say in his ultimate destiny . . . Other interpreters reject this view in varying degrees. They will not hold that for Augustine man's will is enslaved, or they would dispute about the sense in which it is enslaved and the sense in which it is free.'
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Augustine , pp. 124 - 147Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001
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