Augustine and the case for limited government.

AuthorRaeder, Linda C.

Augustine's thought has ever held a deep attraction for the Western mind and has, of course, profoundly shaped the moral traditions that inform Western political culture. Although Augustine, the Christian theologian and statesman, never produced anything that may be considered a treatise on political philosophy, certain conceptions developed in his voluminous writings became embodied in the Christian worldview which shapes social and political reality to the present day.

This article will examine those elements of Augustine's thought that bear on the issue of the proper tasks of political authority and will explore his insights for the light they shed on the appropriate role of government in a decent society. The aim is to show that both his political thought and ontology are in accord with the vision that impels the demand for limited government as well as with the view that regards "politics" as an inappropriate means for either individual or social improvement. (1) We conclude that Augustine, the "intellectual father of the concept of the limited state," (2) offers a realistic interpretation of political phenomena that remains an indispensable counterweight to the political idealism of both classical and contemporary political thought.

The Augustinian Conception of the State

Augustine was the first major philosopher to reject the deeply normative politics of classical thought and its conception of the state as the highest achievement of social existence. For Aristotle, the polis was the "perfect community"--the fulfillment of human association and the precondition for the cultivation of intellectual and ethical excellence. Cicero too defined the state in normative terms; a "republic," he maintained, was an "assemblage [of men] associated by a common acknowledgement of right and by a community of interests." (3) To the classical mind, human flourishing was inextricably entwined with the flourishing of the state; personal and political fulfillments were symbiotic and inseparable. (4)

Augustine, the mystical Christian sage, was not impressed with such views. For he held a higher allegiance--to his God--along side which the human state and its strictly secular concerns paled to insignificance. Moreover, he held no illusions regarding the essence of political authority--coerciveness. Coercive rule was, for him, a necessary aspect of human existence but certainly not one worthy of reverence. Perhaps Augustine's conception of the nature of political authority is best revealed by the anecdote he himself recounts to his readers:

When [Alexander the Great] asked [a captured pirate] what he meant by infesting the sea, he boldly replied: 'What you mean by warring on the whole world. I do my fighting on a ship, and they call me a pirate; you do yours on a large ship, and they call you Commander.' (5) One would think that inflationary political expectations would have been chastened for all time by such a clear-eyed realism.

In any event, Augustine held a sober and commonsensical (some would say pessimistic) conception of government and law. On his view, the coercive authority embodied in the state was, of course, indispensable to the well-being, not to say preservation, of members of society; nevertheless, it was hardly a noble phenomenon nor an appropriate object of devotion. Political rule was, on the contrary and quite literally, a necessary evil. Its existence was nothing to celebrate, for, according to Augustine, political rule came into being only because of man's fallen state. God "did not intend that his rational creature, who was made in his image, should have dominion over anything but the irrational creature--not man over man, but man over the beasts." (6) Sin and sin alone brought the need for political coercion into human existence. Augustine's view, in short, was that government and law exist as a punishment and corrective for sin, a punishment which mankind, through the actions of Adam and Eve, had brought upon itself. Political man is fallen man.

Augustine, however, does not condemn the state as such. Because men are prone to depravity and sin, political coercion is indispensable to social order. Government and law exist to intimidate and restrain those who would do evil so that the good may live in at least some semblance of peace and order. For Augustine, then, government serves an essentially negative function--to restrain and punish the wicked. Political rule is neither glorious nor enviable.

The Two Cities

Augustine believed that the human race is permanently divided into two mutually exclusive classes who, though related, remain nevertheless separated by an unbridgeable gulf. These two groups constitute, on Augustine's metaphor, two "cities" (7)--the City of God and the City of Man (8)--the citizenry of which are determined by the quality of their inhabitants' respective loves. The civitas dei consists of all those who orient their love (caritas, or what is the same thing, their will (9)) and reason toward the Highest Good--communion with God. The civitas terrena, on the other hand, is peopled by the "castoffs" (10) of the heavenly city--all those whose love (cupiditas) is exclusively directed toward the mundane order, those who pursue temporal goods as ends in themselves. These two groups, "commingled" (11) and more or less overtly indistinguishable in this life, will be identified and assigned to their respective final destinations--heaven and hell--on Judgment Day. Until that time, they abide together in the temporal community, the earthly citizenry fully at home, the citizenry of God "captives and stranger[s]" (12) in a strange land.

According to Augustine, then, there exists a "fundamental cleavage" (13) within every society that runs along the lines of love (what we would today call "values"). Aside from a common desire for "earthly peace" (14) or the "tranquility of order," (15) the members of the two cities are irremediably at odds in their respective evaluations of the goods of existence. In other words, there exists for Augustine an irreducible "pluralism" of values among the members of any society, a pluralism that originates in the very nature of being, that is, in its fallen state (this issue is discussed more thoroughly below). Consequently, political society cannot be based upon any genuine common agreement regarding right and wrong, for there can be no such agreement...

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