An Author Interview from Books At a Glance
Greetings, I’m Fred G. Zaspel and welcome to another Author Interview here at Books At a Glance.
Augustine may well be the most towering theologian you’ve perhaps heard of but know almost nothing about. Brad Green wants to help remedy that situation in his new book, Augustine of Hippo: His Life and Impact. Dr. Green is with us today to talk about his new book.
Brad, welcome, and congratulations on your new book!
Green:
Thanks, it’s nice to have it done, and good to have this talk with you!
Zaspel:
And is it, for you, Augustine, or Augustine? Do you go with the Latin pronunciation?
Green:
I say with Augustine, the main thing is please read the book or better please read Augustine. But I say Augustine.
Zaspel:
Well, I grew up with Augustine, and it’s hard to break the habit and that’s generally what I do. I think it was Cornelius van til who was credited in saying that st Augustine is in Florida, st Augustine is in Africa.
First, introduce us to Augustine just briefly – his life and times and his career.
Green:
Sure! Well, again thanks for the opportunity. Augustine is arguably the greatest theologian in the church. Unarguably, certainly one of the most significant theologians in history of the church. His years are AD of course. 354-430. Born in North Africa, educated in North Africa and Italy. He is the towering figure of his era, certainly the towering figure of western theology of his era. He was trained in classical education. He had a very vibrant and startling conversion to the faith. He wanted to read and write but got corralled to pastoral ministry in his last 3 decades plus. As a pastor back in Hippo, a relatively modest town in North Africa. We know him through his teachings on grace, his book Confession, The City of God, and many other works.
Zaspel:
Augustine is known as the most influential theologian and philosopher in the history of the church prior to the Reformation. Just in broad strokes and before we talk in specifics, what are the areas of contribution that made him such a towering figure?
Green:
It is often common to summarize Augustine under 3 great controversies. So with Pelagius, we will talk more about this, the doctrine of grace. He really hammered out a doctrine of original sin. A doctrine of the priority and efficacy of grace. The whole nexus of sin and grace, you can’t come to terms with those realities in history of Christian thought without making some sense of Augustine. The second controversy would be Donatism. This gets you into the Donatist, purifying movement. It led Augustine to work out his understanding of the sacraments and the church, which we will return to. And then the City of God, which is sort of coddled against the pagans. Augustine lays out a biblical theology of history, philosophy, and history of the church. Those 3 main controversies: of Pelagianism and grace, Donatism and the church, and The City of God and the whole question of the place of the church in this world. Those are the 3 main areas if you want to get some grasp of Augustine and get your head around those 3 big areas you have come along way. Those are the 3 main areas but there is so much more he articulates about Christian understanding, the life of the mind, and Christian understanding of education. Augustine is the first great Christian person to give serious attention to the nature of words, language, and signs. In one sense, he also lays the foundation for Christian thinking about life, the mind, and education which is so important in the Christian West.
Zaspel:
Augustine’s controversy with Pelagius was a watershed moment in the history of the church. Who was Pelagius, and just what were the issues at stake in this controversy?
Green:
Great question. Pelagius was a British monk who came down to Rome. He lived at the time of Augustine. He wanted to see moral reform in the church. Pelagius and Augustine may have been friends and common laborers in the path of moral reform. But Pelagius heard one or two snippets from confessions. This is the great snippet where Augustine says, “Lord command what you will and give what you command.” Pelagius really understood Augustine. He was saying the Lord commands us, in a mysterious way and it is God who must grant the ability to keep the command. Pelagius thought this thought process cut the heart of the desire to live a holy life. This began a long literary debate between Pelagius and Augustine. There was a whole series of Pelagians whom Augustine would be debating, literally, until the day he died. The last one being Julius Exodus. Whom one scholar called, “that fiery red head.” The heart of it is that Pelagius, to simplify it, saw no real connection between you and me and everyone else after Adam and Eve. We would say there is a real connection between you and me and Adam’s sin. We come into the world damaged goods, inclined to evil, even guilty, as the West will say. The East won’t say it, the West will. And Pelagius simply denied that and I think the more you read Augustine, he is hammering out the details as he debates Pelagius. But certainly, the mature Augustine sees Pelagianism as a seriously dangerous issue. It denies our connection to Adam and true sinfulness in the fallen creature and thus has a quite anemic doctrine of Grace. So that’s a simple way of describing Pelagianism.
Zaspel:
If we are all individual Adams that in turn affects how we understand the nature of the atonement of Christ too, right?
Green:
Great point. This past summer I decided to read all the 1000 pages of the 2 works against Julius. It’s quite the lengthy read. Augustine saw clearly, that if you refuse to see a person wrapped up somehow in Adam’s transgression then you are at least conceptually saying you can’t benefit from what Christ has done for us. If you can’t suffer in some way because of what Adam has done than you’re cutting the guts out of the whole notion that we can benefit from someone else’s work outside of us. Of course, that would be Christ, his life, and atonement.
Zaspel:
Tell us then about the later controversy with what we call semi-Pelagians?
Green:
I read through John Cassian and all the semi-Pelagian works, and all of Augustine’s responses. John Cassian is the most famous semi-Pelagian. The heart of their beliefs is that once you come to faith there is some synergistic God-man relationship in the course through Christian life. That the first move to God had to be virtually autonomous. The self-will is not in the act of God’s grace. This is something of a more subtle issue. You read Cassian and it certainly seems closer to traditional theological concern of Pelagian. The first move to God is seen as pretty much autonomous, self will, without some need of grace but then the Christian life is also seen in more synergistic ways. Not quite the Augustinian notion of an efficacious grace which brings us to faith and the grace in a Philippians 2:12 way which elicits our obedience. Cassian similar to Pelagian was nervous of any notion of divine-human agency or action. Trying to affirm both fully. Within the Christian life, they were nervous about God being to active of bringing about obedience.
Zaspel:
Is it overly simplistic to say that with Pelagian you do it all yourself but with semi-Pelagian, it’s God helping you but you have to make the first move??
Green:
I think that is a good way to get into it. You will find more things in the semi-Pelagian view. If they could just move here a bit they’d be closer. When you read Pelagian you know pretty quickly you are on foreign ground. It is much more dangerous theologically. I am trying to read all the Pelagian doctrines that I can find in English and it’s a different beast altogether from what Augustine was about.
Zaspel:
What was the Donatist controversy all about? Is there a brief way to describe it?
Green:
The Donatists are interesting. Particularly for Baptist. You had major persecution in AD 303. The Donatists are from north Africa, after someone named Donatist. The idea was that if someone had buckled under pressure, handed over scripture, gave the names of pastors or Christians, they would then be rounded up and persecuted. That person if they were a minister, was then seen that their offering of sacraments, the Lord’s supper, baptism were null and void. The idea was that you had to hold to that understanding that anyone who had been unfaithful as pastor that their churchly sacramental acts were null and void. The Donatist church had to hold to that conviction. Augustine saw this as not heretical but as schismatic. Unfortunately, eventually Augustine did agree to state force to shut them down. At their best they were a purifying movement, at their worst they tied the efficacy of the sacraments or ordinances of the moral state of the person offering them. Augustine’s solution is Christ himself who is administering the sacrament. This leads to our building block of Rome’s overall system. The Donatists were taught to hate him.
Zaspel:
We Reformed types like to claim Augustine, but in fact so do the Roman Catholics. Warfield commented that Augustine was “not wholly ours,” and in fact he described the Reformation effort as Augustine versus Augustine: “the Reformation, inwardly considered, was just the ultimate triumph of Augustine’s doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the Church.” Explain Warfield’s observation for us.
Green:
When I was reading Warfield essays, they are helpful for getting a hold on Augustine. the heart of that quotation is right. I used it while writing this book. What he is getting after is that one way of understanding the reformation is the full flowering of Augustine’s doctrine of grace. He has another line not as famous of this-what Rome has done ever since the time of Augustine is that they had to neutralize Augustine’s doctrine of grace. It would mean the neutralization of Rome itself. The second part of the quote speaks of this doctrine of grace over Augustine’s doctrine of the church. Warfield makes a fascinating point. There are two doctrines of the church competing in Augustine’s head. One is the congregation of the saints, which has a free churchy kind of sound to it over an emphasis of the hierarchy, etc. and Warfield says the Donatist controversy gets into his mind and head and leads to adopt this more episcopal doctrine of the church over that the church is simply the people of God. Warfield is right with both quotes; you have the recovery of scripture in the reformation. Augustine’s notion is the priority of grace, efficacy of grace, and life-transforming nature of grace. It flowers and as it takes to root the Roman Catholic system gets seen as being simply not needed to know and experience the grace of God. Rome claims it rightly. He builds the structure that becomes the sacramental system of Rome. The reformed are more true heirs of Augustine’s doctrine of grace.
Zaspel:
For any who are not familiar with his most famous work, tell us what Augustine’s Confessions is all about and why we would want to read it.
Green:
It is a fascinating work. It’s perhaps the first spiritual autobiography. It’s not simply a narrative, it is a unique narrative. It’s a prayer to God, written in the second person. He is recounting his own life as an infant. He kind of speculates. It’s his own spiritual autobiography recounting his birth, early life, education, and struggle with sin. He recounts his conversion and ends up with some fascinating reflections of the church and the doctrine of creation. It’s a must-read as a Christian. The first time I read it, it was not compelling but after the second or third time, it was. As a younger person, it connects at an existential level with people. A personal unfiltered, beautiful portrait of his coming to faith. His struggle of wanting and not wanting to believe. He knew he should believe but would not.
Zaspel:
Before we let you go, give us a brief overview of your book so our listeners can know what to expect. And this is a rather brief work, so tell us also who your intended audience is.
Green:
It’s over 200 pages. It’s a meaty introduction. Meaty without being overly technical.
Zaspel:
Is it small-sized pages?
Green:
It reads very easy. A topical model of God, creation, man, and Christ. A whole section of Pelagianism, the church, The City of God. A section on learning, knowledge, and the Bible. A section on Augustine and protestants. How they should engage with Augustine. The focus would be great in a seminary class on church history. My goal throughout the book is if someone said who is Augustine I would want to put this in their hand, they could read it and come away with a meaningful intro to Augustine.
Zaspel:
We’re talking to Dr. Bradley Green about his new book, Augustine of Hippo: His Life and Impact. It’s brief and concise, and it is well-informed – the new best place to begin a study of this towering 5th-century theologian.
Brad, thanks for this helpful work, and thanks for talking to us today.
