Augustine

Augustine On Words And Meanings

by on November 12, 2022

While Augustine argues that ‘there are two things on which all interpretation of Scripture depends: the mode of ascertaining the proper meaning and the mode of making known the meaning when it is ascertained,’ it should be evident that the first step . . . Continue reading →

The Distinction Between Law And Gospel Emerged From Augustine’s Struggle With Pelagius

by on December 14, 2022 | 4 Comments

When many Christians think about the Reformation, they do not think about the distinction between law and gospel. Indeed, it is a truism for not a few modern Reformed folk that the distinction between law and gospel is solely a Lutheran conviction. . . . Continue reading →

Laboring For The Spoils Of Scripture: Augustine’s Threefold Hermeneutic (Part One)

by on July 11, 2023

“Like fingernails on a chalkboard.” Sometimes that phrase captures my response to a bizarre interpretation of Scripture. For example, I recently read a modern commentary on the story in Mark’s Gospel, where Jesus heals a man with leprosy: “Jesus stretched out his . . . Continue reading →

Interpreting Scripture For Love: Augustine’s Threefold Hermeneutic (Part Two)

by on July 18, 2023

“Thou has pierced my heart with Thy Word, and I have loved Thee.”1 In the last article, we examined Augustine’s vigorous Christ-centered interpretation of Scripture. Another significant aspect of his biblical interpretation is love. For Augustine, the proper interpretation of Scripture leads . . . Continue reading →

Interpreting Scripture For Love: Augustine’s Threefold Hermeneutic (Part Three)

by on July 25, 2023 | 3 Comments

The final aspect of Augustine’s hermeneutic that we will observe is this: Augustine believed biblical texts could have more than one meaning or interpretation. Scripture, for Augustine, was not a one-dimensional black-and-white text filled with brute facts of history and bare propositions.1 . . . Continue reading →

Augustine Contra The Postmodernists

by on August 31, 2023

In Augustinian thought, signs, then play a key role in bringing us into contact with the realities they signify. Drawing lines to the Christian life, Augustine argued that catechesis means explaining how “the signs of divine realities are visible, but the invisible . . . Continue reading →

The Order Of Love (Ordo Amoris): Proximity, Not Ethnicity (Part 1)

by on February 10, 2025 | 4 Comments

The Christian Nationalists have discovered a new toy: Augustine’s language about the “order of love” or the “order of charity” (ordo caritatis), and some of them are putting it to the service of racism and kinism.1 This calls for some explanation and . . . Continue reading →

The Order Of Love (Ordo Amoris): Proximity, Not Ethnicity (Part 2)

by on February 17, 2025 | 2 Comments

Three times in his discussion of the nature of virtue Thomas Aquinas (c. 1224–74) referred to Augustine’s AD 388 treatise against the Manichaeans, On The Morals of the Church (De moribus ecclesiae) regarding the “order of love.”1 Even though it was a . . . Continue reading →