The

THEOLOGY

of AUGUSTINE

An Introductory Guide to His Most Important Works

Matthew Levering

BakerAcademic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2013 by Matthew Levering

Published by Baker Academic

a division of Baker Publishing Group

P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

www.bakeracademic.com

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Levering, Matthew, 1971–

The theology of Augustine: an introductory guide to his most important works / Matthew Levering.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-8010-4848-7 (pbk.)

1. Augustine, Saint, Bishop of Hippo. I. Title.

BR65.A9L48 2013

230′.14092—dc23

2012028425

Scripture quotations are from Ignatius Press’s Catholic edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1965, 1966 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Translations of the Confessions are taken from Saint Augustine: Confessions, translated by Henry Chadwick © 1991 Oxford University Press. Used with permission.

Translations of On the Trinity are taken from The Trinity © 1991 Augustinian Heritage Institute, published by New City Press. Used with permission.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

To David Solomon

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. On Christian Doctrine

2. Answer to Faustus, a Manichean

3. Homilies on the First Epistle of John

4. On the Predestination of the Saints

5. Confessions

6. City of God

7. On the Trinity

Conclusion

For Further Reading

Subject Index

Scripture Index

Acknowledgments

My first thanks go to my beloved wife, Joy! She is wonderful and she makes life fun. I thank God every day for her and for our children. This book was written as a spiritual exercise during a period when I was particularly in need of Augustine’s wisdom. I sought out Lewis Ayres at an early stage of the project, and he graciously encouraged it. Gerald Boersma, my good friend and former student who has become an expert on Augustine under Lewis’s tutelage, read the manuscript and made helpful suggestions, as did the Reformed theologian Michael Allen. Andrew Hofer, OP, a patristics scholar who has a mastery of all things theological, reviewed the manuscript twice, and without his help I don’t think that the book could have come to fruition. At a crucial juncture, Scott Hahn pointed my attention to Augustine’s Answer to Faustus, a Manichean. A version of chapter 2 ...