The Augustinian Person (Paperback)
Pages: 218
ISBN: 9780813214184
Published: 31st December 2005
Casemate UK Academic
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Augustine's notions of human nature and of person have not received adequate systematic treatment, despite their centrality to all the important areas of his thought. Although he notoriously changed his mind on many major points, his explorations of human nature and person remained central and to a great extent consistent across his mature and most important works. In this insightful and accessible book, Peter Burnell examines the crucial issues in Augustine's understanding of these two related subjects, and concentrates on Augustine's fullest development of that understanding.Through careful analysis of Augustine's writings, Burnell concludes that Augustine conceives of human nature as a unity at every level--socially, morally, and in basic constitution--despite very common objections that he fails to achieve such a conception. Furthermore, Augustine's doctrine of the Incarnation is the basis of his notion of person--not only human but divine. Thus the eternal relationships of God's interior life, though unchanging, have always had an outward bearing, in the sense of being eternally oriented on the Incarnation.