Vol. XXXVIII / 1 - Studia Moralia

ST. AUGUSTINE’S CRITIQUE OF THE ADIAPHORA 187
These metaphysical presuppositions provide the very foundation
of Augustine’s theory of human nature and ethics.
Indeed, Augustine viewed human nature as exhibiting the same
order and harmony that is found on a cosmic level. Accordingly,
our mid-rank status (which situates us between God and higher
spiritual realites on the one hand, and lower corporeal natures
on the other) establishes our position in the created order and
defines the parameters of our happiness.
Thus man is an intermediate being, but intermediate
between beasts and angels. A beast is irrational and mortal,
while an angel is rational and immortal. Man is intermediate,
inferior to the angels, and superior to the beasts; he is a rational
and mortal animal, sharing mortality with the beasts, and rationality
with the angels. And that is why, when we look for a mean
between blessed immortals and wretched mortals, we have to
find a being who combines happiness with mortality, or wretchedness
with immortality. 52
In this moral environment, rectitude consists in choosing
what is really good (that is, in directing our choices to God and
true being) and rejecting what merely appears to be good (and
thereby, subordinates us to the things we should rightfully
govern as rational beings). As recounted in the Confessiones,
Augustine’s pivotal ethical insight came only after he recognized
that the cause of moral evil (i.e., sin or iniquitas) was rooted in
the human will, rather than in the nature of things.
I asked “What is iniquity?” and I found that it is not a substance.
It is perversity of will, twisted away from the supreme
substance, yourself, O God, and towards lower things. 53
But for Augustine, will is an expression of the soul’s love. It
is significant, then, that his most mature definition of virtue
speaks in terms of a “rightly ordered love” (ordo est amoris), that
is, the good use of the will whereby things are desired or loved in
52
De Civitate Dei IX,13: PL xli (Par 7), 267-268.
53
Confessiones VII,16(22): PL xxxii (Pars I), 744.