St. Augustine, and Albert Camus Go Into a Bar, 8-3-2010

I also found St. Augustine's Confessions in the paperback collection of the Volunteers of America. I am still working on this, but it is giving me something to think about, as well as exposing my ignorance of Psalms.

I wrote as I read through Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, and I suspect I will be doing this as The Confessions. There are some points I see also having to do with my idea of a book on teaching ethics. This comes from Chapter III, viii (13)

Nor had I knowledge of that true inner righteousness, which does not judge according to custom, but out of the most perfect law of God Almighty, by which the manners of places and times were adapted to those places and times — being itself the while the same always and everywhere, not one thing in one place, and another in another; according to which Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and Moses, and David, and all those commended by the mouth of God were righteous, Hebrews 11:8-40 but were judged unrighteous by foolish men, judging out of man's judgment, 1 Corinthians 4:3 and gauging by the petty standard of their own manners the manners of the whole human race. Like as if in an armoury, one knowing not what were adapted to the several members should put greaves on his head, or boot himself with a helmet, and then complain because they would not fit. Or as if, on some day when in the afternoon business was forbidden, one were to fume at not being allowed to sell as it was lawful to him in the forenoon. Or when in some house he sees a servant take something in his hand which the butler is not permitted to touch, or something done behind a stable which would be prohibited in the dining-room, and should be indignant that in one house, and one family, the same thing is not distributed everywhere to all. Such are they who cannot endure to hear something to have been lawful for righteous men in former times which is not so now; or that God, for certain temporal reasons, commanded them one thing, and these another, but both obeying the same righteousness; though they see, in one man, one day, and one house, different things to be fit for different members, and a thing which was formerly lawful after a time unlawful — that permitted or commanded in one corner, which done in another is justly prohibited and punished. Is justice, then, various and changeable? Nay, but the times over which she presides are not all alike, because they are times. But men, whose days upon the earth are few, Job 14:1 because by their own perception they cannot harmonize the causes of former ages and other nations, of which they had no experience, with these of which they have experience, though in one and the same body, day, or family, they can readily see what is suitable for each member, season, part, and person — to the one they take exception, to the other they submit.

I read that passage as I finished reading Albert Camus's The Fall. Both deal with the subject of judgments with a similar questioning of how one should judge.

I can say this passage supports my argument against those wanting to put the Ten Commandments on courthouse properties. The Golden Rule applies to those of the Christian faith. The latter is a historical refinement and change on the Jewish commandments. (By the way, I cannot recall ever hearing any Jewish group support the Ten Commandments idea. Why?)

We may also see here the transition not only from Jewish to Christian, but also pagan to Christian. We can have customary human law, but natural law coming from God trumps positive, human law. As I read St. Augustine, I notice he adopts Greek philosophy, so long as it is congruent with Christ's teaching. If I were drawing up my own genealogy of morals, I would show a convergence of those three lines of ancient thought.

sch

[Not having any means to double-check my own views against others with a wider and deeper knowledge, as well more mental stability, I did so today. Not that I have had time to read all that much, choosing What Albert Camus’ ‘The Fall’ Has To Say About Modern Society for its title. Luck may have given me a bit of reward for my choice:

What The Fall teaches us is that we are never going to be free from judgment. In the age of mass media, with the personal lives of others printed on the covers of newspapers and magazines we do feel a sense of justification to form opinions. Where Camus surmised the modern man as having ‘fornicated and read newspapers’, we could probably say the same for ourselves but replacing ‘newspapers’ for ‘Twitter’. But whilst we are carefully controlling our own profiles on social media, with the knowledge that other people are going to be looking at them, we can never escape the fact that we are always going to judge ourselves.

I resemble that last sentence. Find and read the novel, it will give much to think about and the experience of reading great writing. sch 2/27/23.]