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A Self Forgetful of Itself: Augustine and the Modern Oblivion of the Erotic Mind

thesis
posted on 2021-07-05, 00:00 authored by Taylor Nutter

This dissertation puts Augustine and modernity in conversation on the topic of desire. It does so to identify the source of the modern oblivion of the desire for the transcendent. Three implications of that oblivion are addressed: 1) the advent of the modern philosophical reductionistic account of Christian faith, 2) the modern cultural disappearance of the Christian conception of wisdom as a life of hierarchically ordered desires, and 3) the modern critique of the analogical metaphysics of participation that is central to Catholic Christianity. The modern oblivion of desire and its implications are ultimately shown to be derivative of a more fundamental oblivion of the nature of Augustinian interiority. Because postmodern philosophy presupposes the modern oblivion of desire, Augustinian interiority reverses the excesses of both. It is argued that theology ought to found itself in Augustinian interiority if it is to successfully understand and communicate Christian faith in modern and postmodern culture.

The first part explicates Augustine’s understanding of the relation between faith and reason. Augustine believes that faith and reason are mutually dependent because knowing and loving co-inhere. For Augustine, then, objectivity is not the result of a dispassionate view from nowhere, but of ordinate desire. As that which allows the mind to grow into ordinate desire, faith is therefore a condition of the development of the mind toward wisdom. That wisdom involves an order of desire that parallels the order of being. The desire of the mind is thus the ground of the formulation of Christian metaphysics. Augustine avoids both modern foundationalism and postmodern anti-foundationalism. This being the case, this part argues that Charles Taylor and Philip Cary are wrong to believe that Augustine anticipates modern philosophy and that John Milbank and Jason David BeDuhn are wrong to believe that Augustine anticipates postmodern philosophy.

The second part focuses on Heidegger’s misinterpretation of Augustinian interiority. Because Heidegger appropriates the presuppositions of modernity, he is unable to understand Augustine’s search for God in memory. If for Heidegger that search is a matter of a Vorgriff of what it means to be God, Augustine, on the contrary, considers that search to be an expression of the desire of the mind for that which would bring it rest. By contending that the mind exists within a horizon that is ineluctably determined by the desire for the Truth, Augustine overcomes Heidegger’s overcoming of metaphysics that gave birth to postmodernity.

The third part identifies Bernard Lonergan as the principal modern inheritor of Augustinian interiority. Lonergan follows Augustine by locating the foundation of knowledge in human consciousness rather than self-evident first principles. Resultantly, Lonergan’s understanding of human knowing both properly identifies the place of faith and accounts for the historicity of consciousness without capitulating to relativism.

History

Date Modified

2021-08-11

Defense Date

2021-06-28

CIP Code

  • 39.0601

Research Director(s)

Cyril O`Regan

Committee Members

J. Matthew Ashley John Betz

Degree

  • Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Level

  • Doctoral Dissertation

Alternate Identifier

1263245633

Library Record

6105798

OCLC Number

1263245633

Program Name

  • Theology

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