The City of God stands as Augustine's masterwork of theological defense and construction, written over thirteen years in response to accusations that Christianity brought ruin upon Rome. This first volume contains the first ten books of sustained refutation—demolishing pagan claims that traditional worship secured either temporal prosperity or eternal happiness—followed by the beginning of his positive vision in Books Eleven through Thirteen, where he traces the origin of two societal orders to the primordial division among the angels. What emerges is not merely an apology for Christianity but a philosophy of history that subordinate the fate of empires to the hidden providence of the one true God, whose sovereignty extends from creation through the fall to the final judgment.
From this, Augustine deduces that there is no other good for a rational or intellectual creature save God alone. Creatures made out of nothing cannot be blessed of themselves but only by Him who created them. A creature is blessed by the possession of that whose loss makes it miserable; therefore, He who is blessed in Himself, needing nothing else, cannot be miserable. Augustine affirms that there is no unchangeable good but the one true God. Things created by Him are good because they come from Him, yet they are mutable because they are made from nothing. While they are not the supreme good, those mutable natures that can adhere to the immutable good are very good, for without Him they are inevitably wretched. Augustine argues that the rational nature, even when wretched, is more excellent than irrational or lifeless natures that cannot experience misery. Since the rational nature was created excellent enough to secure blessedness by adhering to God, and since it cannot be satisfied without perfect blessedness, not to adhere to God is manifestly a fault. Every fault injures the nature and is contrary to it. Therefore, the creature that cleaves to God differs from the wicked not by nature, but by fault. This very fault proves the nobility of the nature, for one only justly blames a fault because it mars a praiseworthy nature. Just as blindness proves that sight belongs to the nature of the eyes, the fault of the angelic creature proves that it pertained to its nature to cleave to God.
Augustine proceeds to refute the notion that there could be an entity contrary to the divine. Citing God’s declaration, “I am that I am,” he explains that since God is the supreme existence and is unchangeable, the only contrary to Him is non-existence. To some natures He communicated a more ample existence, to others a more limited one, arranging beings in ranks. Consequently, no nature is contrary to the Supreme Being save that which does not exist. Therefore, the enemies of God are enemies not by nature, but by vice. They have no power to hurt Him, only themselves. Vice is contrary to God as evil is to good, and it is contrary to the nature it vitiates because it is hurtful. Vice cannot exist in the highest good, nor can it exist except in some good, for it injures the nature it corrupts. Even natures vitiated by an evil will are good in so far as they are natures, and when they are punished, they possess the good of justice.
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