Augustine’s reflections on "the future" remain rich sources for thinking about how humans relate to the past, present, and future – even as he also troubles standard ways of thinking about temporality. This panel features papers on Augustine's thought and “the future” with particularly attention to the created and creaturely aspects of living in time.
This paper argues that Augustine’s account of beatific enjoyment offers a theologically and metaphysically robust alternative to two contemporary eschatological trajectories. Eschatological naturalism locates human fulfilment largely within the imminent order of nature while radical divine immanence collapses the distinction between God and creatures. Surveying proposals from biblical studies, philosophy of religion, and theology, the paper highlights how these trends either naturalize the creature’s end or imply an already realized divinizing participation of nature in God. By contrast, Augustine depicts created being as dependent, fragile, and oriented beyond itself towards its transcendent origin–fulfillable only in the intellectual vision of God. Drawing on texts from the Cassiciacum dialogues to the Confessions and City of God and important letters and sermons, this paper shows how Augustine’s conception of createdness, grace, and divine agency enriches current debates by recentring divine transcendence and the gratuity of beatitude.
In her book Motherhood, Natalie Carnes speaks on behalf of many mothers when she expresses her dismay with Augustine’s neglect of his experience as a parent in his Confessions. Indeed, Augustine barely mentions his son and leaves his feelings about Adeodatus’ life and death unusually hidden. However, a close reading of Augustine's earlier texts written shortly after Adeodatus died suggests that there is more of Adeodatus in the Confessions than the few words Augustine devotes explicitly to him. In those earlier texts, Augustine introduces his doctrine of ordered love through the metaphor of temporal syllables in a poem “passing away.” This metaphor and doctrine, later incorporated into the Confessions, suggest that he was confronting his dysphoria over Adeodatus’ young death. Reading the Confessions with an eye toward unearthing Adeodatus’ hidden presence there opens up new possibilities for parents to engage with it in understanding their relationships with their children.
This paper sheds new light on the debate over the philosophical origins of the uti-frui distinction by examining the influence of Scripture on Augustine’s interpretation of uti-frui. Several candidates have been proposed for having influenced Augustine’s understanding of uti-frui: Varro, Cicero, and Stoicism. In response, I argue that there is no special source for Augustine’s formulation of the distinction, since this distinction was widespread in antiquity. Augustine’s own interpretation of uti and frui, while indebted to ancient philosophy, took its shape from three Scriptural texts: Ephesians 5:29, 1 Corinthians 7:31, and 1 Timothy 1:5-8. Ephesians helped him articulate an account of the goodness of natural goods, in line with the Old Academy but opposed to Manicheism. 1 Corinthians 7:31 gave him the insight that everything should be used in this life. 1 Timothy 1:5-8 specifies the end of use: love of God and all things as related to God.