Thursday, September 25, 2014
Clarification About Peace
I am still a little confused about Augustine's concept of peace. It would seem that based on the description of Chapter 12 that his definition of peace extends beyond the notion of just a lack of conflict but rather a certain type of order that is established. I found the example of the man in his home that strives for peace yet may achieve that through being brutal while rebuking his children rather interesting. Augustine continues to discuss the peace of wild animals and of the creature in its cave that each live by their own desired order. Finally, he moved on to the idea of peace for mankind which seems to be the ability to live in a right relationship to God. I feel like I am still missing a piece of the explanation for the peace between God and man and I was hoping someone could clarify this for me.
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He thinks that there are different levels of peace, but that part of our nature is to desire peace, and this is universal for created nature. So peace is for Augustine kind of a substitute for Aristotelian happiness. But ultimately peace is going to betray a cosmic order of a sort. This order show that not all peace is equal.
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Yes, I think so. Thank you.
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