Living in Holy Love: Augustine’s Christocentric Ethics

Abstract This article seeks to clarify the relationship between systematic first principles and the moral theologies which follow. It argues that current tensions in anglophone moral theology reflect incompatible theological presuppositions, defined by the terms of the last century. In keeping with this edition’s theme, this article considers P. T. Forsyth’s conception of ‘holy love’ and its bearing on the moral life. However, rather than follow Forsyth’s rejection of the liberal theologians of the past two centuries, I consider Augustine’s parallel rejection of classical philosophers in Late Antiquity. Augustine’s articulation of a distinctly Christian ethic grounded in the love of God challenges our current presuppositions and allows for a rearticulation of Christian ethics in a grammar undefined by debates of modern theology. Christian resourcing of classical ethics has typically sought to retrieve a tradition of virtue ethics within an Augustinian frame. However, Augustine’s own retrieval of classical ethics rejects both Stoicism and the virtue ethics tradition in favor of a distinctly Christian way of life. His anthropology contrasts from liberalism in many ways, but chief among them is that Augustine understands humans are defined by loves, not rationality or self-possession. Augustine offers a Christian ethics not about improvement or moral choices but about confessional encounters with God. Like Forsyth, he is adamant that one must first admit God’s holiness, then one’s sin. To admit God’s holiness is to admit that God has covered our sin. To love in holy love is to confess that one cannot, on their own, live in holy love.