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While Augustine's understanding of will is constantly invoked in secondary literature, it rarely receives analysis in its own right. In this book, Han-luen Kantzer Komline provides such an analysis, demonstrating that Augustine's view is "theologically differentiated," comprising four distinct types of human will, which correspond to four different theological scenarios.
List of contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: Conversions of the Will
- 1. The Created Will: The Hinge of the Soul
- 2. The Fallen Will: A Link in Sin's Chain
- 3. What Is in Our Power
- 4. God's Gardening
- 5. The Redeemed Will: A Root of Love
- 6. Christ and the Will: Agony in the Garden
- 7. The Holy Spirit and the Will: Intervention and Analogy
- 8. The Eschatological Will: Full Freedom at Last
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index to Works of Augustine Scripture Index
- Subject and Name Index
About the author
Han-luen Kantzer Komline is Marvin and Jerene DeWitt Professor of Theology and Church History at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.
Summary
This book provides a framework for Augustine's understanding of will, an aspect of his thought that has proven to be both essential and inscrutable. On the one hand, the Augustinian will is everywhere. It comes up constantly both in Augustine's thought and in the massive literature engaging it. The will is impossible to avoid in almost any treatment of any aspect of his thinking, whether theological, philosophical, psychological, or political, because it is at the heart of his understanding of the human person and therefore vital to his understanding of such diverse topics as grace, freedom, the image of God, and moral responsibility. On the other hand, Augustine's understanding of the will resists direct examination. With the exception of an early treatise on free choice, Augustine never devoted a work to exploring the will in a programmatic way. Likewise, while the Augustinian will is constantly invoked in secondary literature, it rarely receives analysis in its own right.
Han-luen Kantzer Komline demonstrates that Augustine's view is "theologically differentiated," comprising four distinct types of human will, which correspond to four different theological scenarios. Augustine's innovation consists in distinguishing these types with a detail and clarity unprecedented by any thinker before him. This account of the Augustinian will gives a comprehensive picture of the development and mature shape of Augustine's thinking on this vital yet perennially puzzling topic.
Additional text
Kantzer Komline's theologically differentiated approach enhances our understanding of Augustine on the will...Kantzer Komline shows that a theologically differentiated account of the will is necessary to account for Augustine's anti-Pelagianism, his engagement with scripture, his theological development, his distinctly Christian, trinitarian approach to willing, and his reluctance to offer philosophically universal definitions of the will.
