For the Joy Set before Us:
Ethics of Self-denying Love in
Augustinian Perspective
by Gerald Schlabach
PREFACE .................................................... v
CHAPTER 1 THE PROBLEM OF SELF-DENIAL ....................... 1
1.1 A Premature Agreement .............................. 4
1.1.1 Anders Nygren .................................... 5
1.1.2 Terms of Debate: Mutual Love
and Acquisition of the Good ..................... 14
1.1.3 Reinhold Niebuhr ................................ 22
1.2 A Premature Dismissal ............................. 32
1.2.1 Feminist Critics ................................ 32
1.2.2 The Need for Some Account of Self-Denial ........ 38
1.3 Can Self-Denial Be Sustained? ..................... 42
1.3.1 A Heuristic Problem ............................. 42
1.3.2 The Problem of Self-denial ...................... 44
1.4 To Conclude and Look Ahead ....................... 46
CHAPTER 2 LOVING CREATURES IN GOD:
THE STRUCTURE OF AUGUSTINIAN CARITAS ............ 50
2.1 The Four Loves .................................... 54
2.1.1 Love for God .................................... 54
2.1.2 Love of Temporal Goods .......................... 61
2.1.3 Love of Neighbor ................................ 68
2.1.4 Love of Self .................................... 78
2.2 The One Love ...................................... 84
2.3 To Conclude and Look Ahead ....................... 93
CHAPTER 3 "LOVE IS THE HAND OF THE SOUL:" THE
PHENOMENOLOGY OF AUGUSTINIAN CONTINENCE ........ 102
3.1 "Higher Continence" and "The Hand of the Soul" ... 105
3.2 "Neither Wife nor Ambition":
Augustine's Own Need for Continence .............. 115
3.3 Grasping and Clinging:
Quid similius et quid dissimilius? ............... 123
3.3.1 The Grammar of Grasping ........................ 126
3.3.2 The Grammar of Clinging ........................ 140
3.4 Having by Not Having: Quasi nihil
habens omnia possidet inhaerendo tibi ............ 147
3.5 Objections and Conclusions ....................... 154
3.5.1 Continence by Faith Alone .................... 155
3.5.2 Seeking Not One's Own ........................ 160
3.5.3 The Trinity of Love .......................... 166
3.6 To Look Ahead ................................... 169
CHAPTER 4 "EX EVANGELICA LECTIONE ADMONITUS FUERIT:"
AUGUSTINIAN CONTINENCE AS A RESPONSE TO THE
GOSPEL IMPERATIVE .............................. 171
4.1 An Excursus on Methods and Assumptions ........... 175
4.2 Sustaining Self-denial ........................... 178
4.2.1 Otherworldliness and the Interior World:
On the Lord's Sermon on the Mount (394) ...... 179
4.2.2 Concrete Demands Again, Amid the
Constantinian Puzzle:
Sermon 88 (ca. 400) on Matthew 20:29-34 ..... 187
4.2.3 Continence, Cross, and Church Ä Whereto?
Sermon 96 (ca. 417) on Mark 8:34 ............. 197
4.3 Grasping at the End .............................. 207
4.3.1 To Sustain Self-denial: A Summary ............ 208
4.3.2 Donatist Policy as Realized Eschatology....... 214
4.4 Conclusions:
The Judgment of Augustinian Continence ........... 232
CHAPTER 5 CAN SELF-DENIAL BE SUSTAINED?
CONCLUSIONS AND TESTS .......................... 237
5.1 Mediating Theses ................................. 243
5.2 "In the Manner of Pilgrims" ...................... 271
APPENDIX ANDERS NYGREN'S CONDUIT THEORY OF LOVE ......... 280
WORKS CITED .............................................. 291