4 - “Justice over Power” in Light of Augustine’s De Ciuitate Dei

Summary

Two loves create the two cities … All of us must therefore ask ourselves what we love, and we shall discover to which city we belong.

St. Augustine¹

While Augustine’s treatise on the Trinity is the major locus where we find him explicitly examining God’s salvific preference of justice over power, some important aspects of this soteriological notion are illuminated by his other major work, The City of God. In particular, the latter work foregrounds and expands the sacramental, metaphysical, and historical (in a pre-modern sense) dimensions of Augustine’s reflection on the “justice over power” motif. Since Augustine wrote De ciuitate Dei roughly around the same time as the later parts of De Trinitate,² it is not surprising that both take up some common themes. In support of my foregoing argument, and with an eye toward subsequent transpositions by Aquinas and Lonergan, this chapter explores some of these themes salient for meeting the challenge of our secular culture, namely: justice as uera pietas, the notions of sacrifice and totus Christus, and the topic of evil.