The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Augustine

This comprehensive volume presents contemporary philosophical engagement with Augustine's thought, examining his enduring influence on debates about God, creation, evil, knowledge, and human nature. The handbook assembles leading scholars to analyze Augustine's philosophical arguments and their relevance to current discussions in philosophy of religion, metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology.

The collection demonstrates how Augustine's philosophical theology continues to shape fundamental questions about divine attributes, particularly regarding God's relationship to time, omniscience, and human freedom. Contributors examine Augustine's distinctive approach to proving God's existence through interior reflection and his influential account of divine illumination as the foundation of human knowledge. The volume explores how Augustine's Platonically-informed Christianity generates unique solutions to perennial philosophical problems while also creating new tensions that subsequent thinkers must address.

Central attention is given to Augustine's theodicy and his revolutionary understanding of evil as privation rather than substance. The handbook analyzes how this move simultaneously solves the problem of God's relationship to evil and generates difficulties for explaining the origin and persistence of sin. Multiple chapters address Augustine's complex views on predestination, grace, and free will, showing how his anti-Pelagian writings intensify questions about divine justice and human responsibility that continue to divide philosophical and theological opinion.

The volume situates Augustine's arguments within his polemical contexts, examining how his positions developed through controversies with Manicheans, Donatists, and Pelagians. Contributors demonstrate how these debates shaped distinctive Augustinian positions on the nature of the soul, the origin of evil, the church's authority, and the relationship between divine sovereignty and human agency. The handbook also traces Augustine's philosophical influence through medieval scholasticism, Reformation theology, and modern philosophy, showing how thinkers from Anselm and Aquinas through Descartes and Kierkegaard appropriate and transform Augustinian insights.

Mann's collection reveals Augustine as a systematic philosophical thinker whose integration of Platonic metaphysics with biblical theology creates a sophisticated theistic framework that remains philosophically vital. The handbook demonstrates how Augustine's writings continue to offer resources for contemporary debates about consciousness, personal identity, moral psychology, and divine action, while also highlighting persistent difficulties in his thought that motivate ongoing philosophical investigation.