52. Civ. Dei 14.1–7 (CCL 48:414–21); trans. Walsh and Monahan, FOTC 14:347–59.
On the City of God 347 demns the nature of the flesh as evil is as carnal in this love for the soul as in this hatred for the flesh, for these thoughts flow from human vanity, not from divine truth. . . .
(6) The human will, then, is all-important. If it is badly directed, the emotions will be perverse; if it is rightly directed, the emotions will be not merely blameless but even praiseworthy. The will is in all of these affections; indeed, they are nothing else but the inclinations of the will. For what are desire and joy but the will in harmony with things we desire? And what are fear and sadness but the will in disagreement with things we abhor? The consent of the will in the search for what we want is called desire; joy is the name of the will's consent to the enjoyment of what we desire. So, too, fear is aversion from what we do not wish to happen, as sadness is a disagreement of the will with something that happened against our will. . . .
(7) Anyone who resolves to love God and to love his neighbor as himself, not in a purely human way but according to the will of God, may certainly, because of this love, be called a person of good will.52
Unfallen Humanity
Augustine was convinced that if one reflects only on human beings as we now experience them, one completely misunderstands human nature in its original God-given character, so dire have been the consequences of the Fall. If we want to reflect on what it really is to be human, we must therefore think about either our primeval beginnings or our ultimate end, that is, either about Adam and Eve before the Fall or about redeemed humanity on the far side of the Last Judgment. Only then can human nature, as God made it and intended it, be glimpsed. Thus in Book 14, Augustine reflects at length on Adam and Eve and speculates on what the world would have looked like if the Fall had not occurred. From On the City of God, Book 14:
(10) It is quite a different question, and one that deserves attention, whether, even before there was any sin, the first human being, or rather our first parents—since there was a marriage of two—experienced any of those passions in their animal body, from which we shall be free in our spiritual bodies, once all sin has been purged and brought to an end. If they did, how could they have been perfectly happy in that marvelous place called Paradise? . . . The love of our first parents for God was perfectly serene, and their mutual affection was that of a true and faithful married couple. And their love
52. Civ. Dei 14.1–7 (CCL 48:414–21); trans. Walsh and Monahan, FOTC 14:347–59.