Augustine is the propounder of secular ideas of natural law. He was the first who came up with the Christian theory of Natural Law. He was very familiar with the stoic philosophy and Ciecro mainly his writings.
Augustine talked about lex temporalis which will be valid only if all of its qualities of eternal law are fulfilled by any legislation and then only it would be named as a law. Later, he talked about De Vera Religione and did not say that if any legislation fails to fulfill all the qualities of eternal law will be called as invalid but will be called as temporal legislator, who will be wise enough to learn eternal law and apply it at times where there be unchanging rules. In Augustine’s view these changes occurred due to transforming understanding of earthly existence of man. He describes man as a foreigner, whose real home lies somewhere else and he can only link it by hope.
And should follow that no human institution can be an agency of perfection. He then talked about the classical view of nature as a cosmos which includes human world, where he argued that creation of man introduced radical division in the universe . In order to understand Augustine’s view of law, firstly it is very essential to have a look on the radical division in the universe that is the human world. And in the human world there are acts of human will which is different from nature and God. Divine reason which orders the universe cannot continue with human reason. Men calls crime which is not a sin in the eyes of God here, Augustine says that if this wrongdoing remain unpunished on earth and consist sins because god is concerned with the inner state of human soul .
God is being praised by humans and nothing is hidden from him. Human beings cannot control their destiny and salvation, As the pagan philosophers believed because perfection cannot be achieved on earth. Perfection can only be found in the society where angels and saints live and that is heaven. But, humans still try hard to achieve perfection by their efforts and the human condition is a tragedy. The Christian recognizes that there is no bridge the chasm between his yearning for perfection and what he can do to achieve it.
Augustine described this chasm as a dichotomy between two cities, the earthly and heavenly. He says that these cities are made up of two different loves firstly, the earthly love of self, even to the contempt of God and secondly, the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self.(footnote) He said that it is impossible to think of getting a membership in heavenly city only by observing the behavior of a person. No performances are being required for being a part of heavenly city. Their membership depends on the things they love.
And therefore, heavenly city cannot be shaped by law. Law can distribute and protect property but it cannot decide the spirit in which property is used. Law can punish the wrong done to others but it cannot punish wrongful loving.(footnote) That is the reason no city can ensure membership in the heavenly city not even the Christian theocracy. The heavenly city finds its members in every nation and every state and mostly among diverse habits and customs. Augustine rejects both apocalyptic view, which is hostile to the civil order of Rome and Eusebian view.
Christianity was being identified with the Roman Empire. Later, he emphasizes that we can make an exception that the citizens of both the cities live a common life with the people who are not similar to them and their city cannot be identified. Augustine denied the classical view. He says that the need for civil association is intrinsic to man’s rational nature. He attributes the divorce of the earthly from the heavenly city to man’s fall. He says that men have fallen because they make decision and things other than God the object of their love and they divert form their purposes.
Their diversity brings them into conflict with one another. There is another reason for conflict as well where men impose their will on other where they are driven by a passion to dominate. And as a result, humans are always threatened by violence from their fellow beings and nothing is social by nature and antisocial by human race. And in order to live in peace and security from violence, men need a civil order. Civil order is the means of remedy to come out of the sinfulness instead of perfection.
Civil order is a precarious remedy because it is a pure human arrangement that keeps chaos away.
