So What's an Augustinian, Anyway?

If you read my piece on Thomism, you know Aquinas is the heavyweight champion of Catholic philosophy. But he wasn't first, and he's not the only game in town. Before Aquinas there was Augustine. The tradition that flows from him? Still very much alive.

St. Augustine of Hippo lived from 354 to 430. That's about 800 years before Aquinas showed up. For most of that stretch, Augustine was the theological authority in the Western Church. Even after Aquinas, Augustine never went away. Guy wrote an enormous amount. His fingerprints are on everything—original sin, theology of grace, City of God versus city of man. All of it.

So what makes someone Augustinian rather than Thomist?

Starts with how you get to knowledge of God. Augustine's motto: fides quaerens intellectum. Faith seeking understanding. You believe first. Understanding follows. You don't reason your way to faith—you have faith, then you start making sense of things. Aquinas didn't reject this exactly, but he put more weight on what reason could accomplish before faith enters the picture. For Augustine, the heart has to be right before the head can follow.

This connects to his view of human nature after the fall. Augustine emphasized the depth of the damage. Sin didn't just wound us. Left us in bondage. The will is bent. We can't think our way to God because the problem isn't primarily intellectual—it's that we love the wrong things.

This is why the Reformers claimed Augustine as their guy. When Luther and Calvin talked about total depravity, bondage of the will, irresistible grace—they were drawing on Augustine. Spent time in Reformed circles? Augustine will sound familiar in ways Aquinas might not.

Different epistemology too. Augustine had this idea of divine illumination—we know truth because God lights up our minds directly. Platonic flavor to it. Aquinas went Aristotelian: we learn by abstracting knowledge from sense experience. Both trying to explain how we know things. Different starting points.

Then there's the question of what comes first: intellect or will. Thomists say intellect leads—you have to know the good before you can choose it. Augustinians say will and affections are primary. You are what you love. Your desires shape what you're even capable of seeing. Not just abstract debate. Affects how you think about conversion, sanctification, the whole Christian life.

Historically, Augustinian tradition found a home with the Franciscans. Bonaventure is the classic example—contemporary of Aquinas. The two of them represented rival schools in the medieval universities. Dominicans followed Aquinas. Franciscans followed Augustine through Bonaventure. These weren't just academic turf wars. Real differences in how to think about faith, reason, grace, the human person.

Here's the thing though: the Church hasn't picked one and thrown out the other. Both Augustine and Aquinas are Doctors of the Church. Both essential to the Catholic intellectual tradition. Aquinas quoted Augustine constantly—just developed things differently. You don't have to choose. But understanding where they differ helps you see what's underneath the arguments you're hearing.

Coming from a Protestant background like I did? You might find Augustine more familiar at first. The emphasis on grace, suspicion of human capacity, priority of faith over reason—that's the water evangelicals swim in. Even if they don't know it comes from Augustine. Aquinas can feel foreign by comparison, with all his confidence about natural reason and preambles of faith. But both streams feed into the Catholic river. Learning to hold them together is part of the journey.

For reading: Augustine's Confessions is the place to start. Spiritual classic, surprisingly readable. City of God is more ambitious. More of a slog too, honestly. But essential for his political and historical theology. Want to explore the Augustinian tradition more broadly? Look into the Franciscan intellectual heritage. Bonaventure's Journey of the Mind to God is worth your time.

The Faith of Children. The Doctrine of Theologians. TheCatholicForge.com