




































EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           43 

 

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE RELATIONSHIP OF 

JUSTICE AND LOVE TO CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE POLITICAL 

THOUGHT OF ST. AUGUSTINE 

 

Stephen Chijioke Chukwujekwu, PhD 

Department of Philosophy 

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Anambra State, Nigeria 

 

 

& 

 

Eugene Chukwueloka Anowai, Prof 

Department of Philosophy 

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Anambra State, Nigeria 

chukwueloka@yahoo.com 

 

Abstract 

Nigeria, like many underdeveloped countries of Africa, is undergoing many 

social and political problems such as corruption, insurgency, terrorism, armed 

banditry, electoral frauds, examination malpractices, sexual abuses, etc.  

These problems are largely rooted in ethical behaviors of citizens in civil 

society. This paper critically interrogated the unethical foundations of the 

society based on Saint Augustine’s treatise on justice and love and their 

relationship to civil society. Augustine rejected Cicero’s idea of “highest 

justice” (summa justitia) and rather thinks that a “true justice” (vera justitia) 

in relationship to government is what “a people” (a republic) must recognize 

in order to be well governed. Later, he redefined “a people” in terms of being 

bound together by “the objects of their love,” not by true justice.  The question 

before us in this paper is whether Augustine meant to undermine justice? Or,   

did he really separate justice from love?  With analytical method, we found 

that Augustine, led by philosophy (reason) illuminated by faith, made the 

point that we fully understand civil society only when we understand its loves 

and hates. These give a better clue to its character than its constitution or 

systems of justice or formal declarations. Our conclusion is that, following 

Augustine, human realities are seen in a new light in civil society in terms of 

love, because God is love. Applied to humans, his insight shows that citizens 

in civil society are what they love. 

 

Key words: Relationship, justice, love, true justice, a people, a republic, civil 

society 

 

Introduction 

Augustine certainly would not have thought of himself as a political or social 

philosopher as such, but the record of his thoughts on such themes as the 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           44 

 

nature of human society, justice, love, the nature and role of the state, the 

relationship between church and state, just and unjust war, and peace all have 

played their part in the shaping of Western civilization. The classical 

philosophers of Greece and Rome acknowledged the importance of justice in 

the polis, but they also acknowledge the shortcomings of the actuality of 

justice therein.  Augustine’s assessment of justice in the city of man (civil 

society) includes an agreement with the classical philosophers concerning the 

importance of justice. However, since justice is an integral cornerstone of any 

society, he is more interested in also exploring why justice fails in the civil 

society. Justice is an integral theme in Augustine’s political theology, and 

justice is directly correlated and contingent upon his theology of love.  Since a 

republic, or any political order, exists in some manner to dispense justice 

(however imperfect), an understanding of the role of justice in the political 

thought of Augustine rests upon the role of love in dispensing justice.  That is 

to say, what people love affects how justice is dispensed in civil society since 

the dispensing of justice will correlate with love of self or love of others.  To 

that end, it is necessary to do an exposition of Augustine’s theology of love 

and his understanding of political justice. In trying to inquire into Augustine’s 

political thought, we shall try as much as possible to concentrate on those 

elements in it which are of philosophical interest and importance. But then, it 

will become clear sooner that it is really impossible to separate Augustinian 

philosophy from Augustinian theology. In this paper, we shall first try to 

understand the meaning of the terms justice, love, and civil society. This will 

be followed by inquiring into Augustine’s treatise on justice –his rejection of 

the definition of “a people” (a Republic), and his conception of true justice. 

We shall also look at Augustine’s treatise on love – whereby he redefined a 

republic in relation to the “objects of their love.” This will be followed by 

examining his notion of evil and disordered love.  Next, we shall look at what 

Augustine sees as the political and psychological consequences of disordered 

love in a civil society. 

 

Clarification of Terms 

(a) Justice 

Ordinarily, justice is called an objective and social virtue, because it 

has to do with perfecting one’s actions as they affect or relate to the good of 

the other person. This is unlike the virtues of prudence, temperance and 

fortitude, which are called subjective virtues, because they are primarily 

concerned with ordering our individual or private actions. Following Aristotle, 

many authors usually define the virtue of justice simply as “the disposition to 

give everyone his due.” That is, it is the constant will or disposition to give 

each person what he/she rightly deserves or merits. It is based on this common 

understanding that William A. Wallace defines justices as “the strong and firm 

will to give each his due. So understood, it is a habitual disposition whose 

subject is the will; in a broader context, the notion also includes the objective 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           45 

 

right that is owed to each person and community, on the basis of either natural 

law or legislation of the state, and, sometimes, the laws or statutes in which 

consequent obligations are expressed” (172-173). Augustine believes that 

justice is something deeply personal but with social implications since humans 

are not atomized animals but essentially social.  For him, the function of 

justice is “to assign to each his due.”  But Augustine’s definition does not stop 

there.  Justice is also something interior to the order of humans (here he 

follows Plato). Hence, there is established in man himself a certain “just order 

of nature,” by which the soul is subordinated to God, and the body to the soul, 

and thus both body and soul are subordinate to God.  Thus, for Augustine, the 

love of God is the fountain from which justice flows; for it is only in the love 

of God, manifested in the love of others, from which justice can “assign to 

each his due.” As we shall see later, Augustine will go further to make a 

distinction between justice and true justice, arguing that though the function of 

justice is important, the action of dispensing justice is more important.   

 

(b) Love 

Biblical theology, based on Christian Scriptures, defines love in terms of 

genuine and wholehearted service to God and one’s neighbor: “You shall love 

the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all 

your mind … You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mt. 22:37-39). The 

Scripture also defines love in terms of the golden rule: “Do to others as you 

would have them do to you” (Lk. 6: 31; Mt. 7:12). The golden rule is probably 

the most well known thing that Jesus ever said. It is the summit of ethics, of 

behavior, of righteousness (justice), and of godliness. In Augustine’s political 

theology, justice is directly correlated and contingent upon his theology of 

love.  True justice, for Augustine, begins with the love of God and thereby 

extending to love of others since the love of others is the ultimate expression 

of love of God.  Hannah Arendt affirms that “Augustine’s perception and 

every remark about love refer at least to this love of neighbor” (3). Elsewhere, 

Arendt also observes that in a different context, Augustine developed this 

notion of love “as the specifically Christian and particularly explicit version of 

the natural, prereligious, and secular law [golden rule] of not doing to others 

what we would not have them do to us (quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne 

feceris)” (39). Justice, to be effective, requires the right degree of loving other 

humans.  Without the right degree of loving others, the possibility of justice 

becomes null and void as it sinks back into becoming purely retributive – that 

is, self-centered.  As Mattox observes, “Augustine is at pains to reiterate that 

love is incomplete without justice, and justice is incomplete without love, and 

no city can endure – let alone be called a republic – without the twin marriage 

of love and justice” (Mattox, “Augustine”). And to the question, who is my 

neighbor? Augustine always replies in his Soliloquies, “Every man” (I, 7). 

Thus, following, Augustine, we understand love here in the Christian context 

of “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” which, observes Arendt, “is understood in 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           46 

 

its literal sense by Augustine, ‘Love of one’s neighbor recognizes as its 

limitation the love of one’s self’” (18). 

(c) Civil Society 

There are many rival conceptions of society that have been advanced in social 

and political philosophy. Of the many conceptions, two are especially 

important, namely society conceived as an association of individuals 

(Individualism) and society conceived as a community (Communitarianism). 

These two conceptions of society are best thought of as clusters of ideas, 

rather than precisely formulated theories. Following Graham, “at the heart of 

individualism is the view that in social philosophy, political theory and 

practice, in moral thought and action, it is individual human beings who must, 

in some sense, be regarded as prior to society” (8).  In what sense precisely 

the individual must be thought primary is a topic that is outside the limit of 

this paper. It suffices here to note that we take the best version of this claim to 

carry with it an implied view of society, namely that society is a sort of 

association.  By way of contrast, Communitarianism regards society as a 

community, and this, as the very word implies, means that society is in some 

way a unity, a single thing in which individual members are bound together. 

Whereas Individualism is associated chiefly with political liberalism of 

various kinds, Communitarianism is to be found underlying political 

ideologies of left and right. Whatever the differences  between political 

philosophies of left and right, there is at least this much agreement between 

them –that society is a community and not merely an association of distinct 

individuals –and it is one which explains partly their combined opposition to 

liberal individualism. In this paper, we shall understand society as a 

community (Communitarianism). Accordingly, the state is simply thought of 

as the custodian of the interests of the community and not just the protector of 

the interests of individuals within it. We use here the adjective “civil” to 

qualify society in a specific sense of “pertaining to ordinary life, not military.” 

Civil society here also suggests lay, secular, temporal society, not 

ecclesiastical society.  

 

Augustine’s Treatise On Justice 

Augustine’s treatise on justice are glaring in his rejection of definition of “a 

people” (a Republic), and his conception of “true justice.” 

 

(a) Definition of “a people” (a Republic) Rejected 

As Anthony J. Parel rightly observes, the nature of relationship of justice and 

love to civil society has always been a subject discussed by political 

philosophers.  The discussion is well known in Plato’s Republic. Aristotle, on 

his part, asserts that friendship is the perfection of justice, and justice implies 

all other moral virtues (Nicomachean Ethics, V. 1).   Whereas both Plato and 

Aristotle see the basic harmony of love and justice in civil society, Augustine 

sees them differently in exclusive terms. Hence, Parel affirms this of 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           47 

 

Augustine: “His attitude on this issue was such he was obliged to redefine 

civil society as that which was held together not so much by justice as by 

love” (71).  Now, to the question why Augustine rejects justice as the 

foundation of civil society, Parel thinks that the short answer would be that the 

justice of the city is deficient and ineffective: “It does not, and cannot, achieve 

what it sets out to achieve, without violating the principle of justice which is 

that one should give each one his or her due” (72). In his critique of justice, 

Augustine first rejects Cicero’s famous definition of a republic as “a thing of 

the people.”  And, for Augustine, “a people” is a multitude gathered together 

by “consensus juris” and “utilitatis communion”: a consensus, a common 

sentiment or interest as to what constitutes right, the just; and by a sharing, a 

communion, in the materially useful things (De Civitate Dei II. 21; XIX. 21 & 

24.)  In analyzing this definition, Augustine focuses his attention on the 

meaning of “jus”.  He is interested in the moral and theological implications 

of “jus” (- not its juridical meaning).  This is because, he observes that Cicero 

himself elsewhere (The Republic) had interpreted “jus” in a moral sense, with 

reference to “summa justitia.”  According to Cicero, “a republic” could not be 

well governed without the recognition of the relationship of government to 

summa justitia (highest justice).  But then, Augustine substitutes Cicero’s 

summa justitita with his own “vera justitia” (true justice), and the rest of his 

arguments in De Civitate Dei (DCD) proceeded along this line of thought. 

 

 

(b) His Conception of “True Justice” (Vera Justitia) 

Yes, instead of Cicero’s “highest justice” (summa justitia), Augustine thinks 

that a “true justice” (vera justititia) in relationship to government is what a 

people (a republic) must recognize in order to be well governed. What does he 

mean by “true justice” (vera iustitia)?  According to him, “true justice” 

implies more than a just relation between men.  It rather presents a broader 

picture, an “ordo”: an order that establishes the proper relationship of various 

forces within man, between men, and between men and God; an order that 

reflects, in the final analysis, Divine Wisdom. Accordingly then, Augustine 

argues that a true justice can affect human affairs in the society only when the 

will is illumined by the Divine Light. It is only with such illumination can 

virtues become efficacious, and without it virtues remain only quasi virtues. 

One becomes just by making one’s souls conform to the immutable rules and 

lights of virtues dwelling eternally with the Truth and Wisdom common to all. 

Thanks to this divine illumination, the will becomes disposed to seek to live 

lightly and honourably, and to acquire what Augustine calls “good will.”  And 

whoever possesses good will is incapable of wishing evil for anyone. So it 

will follow that “he does not harm anyone, and this can be the case only if he 

gives to each man his due” (Gilson 131).  Thus, Augustine rejected as false 

the view that there can be genuine virtues without reference to divine 

illumination. In his own words:   



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           48 

 

For although some suppose that virtue which have reference 

only to themselves, and are desired only on their own account, 

are yet true and genuine virtues, the fact is that even then they 

are inflicted with pride, and are therefore to be reckoned vices 

rather than virtues. (DCD XIX. 25)  

Thus, only that virtue which is illuminated by divine light can establish proper 

order within each individual “so that the soul is subject to God, the body to the 

soul, and consequently both soul and body to God” (DCD XIX.4). In his 

conclusion, Augustine affirms that a man who does not serve God cannot be 

just, and that there cannot be justice in a community composed of such 

individuals. In his own words:  

Hence, when a man does not serve God, what justice can we 

ascribe to him, since in this case his soul cannot exercise a just 

control over the body, nor his reason over the vices?  And if 

there is no justice in such an individual, certainly there can be 

none in a community composed of such individuals. (DCD 

XIX. 21)   

 

Of course, we know from experience that human beings, based on their fallen 

nature, are not likely to possess complete good will in spite of their pursuit of 

divine illumination. However, given his notion of “true justice”, and given the 

condition for its effective realization, namely, divine illumination, it is not 

surprising that Augustine should find the republic of (pagan) Rome wanting in 

justice. Thus, said Augustine, “Rome never was a republic, because true 

justice had never a place in it” (DCD II.21).  What was true of Rome was true 

of civil society as such, whether the civil society in question was Christian or 

non-Christian.  According to this criterion of “true justice,” there could only 

be one true just society, and that it is none other than the City of God. As 

Augustine put it differently: “But the fact is, true justice has no existence save 

in that republic whose founder and ruler is Christ . . . .” (DCD II.21).  Any 

wonder then that a considerable part of the City of God (its first ten books) is 

devoted to a critique of pagan religion –its mythologies, its addiction to 

astrology, divination, and its civil theology.  But in Augustine’s own 

judgment, the worst aspect of polytheism is not its mythical fraudulent 

character, but its injustice towards the true God.  For, polytheism gives to 

false gods that reverence and worship which belong only to the true God. 

Parel observes that this has an implication: 

By implication, every civil society has the tendency to practice 

injustice of this sort, in so far as it attempts to develop a civil 

theology and to see religion as a secular phenomenon, and an 

instrumentum regni, a means of temporal felicity. (74) 

 

The case of Roman imperialism fared no better. Augustine endorsed Cicero’s 

view that it was ‘unjust for some men to rule and some to serve’; yet the 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           49 

 

imperial city to which the republic belonged could not rule her provinces 

without having recourse to this injustice of keeping people in servitude.  The 

empire was an undeniable sign that Rome was not built on consensus juris. 

Had “true justice” been the basis of civil society, asserts Augustine, “all 

kingdoms would have been small, rejoicing in neighbourly concord; and thus 

there would have been many kingdoms of nations in the world, as there are 

very many houses of citizens in a city. Therefore, to carry on war and extend a 

kingdom over wholly subdued nations seems to bad men to be felicity, to 

good men necessity” (DCD IV.15).  Generalizing on this theme, Augustine 

moved on to wonder whether there was any real moral difference between 

civil society and organized brigandage. In a much quoted passage, he asks: 

“Justice being taken away, then what are kingdoms but great robbers? For 

what are robbers themselves but little kingdoms” (DCD IV.4).  It seems that 

the difference between the justice of civil society and that of a band of robbers 

is not one of substance but of scale.  The band of robbers is made up of men; 

it is ruled by the authority of the leaders; it is held together by the compact of 

confederacy; and the booty is divided according to the rules agreed upon. If 

the band becomes large and establishes itself on a broad territory, “it assumes 

more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality now manifestly 

conferred on it, not by removal of covetousness, but by the addition of 

impunity” (DCD IV.4).  Augustine used with relish the alleged reply of a 

pirate to Alexander the Great. When the great emperor asked the pirate what 

he meant by keeping the hostile possession of a certain harbor, he answered 

with bold pride: “What thou meanest by sizing the whole earth; but because I 

do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a 

great fleet art styled emperor” (DCD IV.4). We can then see why civil society, 

Christian or non-Christian, is not founded on true justice.  For, a civil society 

cannot render to God or to fellow human beings, or to other civil societies 

what is their respective due.  On the contrary, it conceals this very injustice 

under the cloak of what it calls civil justice and religion which in today’s 

democratic parlance may be taken to mean political ideology.   

 

Augustine’s Treatise on Love 

Augustine’s treatise on love is visible from the point of view of his 

redefinition of “a republic” (a people) in relation to the “objects of their love.”  

It is quite absurd to suggest that there was no Roman State simply because it 

did not meet Augustine’s definition of “true justice.”  It is necessary then to 

search for a new definition of a republic.  Based on this necessity, Augustine 

writes: 

But if we discard this definition of a people, and assuming 

another, say that a people is an assemblage of reasonable 

beings bound together by common agreement as to the objects 

of their love, then, in order to discover the character of any 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           50 

 

people, we have only to observe what they love. (1950 

XIX.24)   

Yet, says Augustine, whatever it loves, it is reasonably called “a people” and 

it will be a superior people in proportion as it is bound together by higher 

interests, inferior in proportion as it is bound together by lower.  According to 

this definition of ours, says Augustine, the Roman people are a people, and its 

wealth is without doubt a commonwealth or republic.  Of course, these 

assertions have generated debates and questions.  For examples, did Augustine 

mean to undermine justice?  Did he really separate justice from love?  Or is he 

saying that if justice is separated from “true justice,” if will is separated from 

the unchanging good, every assertion of will becomes tainted? It suffices here 

to observe that Augustine did not proffer the new definition (of a people) in a 

fit of enthusiasm.  He had slept over the problem for a very long time.  

Following Parel, Augustine makes the point that we fully understand civil 

society only when we understand its loves and hates. These give a better clue 

to its character than its constitution or systems of justice or formal 

declarations.  There is no doubt that he was led to this insight by philosophy 

illuminated by faith.  Thus, human realities are seen in new light, in terms of 

love, because God is love. Applied to humans, this insight shows that people 

are what they love. Hence, says Augustine: “My love is my weight; I am 

carried by it wherever I am carried” (Confessions, XIII.9).  Love moves the 

will, and so the whole man as its weight irresistibly carries a body to its 

natural position. Thus, Augustine says that when the self moves towards what 

it loves, there is desire (cupiditas); when it delights in what it loves, there is 

joy (laetitia); when it flees from its love, there is fear (metus); and when it 

actually loses its love, there is grief (tristitia). These four modes of love –

desire, joy, fear, and grief, alone or in combination –constitutes the web of 

human existence (1950 XIV.7).  

 

Man inevitably loves.  To love is to go beyond oneself and fasten one’s 

affection upon an object of love.  What makes it inevitable that man will love, 

says Augustine, is his incompleteness.  As for the object of love, there is a 

wide range of objects that man can choose to love, reflecting the variety of 

ways in which man is incomplete.  Augustine says that a person can love God, 

physical objects, other persons, or even himself. From these objects of his 

love, a person can derive satisfaction for some of his/her desires and passions. 

In what order must one place these four objects (God, things, persons, self) 

remains a decisive issue in every human life. 

 

Augustine fully recognized the fact that our love for ourselves is constitutive 

of us. But he recognized that as creatures, this constitutive love, by itself, 

would not be enough: a more basic love than that would be needed, for that is 

the lot of all finite rational creatures.  And that love is none other than the love 

of God, the immutable love in the possession of which all fear of losing it 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           51 

 

ceases, so that there is no grief, and the joy of possession is indestructible.  

But a rational creature is also free; it is free to choose aversion or conversion: 

aversion from God or conversion to Him.  Augustine takes the fundamental 

position that we cannot love ourselves properly unless we are converted 

towards God. The same applies to our love for things. Everyone expects to 

achieve happiness and fulfillment from love, yet men are miserable, unhappy, 

and restless. Why? Augustine lays the blame upon man’s “disordered love.” 

 

Disordered Love and Its Consequences 

Augustine’s notion of “disordered love” could be seen from two perspectives: 

Evil and disordered love, and political and psychological consequences of 

disordered love. 

 

(a) Evil and Disordered Love 

In the scheme of things, original sin introduces the basic disorder in love. 

Augustine interpreted original sin as the outcome of pride, that is, aversion 

from God and conversion to ourselves. According to him: “The soul abandons 

Him to whom it ought to cleave as its end, and becomes a kind of end to 

itself” (1950 XIV.13).  Augustine understands aversion from God as the 

implication of turning towards nothingness, towards nihilism: “. . . to exist in 

himself, that is, to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God, is not quite 

to become a nonentity, but to approximate to it” (XIV.13).  For, once you are, 

you cannot will yourself out of existence. The nihilist must be fooling himself 

or herself if he or she thinks that turning away from God is the same as 

murdering God. Thus, says Augustine, the idea of the death of God, as 

propounded by Fredrick Nietzsche, must appear as a pseudo idea, 

characterized more by self-delusion than by incoherence.  For a God-averter 

cannot help being aware of what it is that he is averting. 

 

(b) Political and Psychological Consequences of Disordered Love 

Disordered love necessarily seeks to master others.  It incessantly compels us 

to seek to do better than others, and to extract praise from them.  It is driven 

by the love to possess and consume things, not for the sake of life but for the 

sake of exclusive delight. The most serious of these implications concerns 

domination.  The disordered love, as it were, transforms man’s natural 

sociability into the will to dominate.  It rebels against man’s natural equality.  

Augustine says that the fallen man “endeavours to dominate those who are 

naturally his peers.”  Disordered love, he says, “abhors equality with other 

men under him; but instead of his rule, it seeks to impose a rule of its own 

upon equals. It abhors, that is to say, the just peace of God and loves its own 

peace” (1950 XIX.12). Thus, civil society understood as an arena of 

domination and for domination, is not natural to man, but it is his actual lot.  

This is, however, not God’s making; it is man’s own making.  However, the 

deepest effect of disordered love is the discontent within the self. 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           52 

 

Paradoxically, pride is paralleled by weakness of will to control itself.  

Augustine asks in a memorable passage, what else is misery “but his own 

disobedience to himself, so that in consequence of his not being willing to do 

what he could, he now wills to do what he cannot” (1950 XIV.15).  If the fall 

has introduced disorder in love, our nature, says Augustine, in so far as it is 

created, is good and remains good.  It is our will and our loves that have been 

impaired (ibid.).  Thus, even after the fall, observes Herbert Dean, “vestiges” 

or “shadows” of true justice in here in the soul, thanks to which the fallen man 

is able to establish some kind of civil order (97-99).  However, these vestigial 

traces of justice are at the mercy of disordered love to such an extent that 

whatever civil society achieves, it achieves only if one presupposes coercion.  

Coercion is, as it were, the price which one has to pay for self-love.  As a 

certain author remarks, fallen men had come to need restraint. Even man’s 

greatest achievements had been made possible only by an unremitting 

harshness.  In civil society then, the pressure from self-love is manifested in 

the struggle for domination, for consumption, for recognition.  These are the 

objects of love of civil society, and that is why consensus juris cannot be its 

true basis.  On the contrary, civil society manipulates the vestiges justice and 

corrupts them.  The justice of the city, accordingly, reflects the collective self-

interest of those who constitute the city.  Whatever it embodies, justice is not 

one of them. Instead of jus determining national interest, national interest 

determines jus.  However, Augustine recognizes that there can be better states 

and worse states, depending on what they love. Thus, there is a real difference 

between tyranny and constitutionalism; but these differences ought not to hide 

the common denominator of all states, Christian or pagan, Marxist or liberal, 

namely, the collective love of those who compose them.   

 

Evaluation   

Critics have noticed a certain ambiguity in Augustine’s attitude towards civil 

society.  On the one hand, it is an organized system of self-assertion, yet on 

the other, it does contribute something positive without which man, in the 

present conditions, cannot manage his affairs.  His attitude towards Rome 

illustrates this ambivalence.  Augustine suggested that, at its best, Rome was 

moved by the love of praise; at its worst, it was moved by domination and the 

passion for consumption.  He said that there is surely the difference between 

the desire for human glory and desire for domination.  However, he insists 

that “it is not true virtue which is slave to human praise.”  That is, the noblest 

of Romans were defective in that they did what was honourable only because 

they wanted others to praise them for it. Such virtues, the civic virtues, fall 

short of being true virtue. Nevertheless, Augustine believed that his new 

definition of a republic/a people took better account of the empirical reality of 

political life than did the definition (of Cicero) he rejected. Even the best state, 

at bottom, exists to serve the competing loves of their citizens. Civic justice 

and positive law, when isolated from true justice (–illumined by God), are 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           53 

 

merely human invention that tend to reconcile, rationalize, coordinate these 

loves.  Civic justice is not a function to be despised, even by Augustine’s 

standard, but neither must we think that it will lead us to beatific vision. 

 

Nothing brings out Augustine’s awareness of the deficiency of human justice, 

and his anguish over it, better than his celebrated analysis of the “wise judge” 

who had to sanction torture (1950 XIX.6).  The context of his analysis is the 

judicial system prevailing in the 4th century in his society.  But the issues 

raised have a wide significance. They underline the imperfect character of 

human justice always and everywhere, the necessity under which it operates, 

and our necessity under dependence on such an imperfect instrument as 

positive justice.  The root cause of the imperfection is the difficulty men have 

judging the guilt or innocence of fellow human beings.  In analyzing the 

melancholy and lamentable aspects of human judgment (which often results in 

torture or detention in remand houses before the accused is proved to be 

guilty), Augustine’s point is not to endorse any moral evil.  Rather, it is to 

argue that “judges are men who cannot discern the conscience of those at the 

bar.”  Truth is hidden from them.  Thus, the judge necessarily operates under 

an epistemological handicap.  Despite this, he has no alternative but to render 

a judgment.  Such “ignorance” of the judge often proves a calamity for the 

innocent.  Again, in spite of such condition of ignorance and darkness that 

shrouds social life, the judge is morally obliged to act, because not to act 

would be a greater calamity.  It would amount to dissolution of society into 

anarchy.  Society then would be in a worse condition without such judges than 

it would be with them. 

 

One underlines here that an understanding of Augustine’s theory of 

predestination, side by side with the notion of two cities, is crucial to 

understanding his notion of “true justice.” For want of space, suffice it here to 

point out that even though those elected for salvation and those elected for 

damnation live side by side in society, the distinction arising from their 

respective destinies gives rise to two classes of persons to whom Augustine 

refers collectively and allegorically as “cities” –the City of God and the 

earthly city.  Citizens of the earthly city are the unregenerate progeny of 

Adam and Eve, who are justifiably damned because of Adam’s Fall.  These 

persons, according to Augustine, are aliens to God’s love (because they refuse 

to love God as evidenced by their rebellious disposition inherited from the 

Fall).  For Augustine, the object of their love –whatever it may be –is 

something other than God.  In particular, citizens of the “earthly city” are 

distinguished by their lust for material goods and for domination over others.  

On the other hand, citizens of the City of God are “pilgrims and foreigners” 

who (because God, the object of their love, is not immediately available for 

their present enjoyment) are very much out of place in a world without an 

earthly institution sufficiently similar to the City of God.  Following 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           54 

 

Augustine, one underlines that no political state, nor even the institutional 

Church, can be equated with the City of God.  Moreover, there is no such 

thing as “dual citizenship” in the two cities. Every member of the human 

family belongs to one –and only one.  

Now, there is no doubt that Augustine had arrived at his conclusions about 

human justice because of faith illuminated by reason.  Seen from this 

perspective, Augustine’s critique is a theological critique of justice.  That is to 

say, it is not a full blown political philosophy, but a reflection on the limits of 

politics.  Thus, while justice has both external and interior elements, it is 

equally important that for the external dispensation of justice to occur that 

humans have their interior order properly subordinated.  This is why true 

justice belongs to God. It belongs to the order of truth and not the false 

pretensions of fallen humans. But this is not to say that there is no justice in 

the city of man, or that there are no signs of justice in the city of man.  It is to 

say rather that “the justice dispensed in the city of man is deeply flawed –

often failing to dispense justice according to the dues that each person 

deserves. Since social justice is the realization of the common good, founded 

on love of God extending to love of others, then justice is necessarily 

dispensed in accordance with the oriented love which defines the 

political” (Mattox, “Augustine”). In this way the justice of the city of man, 

which is oriented to solely the self, is flawed but retains seeds of the truths 

about the nature of justice defined by Augustine as both incorporating interior 

and exterior elements.  As Mattox further observes, “this is crucial in 

understanding Augustine’s view of justice – it is not that there is ‘no justice’ 

in the city of man.  It is that the justice dispensed in the city of man is 

incomparable to the ‘true justice’ found in love of God which has relational 

and social ramifications for loving other creatures of God and coming to know 

the proper ordering and degree of loves given to each person” (ibid.) Thus, 

following Augustine’s theory of predestination and the notion of two cities, 

“true justice” is unattainable in civil society. For, Augustine’s insights tell us 

that, though nature is not altogether corrupted, it nevertheless remains prey to 

self-love.  That is, we cannot expect much from the justice of this world. 

Furthermore, his insights invite us to take critical look at our loves in society.  

 

However, the implications of Augustine’s doctrine of nature and grace for 

civil society are not without their difficulties.  His deep insight into the 

condition of fallen man could have led to his emphasis on the role of grace in 

the sphere of nature. In his The Confessions, Augustine writes: 

I behold other things below you and I see they are not 

altogether existent nor altogether non-existent; they are 

because they are from you; they are not, because they are not 

what you are. For that truly exists, which endures 

unchangeably . . . (thus) if I do not abide in Him, neither will I 

be able to abide in myself. (VII.11) 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           55 

 

 

This altered vision of reality is surely one of the consequences of his 

conversion from Manichaeism to Christianity. He recognizes the fact that one 

cannot be oneself unless one knows oneself as related to God. In The 

Confessions, he writes again: “Oh God thou haste created us for thyself so that 

our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.”   In a more 

philosophical language, he makes the same point by saying that human nature 

is so made that “it cannot itself be the good by which it is made happy.”   That 

man can find happiness only in God is thus no accident, since he was made by 

God to find happiness only in God.  This aspect of man’s nature is what 

Augustine elaborates through his doctrine of love.  This is Christian self-

knowledge, one would say; and this cannot be revealed except by illumination 

by grace. Granted this, one wonders whether it follows that to live the life of 

nature in the civil sphere, anything more than natural reason and natural 

justice would be required.  That is, it is true that conversion to God which is 

man’s ultimate concern, is impossible without grace.  But then, if the city is 

not man’s ultimate concern; and if that is granted, would grace be necessary 

for politics?  Thomas Aquinas does not seem to agree with Augustine under 

these circumstances.  For, as Etienne Gilson observes, Aquinas’ position is 

that even in fallen condition, the causality of the second created cause, that is, 

the natural causality of human nature, is not impaired.  One does not intend 

here to stand in judgment between Augustine and Aquinas as to who is right 

on this matter.  Suffice it here to observe that Augustine’s position on nature 

invites cautious treatment and criticism, as such criticism has relevance to the 

relationship of love and justice to civil society.  More importantly, we do not 

presume to have answers to all possible questions that might arise from our 

inquiry into the relationship of justice and love in civil society based on 

Augustine’s political theology. This is because one finds now and then curious 

contradiction to his original statements concerning love, justice, the notion of 

“two cities,” which makes his writings rather complex to understand precisely. 

 

Conclusion 

We saw that, in his discussion on justice and love and their relationship to 

civil society, Augustine rejects Cicero’s idea of highest justice (summa 

justitia), and rather thinks that a true justice (vera justititia) in relationship to 

society is what a people (a republic) must recognize in order to be well 

governed. A true justice, which implies more than a just relation between 

men, is an order (“ordo”) that establishes the proper relationship of various 

forces within man, between men, and between men and God; and which, in 

the final analysis, reflects Divine Wisdom. Why? A true justice can affect 

human affairs in the society only when the will is illumined by the Divine 

Light. Augustine affirms that a man who does not serve God cannot be just, 

and that there cannot be justice in a community composed of such individuals. 

According to this criterion of true justice, there could only be one true just 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           56 

 

society, and that it is none other than the City of God.  However, as earlier 

mentioned, it is not to say that humans are incapable of attaining justice in the 

city of man, or that there are no signs of justice in the society.  Augustine only 

suggests that the justice dispensed in the civil society is deeply tainted. In 

other words, fallen men often fail to dispense justice according to the dues that 

each person deserves So a civil society, Christian or non-Christian, is not 

founded on true justice.  Augustine’s dim assessment of the state, which is 

responsible for organizing the society, is not that he opposes political structure 

and order. It is that he is skeptical of the possibility of the state/government in 

providing the highest life possible for the human being in society. The state, in 

other words, cannot socially put order among humans towards their 

teleological end which, for Augustine, is the ultimate happiness. For, ultimate 

happiness is to be found in the interior self coming to know God.  To this end, 

Augustine’s critique of the justice in the city of man is that it is devoid of true 

justice because it is self-oriented rather than relational and restorative. We saw 

also that in redefining “a people” in terms of being bound together by “the 

objects of their love,” not by true justice, Augustine says that whatever a 

republic loves, it is reasonably called a people. Nevertheless, he does not 

mean to undermine justice.  He did not really separate justice from love.  

Rather, led by philosophy illuminated by faith, Augustine makes the point that 

we fully understand civil society only when we understand its loves and hates. 

These give a better clue to its character than its constitution or systems of 

justice or formal declarations. For, the justice of the city accordingly reflects 

the collective self-interest/love of those who constitute the city. For 

Augustine, nature needs grace to act efficaciously even in the civil sphere 

after the fall of man. Thus, following him, human realities are seen in a new 

light in the civil society in terms of love, because God is love. If we apply this 

to humans, his insight shows that people are what they love in the civil 

society. Consequently, religion or the worship of God, understood and 

practiced correctly, adds values to politics, –which values ensure justice, love, 

peace and harmony in civil society. 

 

Works Cited 

Arendt, Hannah. Love and Saint Augustine. Edited and with an Interpretive 

Essay by Joanna Veechiarelli Scott and Judith Chelius Stark. The 

University of Chicago Press, 1996. 

Aristotle. “Nicomachean Ethics, Book V. Ch. 1.” In Introduction to Aristotle. 

Edited with Introductions, by Richard McKeon. The Modern Library, 

1992, pp. 327-579. 

Armstrong, A. H. An Introduction to Ancient Philosophy. Methuen & Co. Ltd, 

 1947. 

Augustine. City of God [De Civitate Dei, DCD].Transl. by Marcus Dods. 

 Random House, 1950. 

_ _ _. The City of God. Transl. by Gerald C. Walsh & Co. Image Books, 1958. 



EVAIA: International Journal of Ethics and Values, Volume 1, Number 2, October 2020 

 

Chukwujekwu & Anowai           57 

 

_ _ _. The Confessions. Transl. by R.S. Pine-Coffin. Penguin Books, 1961. 

_ _ _. The Confessions. Transl. by William Watts (in Two Volumes).  

 University Press, 1912. 

Brown, P. Religion and Society in the Age of St. Augustine. Harper & Row, 

 1972. 

Dean, Herbert. The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine. Columbia  

 University Press, 1963. 

Gilson, Etienne. The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine. Transl. by L. E. 

 M., Lynch. Victor Gollanez, 1961. 

Graham, Gordon. Contemporary Social Philosophy. Basil Blackwell, 1988.  

Markus, R. A. Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. 

Augustine. Cambridge University Press, 1970. 

Martin, R. “Two Cities in Augustine’s Political Philosophy.” Journal of the 

 History of Ideas, vol.  33, April 1977, pp. 195-216. 

Mattox, J. Mark. “Augustine: Political and Social Philosophy”  

 http:www.iep.utm.edu/wp.content.media/augustine.jpg 

Paoluch, H. The Political Writings of St. Augustine. Gateway, 1962. 

Parel, Anthony J. “Justice and Love in the Political Thought of St. 

Augustine.”  In Hugo A. Meynell, ed. Grace, Politics and Desire: Essay on  

 Augustine. University of Calgary Press, 1990, pp. 71-84.    

Wallace, William A. The Elements of Philosophy – A Compendium for  

 Philosophers and Theologians.  Alba House, 1977. 

  


