%0 Journal Article
%T The Negative Politics in Augustine¡¯s The City of God
%J -
%D 2017
%R http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/9589
%X This essay attempts to study the negative features of politics in Augustine¡¯s The City of God (De Civitate Dei). Augustine is not an anarchist who believes that the state and the authority are an irreplaceable tool to maintain peace. However, Augustine¡¯s thought has no place in the vision of a politics of perfection, in which all-wise rulers devise truly good and lasting solution for social problems and in which contented subjects live together in stable harmony. Politics is a realm in which fallible, sinful men work out imperfect, precarious solutions to recurring difficulties and tension. He thinks state and coercive are a result of human sinfulness. All coercive power like the institutions of property and slavery, was a divinely sanctioned remedy and punishment for sin. Augustine also made a new definition of the ¡°Republic¡±. He leaves just out of his definition of the republic entirely and to accept a minimalist and amoral description.
%U http://cscanada.net/index.php/hess/article/view/9589