Signs of Confession: Rethinking Augustinian Ethics

Theories of Augustine’s ethics typically begin with either the primacy of the will in his thought or moral formation as the proper ordering of loves.[1] While each of these models accurately identifies central aspects of Augustine’s moral framework, they begin with Augustine’s normative ethics and skip over his more pressing concerns for what it means to be a human being seeking rest in God. My central claim today is that accounts of Augustine’s ethics must begin with a conception of the human being as a sign. His moral theory is best understood as articulating the human being’s proper function of pointing away from oneself and toward Christ. [2] I suggest that Augustine is not chiefly concerned with moral improvement or the imitation of ‘great-soul-d’ virtuous exemplars, but with the human being’s role as a word of confession, exposing the difference between the moral inadequacy of the human condition and the perfection of Christ. In this, Augustine’s ethics are not a system of moral improvement, but an ongoing exploration of one’s need for grace.

Augustine’s semiotic anthropology takes human beings as signs, imperfect images of Christ, the perfect image of the invisible God. Augustine’s use of self-knowledge and self-thinking in De Trinitate (trin.) suggests an account of the human as a sign or word, acting as a referent to God.

He argues that signs are how a person knows a thing, and paradoxically, it is the knowledge of things which gives meaning to signs in the first place.[3] Signs bring to one’s mind that which is stored in the memory and direct one’s will toward those realities.

But Augustine’s theory of signs and things pervades beyond his hermeneutics and epistemology. It becomes the basis for his conception of what the human being is and how one participates in the existence and essence of God. Augustine’s account of participation emphasizes humans as images (or signs) of God in which Christ confers form and meaning to bare existence.[4] Augustine thus develops a system in which beings exist and participate in essence and form through proper signification of God. His own concept of himself is as but another sign or image (imago), pointing to the perfect imago in Christ.

Crucially, however, the limitations of humanity’s nature as created, temporal, and ontologically dependent, as well as the effects of the fall render the human sign imperfect. One must  proclaim a double-signification: referring away from oneself as what God is not, while referring to Christ who remains a perfect sign. This double signification is the act of confession that arouses within the human heart both a dissatisfaction with oneself and a greater longing for God.

As Carol Harrison puts it, ‘classical categories [of signs and things] are subverted and transformed by Augustine’s treatment of the double commandment of love of God and love of neighbour and his conviction that God can ultimately be known only by a “knowledge of the heart” – one which leads, not to an exercise of the intellect but to doxology or praise of the unknowable, ineffable God’.[5] 

Thus, the move toward true self-actualisation is not an intellectual meditation or virtuous development, but a an actualisation of one’s existence as a sign. It is primarily a recognition that one is not autonomous, but that one derives being and identity from something else, from that to which he refers. In terms of substance, the human being is but another sign, a fleeting word whose meaning depends upon its referent. In short, they exist to the extent they become more accurate signs or images. Things only exist in and as relations, both to God and other signs.[6]

Thus, in similar treatments of Augustine’s self, Michael Hanby calls it a ‘doxological self’, Jean Luc Marion a ‘confessio’, and Rowan Williams as ‘an incomplete question’.[7] While each of these approaches (and these are only three of many) differs in how they articulate the self, they each rightly identify the self as a sort of word, either a word of praise, confession, or question, a word that only has meaning in relation from and to the thing to which it refers. Again, while these accounts differ, they follow Augustine in seeking that referent in God, through a semiotics of created beings, which is given meaning in the incarnation and expressed in Scripture. Thus, to become oneself is to admit that one is but an imperfect word, and by knowing, remembering, and loving God, being formed toward that to which one refers.

In turning to God for happiness and personal definition, Augustine’s anthropology follows his semiotic theory, establishing the nature and place of an individual as a sign of referent. As we will see, Augustine’s eudaimonism functions accordingly: a paradoxical rejection of oneself as an autonomous being and a signification of the goodness, truth, and beauty of God. However, Augustine retains a chasm of ignorance and weakness between the imperfect happy life of a human and the human life of Christ. As Sarah Stewart Kroeker notes,

Augustine concludes in his discussion of the image of God in trin., noting any similarity to God must be accompanied by noting the great human dissimilarity from God. Imitation, for Augustine, is less a form of replication and more a form of restoration through participation. The image, for him, is “made by the Trinity and altered for the worse by its own fault.” The goal is not to replicate Christ’s image, for the image in human beings was already made by God.[8]

Thus, it is not an ethic of a rational animal seeking to imitate Christ’s virtue, but an imperfect word confessing weakness and ignorance in the praise of God. As we will see, Augustine’s Confessions. reflects this ethic.

The constructive proposal of the paper is an account of ethics as confession. Rather than a project of moral betterment, ethics is repositioned as a project of self-giving, rejecting claims to moral behaviour and pointing to Christ.

Precedent to any act of confession is the disposition of humility.[9] As mentioned above, Augustine disrupts notions of self-sufficiency as he lays himself bare before God and his readers.[10] Yet humility is never an end to itself in Augustine’s thought, but the beginning of confession, which itself is the human act of self-giving, that God might raise the human to rest in himself. Augustine famously notes that ‘To possess my God, the humble Jesus, I was not yet humble enough. I did not know what his weakness was meant to teach’.[11] Humility is not a virtue for its own sake but is how he comes to union with God in the humility of Christ.[12] Humility is the first movement in confession, as it is the realisation that it is not in the nature of mankind to attain happiness for themselves; yet for Augustine, this humility is met with Christ’s humility, condescending to offer rest despite this inadequacy.

Confession is a means of looking inward for the sake of turning the will outward. As a rhetor, Augustine aims to move his audience’s hearts towards God; as a bishop he aims to reveal the loveliness of God to evoke love within his listeners. He argues both that the will is turned inward and that it is beyond the power of the human to turn it to God. As such, any pursuit of the good must begin with a rectified will, and this occurs only through the evocation of the will toward an object of love.[13]

In confession the entirety of his person is present and exposed, but his will is directed away from himself. Therefore, confession requires and enables displeasure in one’s evils and selfless disavowal of one’s virtue. In confession, one’s ethics shift from the improvement of one’s actions, to rest in the love of God. This is not to say that one becomes ethically passive, but that the desire for ethical action shifts from the one’s own moral progress toward a good outside oneself.

The ethic of conf. is that of deliberate self-giving. It is a rejection of any claim to know or define oneself. It goes beyond the moment of conversion as recounted in book eight, as Augustine expounds the act of conversion to be an act of God, being formed into his true person, to be an accurate sign pointing to Christ.[14]

Moreover, this ethic is oriented around God. Rather than developing an account of his pursuit of God, Augustine considers God’s pursuit of him. Conf. is not an introspective analysis of his ethical life to bring about moral change, but a rejection of his own life, designed to bring about the praise of God. Because persons cannot make themselves will what they do not desire, Augustine focuses not on the moral agent, or the desire itself, but on revealing God to be desirable. In retr., he claims that the books ‘praise the just and good God for my evil and good acts and lift up the understanding and affection of men to him’.[15] That is, the work itself is an act of praise. While he confesses (read: admits) his past and present sins, the act of writing confesses (read: praises) God for a reconciliation of his disjointed, sinful person. He relinquishes his own pursuit of happiness in virtue or success, and instead looks to God to raise his love up. In so doing, he replaces an ethic of work for an ethic of rest, foreshadowing and participating in the rest he hopes to fully attain after his death.

Augustine’s emphasis on ignorance and weakness rejects both speculative and practical reason. The weakness of the will and the ignorance of one’s inner-man demand recognising the limitations of moral self-concern and a resulting emphasis on humility and otherness in moral formation.[16] Augustine’s work presents a viable foundation for this in his contradictory insistences to look inward and admonitions against self-love. He exposes a contradiction in mankind’s attempts to develop virtue and character: as far as we focus on virtue for our own virtue and character, we do not pursue virtue, but ourselves. Thus, one cannot attain virtue by seeking virtue, but by self-giving in the action of confession. Concluding Augustine’s fullest critique of virtue, he writes:

For their virtue, if they have any, is made subject to human praise another way, for the man who is satisfied with himself is no other than a man. But the truly religious man who puts his faith and hope in God, and loves him, gives more attention to the matters in which he is dissatisfied with himself than to those, if such there be, with which he, or rather, the truth is satisfied. Nor does ascribe that which already gives satisfaction to anything by the mercy of Him whom he fears to please. He gives thanks to the curing of some of his faults and pours out praise for the curing of the rest.[17]

In this, Augustine’s unsatisfying introspection becomes foundational for an outward self-giving, considering what one lacks for greater dependence on God. His insights demand a persistent self-reflection, in which one examines the false goods of one’s desires, above all the false good of personal virtuous character. Augustine’s work confronts us with the reality that virtue is not an end (telos), and that ethics is the task of attuning one’s desires away from oneself and toward the true, the good, and the beautiful. This occurs through the admission of our own humanity and a praise of God through the confession of our own weakness and the goodness, truth, and beauty of God.

Augustine’s praise of just rulers in de ciuitate dei, suggests an imitation of those who confess, rather than those who appear virtuous. He continually returns to Christ as the only exemplar of a perfect statesman. However, since perfectly imitating Christ is impossible, throughout ciu., his letters (ep.) and en Ps., he offers a series of exemplars who follow Christ in public confession.[18] The foremost of these is the apostle Paul, who is the only one whom Augustine refers to as the optimal man.[19] Paul is compassionate toward others and sorrowful for his sin and displays a public repentance and weakness.[20] He likewise praises Peter for weeping over his sins.[21] He praises David’s public confession of sin,[22] noting that David, not Saul is the heir to Abraham, because Saul asserted himself and was rejected, where David confesses himself and is accepted for his faith and sacrifice.[23] Likewise, he proclaims Daniel as an example of virtue, because despite his courage and faith, he was prepared to confess his weakness.[24] And he praises Abraham who acknowledged his own ignorance and offered a sacrifice to God in faith.[25] 

He likewise offers certain early Christians as exemplars of public confession. The early Christian martyrs, of course.[26] Paulinus for refusing to send a portrait of himself to be displayed in a church.[27] Nectarius for conceding that public confession would be a preferable penalty to fines.[28] And, Macedonius for seeking heavenly aims instead of favour from the Donatists.[29] The most famous exemplar in ciu. is that of Theodosius, whom Augustine praises for his public repentance for his role in the massacre at Thessalonica in AD 390.[30] Augustine’s praise for Theodosius concerns not his political favour toward Christians, but his repentance and humility.[31] In each of these figures, Augustine highlights their limits and failures to praise their acts of confession. His description of the happy ruler is telling:[32]

We call them happy if they rule justly; if amid the voices of those who praise them to the skies, and abject submission of those who grovel when they greet them, they are not exalted with pride, but remember that they are men; if they make their power a servant to the divine majesty … if for their sins they do not neglect to offer to their God the sacrifice of humility and mercy and prayer. Christian emperors of this sort we declare to happy ­— happy now in hope.[33]

Augustine’s criterion for a good ruler, like a good man, is to love God and act in accordance with one’s nature, offering up praise to God and confession of faults. Thus, his list of exemplars are exemplars for their confession, not their success. It is not virtue that leads to happiness, but confession which leads to forgiveness; forgiveness allows for rest, and rest restores the individual to virtue.[34] In this way, the model is to be imitators of Christ, so far as we imitate Christ in self-giving and not moral perfection.

Typical accounts Augustinian ethics tend to lead one away from the awareness of one’s own ignorance and weakness, and toward a concept of self as autonomous, rational, and free. Rather, Augustine’s rhetoric serves as a reminder of one’s moral inadequacies and dependence upon God. His questions of language, ethics, politics, and selfhood are all questions of what is means to be human. They are questions on Augustine’s quest to know only God and the soul. While Augustine does not offer the answers to these questions, he invites us to journey with him in the pursuit of wisdom, confessing our errors and praising God. In this, we are happy.

[1] For examples of each, see Byers, Perception, Sensibility, and Moral Motivation in Augustine; Stewart-Kroeker, Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine’s Thought.

[2] Starting with the will tends to position Augustine’s ethic as a pseudo-Stoic training of the will, the work of grooming higher-order choices over base-level desires. Likewise, accounts of moral formation highlight the cultivation of one’s love for God through arousing one’s loves toward God’s truth, goodness, and beauty. The resulting accounts falsely propose an Augustinian ethics concerned with moral betterment of the ethical agent in the rectitude of desires, choices, and actions. The most convincing articulation of this is Simeon Zahl’s The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). Zahl is careful to preserve the agency of the Holy Spirit and to describe his account as ‘Christian experience’, and not ‘ethics’. However, Zahl’s account remains open to the risk of moralising affective behaviours and emotions.

[3] mag. I.1, 95.

[4] conf. 7.17.23; trin. 14.3.12, 382.

[5] Carol Harrison, ‘Doxology and Loving Knowledge in Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana Book 1’ Journal of religion and Society 15 (2008), 138.

[6] For a fuller description of this doxological and relational ontology, see Hanby, Augustine and Modernity, 90-105

[7] Hanby, Augustine and Modernity; 90; Marion, In the Self’s Place, 32; Rowan Williams, ‘“A Question to Myself” Time and Self-Awareness in the Confessions’, in Rowan Williams, On Augustine (New York: Bloomsbury Continuum, 2016), 9-10; Sweeney, ‘God and the Soul: Augustine on the Journey to True Selfhood’. The Heythrop Journal 57, no. 4 (2016): 678–91, 681.

[8] Stewart Kroeker, Pilgrimage as Moral and Aesthetic Formation in Augustine’s Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 116. Quoting trin. 15.39, 426.

[9] The importance of humility in ciu. is traced in Mary M. Keys, Pride, Politics and Humility in Augustine’s City of God (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

[10] A similar rhetorical strategy runs through ciu., in which Augustine exposes the false confidence in the Roman state and moves his readers away from political pride (superbia). For the best analysis, see Ogle, Politics and the Earthly City, 68-95.

[11] conf. 8.10.24 128.

[12] He writes ‘the Son immutably abides eternal with you, and that the souls receive his fullness to be blessed and that they are renewed to be wise by participation in wisdom abiding in the them…but [the Platonists] do not hear him who says ‘learn of me, that I am meek and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls’. conf. 7.9.14, 122.

[13] Again, this is most plain through Augustine’s own conversion, seen in the comparison of his disposition of his self-examination in book eight with that of his confession in book ten. Prior to his conversion, Augustine describes introspection as ‘gnawing at my inner-self…overcome by a fearful sense of shame,[13] ‘accusations against myself’,[13] ‘the single will split into many,[13] and the ‘dredg[ing] up all misery’.[13] Contrarily, in book 10as he recounts his confession as an act in which by giving himself to God, he receives himself, and finds happiness. He writes in book ten, ‘[You] are so an object of love that I am ashamed of myself and reject myself. You are my choice, and only by your gift can I please either you or myself…When I am evil, making confession to you is simply to be displeased with myself. When I am good, making confession to you is simply to make no claim on my own behalf’. conf. 9.12.29, 152; conf. 9.10.25, 150; conf. 9.9.19, 146; conf. 10.2.2, 179.

[14] This claim lies not only in the text of conf. itself, but in Augustine’s own act of writing the work. Exposing his own moral failures in such a contentious time of his life establishes the model of self-giving in the pursuit of God.

[15] retr. 23.2.

[16] See ciu. 5.19-20.

[17] ciu. 5.20, William M. Green trans. LCL 412, 249.

[18] Of course, Augustine does repeatedly commend the imitation of Christ and look to the gospel narratives for political insight. See Commentary on John, 33; s. 13; ep. 153.

[19] ciu. 14.9; Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society, 193.

[20] Rom. 8:23.

[21] Matt. 26:75.

[22] ep. 138.7; en Ps. 30.3, 413; en. Ps. 30.4, 413.

[23] ciu. 16.24, 683.

[24] exc. urb.

[25] ciu. 16.24, 832-834.

[26] ciu. 5.18.

[27] ep. 186.40.

[28] ep. 91.2; 104.9.

[29] ep. 155.17.

[30] ciu. 5.26.

[31] ciu. 5.24-26, 223. Notably, Augustine places Theodosius above Constantine, though Constantine’s happiness is greater in his earthly life.

[32] ciu. 5.24, 263. Nequee enim nos Christianos quosdam imperatores idea felices dicimus quia uel diutius imperarunt uel imperantes filios morte placida reliquerunt, uel hostes rei publicase domuerunt uel inimicos ciues aduersus se insurgentes et cauere et epprimere potuerunt

[33] ciu. 5.24, 263. William Chase Green trans.

[34] True virtues are, of course, not splendid vices. Like all things, the distinction depends on the telos. No one can deny that temperance is good if it keeps one sober enough to care for one’s family. What I suggest, however, is that temperance comes by loving one’s family and confessing one’s innate intemperance, rather than practicing self-control. See ciu. 5.20.