Applying the wisdom of Augustine to the abortion and transgender debates

Jun 6, 2022 by

by Martin Davie, Christian Today:

In his master work The City of God, the great Patristic bishop and theologian Augustine of Hippo argues that ‘our will is for our welfare’ and this results in acts of sin because, misled in our thinking because of the Fall, ‘we commit sin to promote our welfare.’

I was reminded of Augustine’s words recently when thinking about the justification that President Putin put forward for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In his speech at the Victory Day parade in Moscow on 9 May, and on several other occasions, Putin has declared that his invasion of the Ukraine was justified because the Ukrainians are Nazis who were planning an attack on Russia in league with NATO. It follows that the welfare of the Russian people requires the ‘de-Nazification’ of Ukraine and the purpose of the Russian ‘special military operation’ is, hence, to achieve this end.

This argument is a classic example of what Augustine is talking about. There is no reason to doubt that Putin does seek the welfare of the Russian people, but tragically his particular brand of political paranoia has led him to believe that the Western world is aiming to destroy Russia using Ukraine as its tool. This mistaken understanding of the world has then led him to act in an ethically unacceptable fashion by attacking Ukraine, an act which in Christian terms violates the commands against coveting, theft and murder in the Ten Commandments – coveting because he desired to own someone else’s country, theft because he engaged in armed robbery to try to fulfil this desire, and murder because this has resulted in death and injury to countless Ukrainians (and Russians as well).
See here for our latest collection of articles on transgender ideology and its effects on society.

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