TO WHAT EXTENT DO AUGUSTINE’S TEACHINGS PROVE THAT THE SOUL MUST BE LIBERATED FROM THE BODY TO ACHIEVE HAPPINESS?

ByAbigail

Augustine believes the soul’s mission is to achieve a sort of complete goodness and happiness, demonstrated by his first book ‘On the Happy Life.’ Augustine writes that ‘God alone is the sourceofallgoodnessandhappiness ’ and as God made human beings, He is the only one that can make them happy. Therefore, Augustine believes the way to achieve happiness is by entering into a meaningful union with God. This essay will explore if Augustine’s teachings prove that the soul needs to be liberated from the body in order to achieve this meaningful union, and therefore happiness.

On the surface it seems as if Augustine equally values both body and soul, stating that the body and soul have a ‘lovely partnership,’ and ‘strong binding force,’ thereby suggesting they are both needed to achieve happiness. Furthermore, a body may be needed to cultivate a meaningful relationship with God, as this might initially be done through following the Bible’s idea of morality. Therefore, a body is needed by the soul as a vessel to conduct even the most basic of behaviours advised in the Bible, such as praying. Consequently, the soul needs the body to achieve happiness, and therefore does not need to be liberated from it to achieve this union with God.

In addition, Augustine highlights the impossibility of hating our bodies, suggesting the soul does not need to be liberated from the body to achieve happiness. Augustine agrees with St Paul that ‘no one ever hates his own flesh,’ writing in his work ‘On the Usefulness of Fasting,’ that ‘even the most body-denying ascetic will demonstrate this by closing his eyes when threatened by a blow,’ highlighting humankind’s inability to truly hate their bodies. Augustine suggests we should ‘nourish and care for it (our bodies) just as Christ does for the Church.’ Therefore, Augustine highlights the value of our body, suggesting that the soul would not need to be liberated from the body to achieve happiness.

However, whilst Augustine does not desire for us to hate our bodies, he does emphasise the corruption of the body, and therefore his teachings more convincingly prove that the soul must be liberated from the body in order to achieve happiness. Augustine highlights the soul’s superiority over the body by saying the soul is responsible for ‘the appreciation of art, practice of virtue, pursuit of tranquillity and contemplation’ all of which are more profound, pure intentions than those of the body.

Augustine’s belief that the human soul is immortal, but the body is not, further demonstrates the soul’s superiority over the body. Genesis 3:19 states that after sinning, God told Adam ‘For dust you are and to dust you will return,’ proving Augustine’s belief that the body is only mortal due to man’s sin. Interestingly, both Plato (whose teachings Augustine was inspired by), and Descartes also subscribe to this belief that the soul is superior to the body. They broadly believe the body distracts the soul, and that the soul’s liberation from the body after death reflects this. Plato’s belief that the soul is more important than the body is also evident through his theory of Forms, which relies on the idea that the soul has knowledge of all the Forms before entering the body. The shows it is not only Augustine who believes the body to be inferior to the soul, and therefore needs to be liberated from the body in order to achieve happiness.

Having established the body is often portrayed as inferior to the soul, Augustine demonstrates that the body challenges the soul with impure desires, and therefore the soul must be liberated from the body to achieve happiness. Augustine writes ‘the perishable body weighs down the soul, and its earthly habitation oppresses a mind teeming with thoughts,’ demonstrating the hindrance of the mortal body on the rationality and pure intentions of the immortal soul. In ‘City of God’ Augustine writes ‘it is not necessary to flee every kind of body in order to pursue happiness, but only the earth-bound, corruptible, mortal bodies,’ revealing that in order to fulfil the soul’s goal of a union with God, and therefore happiness, the earthly body must be escaped.

In conclusion, whilst the body may be seen as a communication of the soul’s pure desires, thereby helping the soul enter a meaningful relationship with God, Augustine more convincingly highlights the body’s hindrance to the soul, emphasising the body’s inferiority as its corrupt desires taint the purity of the soul. Therefore, in order to enter into a meaningful union with God, and subsequently achieve happiness, the soul must indeed be liberated from the body.