Martin Westerholm

On the Christological Determination of Augustine’s Theology of Love

This article seeks to show that recent deployments of Augustine’s theology of love as an alternative to, or resource within, contemporary liberalism are typified by attempts to use Christologically-grounded reconsiderations of the relation between the Creator and the creature to respond to the suggestion that Augustine cannot accommodate love of creaturely goods. It then argues that these attempts rest on abstract understandings of divine presence that issue from a breakdown of distinctions between Christology, ecclesiology and the theology of creation. It concludes by suggesting that Augustine’s theology of love is best approached by considering the relation of Augustine’s Christology and pneumatology, for this relation makes a Christologically-conditioned notion of justice constitutive of Christian loving in a way that is generative for consideration of both Augustine’s theology of love and his relation to contemporary liberalism.