of paradox and uncertainty that resides in classical theism with humility and charity.
106
Perhaps Connolly
would find all of these responses acceptable. What the responses do not allow is the emergence of other
Augustinian voices that allow us to use our experiences of transcendence for resistance.
The point is not to practice "interpretative charity" toward Augustine. Interpretive charity
frequently glosses discordance within a text and allows disturbing thinkers to become mere precursors to
us. Rather, the point is to highlight other aspects of the Augustinian corpus to open the possibility for a
fresh concordance (however discordant) with Augustine and his witting and unwitting followers.
There are aspects of Augustine's thought that serve to undermine authority.
107
Paul Ricoeur
associates the "hermeneutics of suspicion" with Marx, Freud and Nietzsche. These writers invoke radical
suspicion about claims to truth, beauty and goodness. They undermine the rhetoric of justice revealing it as
naked power. Augustine too was willing to undermine the authoritative logos that under girded Greek and
Roman claims to right order. Is there anything in Nietzsche that undermines the appearance of justice more
than Augustine's account of Alexander and the pirate?
Justice being taken away, then what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are
robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled
by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the fact of the confederacy; the booty is
divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases
to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and
subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name kingdom, not by the removal of
covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply
which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when the
king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the seas, he
answered with bold pride "what thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I
do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while thou who doest it with a great fleet art
styled emperor.”
108
Of course, Augustine appeals to authority as he undermines the authority of the "pagans." Christ is as
authoritative as authority can get. Nevertheless, a critic can question Christ's authority from an Augustinian
perspective if the critic divorces Augustine’s philosophy from his dogmatics. Furthermore, the authority of
Christ may have marginal relevance for temporal affairs. The reign of justice is not for this world; true
justice requires the transfiguring grace for Christ as the end of time. Transcendent justice might be as
"wholly other" (to use Karl Barth’s phrase) as the god who sustains it.
To challenge authority from an Augustinian perspective what do we need to borrow from the
saint? We can maintain Augustine's commitment to what Eliseo Vivas calls "axiological realism."
109
The
right and the good have an ontological status independent of human wishes and will. The right obligates us
(inclines us toward the good), and both the right and the good give direction to ethical questing. From this
perspective, it is possible to speak of evil regimes and policies across time and cultural boundaries. We read
the axiologically real not as an object of reason or experience, but rather as an experience of seeking order--
a "call forward" as John Cobb would have it.
110
Another feature of Augustine's thought we can preserve is the sense of moral finitude. Human
beings (as presently constituted) cannot accomplish what is right with anything near complete perfection.
106
Connolly, Identity/Difference, 76-77 and 153-57; Why I am Not a Secularist (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999).
107
Larry W. Chappell, "Augustinian Anarchy: Preliminary Formulations," Southern Political Science
Association, 1989 annual meeting.
108
St. Augustine, The City of God, trans. Marcus Dodd (New York: Modern Library, 1950), 112-13.
109
The Moral Life and the Ethical Life (Chicago: Regnery, 1963).
110
John B. Cobb, Jr., God and the World (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969). The notion of ethics as a
set of fragile intimations may not be as robust as Augustine's conception of "natural law." When axiological
realism combines with radical transcendentalism, however, intimations may be as robust as one can get.
Convention