On Self-Harm, Narcissism, Atonement and the Vulnerable Christ (Reading Augustine)

185 Pages·2018·1.92 MB·English

by  David Vincent Meconi

ON SELF-HARM, NARCISSISM,
ATONEMENT, AND THE
VULNERABLE CHRIST
Reading Augustine
Series Editor:
Miles Hollingworth
Reading Augustine offers personal and close readings of St. Augustine of
Hippo from leading philosophers and religious scholars. Its aim is to make
clear Augustine’s importance to contemporary thought and to present
Augustine not only or primarily as a pre-eminent Christian thinker but as a
philosophical, spiritual, literary, and intellectual icon of the West.
Volumes in the series:
ON ETHICS, POLITICS AND PSYCHOLOGY IN THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
John Rist
ON LOVE, CONFESSION, SURRENDER AND THE MORAL SELF
Ian Clausen
ON EDUCATION, FORMATION, CITIZENSHIP AND THE LOST
PURPOSE OF LEARNING
Joseph Clair
ON CREATIVITY, LIBERTY, LOVE AND THE BEAUTY OF THE LAW
Todd Breyfogle
ON MUSIC, SENSE, AFFECT AND VOICE
Carol Harrison
ON CONSUMER CULTURE, IDENTITY, THE CHURCH AND THE
RHETORICS OF DELIGHT
Mark Clavier
ON GOD, THE SOUL, EVIL AND THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
John Peter Kenney
ON SELF-HARM, NARCISSISM,
ATONEMENT, AND THE
VULNERABLE CHRIST
By David Vincent Meconi
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First published in Great Britain 2020
Copyright © David Vincent Meconi, 2020
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CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Abbreviations and Acknowledgments x
Introduction 1
1 God and Those Made to Become Like God 15
2 Becoming God without God? 39
3 Those Pears: Sin as Self-Sabotage 69
4 Narcissism and the Paradox of Self-Love 101
5 Atonement and the Vulnerable Christ 129
Conclusion 155
Further Reading 160
Index 162
desiderantibus evanescere …
FOREWORD
It is hard to overestimate the importance of Augustine’s work, both in his
own period as well as in the subsequent history of Western philosophy.
Until the thirteenth century, when he may have had a competitor in Thomas
Aquinas, Augustine was the most important philosopher of the medieval
period; and the impact of his thought continued through the Reformation
to our own day. Many of his views, including his theory of the state, his
account of time and eternity, his understanding of the will, his attempted
resolution of the problem of evil, his exposition of God’s knowledge, his
theory of language, his approach to the relation of faith and reason, and his
investigations into the human psyche have remained influential up till the
present time.
One thing that is distinctive about Augustine’s thought and that makes
it sound disconcertingly contemporary is his insightfulness into the
complexity of the human psyche. The fragmentation of the self is a recurrent
theme in his work, and he is perceptive about the distance introduced into
human relations with others because of the internally divided human
psyche. What is even more impressive about his keen observations is his
account of the self-alienation resulting from such internal divisions in the
self. Augustine’s idea that a self-alienated person will loathe himself and in
fact will seek determinedly his own destruction is striking.
Although all of Augustine’s work has been the subject of extensive
scholarly study and reflection, there has been less investigation of
Augustine’s powerful observations about self-loathing. And yet in our
own time we certainly are in a position to appreciate his wisdom in this
regard. How is it possible that a human being would find comfort in cutting
herself? How is it possible that a person would return repeatedly to an
abuser? Or to self-undermining addictive behavior? The answers to these
and similar questions require not just a psychoanalytic theory of human
self-destructiveness; they need explication from within a whole worldview
that undergirds a distinctive account of human nature and the true self of a
human person. And that is what David Vincent Meconi, S.J., has undertaken
to do in this new book on Augustine’s philosophical and theological account
Foreword
of the human psyche. Meconi is a well-known Patristics scholar whose
previous work has focused on the thought of Augustine. His many articles
and books on Augustine have tended to concentrate on Augustine’s account
of the human person, and that extensive expertise is in evidence in this new
book on Augustine and self-harm.
Meconi begins by describing in detail Augustine’s view of the world and
of human beings in the world. Foundational to all Augustine’s understanding
of human nature is the belief that the world has a Creator and that human
beings are made in his image. What is noteworthy about Augustine’s view
is the additional claim that human beings are made for union with their
Creator. A human person is not only made by God but is also meant to be
united to God in the giving and receiving of love.
On Augustine’s view, as Meconi painstakingly shows, without this relation
to a loving God a human person tends to fall apart, to want and not want the
same things in internal fragmentation. For Augustine, a human person in
this condition is in effect trying unsuccessfully to be self-sufficient, to be for
himself what God should be for him. He is thus in effect trying to be God for
himself. But the effect of this effort is the opposite of what a human person
is intended to be. As Augustine sees it, a human person is by nature suited
for deification in union with his Creator. In turning his back on his Creator
to become sufficient for himself, a human person becomes not more than
human but less. Like Narcissus in the old myth, a human person who rejects
the love of God becomes destructive to himself.
Meconi focuses on the much-discussed episode in Augustine’s
Confessions of the theft of pears to highlight both the oddity and the insight
of Augustine’s view of that theft. As Augustine tries to show through his
probing questions about that theft, the person in love with himself apart
from God is in effect loathing himself through his self-love. True self-love
is manifest in the giving and receiving of love in union with God. Apart
from that union, self-love and self-loathing are yoked so that a person
seeks the self-destruction he hates. Meconi’s ability to describe and defend
Augustine’s position elucidates Augustine’s view of the human predicament
so that it resonates with contemporary concerns. When the great wealth
of the industrialized and secularized Western nations leaves those nations
also with high rates of suicide and depression, Meconi’s presentation of
Augustine’s analysis of the human condition is apt for our times.
In the book’s last chapter, Meconi brings into the discussion Augustine’s
view of the central doctrines of Christianity, the Incarnation and atonement
of Christ. In his sensitive explanations of a complicated part of Augustine’s
viii
Foreword
thought, Meconi makes evident that, for Augustine, human beings cannot
by themselves conquer their tendency to spiral into self-destruction. The
richness of this part of Meconi’s work defies any easy summary. He sketches
Augustine’s views of the distinction between self-loathing and self-denial,
the historical importance of Christ’s crucifixion and its on-going impact
on the Church, the role of surrender in self-fulfillment, and the communal
nature of human well-being. The importance of Augustine’s views on these
topics to current thought is evident, and Meconi’s expert exposition of
Augustine’s views illuminates them and sets them in the broader context of
Augustine’s whole worldview.
The result of Meconi’s labors is thus an excellent book. With his far-
ranging familiarity with the works of Augustine, from the letters and
sermons to the major treatises, Meconi makes Augustine’s thought alive and
intelligible so that it becomes available for wrestling with now. This book
will make a difference to all those who care about Augustine or the topics
that moved him and that animate us still.
Dr. Eleonore Stump
Robert J. Henle Chair in Philosophy
Saint Louis University
ix