# Two Kingdoms view and Augustine



## SRoper (Dec 8, 2007)

I'm curious about the claim that the Two Kingdoms view can be found in Augustine. If I understand correctly, Luther and later Two Kingdoms folk said that the believer is a citizen of both the earthly and heavenly kingdoms. Does Augustine make this explicit in his writings? I got the sense that he had the two kingdoms in opposition to one another. "Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. ... In the one, the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling; in the other, the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying, while the former take thought for all." Seems like Augustine has even temporal princes under the heading of City of God.


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## RamistThomist (Dec 8, 2007)

It is a little more confusing than many 2kingdomz people make it sound. Augustine did say we live in 2 spheres but he wasn't always clear on how these spheres interact with each other. If you can ever find it Prof Oliver O'Donovan wrote a good article on this subject. In short he takes Book 19 from City of God and shows how Augustine formed "justice" and "Love" in such a way that the only true political state is a Christian one. Unfortunately, he left it at that and didn't explicate.


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