Presentation by Timothy D. Harfield

Location: Bowden Hall, Room 216
Date: October 21, 2011
Time: 4.15pm – 5.30pm

Abstract

Exploiting an interpretive opening made possible by a relative silence on the subject of original sin in Augustine’s Confessions, this paper will argue that Augustine narrates his spiritual development beginning with an originary act of the will. Motivated by a discontentment with the plentiful sufficiency of God’s providence, infants express themselves in significatory gestures meant to communicate their idiosyncratic desires, but, more importantly, to procure external gratification through the manipulation of others. The result is a condition that presents itself as antimoniously. On the one hand, the significatory acts of infancy are a necessary condition for the contraction of selfhood, and for social participation more generally. On the other hand, the fact that these same acts are inextricably bound to corporeal desire results in a separation from the communion with God that they enjoy at birth. To the extent that the first act of signification also marks a moment of divine rejection, it represents an original sin, a stain that condemns the infant to a life of vacillation between two wills—spiritual and corporeal—and, failing to humbly accept the gift of God’s grace, spiritual death.