The Affective Seed of Christian Humanism

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Published May 8, 2025

‘THE AFFECTIVE SEED OF CHRISTIAN HUMANISM: RETURNING TO AUGUSTINE’S
INCARNATIONAL ETHICS OF THE CITY OF GOD’
DAVID BENNETT, Associate Research Fellow, Wycliffe Hall.
Augustine of Hippo provided the seed form of a Christian humanism which celebrates human feeling,
desire, reason, and embodiment. This affirmation of our human nature, and the good origin of desire
within us is regained through the incarnation of Jesus Christ. For Augustine, this divine affirmation of
our human nature has a prophetic quality within a classical world which did not share the Christian
understanding of how human flourishing and blessedness was ultimately attained. For Augustine, the
incarnation did not just affirm the goodness of our human nature and emotions, but also the path-
way to its recovery in the humble descent or forma servi of the Incarnation. In this lecture, Dr Bennett
explores City of God XIV and other places where Augustine affirms the good nature and rational
intelligence of redeemed human emotions, alongside the radical effects of the Fall on them. From this
brief exploration, the lecture will illumine how Augustine can help chart a course to renew a Christian
humanism through a reappraisal of the via humilitatis, where, as Donovan Schaefer observes, ‘politics
has become mere affect’.

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