176 9 Augustinianisms and Thomisms Eric Gregory and Joseph Clair Introduction The standard image of Augustine and Aquinas that emerges in twentieth-century textbooks of political philosophy is that of two fun- damentally opposed theological approaches to the political. Augustine, in one corner, is the clear-eyed realist, convinced that political society is fallen, mired in the consequences of original sin and the contingent necessity to restrain evil, vice, and sin. Aquinas, in the other corner, is the more cheerful Aristotelian, who emphasizes the inherent goodness and naturalness of political society and its benefcial purposes for human fourishing. 1 These contrasting visions continue to animate diverse Christian understandings of the limits and possibilities of politics. One extraordinary feature of these two interpretive pictures is the way that each was able to achieve rapprochement with the ideals of polit- ical liberalism and their institutional expression in twentieth-century liberal democracies. By “political liberalism” we mean to refer, in a gen- eral way, to modern ideals of equality, liberty, and freedom that can take a variety of institutional forms, but are essentially ordered by limited government, individual rights, the consent of the governed, constitu- tionalism, and the rule of law. Crucially, most versions of political lib- eralism presume to be indifferent to the ultimate goals and purposes of citizens, provided that they respect the laws and tasks necessary for the operation of responsible government. Theological rapprochement with political liberalism can also take a variety of forms – ranging from a more rigorous attempt to narrate the achievements of liberal democ- racy as being indebted to specifc Christian theological concepts, move- ments, or practices, to a less ambitious program of describing the ways in which Christian commitments can be reconciled with the ideals and institutions constitutive of liberal democratic life. By the end of the century, the opposed interpretive pictures of Augustine and Aquinas were also able to inspire an opposite, shadow of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCO9781107280823.010 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. YBP Library Services, on 20 Aug 2018 at 00:24:13, subject to the Cambridge Core terms