Augustine and the East

[Pope_Noah_I]

I have been reading “The Orthodox Church” by Kallistos Ware and I’ve found a rather negative picture painted of St. Augustine, who, as I’ve discovered, isn’t even considered a Saint in the Orthodox Church because of his approaches to theology and philosophy. As I’m drawn to the East, I find more and more that, the further I move East, the less viable the Latin approaches to original sin, the nature of God and other things seem to be. Now, I say this out of relative ignorance and want nothing more than to be assured that Augustine’s approaches to original sin, biblical interpretation and other issues are but the other side of the coin, differing only in terminology from the Eastern views. However, at the present, that doesn’t seem to be the case. So, my question to the more learned members of this forum would be: are Augustine’s approaches to these questions a.) reconcilable with those of the East, b.) worth anything in light of scientific advancement and c.) worth anything in light of the internal developments of Latin theology over the past 1,500 years?

 

[jimmy]

St. Augustine is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. They might disagree with a lot of what he says but that doesn’t mean he isn’t a saint.

 

[MarcoPolo]

are Augustine’s approaches to these questions a.) reconcilable with those of the East, b.) worth anything in light of scientific advancement and c.) worth anything in light of the internal developments of Latin theology over the past 1,500 years?

What scientific advancements do you mean? I only saw you reference original sin in the post. Have you read any Catholic books on original sin or just the EO book so far? Also, Augustine’s writings are worth a lot inasmuch as they reflect a development or echo of early Church sentiment or something upon which further development was made after Augustine.