Connections, Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

Page 11

EDUCATION

“Saints and Heroes: Augustine on the Love of Glory” by Michael Giles, Ph.D., Instructor at Holy Cross College

Holy Cross College aims to form each student as a “Scholar, Citizen, Leader, and Disciple.” Several of these core objectives of Holy Cross College relate to my research, but let’s think about leadership for a moment. When my students and I talk about leadership, we want to discover what a good leader is, so that we can become that kind of person. Now, one underrated but critically important key to transformational leadership is ambition. Ambition, or the love of glory, is like jet fuel for great leadership. All the great leaders have it - it is part of their “secret sauce.” This holds true for leaders in every field of human endeavor. Greatness in politics, business, even academic and athletic competitions, all require some level of striving for glory. We encourage ambition in our spouses, children, and students, because we want to see them make the most of their opportunities. Yet, we’re all vaguely aware that ambition is (or can be) dangerous too. We often find ourselves to be afraid of, or intimidated by, ambitious people. We regard them with suspicion, and for good reason. Why? Well, we suspect that they would take advantage of us, if they could. So, we should ask: is ambition, or the love of

glory, a righteous desire? Can one be ambitious and a good leader? My work seeks to understand ambition in the light of political philosophy and theology, in this case through the life and work of St. Augustine of Hippo. I demonstrate that Augustine shows a quite unexpected appreciation for the love of glory, despite his awareness of the many dangers that frequently attend it. Augustine draws a distinction between the love of glory and the desire to dominate, the latter of which he spurns. Furthermore, Augustine’s view of ambition depends on another aspect of the “core four,” citizenship. One thing you quickly learn from Augustine is that a radical but unseen division exists in this world, a division which he describes in terms of citizenship. Every human person can be a citizen in one of two, and only two, cities. These are the “earthly” and “heavenly” cities. The heavenly city hangs on God’s promise; the earthly city hangs on a human standard of excellence. The idea of the “two cities” clarifies what is at stake for a citizen, because it concerns our ultimate loyalty: what principle or ideal must not, at all costs, be betrayed? For the earthly city, that principle is love of self: independent, arrogant, assertive of its own primacy.

For the heavenly city, it is the love of God - and of mankind as loved by God and as dependent on him. The surprising thing is that both the earthly and the heavenly realm seek glory and to live in a way that provokes praise. Glory is, in a way, an expression of the rivalry between these two cities. Each one claims to have or merit true glory. Therefore, a right kind of glory-seeking is possible because the saints attain it, even though they did not seek glory for its own sake. Augustine suffers from zero doubt as to which city wins more glory. In the very first lines of the City of God, he writes, “Most glorious is the City of God: whether in this passing age, where she dwells by faith as a pilgrim among the ungodly, or in the security of that eternal home which she now patiently awaits until ‘righteousness shall return to judgment.’” Augustine says that the heavenly city can be glorious in this world and not merely in the next. For those who live as pilgrims now, that is a tremendously encouraging thought. In the end, the effort to attain glory reveals the depth of our longing for immortality. If this longing really is part of man’s present nature, then nature bears the marks of a better nature or better life. Augustine’s respect for glory-seeking behavior provides a crucial indication of the role that the longing

(continued on following page.) HOLY CROSS COLLEGE hcc-nd.edu

11


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.