“Those Who Cannot See the Whole Are Offended by the Apparent Deformity of a Part”: Disability in Augustine’s City of God

Abstract

In De ciuitate Dei (ciu.), Augustine calls people with disabilities purposefully created by an absolutely competent God (16.8). On the whole, however, Augustine’s views on disabilities in ciu. are commonly misunderstood. Disabilities raise the theodicy question for him, and the goodness of people with disabilities, hidden to experience, must be accepted on faith. This stance results from Augustine’s view that dignity emerges from the beauty, rationality, and utility of the ensouled body. For Augustine, “deformity defeats beauty” (19.4), reducing dignity along with beauty and embodied rationality. In eternal salvation, however, disabilities will be removed. If martyrs retain scars in heaven, “there will not be deformitas in them, but dignitas” (22.19). However, for what reason did God create disabilities in the first place? Augustine regards disabilities as temporal embodied warnings of eternal corporeal punishment (21.8). As a concluding perspective, the alternative view of disabilities by the Apostle Paul will be considered.