DANIEL RODRIGUES DA COSTA

This is a study on the idea of freedom in Augustine, having as a starting point the semi-Pelagian polemic. Semi-Pelagianism represents an extremely complex challenge to Augustine's thought, and we believe that the sharing of certain premises between the bishop and the monks helps us to clarify the real meaning of freedom in Augustinian philosophy. The identification of freedom as a possibility of self-determination of the human will was a requirement, for the monks, for the moral accountability of our actions; for the bishop, there is no other possibility for the performance of a good action than that our will be guided by an external help. In the wake of the Pelagian polemic, semi-Pelagianism emerges as a divergence capable of testing Augustine’s thought to the last consequences, and will require from the bishop a reconsideration and a repositioning of his ideas, among them, that of freedom