ISSN: 1731-0555 eISSN: 2353-2998 OAI
DOI: 10.18276/cto.2025.41-08
Issue archive /
41/2025
Arendt and Augustine: On the Relation of Natality and Freedom, Commemorating the 50th Year After Hannah Arendt’s Death
| Authors: |
Peter
Schallenberg
Faculty of Theology in Paderborn, Germany | Department of Moral Theology |
| Keywords: | St. Augustine Hannah Arendt natality shipwreck |
| Whole issue publication date: | 2025-12 |
| Page range: | 13 (139-151) |
Abstract
This article investigates the philosophical and theological connections between Hannah Arendt’s notion of natality and St. Augustine’s notion of freedom and human origin. Starting with St. Augustine’s meditation on the nature of human birth, the article reflects on the existential condition of being “thrown” into existence without consent. Classical Christian metaphors of shipwreck and seafaring – particularly as developed by Blaise Pascal and Hugo Rahner—are investigated. Furthermore, Arendt’s reading of Augustine’s theology, especially his insight that humanity was created as a beginning – draws an essential connection between the two thinkers. Arendt reinterprets St. Augustine’s notion as natality: the human capacity to initiate, to begin anew, and thus to act freely. It will be highlighted how Arendt, through St. Augustine, conceives freedom not as autonomy but as rooted in a divine creative act. It will be argued that for both St. Augustine and Arendt, human life is not defined by success or longevity but by the free response to existence as a gift. The cross, as a Christian symbol of apparent failure turned into salvation, is the key metaphor for this. Thus, the article offers a compelling vision of human dignity grounded in natality, action, and eschatology.
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