Sua queda é sua dignidade: Eric Weil e Agostinho sobre a “felix culpa”

Abstract

This paper proposes an approximation between the Augustinian conception of original sin and the Weilian conception of the attitude of faith in the category of God of his Logic of philosophy. In the Latin tradition, Augustine, who is mistakenly attributed the formula "felix culpa", is at the origin of a conception of original sin that will be determinant in the conception of human being of Christian anthropology and morality. In Eric Weil's (1904-1977) Logic of Philosophy, in the exposition of the attitude of faith that corresponds to the philosophical category of God, the expression "his fall is his dignity" seems to echo the supposedly Augustinian formula. The present reflection starts from the thesis that the Weilian reading of Saint Augustine underlies the formulation of the category of God of the Logic of philosophy, which means that Augustine provided Weil a adequately formulation of the attitude of the believer. The article maintains that the fundamental lines of the conception of human being underlying the attitude of faith in the Weilian Logic agree with the Augustinian anthropological conception deriving from its theology of the original sin. Finally, the text suggests that the Augustinian anthropological conception underlines also the Weilian conception of the human being as finite and free, clearly inspired by Kant.