Emozioni e amore patico in Agostino

Emotions and Passionate Love in Augustine · Emotions, perturbations, impulses represent the passionate and ecstatic motives of the subject that move him either in agreement with, or independently from, or in contrast with reason. They play a decisive role in the thought of Augustine. The secret of the will, on which the orientation of reason depends, is, in Augustinine’s view, an emotional, passionate, even concupiscent secret, not only in the case of the carnal libido of the sinner, but also in the case of the holy cupiditas, moved by divine grace. The subject is thus will and reason, but as a carnal memory, moved by an emotional desire, which precedes and ignites intentionality and intelligence: this is the amor, which only the eventual and unpredictable grace of God can qualify as holy rather than as perverse. And yet, God himself is a Deus patiens, who loves the chosen one whom He converts with mercy, and abandons the sinner whom He punishes with rage.