On St. Augustine's Theory Of State Origin

"How to live in this evil world?"As a godfather rather than a theorist, St. Augustine responses with a set of political theology. But later scholars deduce different even opposite views about whether Augustine takes negative or positive political ideas. That is because they held different concepts and analysis frameworks all of which can't communicate theology with politics.Using a new concept of "the state of separation" and a new chain of "will-sin-separation-state", this paper sums up Augustine's description on the origin of state in his City of God as that: the set of will and sin provides a theological foundation for the origin of state, the state of separation links this theological foundation and state's political character. As a result, state originates from the state of separation. This conclusion just decides lots of Christian traditions, such as what is state's power or how to treat state. At the same time, it appropriately joins Augustine's theological realm with political realm.Augustine's political theology profoundly impacts later theory and practice. This paper selects the problem of state's origin to cut into Augustine's political theology, draws political inference from assumption of human nature, and finally finds that state originates from the state of separation. These achievements overcome the limitation of other studies on Augustine and cover his whole political theology to some extent, so that show his special meaning in thought history.