Fate and Will: Augustine's Revaluation of Stoic Fate in the De civitate Dei V, 8-11

The De civitate Dei V, as recent commentators have found, is a key text for us to understand Augustine's thought of human responsibility. In Augustine's time, the commonest conception of fate was astrological fatalism, that is, the position of the stars when one is born determines all things to happen. Based on many empirical facts, the bishop of Hippo completely rejects this kind of fatalism in the first seven chapters of the De civitate Dei V. However, he sees that there is another conception of fate: "there are those who use the term 'fate' to mean not the position of the stars as it is when any creature is conceived or born or begin, but the whole chain and series of causes according to which everything that happens happens." This is the Stoic definition of fate, which is looked at in V, 8-11. Because the Stoics, Augustine believes, at least attribute fate to the will of God, the difference between him and them is nothing other than a verbi controversia. Thus the Stoics, unlike the fatalists in the sense of astrology, just need to keep to their "judgment" but correct their "language." But is this controversia only verbal?