Augustine on the Mystery of Christ and the Sacramental Economy of Salvation explores how one of the most influential thinkers of western Christianity, Augustine of Hippo, thinks about God's presence and activity in this world. It explores how Augustine understands God's purpose for creating the world, the value of creation, and how God brings coherence to all things by his love and mercy on display in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Contrary to interpretations that ascribe to Augustine a dualistic pattern of thought which sets inner, spiritual, and eternal over against outer, material, and temporal things, this book argues that like the parts of a speech, created things give expression for Augustine to the coherence of God's saving intentions for the world. In the sacred signs (i.e., sacraments) of creation, Scripture, and the Church, God reveals and gives himself to human persons so that by the sacrificial death and glorious resurrection of Jesus they might in turn be adopted as members of Christ and his Body, the Church.
