Будем изучать Августина ? :)

Но для начала, снова Амфитеатров :)

" Августин вертится все в тех же примерах и анекдотах, с которыминападал на звездную науку ещё Карнеад. Разница - разве, что в пресловутом аргументе близнецов место Диоскуров теперь занимают Исав и Иаков"

А теперь слово Августину. Его объяснение звезды магов - замечательный пример христианской теологии.

We, too, deny the influence of the stars upon the birth of any man; for we maintain that, by the just law of God, the free-will of man, which chooses good or evil, is under no constraint of necessity. How much less do we subject to any constellation the incarnation of the eternal Creator and Lord of all! When Christ was born after the flesh, the star which the Magi saw had no power as governing, but attended as a witness. Instead of assuming control over Him, it acknowledged Him by the homage it did. Besides, this star was not one of those which from the beginning of the world continue in the course ordained by the Creator. Along with the new birth from the Virgin appeared a new star, which served as a guide to the Magi who were themselves seeking for Christ; for it went before them till they reached the place where they found the Word of God in the form of a child. But what astrologer ever thought of making a star leave its course, and come down to the child that is born, as they imagine, under it? They think that the stars affect the birth, not that the birth changes the course of the stars; so, if the star in the Gospel was one of those heavenly bodies, how could it determine Christ’s action, when it was compelled to change its own action at Christ’s birth? But if, as is more likely, a star which did not exist before appeared to point out Christ, it was the effect of Christ’s birth, and not the cause of it. Christ was not born because the star was there; but the star was there because Christ was born. If there was any fate, it was in the birth, and not in the star. The word fate is derived from a word which means to speak; and since Christ is the Word of God by which all things were spoken before they were, the conjunction of stars is not the fate of Christ, but Christ is the fate of the stars. The same will that made the heavens took our earthly nature. The same power that ruled the stars laid down His life and took it again.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf104.iv.ix.iv.html

Вот именно. Хотя, казалось бы, как и сравнивать рождение Христа с рождением простого смертного? :-)

И да, фундаментальный аргумент со свободой воли - это именно Августин. Угу.