ABSTRACT
Fundamental to St. Augustine's theory of justice is his conception of the pattern of creation, sin, judgment, and restoration that he held to emerge invariably from the dialectical relationship of God and His creatures. Augustine's critique of human justice is an attractive object of study because it affords a standard by which lay and professional judges may analyze their own decisions as well as criticize those of others. In the particular case Augustine's ideas about human justice based upon the divine pattern of creation, sin, judgment and redemption, could have informed the defendant, prosecutor, jurors, and judges. The Supreme Court adopted the interpretation of the dissenter, and one passage of its opinion, squarely in the Augustinian tradition, is as follows: The contention that an injury can amount to crime only when inflicted by intention is no provincial or transient notion. The crucial problem for every human judge is to determine the nature of punishment to be pronounced on the defendant.
