While there are risks in making claims about universal social constants, the human longing for an ideal society—orderly, just, beautiful, and harmonious—seems a reasonable candidate for such a distinction. From ancient mythologies to modern experiments in urban planning, the aspiration to build a perfect community has animated the human imagination.
Psalm 87:2 captures the vision poetically: “Very excellent things are spoken of thee, O city of God.” This verse not only inspired the theological reflections of St. Augustine but also continues to resonate in a world still attempting to reconcile the tension between utopian dreams and earthly realities. I want to offer a few reflections on how Augustine’s City of God and Psalm 87 together form a compelling theological vision of human society, contrasting the transience and disarray of the earthly city with the promise and permanence of the heavenly one.
The desire to build a perfect society appears in countless historical and contemporary contexts. Walt Disney’s vision of EPCOT—an “Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow”—sought to establish a technologically advanced, orderly, and idealized human settlement. Although the original project never materialized as planned, a derivative vision found partial expression in the planned community of Celebration, Florida.
With carefully crafted aesthetics, managed services, and communal guidelines, Celebration promised harmony and order. As sociologist Andrew Ross and others observed, however, the community quickly experienced internal divisions, notably over its experimental school program. The project’s struggles illustrate the axiom voiced by Sicinius in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus: “What is the city but the people?”
This observation underscores a critical anthropological reality: cities cannot be engineered into perfection because they are composed of imperfect people. Every attempt to construct utopia is undermined by the inescapable complexities of human nature. The biblical narrative presents early examples of this tension.
The first city, built by Cain (Gen. 4:17-24), emerges not as a sign of divine blessing but as a marker of violence and alienation. Similarly, the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4) represents humanity’s collective attempt to “make a name” for itself, but the name becomes synonymous with divine judgment and dispersion. These accounts signal that the desire to build paradise on earth often stems from a misplaced trust in human capacity, a theme central to Augustine’s thought.
In De Civitate Dei, Augustine develops a profound theological anthropology by juxtaposing two cities: the earthly city (civitas terrena) and the heavenly city (civitas caelestis). Written in the aftermath of the sack of Rome in A.D. 410, Augustine’s magnum opus was a response to the growing belief that Christianity had undermined the Roman Empire. In the first ten books, Augustine critiques Roman political and religious life, arguing that the disintegration of the empire was not the result of Christianity’s influence but of Rome’s moral and spiritual decay.
Beginning with Book XI, Augustine shifts to an exposition of the heavenly city, using Psalm 87:2-3 as a theological pivot: “The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God.” This verse becomes emblematic of the divine society characterized not by human ambition but by divine grace. According to Augustine, the earthly city is driven by amor sui—self-love that leads to contempt of God—while the heavenly city is governed by amor Dei—love of God that results in contempt of self. This fundamental distinction grounds his theology of history and society.
Yet Augustine is no dualist. He does not suggest that these two cities are geographically or politically distinct. Instead, they are intermingled throughout time, and their members are known only by their loves. This coexistence is vividly captured in his interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24–30). Augustine cautions against hasty judgment or exclusion, noting that “they who today are tares, may tomorrow be wheat.” The Church, therefore, lives in a posture of hopeful patience, all the while looking for the mysterious and redemptive purposes of God.
In this respect, Psalm 87 presents a surprising and expansive vision of the city of God. In verse 4, the psalmist names traditionally hostile nations—Egypt (Rahab), Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, and Cush—as having a place within Zion. “This one was born there,” the psalm proclaims, suggesting that God’s redemptive reach transcends national, ethnic, and historical boundaries. Augustine marvels at this divine inclusion and sees in it the deep mystery of God’s providential action in history. In his Exposition on Psalm 87, he reflects on the final condition of the city: “There will be no misery … no one will meet you tormented with thirst, there will be no stranger, no sick to visit, no dead to bury.” While this description could be read as escapist idealism, it points instead to the consummation of divine justice, peace, and fellowship.
The presence of erstwhile enemies within God’s city does not negate the existence of evil, but reframes it. The human tendency to divide the world into binaries—good and evil, saved and damned, inside and outside—is challenged by a theology of grace that operates on divine rather than human categories. As such, Augustine’s vision calls Christians to a radical reimagining of their posture toward others, especially those perceived as enemies or outsiders. Membership in the city of God is not ethnically or politically determined but is grounded in the sovereign grace of God.
The key distinction between the city of God and its earthly counterparts lies in their respective foundations. Psalm 87 begins with this affirmation: “On the holy mount stands the city he founded” (v. 1). Earthly cities may be built on noble ideals—bravery, altruism, ingenuity—but these are ultimately fragile and prone to corruption. Self-love, as Augustine warns, turns virtue into vice: bravery into recklessness, altruism into self-congratulation, and ingenuity into pride.
By contrast, the city of God is built upon what is permanent, true, and beautiful: the revelation of God in Christ. The New Testament affirms this foundation repeatedly. St. Peter identifies Christ as the “living stone, rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him” (1 Pet. 2:4), and St. Paul asserts, “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 3:11). This theological foundation is not an abstraction but a person whose life, death, and resurrection inaugurate a new creation and a new citizenship.
What does it mean, then, to live as citizens of the city of God while residing in the worldly city? Augustine’s answer is both spiritual and practical. Christians are called to bear witness to the values of the heavenly city—charity, justice, peace, humility—while engaging constructively with the institutions and challenges of the world. This witness is neither escapist nor triumphalist; it is marked by hope, patience, and love.
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” This sentiment echoes both Augustine’s anthropology and the biblical testimony. The discontent we feel with worldly cities is not a flaw but a signpost pointing to our true home. Likewise, John Calvin observed that “a sense of divinity is inscribed on every heart,” suggesting that human longing for peace, justice, and belonging is itself a form of divine calling.
To live with this awareness is to channel our aspirations toward the right end: not to build heaven on earth through our efforts, but to participate in God’s redemptive work, already begun in Christ—a kingdom, a city, a new creation inaugurated when the stone was rolled away, but whose completion on the great and unending Day we still await with confidence and anticipation. It is to love Christ and his word above all things, and in so doing, to speak and embody the “glorious things” of the city of God—glorious not because they are beyond time, but because they are already breaking into time.
The Rt. Rev. Dr. Stephen Andrews is the principal and Helliwell Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Wycliffe College, University of Toronto.
