Reinhold Niebuhr's critics rightly identify flaws in his anthropology, but
err in assuming those flaws irreparably vitiate his larger proposal. In fac
t Niebuhr's work contains two different anthropologies, one problematically
"modernist" and one Augustinian; we may use the latter to critique the for
mer within the context of his larger program, thus retaining (and indeed sh
arpening) the basic theological-ethical project of Niebuhr's work. By doing
so we move beyond Niebuhr's formulations in a way that incorporates his in
sights at the most basic level, thus showing how we might read putatively "
modernist" thinkers back into the presumptively "premodern" traditions from
which they spring.