If Ally McBeal Explains Augustine’s City of God: Links to Environmental Law, Flora & Fauna, Landscape Design and Urban/City Planning (using Untitled Goose Game as a case study)

Intro — in the voice of a conversational legal/ethical commentator

Imagine Ally McBeal stepping to the lectern: quirky, human, keen on moral irony. She’d ask — with a half-smile — what Augustine’s very late‑antique theological treatise has to do with modern environmental law, plants and animals, and the layout of our towns. The short answer is: Augustine doesn’t give a handbook of zoning or ecology, but City of God repeatedly treats the moral ordering of human life, our relation to creation, and the aims of political community. Those themes map surprisingly well onto modern questions about environmental regulation, stewardship of flora and fauna, landscape design, and urban planning. Below I lay out the specific places in City of God to read and then apply them to a playful case study: Untitled Goose Game.

Key Augustinian passages and themes (with citations)

1. On creation and the proper reading of Genesis — Book XI (esp. ch. 1–3, 6–9): Augustine defends a theological understanding of creation and nature, insisting that the material world is created by God and ordered by divine providence. For readers concerned with environmental law, these chapters supply the theological underpinning for seeing nature as a created good with intrinsic order and purpose — a basis for stewardship rather than purely instrumental use. (Augustine, City of God, Book XI, ch. 1–9.)
2. Providence, natural order and human responsibility — Books XII–XIV: Augustine treats the place of angels, souls, and the moral ordering of creatures; he also addresses how God’s providence governs natural processes and human affairs. This invites modern reflection on how legal systems should respect ecological limits and moral duties to other living beings. (See City of God, Books XII–XIV.)
3. Critique of idolatry and misuse of nature — Books I–II, and Book IV: Augustine explains why pagan worship and the belief that temples or images protect cities was a mistake. Transposed into modern terms, this is a critique of seeing infrastructure or property as absolute protections divorced from moral practice — relevant to environmental regulation that assumes technological fixes absolve social responsibility. (City of God, Books I–IV.)
4. Order, justice, and the ends of the earthly city — Books XIX–XXII: Augustine contrasts the earthly city (ordered by self‑love, temporal goods) and the City of God (ordered by love of God and true justice). His discussion of what makes a just political community — peace, common good, proper ordering of loves and goods — is the most direct resource for thinking about urban planning goals (public safety, equitable access to green space, civic order). (City of God, Books XIX–XXII.)
5. Punishment, calamity, and causes of civic decline — Book I: Augustine attributes many civic disasters to moral corruption rather than merely physical causes. Modern planners and environmental lawyers can read this as an argument that legal and design interventions must attend to social and ethical causes, not only technical symptoms. (City of God, Book I.)

How those passages map to modern fields

Step-by-step mapping:

• Environmental law: Augustine’s emphasis on stewardship and providential ordering (Books XI–XIV) supports laws that recognize duties to conserve ecosystems, protect species, and regulate use of resources instead of treating them only as commodities.
• Flora & fauna: While Augustine rarely discusses specific species, his metaphysics of creation and his moral concern about how humans use nature mean that laws protecting animals and plants can be argued from a theological‑ethical perspective (created order + human responsibility). See Book XI on creation for theological foundation.
• Landscape design: Augustine’s notion of ordered goods and the need for environments that cultivate virtue suggests designers should shape spaces to foster communal life and moral habits (accessibility of commons, green places for contemplation and neighborly interaction). See Books XIX–XXII on what constitutes peace and ordered community.
• City planning/urban planning: Augustine’s critique of misplaced trust in walls, temples, or elites (Books I–IV) and his analysis of justice and peace in social ordering (Books XIX–XXII) argue for planning that is not merely defensive or aesthetic, but oriented to the common good, resilience, and moral formation.

Case study: Untitled Goose Game — an Augustinian reading

Untitled Goose Game stages a small village disrupted by a goose that steals, obstructs, and rewrites social interactions. Read Augustine-style, the game becomes a compact experiment in disorder, stewardship, and civic response.

1. Disordered loves and civic friction: The goose’s antics expose competing priorities — private property, public order, and playful subversion. Augustine’s City of God emphasizes that when loves are disordered (self-interest above common good), civic peace unravels (see Books XIX–XXII). Planners should design public space to channel conflict into constructive interaction (e.g., shared plazas, legible sightlines) rather than letting small mischief escalate into breakdown.
2. Flora & fauna and human–animal boundaries: The goose is both native creature and disruptive agent. Augustine’s theology of creation (Book XI) would invite laws and designs that respect animal flourishing while protecting human goods: humane controls, habitat design, and legal categories that recognize animal agency and ecological role.
3. Landscape design cues behavior: The level design in the game — fences, gates, gardens, sightlines — directly shapes what the goose and people can do. Augustine’s insistence that institutions and structures form moral habits suggests planners deliberately design spaces to foster neighborliness and reduce petty theft: visible communal gardens, shared waste points, thresholds that slow movement and encourage interaction (see Books XIX–XXII for the social ends of urban order).
4. Environmental law and commons governance: When villagers react (chase the goose, fix gates), they enact informal rules. Augustine’s critique of relying on walls or rituals alone (Books I–IV) points to the need for robust, equity‑oriented governance: bylaws for animal control, protections for wetland/green corridors, and restorative approaches when creatures cause harm.

Practical takeaways for students

• Read Augustine’s Book XI for his theology of creation (foundation for stewardship arguments).
• Read Books XIX–XXII for implications about justice, peace, and the ends of civil society relevant to planning and design goals.
• Use Books I–IV as a cautionary lens: physical defenses and technologies do not substitute for moral and institutional health.
• Apply Augustine diagnostically: ask whether laws and designs cultivate ordered loves (common good) or merely manage symptoms.

Further reading: consult a good modern translation (e.g., Augustine, City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson or the revised Penguin edition) and read the cited books/chapters above. Augustine won’t give you a zoning code, but he provides a moral grammar that helps critique and direct environmental law, ecology, and the art of shaping civic space — even if the mischief-maker is a goose.

Citations: Augustine, City of God, Books I–IV (critique of pagan protections and causes of civic disaster); Book XI (creation and providence); Books XII–XIV (order of creatures and providence); Books XIX–XXII (earthly peace, justice, and ends of the political community). Recommended modern translation: Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (Penguin Classics).