Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine
end, but persevere until we reap that which we have sown. When the human race had turned away from God and was prostrate in its sins, just as we needed a creator to be brought into being, so we needed a savior in order to revive. A just God condemned man, a merciful God liberated him. The God of Israel is he who will give power and strength to his people. Blessed be God. (Ps. 67:36) But this only the believ ive, not the scornful.
2. However, we are not to glory in the faith as in something of our own achievement. Faith is no trifle, but something great; which, if you have it, is certainly because you have received it.
beloved, why you ought to render thanks to the Lord God, lest you prove ungrateful for any of his gifts, and by reason of this ingratitude you lose what you received. It is altogether beyond me to voice adequate praise of faith, but it can be imagined by believers. But if in some degree it may be thought worthy, what can be thought more desirable than the many gifts of God than God Himself? And if we ought to acknowledge God's lesser gifts to us, how much more must we acknowledge the gift that surpasses these?
3. To God we owe our existence. What are we unless what we are is from God? But what are wood and stones unless they are from God? What more therefore are we? Wood and stones are without life, we live. Still, mere life we share with trees and shrubs. Vines, for example, are said to live. If they did not live, no one would have written: He destroyed their vineyards with hail. (Ps. 77:47) When the vine is green, it lives; when it dries, it dies. But such life is without sensation. Yet what more have we? We sense. The bodily senses are known to be fivefold. We see, we hear, we smell, we taste, even by touch our whole body distinguishes soft and hard, rough and smooth, warm and cold. Accordingly there are in us five senses. Beasts have these too. Therefore we have something more. Still, my brethren, if we reflect on these qualities of ours we have mentioned, how grateful ought we to be for them, what praise do we owe the creator for them? Yet what more do we have? Mind, reason, deliberation, which neither beasts nor birds nor fishes have. It is in this that we are made in the likeness of God. Finally, in the narrative of our creation, Scripture declares that we are not only placed ahead of the beasts but above them; that is, they are subject to us: Let us make, it says, man to our image and likeness, and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts and the whole earth, and every creeping thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen. 1:26) What is the source of