Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine
not only that it exists, but also that it is more excellent than our reason? Would you hesitate, whatever it might be, to call it God?
E. I do not see why, if I can find something that is better than what is best in my own nature, I should say that it is God: for I do not like to call that God which to my own reason is inferior, but only Him than Whom none is higher.
A. Clearly so: for He himself has given to this reason of yours the power to feel thus reverently and truly about Him. But, I would ask, if you find nothing above our reason but what is eternal and changeless, would you hesitate to call that God? For you know that bodies are changeable; and clearly the very life that animates the body is subject to change with changing conditions; and reason itself, now striving to attain the truth and anon not striving, sometimes attaining it and again not attaining it, is clearly shown to be mutable. So, if without the use of any of the body's instruments—not touch, nor taste, nor smell, nor ears, nor eyes, nor any sense inferior to it, but by itself alone—reason discovers something eternal and immutable, and sees itself as lower, it should acknowledge that to be its God.
E. That one will I plainly acknowledge to be God, than Whom nothing is proved to be higher.
A. Well said. It will be enough then if I show that there is something of that sort, so that you will acknowledge it to be God; or if there is something higher, you will grant that that is God. So that whether there be anything higher or not, it will be proved that God exists when I shall have shown you, with His help, what I assured you was higher than reason.
E. Show me then what you promise.
CHAPTER 7 How the same thing may be perceived by many, either entire or not entire, and at the same time by different persons.
15. A. I will do so. But I would first ask whether my bodily senses are the same as yours, or whether mine are in fact mine alone; and yours, yours alone; for if this were not the case I could not see anything with my eyes which you did not see.
E. I concede fully that though they are the same in kind, we have each of us his own personal senses—sight, hearing, and all the others. For one man can not only see but hear what another does not and perceive by any other sense you will what another