Introduction to the Philosophy of Saint Augustine (continued)
CHAPTER 14 Truth is possessed with security. But no one is secure in those things which he can lose against his will. No one unwilling, however, loses truth and wisdom. For one cannot be separated from it by occasions, but what is called separation from truth and wisdom is a perverse will, by which inferior things are chosen; but no one wills anything unwillingly. We have therefore that which all may enjoy in common; there are no difficulties and no defects in it. It takes to itself all lovers, with none the least envious, and is common to all and chaste to each. No one says to another: Move back, that I too may draw near; remove your hands, that I too may embrace. All cling to it; all touch the thing itself. No portion of its food is torn away; you drink naught of it that I cannot drink: for by that common participation in it you do not convert anything to your private possession; but what you take from it remains whole for me. I do not wait for what is inspired by it; for naught of it is at any time made the property of any one, or of a few, but the whole is at one time common to all.
38. Less like this truth therefore are those things that we touch or taste or smell; and more like it, those that we see and hear; because every word is heard entire by all those by whom it is heard and heard entire by each at the same time, and every visible object that is before the eyes is seen at the same time as much by one as by another. But even these are like it at a great remove; for not all of any voice sounds at one time, but some of it sounds earlier and some later; and every visible object swells out, so to speak, through space and is not everywhere whole. And assuredly all of these are taken from us despite our will, and difficulties of one sort or another stand in the way of our enjoying them. For even if the sweet singing of someone should last forever, and people vied with one another to listen to it, they would crowd together and fight for places, there would be such a multitude, that each might be nearer the singer; and in hearing they would hold nothing that would remain with them but would be touched by sounds that all vanish. Moreover, if I wished to look at the sun and could do so persistently, it would desert me in its setting or when veiled by a cloud, and by many other obstacles would I lose unwillingly the pleasure of seeing it. Finally, even were this sweetness of seeing light and hearing voices ever present to me, it were no great thing, seeing that it would be common to me and to the brutes. But 'the beauty of truth and wisdom, so long as there is a steadfast will to enjoy it, does not shut off comers by the thronged multitude of listeners, nor does it play through time nor wander to places, nor is it interrupted by night or shut off by shadows, nor is it subject to the senses of the body. To those who from the whole world have turned to it for their delight, it is very near to all, to all everlasting; it is in no place, it is never away; it admonishes openly; it teaches inwardly; it changes all who see it to better, by none is it changed to worse; no one judges of it, without it no one judges well. And from this it is manifest beyond doubt that it is superior to our minds, which are each made wise by it; and of it you may not judge, but through it you may judge all things else.
CHAPTER 15 That God exists is shown fully by reason and is now certainly known. 39. You conceded, however, that if I should show you something higher than our minds, you would confess that it is God, if there were nothing yet higher. Accepting this concession of yours I said that it would be enough if I should prove this. For if there is something yet more excellent than truth, that rather is God; but if not, then truth itself is God. Whether therefore there is this more excellent thing, or whether there is not, you cannot deny that God is, which was the question set for our discussion and treatment. For if you are disturbed by what we have received in faith from the sacred teaching of Christ, that God is the Father of Wisdom, remember that we have also accepted in faith that equal to the eternal Father is the Wisdom begotten of Him. Wherefore nothing more need be asked but only held with steadfast faith. For God is; and He is truly and supremely. This, I think, we not only hold now undoubted by faith but know also by a sure albeit still rather tenuous form of knowledge; which for the question in hand is enough to explain the other things that pertain to the matter. Unless, that is, you have something to say in objection.
E. Nay, I accept these things, and am completely filled with an incredible joy, which I cannot express in words, and I cry out that they are most sure. I cry out moreover with an inner voice by which I wish to be heard by truth itself and to cleave to it, because I concede it to be not only good but the supreme good and the maker of happiness.
A. Rightly so; and I too rejoice greatly. But I would ask whether we are now wise and happy, or whether we as yet only incline that way, sO that it may come forth and be ours?
E. I think rather that we incline to it.
A. Whence then do you understand these things, at whose certainty and truth you cried our that you rejoiced? And do you grant that they pertain to wisdom? Or is any fool able to know wisdom?
E. So long as he is a fool he cannot.
A. You, then are wise; or else you do not know wisdom.
E. I am certainly not yet wise, but neither would I call myself a fool insofar as I know wisdom; since these things which I know are certain, and I cannot deny that they pertain to wisdom.
A. Tell me, pray, will you not admit that he who is not just is unjust, and he who is not prudent is imprudent, and he who is not temperate is intemperate? Can there be any doubt as to this?
E. I admit that when a man is not just he is unjust; and would give the same reply as to the prudent and temperate man.
A. Why, then, when he is not wise, is he not foolish?
E. I admit that too: when one is not wise, he is a fool.
A. Well then, which of these are you?
E. Whichever you call me; I should not dare to call myself wise, and I see that it follows from those things that I conceded, that I should not hesitate to say I am a fool.
A. Therefore the fool knows wisdom. For he would not be sure, as we said just now is the case, that he wished to be wise, and that he ought to wish it, if there were not inherent in his mind a notion of wisdom as having to do with those matters concerning which you answered when asked about them separately, and which pertain to wisdom, and in the knowledge of which you rejoiced. E. It is as you say. hob ob
THE AUGUSTINIAN PSYCHOLOGY hh oh les: 143 was written in 412 to Marcellinus, a special legate of the Emperor Honorious, appointed to adjudicate the dispute between Catholics and Donatists. The letter raises certain issues regarding the origin of the soul. Augustine notes four possible theories regarding the origin of the soul. It may be contended, he argues, that all souls are generated from Adam or that each soul is" created. On the latter supposition it is possible to hold that each soul is created at the moment that it is united with the body, that all souls are created by God at the beginning of the world and then united with the body because of sin, and finally that all souls are created by God at the beginning of the world and then are sent out successively to the bodies at birth. Any theory of special creation raises difficulties regarding the transmission of original sin, and the theory that all souls were generated in Adam has materialistic implications. Augustine reached no definitive solution of this problem, and although he apparently favored a view of the special creation of the soul at birth, he remained uncertain. In 426 he wrote in the Retractions: "I did not know then and I still do not know." (I, 1, 3)
The dialogue with Evodius on The Greatness of the Soul was written in Rome either in 387 or 388. It is primarily a discussion of the nature of the soul in which Augustine is concerned to show that the powers of the soul reveal its spirituality, that the nature of the soul is incompatible with any conception of physical quantity or magnitude, that. extension cannot be an attribute of the soul. The spirituality or incorporeality of the soul is exemplified in its definition and particularly in the analysis of sensation in which sensation is revealed as an activity of the soul rather than of the body. The last several pages of the selection further exemplify the powers of the soul and its spirituality by noting the several stages in the progress of the soul to God as Unchanging Wisdom. These stages of the soul—which were influential in the development of medieval mysticism—find their complement in the brief selection from the treatise Christian Doctrine. This exegetical treatise is devoted largely to an interpretation of the Bible as the source for Christian doctrine. The greater part of the treatise was written after 397 and it was not completed until 426.
Further material on the nature of the soul, particularly on the meanings of such terms as 'soul,' 'spirit,' 'intellect,' and 'mind' will be found in the selection from The Literal Meaning of Genesis in section four dealing with the problem of knowledge.
The brief selection from Letter 137 written to Volusian in 412 exemplifies the problem of the unity of soul and body in man by drawing an analogy between such a union and that of God and man in the Incarnation. A belief in the latter offers less difficulty, Augustine maintains, because it is a union of one immaterial substance with another, than a belief in the union of soul and body (which involves a union of a material substance—the body—with an immaterial substance—the soul). Hence if we can accept the former belief, then we should be able to accept the latter belief.
The Trinity was written between 400 and 416 and in the opinion of many Augustinian scholars is one of the most profound and original works of Augustine. A masterly treatise on the theology of the Trinity, it also contains a wealth of material on a variety of topics, both philosophical and theological, that arise out of Augustine's exemplification of the mystery of the Trinity. The brief selection we have included here touches on the immortality of the soul and represents the more mature view of Augustine on this subject. It emphasizes that immortality is more a matter of faith" than of reason. True beatitude depends on our faith in immortality rather than in philosophical argumentation. Augustine had written an earlier essay entitled The Immortality of the Soul in which he had restated some of the arguments from Plato's Phaedo: for example, the contention that since the essence of the soul is to live, then its contrary, which is death, cannot be admitted. To such an argument Augustine added the Christian conception of God as having created and conserved the soul in existence. The essay is rather ineffective and Augustine himself did not approve of it. He remarked of it in the Retractions: 'It is so obscure that it is tiresome even to my reading, and it is with difficulty that it is intelligible to mel? (1, 5;1) For an account of the soul as an image of the Blessed Trinity, a favorite theme of Augustine's and one highly popular in the Middle Ages, the reader is referred to the selection from Book IX of The Trinity in the topic on the Problem of Knowledge.
ETTER 143 *& 3. Cicero, the prince of Roman orators, says of some one, "He never uttered a word which he would wish to recall." This commendation, though it seems to be the highest possible, is nevertheless more likely to be true of a consummate fool than of a man perfectly wise; for it is true of idiots that the more absurd and foolish they are, and the more their opinions diverge from those universally held, the more likely they are to utter no word which they will wish to recall; for to regret an evil or foolish or ill-timed word is characteristic of a wise man. If, however, the words quoted are taken in a good sense, as intended to make us believe that some one was such that, by reason of his speaking all things wisely, he never uttered any word which he would wish to recall, this we are, in accordance with sound piety, to believe rather concerning men of God, who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, than concerning the man whom Cicero commends. For my part, so far am I from this excellence that if I have uttered no word which I would wish to recall, it must be because I resemble more the idiot than the wise man. The man whose writings are most worthy of the highest authority is he who has uttered no word, I do not say which it would be his desire, but which it would be his duty to recall. Let him that has not attained to this occupy the second rank through his humility, since he cannot take the first rank through his wisdom. Since he has been unable, with all his care, to exclude every expression whose use may be justly regretted, let him acknowledge his regret for anything which, as he may now have discovered, ought not to have been said.