The Essential Augustine
THE WORLD OF BODIES 119 some medical men, who are called anatomists, have dissected the bodies of the dead, and sometimes even of sick persons who died under their knives, and have inhumanly pried into the secrets of the human body to learn the nature of the disease and its exact seat, and how it might be cured, yet those relations of which I speak, and which form the concord, or, as the Greeks call it, "harmony," of the whole body outside and in, as of some instrument, no one has been able to discover, because no one has been audacious enough to seek for them. But if these could be known, then even the inward parts, which seem to have no beauty, would so delight us with their exquisite fitness, as to afford a profounder satisfaction to the mind—and the eyes are but its ministers—than the obvious beauty which gratifies the eye. There are some things, too, which have such a place in the body, that they obviously serve no useful purpose, but are solely for beauty, as e.g. the teats on a man's breast, or the beard on his face; for that this is for ornament, and not for protection, is proved by the bare faces of women, who ought rather, as the weaker sex, to enjoy such a defense. If, therefore, of all those members which are exposed to our view, there is certainly not one in which beauty is sacrificed to utility, while there are some which serve no purpose but only beauty, I think it can readily be concluded that in the creation of the human body comeliness was more regarded than necessity. In truth, necessity is a transitory thing; and the time is coming when we shall enjoy one another's beauty without any lust—a condition which will specially redound to the praise of the Creator, who, as it is said in the psalm, has "put on praise and comeliness." [Ps. 103: 1]
THE PHYSICAL WORLD AND THE CHRISTIAN*
When, then, the question is asked what we are to be9. lieve in regard to religion, it is not necessary to probe into the nature of things, as was done by those whom the Greeks call physici; nor need we be in alarm lest the Christian should be ignorant of the force and number of the elements—the motion, and order, and eclipses of the heavenly bodies; the form of the heavens; the species and the natures of animals, plants, stones, fountains, rivers, mountains; about chronology and distances; the signs of coming
* Enchiridion, 9; trans. Dods.
storms; and a thousand other things which those philosophers either have found out, or think they have found out. For even these men themselves, endowed though they are with so much genius, burning with zeal, abounding in leisure, tracking some things by the aid of human conjecture, searching into others with the aids of history and experience, have not found out all things; and even their boasted discoveries are oftener mere guesses than certain knowledge. It is enough for the Christian to believe that the only cause of all created things, whether heavenly or earthly, whether visible or invisible, is the goodness of the Creator, the one true God; and that nothing exists but Himself that does not derive its existence from Him; and that He is the Trinity—to wit, the Father, and the Son begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the same Father, but one and the same Spirit of Father and Son.
VI. APPROACHING GOD THROUGH UNDERSTANDING
Augustine's thought is theocentric: all his explanations focus upon God as that on which all else depends. It is essential in the study of Augustinianism to know about God from the very beginning. One cannot bracket the problem of divine existence and go on first to study psychology, physics or history. All order, all events, all meanings, stem from God.
_ An atheistic Augustinian is an impossibility.
We have seen in our opening chapter that there are two roads to truth: that of faith and that of reason. For Augustine, God is first accepted on the basis of belief. He lived close enough to the time of Christ to feel that His life and deeds were undeniable facts of history. Never for a moment did Augustine doubt the divinity of Christ, He believed in the Holy Trinity.
He wished to understand, to see as clearly as possible, the meaning of his beliefs. That is why we find in the writings of Augustine anticipations of practically all the reasonings that have been used by later writers on natural theology. The arguments from universal consent of all men, from order in the universe, from degrees of perfection, from general awareness of moral duties—these and others are touched on by Augustine. (For detailed references, see Vega.) In many passages, Augustine speaks of physical creation's pointing to God as its Maker. Some are printed below.
Yet there is another sort of demonstration that is more peculiariy Augustinian. It is found in many of his works, but it is most strikingly expressed in the treatise On Free Choice. Our second selection here gives the meat of his reasoning, but one would have to read the whole second Book of this treatise to appreciate the full context. Essentially, Augustine says this: we start with a fact of human consciousness (I make a judgment that is eternally and immutably true, say, seven plus three equals ten); then we ask what is the ground or justification for such a judgment. He thinks that it cannot rest on any feature of bodies, for they are neither eternal nor immutable. But this judgment is. Nor can it be grounded on man's soul: the soul is not eternal, nor is it wholly immutable. There must then be some reality above the soul which will guarantee, account for, the eternity and immutable truth of such judgments. This eternal and immutable being, higher than the soul, either is God—or, if there be a still higher being, then He is God. This is the structure of the Augustinian argument.
Two things should be observed concerning it. The thinking starts from conscious experience and not from the physical world. Augustine considers the mental to be at once more teal than the physical and nearer to God; hence, the mind is a superior point of departure for his argument. In the second place, this "demonstration" is not an exercise in logic; rather, it is one person taking another person by the hand and guiding him so that he may eventually see God for himself. Human reason needs to be exercised and directed (in this a human teacher may help), but, in the final analysis, my reason must see for itself. No other person can see for me; no other person can will or understand for me. To grasp a truth is a highly personal experience. Augustine's argument is not intended to substitute for that experience but to lead to it. In the long run, one either sees that God is—or one does not. The second part of the alternative seems almost incredible to Augustine: that a thinking person could fail to understand that there must be a highest Truth, Beauty, Goodness.
As to what God is, what sort of nature is divine, Augustine knows that this question cannot be answered by man. Two of our selections, from The Trinity, speak of the difficulties in thinking and speaking of God. Augustine worked out a list of many important divine attributes (The Trinity, Books VI-VII) and concluded that "Wisdom" is one of the best names for God. There is still another name which Augustine read in the old Latin version of the Psalms and which he considers to be peculiarly appropriate to God. This is the "Selfsame" (Idipsum), an expression of transcendent selfidentity which is beyond explanation. The third from last selection, below, is a good example of the rapturous way in which Augustine treats this divine name.
The last brief passage ("Late Have I Loved Thee") is very important to this chapter. It reminds us that Augustine's approach to God is by no means purely cognitive. Augustinanism is a matter of love and feeling, perhaps more than it is of