Augustine and life as a trial

 

Isn't life on earth a trial? (Job: 7:1)

Trial as an aspect of life as a journey

In an earlier article, I tried to describe how Augustine sees life as a journey. There are many aspects to this journey. But I would like to deal with one of them in more detail, and that is the journey as a trial. The beginning of the journey is, of course, the fact that one has been thrown into life without any initiative and has to search for meaning and purpose. For Augustine, that goal is clear. The journey must go to the homeland from which one departed. It is a return to that lost unity of complete being in God. But not every traveler has that goal in mind.

The perspective as Augustine sees it is not immediately obvious either. While most travelers are happy to have found a place somewhere on this globe where they can settle down and find peace, for Augustine the purpose of the journey is, to use an image of the poet Achterberg, beyond the last city. That journey will be an arduous journey full of obstacles and temptations, testing the traveler. Augustine compares himself to Ulysses, who did not let the charming song of the Sirens and the sweet forgetfulness of the Lotus-eaters stop him from continuing his journey.

 Enjoying and using

Hence his exhortation to uphold morality, i.e. that the traveler must always remain aware of his final goal and not lose himself in any subordinate goal. In this context, it is also possible to understand his ethical principle of using the world  and not enjoying it as a final goal. Such a view is at odds with the common view that we should enjoy here and now as much as possible. In this case, enjoyment becomes an goal in itself and the ultimate meaning of life, regardless of the nature of what one enjoys.

Enjoyment has its limits

However, enjoying the world as a final goal has its limits. Thus, everything one would like to enjoy is subject to transience. Nothing remains what it was. The one who has placed all his hope in what is perishable also binds himself to impermanence. And what to do with that ineradicable unrest that always arises once one possesses what one wanted to enjoy? Human desire proves difficult to satisfy, because it essentially strives for a transitory fulfillment. That is the philosophy of Augustine. I don't think she's ready to age yet.

The philosophy of enjoyment presupposes that the traveller can control his life and determine his path to the last. But what is the case when the enjoyment comes to an end because of accidents that are beyond his control and that inevitably happen to him? Is his journey still meaningful and does he have the courage to continue?

 What is the meaning of  trials in life?

While reading the tenth book of Augustine's Confessions, I came across a chapter that posed questions for me. In it he asks the question twice: Isn't life on earth a constant trial? With this he quotes the book of Job, in which he calls Yahweh to account for all the disasters that befall him and asks about the meaning of something he feels is unreasonable and unjust. This question becomes a rhetorical question in the context in which Augustine speaks. This means that the burden of the arguments he puts forward makes it difficult for the reader to do otherwise than answer the question in the affirmative: Yes, life is one big trial.

I reproduce his reasoning here:

 Is not our life on earth a period of trial?

 For who would wish for hardship and difficulty?

Your command is to endure these troubles, not to love them. No one loves what he endures, even though he loves that he can endure it. For though he may rejoice in his power of endurance, he would prefer that there would be nothing for him to endure.

When I am in trouble I long for good fortune, and when I have good fortune, I fear to lose it. Is there any middle state between prosperity and adversity, in which human life is not a trial?

Miserable is the prosperity of this world, not once, but twice, because of the fear of misfortune and the fragility of happiness.

Miserable is the adversity of this world, not once or twice, but thrice, because of the desire for prosperity, the heaviness of adversity, and the fear that one will not endure.

Is not man's life on earth one long uninterrupted trial?

(Confessions, Book X, Chapter 39)

 You have to conclude that Augustine paints life here in the darkest colors. For better or for worse, it appears to be tainted by worry and sorrow, an observation that is difficult to accept and with which we do not get along well in this day and age. But in a broader perspective, there is not much to argue against. Augustine describes earthly life in contrast to the full life he expects as a traveller and whose light he briefly has experienced from afar. In the perspective of the perfect happiness he expects, all earthly happiness becomes relative and colored by transience. That's why he begins this chapter like this:

 When I am finally united with You with all my being, there will be no more misery and pain for me anywhere. And my life will be completely filled with You.

 Of course, in addition to misery and setbacks, there is a lot of beauty and good to experience in life. The quoted excerpt does not rule that out at all. It also does not exclude the enjoyment of the good and the beautiful. But here is an overall picture of human existence. It is an existence that fundamentally suffers from a lack that cannot be compensated for in this life, no matter how much every human being strives for it.

What does the concept of trial mean?

Therefore, I want to find out what Augustine means by trial ( in Latin: temptatio) as the ultimate qualification of life. He borrows the term from the Bible, namely the book of Job 7: 1. That book is written in Hebrew. Curiously, the term does not simply mean trial, but is an equivalent of the existence of slavery or the existence of a day laborer. In the Greek translation from the Hebrew, on which Augustine's Latin translation is also based, that term is translated by trial, temptatio In my opinion, this is a happy interpretation of the more unambiguous slave existence. The term trial refers to two aspects. It is used for a severe torment that one undergoes, but also for the fact that one is tested by it.

 I would like to continue on this last aspect, because this aspect of the test could give some meaning to a journey that otherwise turns out to be meaningless in many respects, if only because of the randomness and disproportionality of what can happen to the traveler. For Augustine, in view of the above text, it is clear that the misery and problems of life are part of God's system. They turn out to be an inevitable factor in life, from which the traveller cannot escape. Hence God's command to endure them. In this fragment, however, man does not appear to be a masochist, who loves misery and problems. God, on the other hand, is not a sadist, who would love to hurt people. Rather, he encourages them to persevere on the journey so that they can achieve their goal.

The order of things

In his dialogue On Order,  Augustine tries to find out the function of evil in the world. By this he means, on the one hand, all the calamities that we have to expect from our dependence on nature. But also the evil and pain that people inflict on each other and on themselves: It is obvious to hold God as creator responsible for all those disasters that befall people and on that basis to doubt his credibility. But that turns out to be too quick a conclusion for Augustine. He argues that man, because of his limited view, cannot oversee the whole of the order of creation. He compares it to someone who considers a small part of a large mosaic and judges on the basis of that one observation that the artist has produced an unsound work, as a result of which he himself is no longer credible. To refute this, he compares creation to a painting in which the artist had to use dark tones as well as light ones.

 Evil is an essential part of the journey

With the latter, Augustine establishes that evil is an essential and indispensable part of this earthly system. The good in this world cannot exist without evil. This makes it plausible that evil must have a function and a meaning. Because let's assume the opposite. What is the meaning of the journey, if the traveler would only meet the good and go his way on a completely paved path without any obstacle? Suppose that everything on that road could be fully foreseen and controlled. What is the point of such a journey without any challenge and without any risk and adventure? The traveller must come to the conclusion that his journey is hardly worthwhile and that there is therefore no point in undertaking it.

 In the quoted text, there are two sides to the traveler's attitude to the trials he encounters. It goes without saying that he does not seek misery and trials, but once they have come his way, he is pleased that he has been able to face them. It seems to be human nature that he wants to move forward despite the obstacles he faces. Or shouldn't you rather say that he can get ahead thanks to the misery and problems he manages to overcome?

 Trials help the traveler move forward

What is the positive impact that trials can have on life? In Augustine's philosophy, they can bring man to the growing awareness of the limitation and transience of all his earthly goals. This can lead him to understand that he should not pledge his whole heart to it. It can evoke in him the memory of the imperishable goal of which his heart speaks, the realization that he is on his way to the homeland, where his origin lies.

The confrontation with misery and problems does not necessarily have to lead to bitterness or disbelief. It can wake people up with the question whether they have not attached themselves too much to things that have no lasting value and that it is better to attach themselves to more permanent ones. It will be able to make them realize that problems are an essential part of the journey and that the confrontation with them can enrich them inwardly despite all the damages.

The journey is a process of growth

When you see life as a process of growth, it turns out that this growth is largely promoted by overcoming problems. From this perspective, it is understandable that the traveler must be tested again and again if he wants to move forward. Apparently, such a thing is ingrained in existence. Therefore, the attempt to keep children free from all obstacles from an early age usually does not lead to their happiness, on the contrary.

 Of course, this does not mean that trials should be sought just to prove that one can handle them. But you can't avoid them. They come your way naturally and unwillingly. Augustine's formulation is clear on this:

Your task is to endure them, not to love them. No man loves what he has to endure, even though he loves that he can endure it. And though he is glad to be able to endure it, he would rather he had nothing to endure.

This joy that one can endure trials lies not so much in their merits, but more in the fact that the traveler repents and realizes what life is all about. That is to say, he progresses on the path in which he must become what he is, someone who is increasingly imbued with the destiny of which Augustine speaks:

When I am finally united with You with all my being, there will be no more misery and pain for me anywhere. And my life will be completely filled with You.

 

Augustine and the dialogue about the order of all things

 

Beforehand

For a long time I intended to give attention to this subject of the order of  all things. It is a theme that in Augustine's thought forms the basis of his philosophy of life and spirituality.

I believe that it is also an issue that is still topical. Gradually, the subject turned out to be too extensive to cover in one article. That is why I will initially confine myself to his dialogue about The Order. In doing so, I broadly follow the translation by Cornelis Verhoeven and, where necessary, the original text.

The reason

The Dialogue on the Order is written by Augustine shortly after his conversion, in late 386 and early 387. At that time he had just given up his profession as a teacher of rhetoric, partly for reasons of health, but also in order to devote himself entirely to philosophy. To this end, he was offered the opportunity to work on a Cassiciacum estate near Milan, owned by a close friend

 He has not completely turned his back to his teaching. This is evident from the fact that he immediately surrounds himself with a number of young people whom he wants to initiate into what he has found to be true philosophy. The fact that he gave up his profession of rhetoric after his conversion does not mean that he renounced rhetoric as one of the liberal arts. The opposite is more true.

The seven liberal arts

Augustine considered rhetoric, along with the other liberal arts,  seven in number, to be very useful for the knowledge of philosophy, but also as an important source for knowing God. He was convinced that not only following the Biblical revelation, but also reflecting on the order of the universe, can lead man to God.

Of the liberal arts or sciences of the time, three were concerned with the order that comes about through the word, viz. Grammar, rhetoric and dialectics, the latter of which we now call logic, the art of developing a train of thought. The other four had as their subject the order that comes about through the number, namely: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and finally music, a subject that we would now call the theory of harmony. Basically, all these subjects were always about the search for unity.

 The importance of science

Because of the importance of these sciences for the faith, he conceived the plan between his conversion and his baptism to compile a kind of encyclopaedia, in which the entire content of the classical ideal of formation would be included in his newly acquired Christian vision. But because he was called to the office of bishop in 391, only a few years later, this scientific project only got off the ground partially. The dialogue on order is one of the few remaining parts of it.

 The name liberal arts already indicates that this was a different concept of science than the one we know today. If science is now practiced primarily for its practical usefulness, it was then also directed to a higher purpose, namely to give insight into the beauty of what one studied. The liberal arts opened up the  world as a work of art.

For Augustine, this knowledge provided the opportunity to ascend from the beauty of these material subjects to their immaterial background. They helped him determine that in the universe, everything from the lowest to the highest was ordered and obeyed precise laws. This covered the whole area between the cycle of the planets and the wondrous organism of a flea.  This coherence and order in the universe had logically to lead to the conclusion that everything had one cause, one undivided principle of order.

The question of order turns out to be complex

One wonders why Augustine immediately brought up this subject with his newly recruited pupils. For beginners in philosophy, this is a complex subject and the rest of the dialogue shows that they quickly lose track and that Augustine has to intervene. In fact, therefore, the last part of the dialogue culminates in one long monologue by Augustine. From this it may be inferred that he himself considered the order of things to be a subject of primary importance, a basic concept on which all his philosophy and ethics were built.

 What made the subject so complex was the fact that in this ordered whole there were negative elements that seemingly contradicted a perfect order, such as the evil in the world and the suffering from it. From this you could conclude that God, as the maker, would not have everything in control and that chance and chaos would have come to dominate. Or otherwise that committing evil would have been willed by God. That would in either case undermine faith in a good and just God.

 The dialogue about order is a theodicea

The dialogue on order, therefore, is intended to combat any doubt as to whether God is the superior principle of the universe. Such a scripture that is supposed to justify God is called a theodicea. It turns out that there was a need to answer this problem. The dialogue begins with a message to a friend, a certain Zenobius, whom Augustine had asked in poetry to clarify the problem of evil in the world.

To his friend, he argues that doubters of the perfect beauty of the universe are like people who look at only one small part of a mosaic floor and, on the basis of this limited perception, reproach the maker for not having an understanding of order and composition.

This argument assumes that man, from his limited position in time and space, is incapable of overseeing and appreciating the whole and beauty of the universe. This means that it is premature to make a definitive judgement on something that is only partially known.

 Order as a work of art

It is remarkable that here the universe is compared to a work of art. For Augustine, however, who repeatedly refers to God as beauty, this view is obvious, because beauty can only produce beauty. In that case, the concept of beauty must be revised, because how can one call the universe beautiful when it is clear to everyone that there is much bad and ugly in it?

 To explain this, Augustine compares the current universe to a large painting in which the creator uses dark tones as well as light tones. This comparison implies that in the present constellation, evil is a necessary element to carry out the maker's plan. Good and evil here form a unity of opposites. Good would not have its value if evil were not opposed to it.

How do you gain insight into the order?

But if man, in view of his limited position in time and place, does not succeed in seeing the total plan, in which evil is also necessary, he will either lose faith in it or resign himself in good faith to the fact that this order remains hidden from him.

Augustine, however, chooses a different path. The mere belief that this hidden order will one day be revealed is not enough for him. He also believes that man should, as far as possible, strive to gain insight into this hidden order.

 According to Augustine, the main reason why man does not succeed in this is that he is a stranger to himself. In order to gain insight into the order of things, it is necessary to leave the sensory world and turn inward. In contrast to the habit of focusing on what is outside, it is a matter of concentrating inwardly and forcing oneself to remain in that center, away from the multitude of impressions and opinions that can scatter. That is the condition for focusing on the one.

After all, the word universe means unity-oriented. It is derived from the Latin unum and versus. Such a concept presupposes a certain hierarchical order from top to bottom, with a point of unity as the extreme. Augustine compares the constellation of the universe to its center to that of a circle, where each point or segment has its position and relationship to that one center. And although all the parts possess a certain unity, they derive their existence only from that center. The essence of this relationship therefore also applies to human beings. If he wants to understand the order of things, he must seek that center and find that unity within himself.

The philosophy of Plotinus

All this is very much related to the philosophy of Plotinus, whose writings in a Latin adaptation of Marius Victorinus were also read in the meetings at Cassiciacum. According to Plotinus, the whole of reality originated from one primordial unity, which he calls the One, called in Greek ἕν, which philosophically denotes perfect being. People and things are in matter fanned out in a multitude of beings, but their destiny is to return to their original unity, that is, the immaterial being. For Augustine, the perfect unity that Plotinus speaks of coincides with the God of whom the Bible speaks. Hence, he seeks God in the order of things, which is seen as a reflection of God's perfect unity.

 To understand more of this order, Augustine mentions, as already said, the practice of the free sciences. These can contribute to more philosophical insight. This study of the liberal sciences ultimately served to come to the realization of a transcendent order that underlies those areas. Augustine's educational goal was to bring his disciples from these material areas to the realization of an immaterial spiritual area, to metaphysics so to speak.

 Closely related to this was also the introspection in oneself necessary. Those who got to know themselves also got to know their origins and vice versa. Augustine had elaborated this in his  Soliloquia. It was about knowing the soul and god as the ultimate perspective of the soul.

 It is not my intention to follow the whole content of the dialogue very closely. In the long run, the young participants can do little more than turn around the problem of evil in the order, creating a kind of stalemate. That is why Augustine finally decides to take the word himself and continue the discussion at a higher level.

 The Way of Authority and the Way of Reason

He then distinguishes between two ways to gain insight into the divine order: the way of authority and the way of reason. These paths are not separate, but complementary. If one is inexperienced, the way of authority will be the way to go. That authority is based on the experience of exemplary individuals, who have studied God and the soul thoroughly. In their souls the eternal divine law is, as it were, impressed.

Although the path of authority is the way of most believers, Augustine also sees the way of reason as a higher value for understanding. Hence his emphasis on study and turning inward.

The Function of Reason

He formulates reason, in Latin ratio, as follows: it is the movement of the mind by which we are able to discern and connect in everything we learn. This formulation is rather general, and Augustine will discuss it in more detail in the sequel. In any case, the unifying power of reason shows that in the multiplicity of phenomena it is looking for unity and therefore for order. If you start from the above definition, it turns out that reason is a faculty that is always in the process of ordering. It separates what it observes and connects it into a unity with what has already been observed.

Augustine attributes the fact that few come to the understanding of the divine order along this path of reason to the fact that most people, once they have stepped outside themselves and engaged within the material world, find it difficult to return to their inner selves. Although they think they are arranging everything according to reason, they hardly know what reason is and what its nature is. That may be surprising, he says, but it is true.

The study of the seven liberal arts, therefore, should help to understand the true ordering nature of reason. Augustine realizes, however, that this kind of study is not for everyone. This understanding can also be obtained in a more intuitive way. He takes his mother Monica, who had little schooling, as an example. At the very least, however, the question of unity must be asked and the strength of unity recognized.

 In fact, the liberal arts come to the same realization in a different way. Whether you take the sciences of language or the sciences of numbers, it will eventually turn out that their underlying structure can be traced back to numerical relationships.

It is good to realize that the word ratio, which is translated into English as reason, originally means calculus, calculation. Derived from this,  reason has become the ability to reason, the instrument for building up a frame of mind, and more particularly the ability to reduce something to numerical relations.

Reason and number

Even more than the word, which is to some extent tied to matter, Augustine sees number as eternal and divine. After all, the number is not determined by time and space. The sum of one plus one always and everywhere remains two. The awareness of numbers does not come from our counting, but our counting becomes possible from this innate awareness of the unit of numbers.

That is why Augustine comes to the conclusion that reason is nothing but a number and therefore has a timeless and immortal character. After all, reason was not more true yesterday than it is today, and even if the world were to collapse, it is impossible that reason would no longer apply.

Reason naturally seeks unity

Reason, then, is the principle of unity, which is very hidden in the spirit. It is a dynamic faculty that seeks pure unity in everything. In doing so, it distinguishes and weighs the extent to which things correspond to that perfect unity and the extent to which they must be incorporated into a newer, higher unity. Hence its connecting character.

 In her search she will not rest until she has found perfect unity. However, that unity will never be found in the material world. She will always find imperfect reflections there. Only when it transcends all material things and comes to introspection will it be able to find the source of unity.

Reason is immortal and therefore seeks God's perfect beauty

It becomes clear that Augustine sees reason as the immortal part in man, the faculty by which the soul can ascend from the lower to the higher, from the mortal to the immortal. The introspection will lead to the soul being able to develop order and beauty within itself as well. Only then does she qualify herself to behold God's beauty.

Once the soul has perceived something of that perfect divine order and beauty, she will be less disturbed by the vicissitudes that befall her in the place where she stands. She'll know that nothing can happen that isn't with God.

In God's order, every part matters

Even today, the soul is determined by the limitations of time and space. From this it will have to conclude that it has an overview of only a part of it and that the whole of which it is part has a greater value.  But she will also discover that her part in that order fits wonderfully. For in God's order, as Augustine concludes, each part is as beautiful and perfect as the whole.

 

Augustine and the order of love

 

In a previous article I dealt with the theme of the order of things. My assumption was that the order of everything is an important foundation in Augustine's thought. In that article, I limited myself to his dialogue on order, in which the main concern was  to establish an objective order in the universe. What follows is more about the subjective side of that order. Augustine calls it the Ordo Amoris, the Order of Love. The issue here is how, according to Augustine, one should fit into that given order. In other words, how should the traveler in this world arrange his affections? What values does he hold himself to? So these are questions about ethics, the art of a good life.

 The Order of Desire

 In the question of how to present this subjective order, I was struck by a statement by the English writer C.S. Lewis, who in my opinion expressed well what also moved Augustine:

When I find in myself a desire that cannot be fulfilled by any experience in this world, then the most obvious explanation is that I am made for another world.

There is a certain logic in this statement. If nothing in this material world can fulfill our desire, then we are destined for a world that transcends the present and where that fulfillment can be achieved. It is not the logic of physical science, but that of the heart. It is based on introspection, on an inner awareness that the human heart is too big to find complete satisfaction in this world. This means that there must be a broader world order that meets these aspirations.

Once you accept this world order, the perspective for the traveler in this world becomes considerably broader. The desires of each day lose their absolute character and become relative to that realm which will eventually fulfill all desires. Man is then not only destined to dwell in this world, but life is a journey to that homeland, which is at the same time the origin and the completion of that desire.

 If the world is so ordered, then it is natural that man, if he wants to reach his destiny, must fit into this order and act accordingly. The remarkable thing, however, is that he is the only one in that order who has the freedom to deviate from his path. Yet, if he wants to accomplish his way well to the end, he will have to seek the rules of that order and act accordingly. That means living a virtuous and ethical life.

 A Virtuous Life

 In my article Augustine and Life as a Trial, the question arose as to how to give meaning to the trials that can befall man on his way. Augustine states that setbacks are inevitable and that one will have to endure them. Classical philosophy had already formulated a number of virtues that were supposed to help overcome the trials. This shows how important it is to have the attitude with which you face setbacks. Augustine continues.

To find out what that virtuous life means to him, I quote C.S. Lewis again, who must have been a good reader of his.

« Saint Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the order of our affections, in which each object is accorded the degree of love it deserves. Aristotle says that the purpose of education is to teach the young man what he should love and what he should not. When the young person reaches the years of reflection, once he has been trained in this order of his affections or « right feelings » he will easily discover the first principles of Ethics. But to the ill-formed man they will never become apparent at all, and he will never advance in that knowledge.

Plato had said the same thing before him. The small animal doesn't have the right answers at first. It must be trained to cherish pleasure, love, dislike, and hatred toward those things that are worthy of pleasure and love, or to be disapproved, and despicable. »

The innate ability to love in the right way is therefore not a ready-made given, but must be directed and developed through education, among other things. And even if the little animal does not listen to it at first, in the course of its life it will learn, perhaps through trial and error, what is worth loving and what is not. What Augustine is concerned with is that in the course of his existence the heart of the traveler frees itself from all erroneous paths and focuses on what its original destination is.

Of course, the rules of ethics can be found out through reason. We have insight into what is right and just. But that insight still lacks the drive to act on it. Therein lies the distinction. Rational knowledge does not appear to be sufficient to act well. When you do accept that as the only basis, you arrive at a kind of duty morality, which lacks an inner motivation. According to Augustine, that drive must come from love. The love of things is determined by their weight. In the order of love, what has less weight pulls the heart downwards, what has more value lift it upwards. It is man's task to go up on his way up, to lift his heart to what is higher and therefore more worthy to live for. It is in this context that you have to see the statement of Augustine pondus meum amor meus: my love is my weight. (Confessions XIII, ix, r.22)

 Thus, following in Augustine's footsteps, Lewis emphasizes the importance that we have in our actions an order in  what we love. It will come as no surprise that Augustine places the Creator and Origin of  all as the highest goal and the most worthy of love. For he is in fact Love Itself. But precisely because He is Love Itself, He must occupy a place of His own in that order. I want to find out how Augustine sees that place.

The Place of Love Itself

 When you make a representation of an order, it is usually through a ranking from high to low or vice versa. In such a case, you represent God as being at the top of the ladder of values. But in this way you run the risk of assigning Love Itself a place on the outside of that order, even if it is also in the highest place. However, it is clear  from the Dialogue on Order that Augustine has a different picture in mind. He compares the constellation of the universe to that of a circle, of which God is the center. Each point or segment has its relation to that one center. This means that the place of Love Itself is not so much on the outside of this universe, but in the center of everything. Every thing derives its existence from this center. Thus, God is not only a greatness enthroned high above his creation, but rather a force that works from within herself. Augustine's worldview is related to his view of man. There, too, God is not only exalted above the tops of our spirits, but also more inwardly than our innermost being.

 The Love of the Creator

 Thus, the traveler who wants to live virtuously will not be able to avoid focusing on the love of the Creator. For God is the source of love from which all things derive their loveworthiness. When Lewis referred to the ordo amoris, he quoted from the fifth book of The City of God, in which Augustine mentions the love of the Creator. The entire excerpt reads as follows:

"The love of the Creator cannot be wrong if He is loved in the right way, that is, if He Himself and not something else is loved in His place. For Love itself must also be loved in an orderly way, so that all that is worth loving is loved in the right way, if we want to live well and virtuously. Therefore, in my opinion, virtue can be succinctly defined as the order of love."(De civitate dei XV, 22)

In this case, love for the Creator is the starting point and a prerequisite for the proper appreciation and love of created things. As we saw earlier, Augustine does not see God so much as an object outside of man, but as a presence that works deep within oneself. Here, too, the image of the circle is important. The motivation to love must come from this central human consciousness of the divine presence. The love of everything then works from this center.

In this connection we can perhaps also understand a statement of Augustine when he states in De Doctrina Christiana:

 Deus propter se ipsum, homo propter Deum diligendus.

 God must be loved for his own sake, man must be loved for the sake of God

 Loving Man in God

In the first instance, this loving of man for God's sake could be understood as God being an external reason to love man. But given the centrality of God as Love Itself, He must be seen more as the intrinsic condition for loving man in the right way. From the rest of the text it appears that the propter Deum  can also  mean from God and in God.

"He lives righteously and holy, who knows how to value things at their true value. In him, love is perfectly ordered. He does not love what is not worth loving, and he loves what is worth loving. The less something is worth loving, the less he loves it. The measure of his love is determined according to whether the object of his love is more or less worthy of love. And his attitude remains the same with regard to what is more or less worth loving. Every sinner, insofar as he is a sinner, is not worthy of love, and every man is worthy of love because of God, but God is worthy of love by himself. If, therefore, God is to be loved more than any man, then everyone must love God more than himself. In the same way, we must love every human being more than our own body, because all this must be loved from God and every human being is called to enjoy God together with us. The body cannot do that because it receives life from the soul that has the ability to enjoy God." (De doctrina Christiana I, 27/28)

If you assume that God is present as Love in the human soul, then he who wants to live righteously and holyly will love everything in and from that divine presence. It goes without saying that God is then seen as the first value and man must be regarded as a derivative of it. In this way, God animates man with life, while man, in turn, animates his body with life, as Augustine puts it in his Confessions X:10. The body is at the lowest place in this hierarchy of values. This does not mean, however, that it plays an inferior role in this order. After all, it is the instrument that makes it possible for the soul to realize God's love in creation. The body indicates that we are mortal, but the spirit animated by God testifies that we are immortal and destined to enjoy God fully.

 Thus, the traveler in this world, if he wants to love things in the right way, will have to assign them the value that objectively suits them. For it is possible that, out of his desire for complete happiness, he directs his affection to something that cannot satisfy that expectation. In that case, it is difficult to expect total satisfaction from all that is limited by its very nature. Things and people can satisfy many needs, but they cannot be the last goal for the traveler. With the latter, we come back to Augustine's distinction between enjoyment and use. When traveling in this world, you can enjoy many things. But due to their limited nature, they cannot fully satisfy the traveler. Only the enjoyment of God, who  is the complete Being, can completely fill the heart of the traveler. In that perspective, you have to call enjoyment in this world using. That doesn't have to detract from the enjoyment of earthly things, on the contrary. By loving everything according to the ordo amoris, the traveller avoids enjoying things in an improper way, i.e. abusing them, thereby denying their nature. Therefore, he loves everything in this world in God. That could be a source of renewed inspiration.

 Postcript

I am confirmed in the opinion that reading Augustine it is about the foundations of ethics. I read that Camus, in his 1936 dissertation Métaphysique chrétienne et néoplatonisme,  comes to the conclusion that Augustine gave the concept  of reason a broader meaning than the usual one. It also confirms my assumption that this is where his greatest merit lies. In a world dominated by rationality, the reasons of the heart must also  have a place. Pascal, a great reader of Augustine, already came to the conclusion that the heart has its reasons that reason does not know. But then Descartes, with his cogito  has impoverished reason by placing all the emphasis on the primacy of rational thought, because before the I think, the I desire (and love) must be seen  as the basis of human existence  as the actual engine. The main thing is to direct it correctly, that is, according to the ordo amoris.