Augustine and philosophy

I am wondering which aspect of Augustine's ideas can still captivate and could be a starting point for a contemporary spirituality. Therefore I want to go back to the sources of his inspiration, which has fascinated him since the beginning of his life and he never abandoned. So my approach is to find a universal basis on which his spirituality is built. Thereby I look for a general human starting point, which is not already ecclesiastical or theological filled in. I think to have found it in his philosophy, in his constant and passionate search for wisdom.

Why his philosophy?

Although I know that in Augustine philosophy and theology are closely intertwined, I think still that it is worthwhile to give more attention to his philosophical side, which has been a long time neglected. For his theology floats in the air if we do not involve his philosophical principles in it and do not place him in the philosophy of his time. This is necessary because the philosophy to which Augustine in his own words was inflamed in love, is something else, something much more practical than theoretical form in which it is framed in this time and also functioned in religious thinking. It was, the ancilla theologiae , the handmaid of theology who could support theoretically the revealed truth, but in fact had little contribution.

When Augustine at the age of 18 becomes acquainted with the philosophy by reading a dialogue of Cicero, it has for him the original meaning of love of wisdom .  Wisdom is in this tradition no doctrine or system, but something very practical: it is a way of life. The search for wisdom is related to the search for happiness, for the core of human existence, for the fulfillment of the deepest desire. This core of existence is seen as a divine principle, by which everything is organized and maintained. It is called in Greek Logos. Later on I will come back to this central concept.

The dialogue of Cicero, called Hortensius contains an exhortation to the practice of philosophy. It is in fact a refutation of the opinion of a certain Hortensius, that philosophy would have no social use and would not contribute to human happiness. For Augustine this philosophy relates immediately to the practice of life itself, for it regards in fact the search for happiness and for a proper way of life to achieve that happiness. This is the origin of that ascetic trait in him.

That sort of philosophy namely implies requirements that are imposed to the life of a person who practices it. It requires a certain asceticism of the superficial sensory pleasures when you aim at this spiritual goal. This kind of philosophy is totally different from adhering a system of thinking. Who is philosopher in this sense is not a scholar or a follower of a doctrine, but someone who tries to organize his life. so that he answers to wisdom as the highest goal. And therefore is everyone who will by all means search for wisdom a philosopher. 

For Augustine the philosophy has a religious dimension

When Augustine writes his Confessions more than twenty-five years later, he comes to the conclusion that by his first encounter with philosophy also his religious development is set in motion.  In the third book, he bears witness to this. See the following quotes:

That book changed my affections. It changed my prayers to you, O Lord, to come to you yourself. It changed my hopes and desires. Suddenly I saw the emptiness of every vain hope, and I longed for the immortal wisdom with an incredible ardour of my heart. I began to rise up to return to you .

(Confessions III, IV (7)

What appealed to me in Cicero’s exhortation to philosophy was his advice to study no doctrine or system, but to love wisdom itself, wherever found, and to search for it, pursue it, hold it and embrace it firmly.

(Confessions III, IV (8))
How I burned my God, how I burned with longing to leave the earthly things and fly back to you. And I did not know what you were doing with me. For with you is wisdom (Job 12,13,16). Love of wisdom is the meaning of the Greek word philosophia.

( Confessions III, IV (8))

It's good to be aware of the fact that the Confessions were written 25 years after his first encounter with philosophy. It is evident that the vision of the 18-year-old student is not the same as that of the 46-year-old bishop. The Confessions are not written to give a purely autobiographical picture, but are primarily intended to give testimony of his spiritual change. Therefore it is evident that Augustine 25 years later as a bishop and church leader is selecting for his readers just those facts that gave direction to his conversion. The quoted texts give than retroactively an explicit religious and Christian interpretation of the experiences of his youth.

The connection between philosophy and Christianity

From this interpretive retrospection I read also the following fragment:

The only thing that tempered my intense enthusiasm was that they did not mention in the book the name of Christ, the name, o Lord, that expresses your mercy, the name of my Savior, your Son, who my tender child’s heart had piously drunk with my mother’s milk and was retained there deeply. Each book, which did not mention this name, however stylish and true, could not completely captivate me.

(Confessions III, IV (8))

Seen apart this view is rather surprising for a 18 years old boy, but in the whole of the Confessions this restriction marks in fact his long quest for the connection between philosophy and Christianity. On the one hand there is the discovery of wisdom as the highest goal to pursue and on the other the image of Christ that from early age was instilled in his mind and stuck there.  These two data should in some way to be linked and integrated.

Initially this connection does not succeed. The young Augustine begins to pay attention to the Holy Scriptures. But he is disappointed by their content and their style, when he compares them with the eminent prose of Cicero:

These biblical writings seemed to me unworthy in comparison with the dignity of Cicero. My conceit shunned their simplicity and I had not enough insight to penetrate deeper into their content.  (Confessions III, V) (9

Only much later, after many wanderings he comes into contact with Christians in Milan who are strongly influenced by Neoplatonic writings, particularly by Plotinus. With them he sees the possibility of that connection. He learns to understand the Holy Scripture spiritually as the record of inner events and discovers that the pursuit of wisdom is not incompatible with the Christian faith. On the contrary, Christ, the divine Word, the divine Logos is the Wisdom for whom he was always searching.

With this he joins a belief in the Church of the first centuries, which was particularly spread by the Alexandrian Church Fathers. An important part of the Christian tradition regarded Christianity as a philosophy. Not as a philosophy among others, but the Philosophy, the true way of life. For them, the Greek philosophers saw only part of the Logos, while Christians focused on the Logos itself, who manifested himself in Jesus Christ. (See the Prologue of John's Gospel).

The relationship between Christ and the Wisdom

This identification of Christ with the Wisdom, the divine Logos, assumes that the vision of Augustine on Christ and Wisdom has been broadened in both directions during the course of his life. His view on wisdom is enlarged, when he learns that in the Scriptures God’s Wisdom can be understood as God's creative power. But also his view on Christ gets a wider dimension. It is not only focused on the historical image of Christ, but he also sees him in his cosmic quality as the creative Logos and Wisdom in every person and in every living thing. Later on I want to come back on the importance of this insight for his spirituality.

About Eros

Before handling this relation between philosophy and Christian faith, I want to go back to the origin, where Augustine as adolescent falls in love with wisdom, back to that very first fire that had already a religious inspiration:

How I burned my God, how I burned with longing to leave the earthly things and fly back to you. And I did not know what you were doing with me.

The understanding that Christ is the Logos and Wisdom has little power, if it has not been lived through and has become flesh and blood. The answer to the existential question about the Logos of all, acquires its significance as first the question itself is sufficient thoroughly posed and searched for the answer. The life of Augustine is the clear proof that you have to struggle a long time to get the answer. That's why I want to go back to that very first question, which lies at the basis of all what follows. It is the existential longing, which is called in Greek Eros.

What in the young Augustine initially manifest itself is love as longing in its most basic form. It is a desire that has not yet been completed and has no clear content, but is well aware that no temporary purpose can fulfill it. This desire is transcendent, because it seeks complete fulfillment and by this, transcends all the temporary and transient aspirations This desire will be the motor of his philosophy throughout all his life.

The primacy of desire

The desire for wisdom and happiness is a universal given. It inspires to a philosophical attitude, which is not purely intellectual. With the term desire is already the base of this philosophical attitude given. It is not primarily a impulse of the mind but of the heart. Before the primacy of I think, the cogito, his starting point is I am desiring. That is to say that thinking is always in function of desire, of love, and the desire to know is always focused on loving what is known. That does not exclude thinking, but by this attitude thinking has a larger connotation, it is thinking of the heart.

Eros in classical philosophy

As I mentioned, the philosophy, which Augustine adheres is not new and original. Augustine is his conception of desire inspired by ancient philosophy. He resumes centuries old questions and themes from the antique philosophy, especially the Platonic philosophy and tries to shape them again. In this antique philosophy the central motive is also love, personified by Eros, a half god. According to Plato Eros has a double character.

In Plato's Symposium, Socrates tells the mythological origins of Eros. He is the child of Poros and Penia, of Wealth and Poverty. He was conceived in the heaven of Gods during a celebration after the birth of Aphrodite. When the god Poros, drunk with nectar, is sleeping in the garden of Zeus, the beggar woman Penia by sheer poverty joins him and out of their union Eros was born.

Due to its origins Eros stands midway between the divine and the human. On one hand, Eros must live in poverty and deprivation, on the other hand, he knows his divine origin. And because he knows the divine fullness he desires it relentlessly.

The desire as human loss

This dual nature of love and desire plays, albeit in a very personal way, a central role in the philosophy of Augustine. He varies in countless ways on desire as human loss, because the desire has a certain knowledge of his accomplishment. And by cultivating desire fulfillment is brought closer.

In desire is a certain knowledge

In the philosophy of Augustine is the human soul from birth not a blank sheet. The soul has an innate sense of her destiny because she longs for timeless and everlasting happiness. This longing is already innate in her as a print, which is not yet filled in, for you are not looking for this complete happiness, if you don’t have any notion of it . For Augustine this is the evidence that the soul has a divine origin and an immortal destiny. You could call it Augustine’s proof of God's existence. This conviction is not based on scientific evidence, but it starts from the negative, from the desire of the heart that intuitively knows its fulfillment.

The desire and nostalgia

That Augustine at the age of 18 inspired by philosophy, experiences all earthly pursuits as empty and wants to fly back to God, indicates that he experiences God as origin, to whom must be returned. Therefore desire is colored with nostalgia. Life is seen as a return from a world of disintegration and distraction back to a lost unity.

In this he follows the philosophy of Plotinus, which perceives that everything is resulting from the One and is intended to return to its origin. But at the same time he identifies himself on other places with the biblical image of the prodigal son, who in a foreign country, wandering away far from his father’s house, remembers the true food, while he is eating the food of pigs.

Is Augustine's philosophy of the Logos still relevant?

The above outlined philosophy of Augustine has to be questioned from our actual point of view. What people could argue against Augustine and with it his Platonic philosophy is that he goes so straight for his goal that all earthly goals seem to become superfluous and meaningless. From his sigh: How I was eager to leave the earthly things and fly back to you, you have to conclude that he has a certain haste to turn as soon as possible from a life full of vain hopes to the original, more real existence.

Also his confession, late have I loved you shows how much and how long he felt himself strayed off the real life:

Late have I loved you,

Beauty so ancient and so new,

late have I loved you.

See, you were within me and I was in the world outside,

and I sought you there.

And in my de-formed state

I threw myself on the well-formed things,

which you have made.

You were with me, but I was not with you.

And these beautiful things. kept me far from you

and yet, if they had not their existence in you,

they had no existence at all.

You called me and cried loud to me,

and broke my deafness.

You shone over me your radiant light

and dispelled my blindness.

You have tempted me with your fragrance;

I inhaled it and sigh for you.

I have tasted you,

and now I hunger and thirst for you.

You have touched me,

and I burn with longing for your peace.

Confessions X, xxvii (38)

Is Augustine's philosophy a world flight? 

Still It would be a mistake to interpret Augustine's philosophy as an escape from this world. His view on desire is certainly transcendent and cannot find a permanent rest in any temporary purpose. But that does not mean that his target would be exclusively in another world.  It is true that he sees his destination in the complete enjoyment in God. But at the same time he is convinced that God is present in this world, creating it permanently. He is the Life of the universe. Things do indeed, as he says, not exist if they do not find in Him their existence, Without this perspective the world would become unreal and alienated. But once this perspective is accepted as the highest wisdom, earth regains his final sense. The earth has his ground in the timeless Being and is therefore the necessary road and passage to this timeless Being. So this is the reason why he takes this earthly existence seriously.

God's presence in creation 

Another objection that one could argue against the philosophy of Augustine is the fact that through his focus on the divine presence in the human soul and the souls of religious believers pays relatively less attention to God's presence in creation and the role of the human activity in this world. For him, the human soul is of a higher order than anything material and is and transitory and it should be the best thing is to abstain from all the earthly concerns en to occupy themselves with matters of the soul. He notes in his Confessions that people tend to go out to see mountains, seas and rivers but do not see the grandiosity of their own consciousness and forget themselves:

People go on the move to wonder. mountain peaks, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad waterfalls on rivers, the vastness of the ocean, the revolutions of the stars. But they abandon themselves. (Confessions X, viii) (15)

The beauty of creation

Yet according to his commentators it appears that Augustine had a more positive appreciation of the human body and of the material world than his contemporaries and not vice versa, as is often assumed. When Augustine in the tenth book of the Confessions is in search for God's presence, he refers not only to his working in the human soul, but also in the whole cosmos. He states in Chapter VI that the whole creation speaks of God invisible working and that it can be seen and understood by the judging mind.

This beauty of the universe should be evident for all those who have sound senses. Then why does it not speak for everyone the same language?

The animals, from small to large, see it, but cannot put a question about it. They have no reason to judge what their senses report.

But men can put questions, so that they by all what is made can see and understand God’s invisible Being (Rom.i:20). But their love for the material things make them dependent and therefore they are unable to judge.

Moreover, created things only give answers to those who interrogate and evaluate them. They speak always the same language, that of their beauty. When the one only sees their beauty and the other, by seeing it, also put questions, it appears not different to the one than to the other. But although they have the same appearance, their beauty is silent for the one and speaks to the other. Or rather, it speaks to all, but only they understand it, who compare its voice, coming from the outside, with the truth within themselves.

And the truth tells me: Your God is neither heaven nor earth, nor any other physical being. Their nature tells us this. For to anyone who sees it all material nature is less in the parts than in the whole.

But you, my soul, are, if I may say so, of a higher order. For you animate the matter of my body and gives it life. No single body can do this to another body. Your God is for you the life of your life.

(Confessions X, vi) (10)

God as beauty 

The sentence things always speak the same language that of their beauty is remarkably in this text. Beauty (species in Latin) implies more than the outward form. It concerns also what is revealed in this outer beauty: order, harmony, cohesion, unity. In this context we must see the revelation of God's beauty as the revelation in the whole cosmos of the divine Logos, God's creative dynamic Word. Human reason is aware of the Logos and recognizes it in whole the universe, because man himself carries an image of the Logos in himself. In this respect Augustine philosophy is certainly focused on this earthly existence.

Again the connection philosophy and Christianity

One last question, I would like to ask is to what extent Christianity and thus Augustine has fully accepted the philosophy of the Logos. When Augustine in the seventh book of his Confessions defines his position to the Platonic philosophy, he speaks explicitly about the Logos and he appeals to the prologue of the Gospel of John:

In those books (the books of the Platonists) I read - but not in the same words – that God, the Word, is born not of the flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of a man, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God. But that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, I did not read there.(Confessions, VII, IX (14))

The question is how this contradiction between Christianity and classical philosophy should be interpreted. In my view, this opposition is not an absolute one. Augustine reacts not so much against the Platonic philosophy as such and its conception of the Logos as against the complacency of its adherents. Their lack of humility, namely their inability to accept that they are unable to ascend to the Logos, if the Logos does not descends to them.

In that case converge Augustine’s philosophy of creation and theology of redemption. The desire of man to come to God is essentially preceded by the desire of God to come to man. The incarnation of the Logos in the person of Jesus Christ refers to a much broader process, namely the working of the divine Logos from the beginning in all creation. Creation can then be seen as an permanent process of the incarnation of God, who descends into the world, so that man can develop this divine dimension in himself. Or, as Augustine says concisely in a Christmas sermon: God has become man so that man could become God.

Augustine appreciation of the earthly reality

To me it remains an open point of discussion if Augustine the consequences of the cosmic principles of Platonism has entirely put through to its ultimate consequences or did quit too quickly and contented himself with church life. His function did him, as I said, emphasize God's action in the soul and in the Church, so that the human preoccupation with the earthly reality gets in him a somewhat ambiguous meaning. It must be said that his ascetic attitude in the course of his life is getting milder and that he appreciates the earthly reality gradually more positive. For the spirituality of today, it could offer a perspective, as in his view the incarnation of the Word, in principle, also the sanctification of human earthly and worldly pursuits is involved.

I longed no longer for higher things alone, because I considered the totality. And although higher things are self-evidently better, with a sounder judgment I came to the conclusion that the whole of all things is better than the higher things alone

(Confessions VII, xiii (19))

This suggests that Augustine’s concern is more than just the soul.

All creation a sacrament?

In the valuation of whole creation is Augustine's teacher Plotinus more pronounced, as I understand from, Plotinus' English translator Hilary Armstrong. In Plotinus’ view all creation is holy and sacred. This offers a perspective for those who take the working of the Logos seriously that not only the ecclesiastical domain is sacrament of the divine, but also the entire cosmos and all the creative daily work that man accomplish in it.

Here is in my view, an openness to a new kind of spirituality: namely, how Christ as the creative divine Logos in this time could be experienced and how that can offer a completely different attitude towards the earth and the earthly existence.