Augustine on Enjoying and Using

Objections to the philosophy of Augustine

Often you meet the opinion that the philosophy of Augustine has lost his actuality, because it assumes a neo-Platonic vision, which has become outdated. In what follows, I examine in what extent this opinion is justified. As a major objection to his philosophy and his ethics is the opinion that it has worked alienating towards our being and acting in the world. When by Augustine, the human desire has a transcendent purpose, when the heart takes no rest until it finds rest in God, then what weight we give to all our worldly goals, and the bonds we have in this life?

A ' Christian ' philosophy

Augustine undertakes an attempt to answer that question in De Doctrina Christiana. It is a writing that he had begun in 396, several years before he wrote his Confessions, but that he would finish much later. In this book, that you could call a Christian philosophy, he gives rules how we should read. He wants first to show how the Bible should be interpreted. But this is at te same time his vision of how the world and the reality around him has to be read and interpreted.

The sign character of reality

To illustrate this Augustine introduces a reflection on the sign character of things. Our reality consists of things, but for a significant part also of signs. Things in the strict sense are realities that exist on their own, but that does not exclude that they are in certain contexts also signs. There are also things that in themselves are scarcely things, but particularly signs. Those are for instance our words. That is the big area where it is important to read and interpret. But that is not the only area. The words function in the totality of our reality, where everything can be a sign.

Reading signs

Reading in this broader sense means here to be able to see and understand the referring nature of the reality in which we live. In this respect the Bible is such a collection of words that are signs that refer to our spiritual reality. It is a special one, but not the only source. This broader way of reading our whole world has immediate consequences for ethics: how should we act and how should we handle with this world?

To use the world or to enjoy it

To this end, Augustine introduces two concepts that define our attitude toward the world. These are two distinct attitudes toward reality, that of using or enjoying. These two concepts, named uti and frui in Latin, are not new. He borrows it from the classic philosophical ideas of his time. They get however in his view a very special meaning. I would like to quote what he understands by this two concepts:

To enjoy something means that you find satisfaction in something purely for its own sake.

To use something means that you are engaged with something to achieve something else.

This presupposes that the purpose of this desire is worth loving, because unlawful use has to be called abuse

To illustrate this he gives the following comparison:

Suppose we are travelers in a foreign country and do not live happily without our homeland. And that we, miserable from that journey, will make an end to our misery and decide to return home.

In that case it is necessary that we use a means of transport either by land or by water, to reach the country where we are able to enjoy.

But imagine the journey is as pleasant and we like the means of transport so much that we don’t like to continue our way. And we, caught in a perverse sort of enjoyment, would alienate from the country, whose enjoyment makes us happy

Such is the condition of our mortal existence: We are traveling far from God. And if we want to return to the homeland where we can be happy, we have to use this world, not enjoy it. And in that way that we are able to see and understand the invisible divine reality by the means of what is created. That means, that we must be able to comprehend the timeless and spiritual reality from the physical and temporal world.

In this vision according of Augustine, you have in human life only one goal: to enjoy God, that means returning to the homeland from which we are originated:  De Te ad Te: that means: out of You to You.

The Augustinian using does not exclude enjoying

In the Augustinian view, the object of love can only be God as the ultimate fulfillment of human desire. Within this perspective every earthly object is relative and subordinate to this ultimate goal. Hence that the relationship to all the goals in our lives cannot be seen otherwise than as a form of using. They are means in perspective of the ultimate goal

But each image is relative. You could draw from this interpretation the wrong conclusion that we may not enjoy in this life and that we have to pass everything on penalty that we are missing our goal. But you need to read and interpret this image not in a literal way. When your spirituality is only oriented towards this distant country that waits beyond this life, it would indeed work alienating and paralyzing to your activities here and now. But that is not Augustine’s vision.

It turns out that on the question how you have to understand this using the world Augustine does not exclude enjoyment. He says that it shows little understanding, if you believe that using and enjoying exclude each other completely.

Pure use leads to abuse

This makes clear that in this context our current notions of using and enjoying do not cover what Augustine has in mind. Almost the opposite. In this vision our actual notion of enjoying and using this world gets the character of abusing her, when we only consider the essence of this world as absolute, when we take this world on her own and ignore her referring character to a spiritual dimension.

That loss of an essential dimension can become disastrous, if you see how actually this world is used, not to say misused. You only have to think of the environmental pollution, the waste of natural resources, the abuse of animals in the meat industry, the abuse of people in only capital-based companies, in fact all the symptoms of our culture of consumption. These symptoms show in fact the alienation of our world from the true nature of this creation.

In this context is Augustine's division of reality into things and signs important. In our days we see the world primarily as an object, as a material reality on itself and we forgot the sign character of everything that surrounds us. According to Augustine you have read this world primarily as a sign of a deeper spiritual reality. When you use everything in this world in that light you are able to use and enjoy everything in the right way, because it can be experienced in relation with this divine reality which is the origin and the end of all that is.

Is this form of experience outdated?

We have to prove that this type of world perception does not alienate us necessarily from the reality around us. Reference does not mean here that the attention is drawn to a different world, but on the contrary it points to the real nature of reality itself, which here and now a has a spiritual dimension.

When Augustine talks about the sign character of things, he is referring to the fact that the world can be seen and experienced as creation. This indicates the last sentence from his comparison of human life as a journey.

Our attitude to the world has to be: In that way that we are able to see and understand the invisible divine reality by the means of what is created. That means, that we must be able to comprehend the timeless and spiritual reality from the physical and temporal world. (Rom. 1.20)

Creation as an actual process

To experience the world as creation has nothing to do with a theory of how the world is originated. This fact is a spiritual reality, not a physical one. Nor does it mean that our temporary reality and the divine reality are divided as two separate worlds. That suggestion is forced upon us by the Enlightenment. That philosophy wanted to see God as a watchmaker, who once he had created the world, let her go on ticking free from her maker.

Enjoying the world means to accept and experience God's creative power here and now in everything. The experience that all things each moment are created and maintained by a living and inspiring force. That requires a certain switch of perspective. Nothing is self-evident, old, predictable. The laws of nature, the cosmos too are part of this divine creative force, the divine Logos, who reveals and realizes itself any moment in this world.

In such a perspective you have a different approach to yourself and the world. There is more room for wondering and respect for that Force that animates you and the whole world. The world does not need any more to be regarded as a kind of mechanical constellation that is subject to lifeless and predictable laws. She reveals herself more as a creative process, in which you participate and are invited to share.

Augustine and the philosophy of Enlightenment

The question is what has worked more alienating for our existence. The unfortunately often misinterpreted Neo-Platonist vision of Augustine and others on using and enjoying and the current vision of Enlightenment, thinking that this world is only ruled by soulless mechanical laws, which are fixed in advance. Perhaps they both suffer from the same mistake to disconnect the material area from the spiritual. Without detracting our modern achievements, I want to argue for a revaluation of Augustine's ethics. I believe time is there to interpret Augustine’s ethics about using and enjoying the world again less dualistic. It makes us consider our world with more respect. That means we enjoy more and use or rather abuse less.

Conclusion

I come to the conclusion that Augustine's reflection about using and enjoying still can be useful for our contemporary ethics. It means that  the sacred and the secular cannot be separated. There is not a part of our reality sacred and a part not. Everything is sacred or is it not at all. Our society has chosen the latter. This has led to abuse, that is to say a less respectful view of the nature of our world.

When you follow Augustine's view, everything is sacred, because it is a reference to a deeper spiritual reality. This requires a switching and is not easy to live in a world where everything speaks of man as the creator. I experience this more in my cottage in the countryside than in town.

Augustine: God and the soul

In my article Life as a journey I tried to describe the spiritual development of Augustine as a journey. This voyage is mainly a form of turning to his inner self, to the depths of human consciousness. This makes it clear that Augustine does not seek God as an object outside him, but as a reality of the soul. For him there is a direct connection between his soul and God. That raises questions, because in our days one is not immediately enthusiastic to any knowledge of the soul.

The evaluation of the soul

The turn from the sensual and material world to the area of the inner consciousness, to that different way of seeing with closed eyes, of which Plotinus speaks, has never been evident. That was in Augustine’s days and perhaps in a more intense degree, in our time too. Today all our attention is drawn to the world outside, so that there is little place to turn into the inner soul. Gradually there is reason to wonder if the word soul has still any signification or refers to any reality.

In his search for God Augustine describes his situation as a situation in which he lives outside himself in a land of alienation, while in the depths of the soul, God is present, who calls him to return to himself. This state of alienation from his true self Augustine applies not only to his own situation, but he sees it as typical of the human condition. And the search of his inner self is the way which every man has to go in order to come to oneself

While in our days the reality of the soul leads a marginal existence compared to what we call the objective reality, for Augustine it is just the opposite. Because the soul is immaterial, he regards her as the central and only true reality in human life. While every material reality is temporary and transient, the soul has immortal and timeless features. The soul plays a unifying role. On the one hand, she inspires human life and on the other hand, she receives her inspiration from God. In the Tenth Book of his Confessions he summarizes it as follows: May I seek you so that my soul may live, for my soul gives life to my body and you gives life to my soul. (X, xx, 29)

By reducing the soul to something marginal, man misses his vital inspiration. And when the soul is deprived of her life, is what one calls the death of God not far. It is therefore worthwhile to follow in Augustine that movement of return to his inner self, to see what means the reality of the soul

The Soliloquies

In the autumn of 386, not long after he has ended his career as a teacher of rhetoric and converted himself to the true philosophy, Augustine devotes himself expressly to the study of the soul. He does it in a very personal way, in a text he baptized Soliloquia, that means Conversations with oneself

The form of this text is important because it is written in the form of a dialogue, but a dialogue that takes place within himself and with himself. The dialogue is the classic philosophical form of asking questions to a person to bring him to knowledge about the truth. In the Soliloquia, however, Augustine does ask himself in an a sort of analytical way and forces himself to answer. The characteristic of the dialogue is that not only the informative content counts, that is: to prove that the soul is immortal and has therefore a divine and timeless origin. But also the way leading to this purpose. The way is the laborious process of question and answer, the therapeutic struggle within Augustine himself to give up old positions and come to a broader insight. This literary form does an appeal to the reader to take part in this process of thinking.

Augustine used the dialogue with himself not only as a purely literary form. It has also a content side. It demonstrates that the human person is basically not undivided and does not exist as an pure individual, because there are in him two items that communicate with each other. This dialogue is not a disguised monologue, but a report of a meeting of the ego with a deeper self.

Augustine says initially that he does not know who in this dialogue speaks to him, whether he himself or another, whether the answer comes from within or from outside. He calls his inner partner Ratio, which term I reluctantly translate with the word Reason. This term is so far right that it shows that this deeper selfin the soul is rational and can be reasoned and therefore belongs not totally to the irrational sphere. On the other hand, the contemporary notion of ratio or reason is too impersonal, too plain and also too narrow to represent this inner reality of the soul, which concerns both head and heart. The Augustinian Ratio has more the features of the Logos, the Inner Word, which Augustine calls elsewhere the Inner Teacher.

Individuality and universality of the soul.

In the Soliloquies Augustine is in his own words in pursuit of himself and of what is good for him. With this he is in the tradition of classical philosophy, where Know yourself is pursued as the highest goal. Who knows himself, knows, in the words of Plotinus, his origin. This confirms that for Augustine, who thinks in this tradition, there is a close connection between the soul and her divine origin.

At the beginning of the dialogue Reason asks Augustine what he, in short, wants to know. His answer is: God and the soul. And when Reason insists: Nothing more?, Augustine replies: Absolutely nothing. This exclusive response raises the question whether this focus on the soul does not exclude the interest in others and the world.

That the pursuit of oneself has nothing to do with selfishness or individualism is shown when the dialogue continues. When Reason asks Augustine: Do you not love your friends? He answers: How can I not love them, when I love the soul?

What means this digression about God and the soul in connection with contemporary spirituality? It tries to make clear that Augustine does not consider the way to interiority as a concentration on one's own individual soul. His quest for the soul is precisely meant to become free from the limitations of individual and exclusive thinking and to get through to the soul as a universal data in man.

For Augustine the exclusive involvement in the material world leads necessarily to dissimilarity and division, by which human relations are blocked, whereas the involvement in the immaterial world of the soul builds a basis for unity and communication. From this experience of the universal soul as a common reality it is possible that knowing yourself leads also to knowing others, to what you love in yourself, you also love in the others, and vice versa.

God and the Ratio

What quality of the soul makes it so universal? Augustine here refers to the ratio or human reason as the means to mutual understanding and knowledge. It is also the means to review individually taken positions. Reason has innate notions and criteria which are universal. These notions are realities of the mind and do not come from the sensory and material world. In this respect they refer to the timeless and divine character of the soul.

The emphasis Augustine puts on the reason indicates that the knowledge of God and the soul is absolutely not irrational. If religious knowledge is labeled as irrational, that is from the current conception of reason. Only that knowledge is valid, that is proven according to the physical scientific model. All other knowledge is than reduced to believe or superstition.

The model of Reason for Augustine is larger. Reason includes also universal, inter subjective knowledge of the soul, which is obtained by introspection. This knowledge opens the way to God as a common origin and destiny of the human soul. Today's' ratio is in fact reduced to a static and mechanical instrument. It has lost its dynamism and perspective because it is cut loose from its origin, and consequently on a way to an unclear future.

In Augustine's view there is an identification between the universal Reasonand the universal Logos, which has especialy been manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. For him, all revelation lies in the ongoing operation of the Logos, in that inner creative Word that gives light to every man.

Augustine: Life as a journey

I am convinced that the philosophy of Augustine can still be a source of inspiration. That concerns especially his emphasis on the interiority as a source of spirituality. It will be a counterbalance against the general tendency to go far from home, to search the center of your life outside yourself. Augustine’s view of the Inner Teacher points already at a property in man that can serve as a compass to find direction and purpose in life. Augustine assumes that in the consciousness of every man can by nature be experienced a track of a divine presence, which is at the origin of his search for truth and his ever-further reaching desire for happiness.

This image of the Inner Teacher as a compass and guide deserves further explanation. It is clear that this consciousness is not ready given, but a creative power that has to be developed in the experiences of life in order to bring man to what he in essence is. When we apply this to the life of Augustine himself, it appears from his description in the Confessions how relatively late he has found his way. And even after he has turned himself to the service of God, it is clear that he considered his mental development not as complete.

From his report in the Confessions we have to conclude that his path to God was a long and difficult journey. And although it was a personal one, he regarded it too as exemplary for the way that every man should go.

The journey to the haven of the happy life

Many years before he wrote his Confessions, Augustine describes already his development as a long, arduous journey. In the prologue to the dialogue About the happy life (De beata vita) he compares his quest for happiness with a tempestuous voyage that brings him at last into the haven of rest in God, which he enjoys in the country house Cassiciacum. Again, he puts the journey in a more universal context. In the picture he paints all people find themselves in this world as on a rough sea, on which they are initially floating aimlessly. Everyone looks in his manner for a direction. What could serve them as a guide is the philosophy, which can show the direction to the haven of the happy life

He distinguishes three types of travelers.

The first group uses their mind immediately and keeps the mainland from the beginning in mind. Therefore they risk themselves not far at sea, so that they can reach the safe harbor without traveling a lot.

The second group however does not care for their goal and has little interest in the philosophy, which could give them direction. They let themselves drift along by favorable winds and the pleasures of the moment. And gradually they forget their homeland. What only could save them is a storm that drives them back to the safe harbor.

Augustine himself counts himself among a middle group. This consists of people who are guided by philosophy and remain mindful of the homeland. But they are held up by all kinds of false lights and temptations. Rather late, after many wanderings, usually by storms in their lives, they are driven to the haven they had in mind

Augustine grafts here his views on the existing images that you might call the classic archetypes of human life. There is life as a wandering and pursuit of happiness, life as a rough sea, full of uncertainties and risks, in which man sees himself unwillingly dropped. There is the homeland as a image of origin and destination and the safe haven as a symbol of the found happiness. There is finally the philosophy as a summary of human reflection about which direction you have to take in life. It must keep alive in human consciousness the memory of the homeland.

These images show that the life of man must be understood as a circular movement. The goal of his journey is to return home, to the haven from which one has departed.

The long or the short way?

The view that life is a circular movement evokes several questions. Should the first group of passengers, which mentions Augustine, be considered as ideal? Is the purpose of life to return home, as soon as possible? Counts for Augustine only the goal or also the journey itself?

It must be said that Augustine underlines in his description of the journey especially the negative points (the dangers, the false lights, the temptations), but that does not mean that the journey itself has no meaning for him. It is thanks to his many experiences that he has come to his goal. There is the curious emphasis on the storms in life who have pushed him in the right direction. Therefore many experiences in life are also for him important to find one’s destination.

The long way Augustine has gone seems the most realistic of those three outlined options. Goal and direction can be known by philosophical reflection, but the journey of life should necessarily be a quest and a wandering, because the way and means must be found experimentally. Augustine puts the journey of life in the classical tradition. His journey is a kind of Odyssey, a difficult journey back home through numerous errors and temptations from which he could hardly get rid of. Therefore he praises himself happy in his dialogue, that he has not collapsed for the temptations of the Sirens, but reached in time the safe haven of the happy life.

The journey inward

At the end of the dialogue About the happy life Augustine concludes that one cannot be entirely happy in this life. As long as we are not fully satisfied and we still try to seek that complete fullness, the goal of the journey is not reached. Therefore the fatherland is more than this life. It is fully participating in God's life: possess God, that means in Augustine’s own words enjoy God.

Augustine’s spiritual aspiration beyond this temporary life, does not mean that his spirituality would be from another world. His dialogue About the happy life shows on the contrary that happiness in this life can and should be sought. He refers to his own situation, when he, free of many obstacles, finds in Cassiciacum the peace he was looking for. In this dialogue it is clear that you have not to wait at the end of the journey of life to enjoy God. He can be enjoyed here and now. But then you need an journey inwards.

Just before the period that he writes De beata vita: About the happy life, Augustine gets acquainted with some philosophical treatises of Plotinus. One is titled About happiness, another About beauty. In the last treatise Plotinus speaks about returning to the homeland, the land where we come from and where the father is. Unlike Augustine, who uses the image of the ship to return to the homeland, Plotinus declines for the return all means of transport. The journey is not on foot, nor by horse and wagon, nor by ship, but: You have to close your eyes and have a different kind of seeing. You have to appeal to the ability which everyone possesses and is used by very few. (Enneads 1:6.8)

For who develops this ability the journey takes place not only horizontally in time, but also vertically in the deeper layers of consciousness. In principle, the homeland is present here and now, when you turn into your inner self and may experience God as the source of your own life and existence.

In the Seventh chapter of the Confessions Augustine gives report of that inner journey. How he, encouraged by reading scriptures of Plotinus, with God as a guide, turns in his inner self. With an inner eye he perceives in himself the ground of being in the form of an all-encompassing light. The light has such a blinding power, that he recognizes it as his God and enflamed for it with love. This spiritual form of seeing is not unrealistic. It looks through life itself, not to another world, but to the essence of existence itself.

When I first came to know you, you raised me up to make me see that what I saw was Being, and that I who saw was not yet Being. And you broke through the weakness of my sight by the strong radiance of your light, and I trembled with love and dread. (Confessions VII, x, 16)

Augustine, however, is aware that in his own life this ability to experience God as inner ground is weak and needs to be developed. This weakness means that he experiences himself far away from himself, while God is near:

I found myself far from you in a land of alienation.

The alienation is that the ego lives outside itself far removed from its own deepest being. The journey to the haven of happiness is the return of the ego from its alienation to itself, that is to the depths of consciousness common to all people, where God is present as a creative force.

Augustine and homecoming (sequel)

Eros and Logos

I mentioned already the decisive role of Eros in homecoming. But Eros is closely connected with Logos. If Eros is the primal urge that drives us, then Logos is the primal knowledge in us. When I try to explain what I know about the archetype of homecoming, I have to consult first of all this inner knowing. It is the Logos in me, which by Augustine is seen as the magister interior, the inner teacher. That does not mean that I don’t have to read or study on this subject, but that this all can only be checked by my inner knowledge and experience. The Logos is the creative and organizing principle in all that exists. Whether we are conscious of this principle or not, we are part of it. In the tradition one speaks of the Logos Spermatikos, the seed of the Logos, that is innate in every person and has to be developed. For that reason you cannot state that Logos is identical with the modern concept of ratio. The ratio is a static principle, while the Logos, in the same way as Eros, is dynamic and drives us necessarily to develop ourselves, to express what not has been pronounced yet, and should be said. Both Logos and Eros work together in every creature to bring it to completion, that is to homecoming.

Eros and transcendence

In the Platonic view Eros is the desire that wants union. Not a temporary and partial, but a total union. Eros transcends all partial fulfillment. As a child of Poros and Penia, born of Fulfillment and Lack, Eros is satisfied with nothing more than an absolute fulfillment and all his striving is directed towards this goal.

However our real situation is that of a fundamental loss. And as far as we achieve in fulfilling some of our desires, it is often mixed with the awareness that it is only partially. In fact we are mixed in a multitude of desires. Hence our restless searching that moves from one object to another, and that Augustine so thoroughly describes. In this world of multiplicity there can be no end to this restlessness, or we should acquiesce in a partial fulfillment, but that would be a deceitful rest.

Death as the fulfillment of Eros

What could reassure us is the prospect of a final rest in the fullness of being, knowing that death is not a break in our life, but an completion. It may seem cold comfort to postpone the fulfillment of existence until death, but if you deny yourself this view, you deny yourself also the reassurance of this perspective.

As I have already argued, the essence of Eros is oriented on fulfillment which can only be in death. But I have the impression that many reject this perspective as an illusion and that they do this out of an misplaced kind of braveness or determination to venture them not in such vague perspective. Rather they cling fast to the material world, the actual physical constellation. But perhaps it is a hidden fear to lose one’s hold of the well known reality. For them it is impossible to change the grip of the logical ratio in favor of a reality of which the heart speaks. The Heart, the Eros, speaks of homecoming. The ratio speaks: hereafter all is finished, what rest is illusion.

Homecoming, illusion or reality?

The statement that our death should be an absolute end struck me always as a harsh judgment. I have my doubts if it is well founded. It is an assumption and I have never understood the reasons why such a verdict could be so positively pronounced. It is understandable if someone confesses himself to be an agnostic, because we know little about what happens after death and we have very little to say about which is beyond our horizon. But the firmness with which people call themselves atheists and limit themselves to time and place is in my opinion a sign of narrow-mindedness. As if deep in their souls nothing transcends temporality and appeals to a world that remains.

Their argument is certainly to confirm fully this life here and now, because it is short and before you know it is over. Why divert in that case your attention to another life beyond this time?

I agree with Cavafy to enjoy fully your life, but that does not mean that you can deny the temporary and transient nature of what life has to offer. For me all I taste refers to something transcendent, that this temporality exceeds.

For what is the case, when you have the reverse opinion: how much appears in this temporal life to be an illusion, when we limit ourselves entirely to it? In any case what material is, is subject to decay and will not endure the tooth of the time. But on the interpersonal level too, there is a constant cycle of construction and deconstruction. What is the hope of the career builders? What one generation builds up is by the following systematically demolished. What is more illusory than the belief in progress? Certainly, there is a certain evolution. But wherever the world is made it is not by definition easier or happier, on the contrary.

All this may sound pessimistic in the ears of the convinced confirmers of life. Yet my view is not prompted by pessimism or lack of vitality, but rather by a concern for what is permanent and extracts itself from the transitory character of time. In that case we have to leave all the material and physical world and all social structures and turn ourselves to our inner self. If anything transcends time, it has to be in our consciousness. It must be there where we gather our experiences in time together into our memory. This awareness of all that passed in our lives and is concentrated in memory, that is what we really are, that is our identity. That remains when we are gone through the different stages of life. What is in this perspective illusion, what reality? Not everything we imagine is illusion. Many things in our imagination are not invented, but found. You can express and understand certain realities only in images, because they are on the border of our existence. Homecoming is such a reality.

Homecoming from abroad

According to Augustine and his neo-platonic philosophy we are strangers in this life, as far as we are submitted to this material and transitory world. When you talk in this perspective about homecoming, you are talking about a different world, the homeland. It is not a world elsewhere, but deep within us and difficult to reach. Perhaps this world remains for many people in this life unknown or unconscious, so their death coincides with homecoming. In that case means homecoming entering to a deeper consciousness, to those original world which is experienced as new and at the same time familiar.

It will be a revelation for those who did not expect or wanted any comfort. But for those too, who thought they knew anything of this homecoming, it shall be something beyond their understanding. Yet it should not prevent us to speak about it. This is only possible in images. But we have to provide for ourselves a certain beauty and comfort in this life to keep in mind the track of the world we came home from

Homecoming as coming to yourself

When Augustine speaks of homecoming in the haven of the happy life, he is inspired by Plotinus, who in Enneads 1:6.8., In the essay About Beauty, speaks of the return to the Fatherland, the land where we come from and where the Father is. But unlike Augustine, who chooses the image of the ship as a means to return to home, Plotinus declines in this journey any vehicle. The journey is not on foot, not on horse or cart or ship. We should not look out for any external means of transport, but close our eyes and come to a different kind of seeing. The road we have to go is the way of introspection.

When homecoming is to come to yourself, then it is entering into a deeper level in yourself. The ego that has been far away from home, returns to his base, and is aware of what it in origin is. It turns out that it is a misconception that the ego, or rather the self is an emptiness, a tabula rasa, that is totally determinate by impressions from outside. In ourselves we have already inner structures, in which we receive what comes from outside.

When the ego comes to his self, it discovers that it is creative and can give meaning to what happens. It discovers that it can transcend facts and events and is not entirely a part of what the outside world dictates. The ego enters into a spiritual world of a different order, which is not subject to time and space. It finds in the mind already existing ideas which give us the sense of what happiness is, what true, what beautiful and what good. They are not ready-made notions, but formal archetypes, by which we can be guided and are able to communicate with others. The self can therefore be a centre which can give meaning, though not at random and arbitrary. It knows itself embedded and connected to a deeper archetypal layer, which is collective, and by which it can find and give meaning.

Emotion as a way of homecoming

Our self has a notion of what home is. If we determine that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then we express that beauty is not an objectively given fact, but dependent from the subject who has the notion to see it. It means that this qualification of beauty stems from our mind. So when we call something beautiful, it assumes a link to our inner consciousness, to there where we can be moved.

A painting, a book may have many qualities, but we just call it beautifulif we have recognized something in it what in our deepest consciousness lives. It moves a sense of beauty that is already present, although unspoken. Here I find the link between beauty and comfort. A sadness about something what lies hidden in our consciousness and wants to be expressed, but can find no form, is turned into joy and emotion when we see it expressed in something or by someone. I think this comparatively applicable to our inner notions of perfection, truth, goodness, etc. All these moments of emotion, when I am confronted with something beautiful, true, good or perfect, are ways of homecoming, of coming to yourself.

You could describe this kind of emotion as if an inner chord is touched and vibrates and gives the sound of what you feel as good or beautiful or true. It reminds you of that hidden idea of goodness, beauty and truth, which you know already, because it are these ideas which are at the origin of your existence. Therefore is by this memory homecoming mixed with emotions.

Home is not far away

I want to avoid the impression that, when I talk about homecoming, I speak about a totally different world. My belief in the transcendence of consciousness has nothing to do with what they call Weltverneinung or contempt of this world. I don’t try to be outside of time, but to recognize in this temporary and local constellation an eternal reality. As I said: a book for me is not good because it creates its own world, but as far as it is able to touch that chord in me of the innate longing, which is collective and exceeds time and space.

This view is closely related to the Platonic philosophy, I know. And I am aware that there I found for the first time my inspiration. I know that one blames Platonism to have created a world of ideas, which stands apart from this earthly reality. I think it is a misinterpretation of Platonism. What matters is not to flee from this world, but to see through it to discover a perspective that opens views. In this way the world reveals what we call home. Maybe it's a much larger misjudgment of the world to see her as a closed reality.

Augustine and homecoming I

Cavafy, Ithaka

The story of Odysseus who, after much wandering is coming back home, is a theme which returns regularly in literature. This subject interests me, because I believe that this is something archetypal and lies at the root of our existence. In my reflections on Augustine about life as a journey, I saw the possibility to continue on this theme. Now, the reading of the poem Ithaka by Cavafy, gives me an occasion to come back to it. Cavafy advises to make the way back home as long as possible, because homecoming is important as destination, but has not much to offer in life. What counts is the journey and to experience of life as much as possible.

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon - don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon - you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind -
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithaka's mean.

C.P. Cavafy
(Translated by Edmund Keeley / Philip Sherrard.)

You can read the journey of Odysseus as a metaphor of our existence on earth.

Taking the story of Odysseus to the letter, Cavafy is right in his advice to make the journey as long as possible. Don’t expect too much of coming home. You never return to the home you left, because yourself has changed, but also the people and the environment you have left. Who would recognize you anymore? Perhaps your dog. It could be a disappointment if you fix all your life to that moment and have omitted to engage you thoroughly with what life has to offer. Hence Cavafy suggests that Ithaka may be poor and does not give you any wealth.

But as you take the story as a metaphor of our total existence, home may be different. Nothing excludes that homecoming is not so poor as you expected to be. It can indeed be a revelation. For that reason I want to explore the concept of homecoming.

Augustine, On the happy life

I want to go back to Augustine. A few years ago I read his philosophical dialogue De Beata Vita (About the happy life) in a new Dutch translation. The text begins with the image of people who are sailing on a turbulent sea and try to find their way to the haven and the mainland of the happy life. Philosophy, as the science to find a good life, would be an important help to pilot them in the safe harbor.

Augustine distinguishes three types of travelers: The first group is sensible and keeps the homeland from the beginning in mind. Therefore they don’t venture far at sea, so that they arrive without many detours in the safe harbor

The second group however does not mind their final destination, and therefore have little interest in philosophy. They are ven turing, drawn by the deceptive appearance of the sea and carried by the wind far from the homeland, gradually they forget it. There must be headwinds and storms to force them to go back home.

Augustine counts himself to a group that is in between them. These are people who are concerned with philosophy and are looking for the homeland, but they are confused by many false lights, so that they only after many long wanderings arrive in the safe haven of the happy life.

The latter group lives in a certain way according to the wise advice given by Cavafy. They return not too soon to their home port, but keep at the same time their goal firmly in mind.

In this metaphoric story are several archetypal themes included: There is the metaphor of life as a wandering and as a quest for happiness, life as a rough sea, full of dangers and adventures. There is also the image of the homeland as an place of origin and destination and the safe haven as a symbol of happiness.

Apart from this you have also the philosophy as a tool in the pursuit of happiness. It has the function to wake in our awareness the memory of the homeland.

Augustine asks in his dialogue whether the happiness can be fully appreciated in this life. The answer is negative, because human desire is too great to be entirely fulfilled in this life. The proper homeland is consequently more than this life.

In this he differs from Cavafy, who emphasizes that the journey is the happy life, the destination has not much to offer. There are according to Cavafy in life several Ithaka’s, depending on the goal one has set for. For Augustine, there is in the search for wisdom and happiness but one ultimate goal, that is to take part in the wisdom of God, enjoying God as he concludes at the end of the dialogue. I will examine later to what extent both views are excluding or including each other. 

Archetypes

I must explain what I mean by archetypal. Archetypes are in my view original images which are so to speak already present in human consciousness and find there their origin. These images are not entered in consciousness from outside. They are not arbitrarily invented by this or that writer or thinker. In that regard, they are not personal or accidental, but in principle as universal and necessary images present in our consciousness, though of course their presence may be latent.

To deal with these images, as far as they have general validity, is a form of science, but not in the way of natural sciences. It is not based on experience of the outside world, but of the inner world. It is certainly a form of experience, but an experience based on introspection. Philosophy, psychology, religious studies should be concerned with these archetypal notions, because they are at the origin of human stories and literature. Art and literature are concerned with these archetypes, although they obviously don’t treat them in their generality, but give a particular form to them.

I might give the impression there would be plenty of these archetypes in our consciousness. But my intuition tells me that their number cannot be large, or at least can be reduced to some notions or perhaps a single idea.

Homecoming

The archetype to which many of these images can be reduced is homecoming, a name I once heard mention by Roger Scruton. Maybe he took the term rather literally, more than I am inclined to do, or in a quite specific meaning as building a permanent place in your life where you can wohnen in Heideggerian sense.

But in the concept of homecoming you find of course many psychological and spiritual aspects too, such as coming to yourself, finding meaning, purpose and destination in your life. If there is question of finding your destination, then homecoming is in essence finding your original destination. This finding is again the result of a quest for something you cannot entirely realize yourself, but is already given in origin. In that case, are origin and destination closely connected.

Finding a direction

You may object that such notions as origin and destination are taught by upbringing and education. Then they are a matter of culture that I abusively confuse with notions which are naturally given.

Of course, our immediate experience is – to use the image of Augustine - that we are sailing on sea without a clear notion from where and where to. Or - to speak with Heidegger-a experience of geworfen sein, finding yourself in a situation you never asked for and without knowing the means to save yourself.

But this initial experience could imply a sense of direction and does not in any case exclude it. Life as wandering about and drifting, in the sense of a lack of direction, presupposes that some direction should be.

The role of philosophy

According to Augustine, it is the philosophy which could develop that awareness of direction and goal. The philosophy must primarily develop the capacity of introspection and consulting yourself, prior to being guided by others in determining your direction. The compass which should indicate our destination has to be in ourselves and not outside. In other words: the archetype that gives us the sense of our origin and destiny must be present in our consciousness and we can only communicate with others about it as far as we discovered it already in ourselves.

The reach of the concept of homecoming

What is the knowledge in this archetypal field of homecoming which lies before consciousness and we can only reach by introspection? At first there is a notion which Augustine has developed and which is closely related to the concept of conversion. It is a longing to return to one’s inner origin. A return that does not take place immediately, but after a long way of struggle and inner awareness. One has to get, so to speak far from home. A long journey. in which one felt more or less lost, has to precede homecoming.

Therefore, the first group of sailors that Augustine mentions in his De Beata Vita is not a real option. Hardly set sail from home or they return again, that is not life. Hence the advice of Cavafy to let the trip to Ithaca last as long as possible, because the journey matters. It is a return home, but it is in a certain way not the same person who is returning. The person is certainly identical, but there passed a whole life through him. He returns back, like Cavafy says, rich in experience. In Augustine’s more biblical approach, you could think of evangelical image of the prodigal son, who is more celebrated than his brother who stayed home. Furthermore, there is the recollection of the lost paradise which has to be found in a lifetime full of trouble and pain.

It is not only biblical images to which Augustine refers. His Confessions are interlarded with Neo-platonic metaphors, influenced by reading the writings of Plotinus. Roughly speaking the philosophy of Plotinus comes down to the idea that we all stem from a common origin, the One, and that it is our destiny to return to this origin. Our staying in this physical world, determined by time and place, gives our life the character of multiplicity and distraction. His philosophy teaches us to bring our lives back from the multiplicity to unity and to participate in the One.

The Neo-platonic philosophy sees life as a life in a strange country, far from the homeland. It is a state of alienation from the origin and thus of your deepest self. Coming home is a circular movement in which the destination is in a way similar to the origin. It is to come to your inner self, when you have long lived outside. Ultimately it is the way of life from birth to death itself, the course of a original unity you vaguely know to a new unity, the merging of the individual awareness into the awareness of the All. You cannot say much about this, but saying nothing seems even less useful.

The vision of Cavafy and Augustine

I was asking myself how the vision of St. Augustine and Cavafy on homecoming would cover each other. Cavafy emphasizes that the journey is important and that this world is a rich world, in which you have much to gain. The Neo-platonic metaphors of Augustine make the journey to home much more subordinate to the goal. Still, it would not be correct to conclude that he judges this life in the material world as something negative from which we should withdraw us as soon and much as possible. The metaphor of staying in a foreign country refers much more to the psychological fact of alienation from ourselves. Again we need just the journey through this world to come to ourselves.

Coming to your inner self

When death can be seen as the fulfilling of an inner desire to go back to one’s origin, as the final homecoming, as the coming to a total awareness, in other words as participation in the Being itself, then any form of awareness is a step towards this ultimate goal. Homecoming is a spiritual process in which the goal just lights up every time we come to ourselves. I mean that in some privileged moments one is able to penetrate in the deeper layers of himself or rather the deeper self breaks through the surface of one’s daily consciousness and reveals itself. The experience of homecoming manifests itself in a feeling of deep emotion, of recognition, a knowing of so is it and so was it and so will it always be. That experience is a mixture of joy and sadness, of nostalgic knowing.

Homecoming as fulfillment of the Eros

When we talk about the experience of nostalgia, or of homesickness, then implies this feeling the notion of homecoming, although it is experienced in the form of a loss. The moments of happiness are often mixed with nostalgia, as if the entire homecoming is still pending. That mixture of desire and partial fulfillment of that desire is what drives people and sustains them. A reason why the theme of homecoming fascinates me is that it touches the Eros, the human desire. The meaning of Eros is here not restricted to sexual desire, but to the overall longing for fulfillment of our existence. Talking about the role of philosophy in homecoming, is not in the first place about a desire for knowledge and understanding, but about the desire for happiness. That desire does include the element of knowledge, but is wider. It is not only focused on what is true, but also on what is good and beautiful. It satisfies not only the brain but also the heart.

Eros and philosophy

I am aware that with this enlarging of philosophy to its original meaning, I am opposing against the current sober philosophical beliefs. It's almost a taboo and you would be ashamed to speak still about the reasons of the heart in a philosophical discussion. The philosophy of Plato seems in any case obsolete, at least if I would believe an epilogue on a Dutch translation of Plato's Symposium, fashionably translated as Feast. Here a certain Piet Gerbrandy states that, although Plato’s philosophy cannot inspire us today, this dialogue can still be interesting as literary fiction. Such a statement gives the impression of being enlightened, but is a fashionable opinion which covers a lot of philosophical ignorance, as if Plato's vision of Eros would be only an interesting literary fiction

Eros and desire for happiness

Next to our desire for knowledge and understanding the desire for happiness remains the driving force of our actions. But today the latter has received a romantic, somewhat faint aftertaste, as if this is something improper and not essential for human existence. However, the question of happiness was central in classic philosophy. Perhaps the premature answer this question found in Christian belief was responsible for that. Postulating God as the ready answer on this question made that the question and with it the answer hardly needed to be explored.

Yet no one can talk me out of my mind that the essence of philosophy lies in the Eros and the demand for happiness has to be exploited. I am aware that happiness is not a notion that you can define exactly, just as the notions of truth, goodness and beauty. Any sense of it is in fact obtained by introspection. But my experience is that especially in the question of happiness a part of the answer is given, in the same way as in the Eros as human desire a part of the fulfillment is given. I know this is not a rational argument, but that it is nevertheless based on those experiences in which the joy of fulfillment and the sadness of loss are mixed. Hence my plea not to limit philosophy to Ratio, but to take Eros as a starting point. That does not mean that I am leaving the norm of the critical reason and rely on pure feeling.

The nature of the archetypes

To avoid misunderstandings, I have to explain more of the nature of archetypes. I would not suggest that these are basic elements of human existence of which the content is already fixed. I want to be more in line with the definition that Jung has already given. He stresses that archetypes have no specific content, but are only formally determined. For me too, archetypes have a formal structure, but that form is empty. I stated that already with regards to the Eros, which is formally defined as desire, as a lack of fulfillment to which Eros formally is directed. Archetypes are basic forms, designs, which are still to be realized in life. Therefore, their content is not uniform, but is realized in an infinite individual way in each person. Applied to homecoming, this archetype offers strictly speaking little substantial information, except that it is a transcendent property of human desire, that transcends and must transcend every realization. However, this form has to be realized in life. Hence the advice of Cavafy to make the journey as long and intensively as possible. The intensity of life determines the nature of homecoming. But in that case you have to keep Ithaka always in your mind. This means that you must live according to this transcendental consciousness. In terms of Cavafy: keep your thoughts raised high.