Saint Augustine

Christian philosopher and bishop of Hippo in Northern Africa. Augustine’s synthesis of Platonic
and Christian concepts was a major influence in the development of medieval Christian doctrine and
Western philosophy.

Augustine was convinced that Platonism and Christianity were natural partners, going so far as
to contend, “If (the Platonists) could have had this life over again with us . . . they would have become
Christians, with the change of a few words and statements.” He enthusiastically adopted Plato’s vision
of a bifurcated universe in which “there are two realms, an intelligible realm where truth itself dwells,
and this sensible world which we perceive by sight and touch,” but then adapted this metaphysic to
Christian beliefs.

Thus, Plato’s ultimate reality, the eternal realm of the Forms, became in Augustine’s philosophy
a transcendent God. In the same way, Plato’s vision of immortal souls striving to achieve union with this
eternal realm through intellectual enlightenment became transformed by Augustine into immortal souls
striving to achieve union with God through faith and reason. The transient, finite nature of the physical
world described by Plato became in Christianity a proving ground for our eternal destinies. Plato’s
metaphysical framework thus provided philosophical justification for Christian beliefs that might
otherwise have been considered far-fetched.

Like Plato, Augustine believed that the physical body was both radically different from and
inferior to its inhabitant, the immortal soul. Early in his philosophical development, he describes the
body as a “snare” and a “cage” for the soul. He considers the body a “slave” to the soul, and sees their
relation as contentious: “The soul makes war with the body.” As his thinking matured, Augustine sought
to develop a more unified perspective on body and soul. He ultimately came to view the body as the
“spouse” of the soul, with both attached to one another by a “natural appetite.” He concludes, “That
the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and complete, is a fact we recognize on the
evidence of our own nature.”

In melding philosophy and religious beliefs together, Augustine has been characterized as
Christianity’s first theologian, a term derived from the Greek theos (God) and logos (study of)—the study
of God. His ideas influenced the structure of Christianity for the next 1,500 years, but by serving as a
conduit for Plato’s fundamental ideas, Augustine’s influence extended beyond Christianity to the
cultural consciousness of Western civilization as a whole.

In the next section, we will see Augustine’s direct impact on the thinking of the French
philosopher René Descartes. In addition to establishing the groundwork for Descartes’s thinking
regarding the soul and the body, Augustine also foreshadowed Descartes’s theory of knowledge.
Engaging in a similar quest for certainty that was to consume Descartes 1,200 years later, Augustine
identified as a first principle, “I am doubting, therefore I am,” a statement eerily prescient
of Descartes’s famous pronouncement, cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I am.”

Although Socrates is often described as the “father of Western philosophy,” the French
philosopher René Descartes is widely considered the “founder of modern philosophy.” As profoundly
insightful as such thinkers as Socrates and Plato were regarding the nature of the self, their
understanding was also influenced and constrained by the consciousness of their time periods.
Descartes brought an entirely new—and thoroughly modern—perspective to philosophy in general and
the self in particular.

Source: John Chaffee, The Philosopher’s Way: Thinking Critically about Profound Ideas, 5th ed.