TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.0 ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO .............................................................................1

1.1 His Life History and Works ..............................................................................1
1.1.3 Significance of St. Augustine of Hippo ......................................................2
1.2 His Philosophy on God .....................................................................................2
1.2.1 Arguments to Prove God’s Existence.........................................................3
1.3 The World .........................................................................................................4
1.3.1 Doctrine of Creation from Nothing (“Creatio ex Nihilo”) ........................4
1.3.2 Seminal reasons (Rationes Seminales) .......................................................4
1.3.3 Matter ..........................................................................................................4
1.3.4 Types of Matter………………………………………………………….5
1.3.5 Numbers ......................................................................................................6
1. 4. On Man ...........................................................................................................6
1.4.1 How Man was Created ...............................................................................6
1.4.2 Characteristics of the Soul. .........................................................................7
1.4.3 Relationship between Soul and Body .........................................................7
1.4.4 Overcoming the Skeptics ............................................................................7
1.4.5 The Theory of Illumination ........................................................................8
1.4.6 Knowledge and Sensation ..........................................................................8
1.5 Augustine’s Understanding of Ethics ...............................................................8
1.5.1 The Principle of Good (God) ......................................................................9
1.5.2 The Problem of Evil ...................................................................................9
1.5.3 Natural Evil; ...............................................................................................9
1.5.4 The Concept of Time ................................................................................10
1. 6 STATE ...........................................................................................................10
1.6.1 City of God ...............................................................................................10
1.6.2 City of Man; ..............................................................................................11

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1.0 ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO
1.1 HIS LIFE HISTORY AND WORKS

St. Augustine of Hippo is the most famous of the Fathers of the Church, he is also

the greatest philosopher of the Patristic period. He was born at Tagaste in Numidia

in 354, of a Christian mother, Monica, who contributed very much to the formation

of his character. While yet young he abandoned the teaching of rhetoric, which he

had practised in different towns of Asia Minor and Italy, to devote himself to

theological studies.

He adhered for a time to Manichaeism, and also for some time favoured the

scepticism of the New Academy. He was converted to Catholicism by St. Ambrose

of Milan, who baptised him in 387. Later on he became Bishop of Hippo (395).

Up to his death in 430 he wrote and worked to propagate Catholicism and to

refute contemporary heresies, particularly Pelagianism and the Manichaeism whose

errors he had himself previously professed. His Philosophical works are like, De

immortalite animae, De musica. The polemical works are like, De Genesi contra

Manicheos, De baptisimo contra Donatistas. Some of exegetical works are,

Quaestionum evangeliorum libri duo, Enarrationes in Psalmos. Pastoral works are,

De mandacio, De sancta virginitate. Theological treatise are like, De trinitate, De

civitate Dei. TheAutobiographical writings, the Confessiones and the

Retractationes. Others are sermones and letters.

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 1.1.3 Significance of St. Augustine of Hippo
St. Augustine succeeded in finding harmonious synthesis between Platonism

and Christianity, he gave revealed doctrine of God, which are accessible to pure

reason, a markedly Platonic foundation, Mediaeval philosophy was active in so far

as it remained under Augustine influence.1 St. Augustine is said to be the last ancient

man and the first modern man, he achieved what was to constitute the very essence

of another being and that is man’s first attempt to approach himself. He determined

one of the two great aspects of Christianity, that of interiority, his thought contains

something characteristics of Christianity and of modern epoch: intimacy.2

1.2 HIS PHILOSOPHY ON GOD

Augustine conceives God as “being”. Naturally he admits that God is one but he

does not subordinate being to the One but, he identifies One with Being. This is a

difference between Augustine and Plotinus on the understanding of God.

The attributes of God are: eternity as He transcends time, immutability as He

is not subjected to change. God is also infinite, good, of truth, full of knowledge,

wisdom and power. He is both light and beatitude.

1
Batista, MONDIN, A History of Mediaeval Philosophy, Myroslaw Cizdyn(tr.) Theological Publication in India,
Bangalore 2011, 84.
2
Julian, MARIAS, History of Philosophy, Stanley Appelbaum — Clarence Strowbridge (trs.),
Dover Publication Inc., New York 1967, 121.

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1.2.1 Arguments to Prove God’s Existence
From Within

Presence in our mind of the absolute eternal truth; if this truth were of the

same nature as our mind, then it would also be subject to change, however the truth

remains always unaltered. So the eternal truth reveal their ground that is God.

From without

The argument from the changing world “contingentia mundi;” the changing

word precisely because it changes, it is for Augustine deficient, insufficient and

contingent. Such world presupposes the unchangeable, the incorruptible, and the

absolute and perfect, which is God.

The Order of the Cosmos; There must be that power which is responsible for

the sun, day and night. This order and harmony that is God.

The universe as the effect of cause; every effect points towards its cause, and

from an effect we can proceed to the cause. The creation reveals necessarily its

creator. There must be a perfect and eternal standard against which we Implicitly

measure the degrees of goodness, of beauty, and of perfection in things. This perfect

and eternal standard is God.

The Universal conviction of mankind that God exists; the whole human race

is convinced of God’s existence.

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 1.3 THE WORLD

1.3.1 Doctrine of Creation from Nothing (“Creatio ex Nihilo”)

Augustine’s distinctive doctrine was that God created all things from no any pre –

existing matter. God created out of pure love for the intellectual creatures which he

wanted to associate to his own beatitude. He spoke, and the world was made because

the Word was both His will and Power.

1.3.2 Seminal reasons (Rationes Seminales)

The World created by God was big with their “seminal reasons,” that is with the

seeds, or germs of future beings, and they are invisible and have the potential causal

power to become what they are not yet at the present time.3 Augustine explained the

origin of species, in the mind of God. He solved the problem in the scriptures in

Genesis that God created for six days. According to Scripture Eccl. 18:1 God created

all things at once. The six days of creation are a metaphor intended to help our

imagination. By a single instantaneous act he created from nothing he had implanted

the seminal principles of all species simultaneously.

1.3.3 Matter
St. Augustine insisted that God could not have created out of an existing

matter, because matter even in a primary form is already something. To speak of the

formless matter is to refer to nothing. Even if there were some formless matter that

3
Samuel, E. STUMPF, PHILOSOPHY: History & Problems, McGraw – Hill Inc. New York 1966, 142.

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was capable of being formed, even this would have its origin in God and would have

to be created by Him from nothing.4

1.3.4 Types of Matter

Spiritual matter, invisible matter or heaven; the “heaven” designate the

matter immediately stabilized under its forms. It also designates the invisible matter

and the mutability of spiritual substances or angels. Angels have an element of

mutability (changing) which is matter, but the sweetness of beatific contemplation

at once withdrew them from change, so that changing by nature they became

immutable (unchanging) in fact.5 The mode of duration of angels and spiritual

matters is aevum that is, the mode of duration proper to mutable natures that do not

change because they have achieved their perfection. Their mode of duration is

neither eternity which belongs to the immutable essence of God; nor it is time which

is proper to beings.

Corporeal matter, formless matter, bodies or the earth; the scripture

mentions the “earth” to designate a formless matter where forms will succeed one

another up to the end of time. This matter does not exist without some form and it

was not created by God prior to forms. Its mode of being to form (anteriority) is of

4
Etienne, GILSON, The HISTORY OF Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Random House, New York 1955,73
5
Confessiones IV, 16, 30.

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nature not of time. The forms of created beings are so many images of, or

participations in the divine Ideas.6

1.3.5 Numbers
St. Augustine used the Platonic number theme from the Pythagoreans, for him

a number is a principle if order and form, of beauty and perfection, of proportion and

law. The Ideas are eternal numbers and bodies are the temporal numbers, which

unfold themselves in time. 7 The seminal reasons are the hidden numbers, while

bodies are manifest numbers. Then, just as Mathematical number begins from one

and ends in a number which is itself an integer, so, the hierarchy of beings begins

with the Supreme One, God, which brings into existence and is reflected in more or

less perfect unities.

1. 4. ON MAN

1.4.1 How Man was Created

God created man as a compound of soul and body, man is neither his soul apart nor

his body apart but the whole which results from either union. Following Plotinus and

Plato, Augustine defined man as a soul that uses a body.

6
Etienne, GILSON, The HISTORY OF Christian Philosophy in the Middle Ages, Random House, New York 1955,73
7
Frederick, S. J. COPLESTON , A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: Medieval Philosophy, Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,
New York 1993, 73.

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1.4.2 Characteristics of the Soul.
Spirituality of the Soul; that the soul can perform its activities without the

body and hence it is spiritual, or the soul is incapable of performing its activities

without the body in which case it’s material.

Immortality of the Soul; Augustine reconsidering the Platonic arguments of

the relationship between the soul and the ideas, he proved the immortality of the

soul.

1.4.3 Relationship between Soul and Body

Firstly, the body is a more instrument of the soul than a substantial element.

Then, Soul and body are two substances of a different genus, one is material and the

other is spiritual. Sensation according to Augustine is an activity performed by the

soul using the body as an instrument. Lastly, the Soul superior to the body, it cannot

be influenced by the body.

1.4.4 Overcoming the Skeptics

Augustine had once agreed with skeptics that “no truth can be comprehended by

man” this agreement was before his conversion but after his conversion the problem

was not whether people can attain certain rather how they can attain it.

To answer the skeptics Augustine spoke of the human reason that can be

certain about various things for instance the two disjunctive prepositions one is true

and the other is false.

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1.4.5 The Theory of Illumination
According to St. Augustine of Hippo the doctrine of illumination, attempts to

account for the mind’s access to concepts and ideas, and not merely its power to

judge. The doctrine holds that human beings require a special divine assistance in

their ordinary cognitive activities. God is the light of the mind and knowing is a kind

of a mental seeing. Therefore, knowledge of this kind is a result of introspection.

The desire to posses wisdom is as deep as the desire to be happy.

1.4.6 Knowledge and Sensation

Knowledge is the true understanding of reality and it provides a rational bases

on which to act. Knowledge leads to achievements of personal and cultural

objectives and general progress. So, knowledge and sensation depend on each other

as they enable the completion of each other’s function. The brain is what regulates

the senses and not the heart.

1.5 AUGUSTINE’S UNDERSTANDING OF ETHICS

St. Augustine understood ethics as the vehicle for the achievement of the happiness,

since for him happiness is the goal of human behavior or man. Man has natural desire

for happiness, the human heart is restless and will remain restless until it finds the

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happiness which it seeks.8 St. Augustine maintained that; Happiness is attained when

a person goes beyond the natural to supernatural.9.

1.5.1 The Principle of Good (God)

The will necessarily seeks happiness, satisfaction can be found only in God

who is mutable good. However that man is morally weak. Man’s will has been

weakened by original sin, and as result man is unable to do any good without the

help of God who is supreme Good, and by the direction of the will that good is

implanted by God and willed by God.

1.5.2 The Problem of Evil

There are two general types of evil in the world which can be categories into

moral evil or evil caused by human beings and physical (natural) evil.

Moral evil; moral evil through free will is a privation of right order in the

created will, thus is to say moral evil is simply turning away of created will from the

immutable good and infinite good. It is the misuse of freedom given to man.

Sometimes moral evils are the imperfection of man’s actions which are done by man

himself.10

Natural Evil; they have no anything directly to do with any specific

wrongdoing of man. Naturally evils are seems to events such as famine, floods,

8
John K. RYAN, The confession of St. Augustine, Doubleday & Companying ,74.
9
Fredrick COPLESTON, A History Of Philosophy ,Volume II, 82-85.
10
Michael l. PETERSON,The problem of evil, University of Notre Dame, 444-448,

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disease earthquakes, hurricanes, and pestilence over which man has little control but

which cause him to suffer due to their nature of being.11

1.5.4 The Concept of Time

According to Augustine, time is an elusive concept; because neither the future

nor the past really exists, for the past is gone and the future is not yet. What we call

the past is one which the human mind remembers, the future is the human mind in

expectation and the present is the human mind as it considers; it is the reference

point for the past and future. Time is therefore a mental phenomenon existing only

in the mind. God is outside the realm of time.

1. 6 STATE

According to Augustine, there are two cities, namely, the city of God and the

City of Man. Everyman is a citizen of either one or the other.

1.6.1 City of God

is also called the city of Jerusalem. It belongs to those who are motivated by

the love of God and observe the moral laws. If an official of the state is governed by

the love of God, if he lives in justice and charity, he belongs spiritually and morally

to the city of God.

11
John K. RYAN, The confession of St. Augustine, Doubleday & Companying ,80

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1.6.2 City of Man
It is also called the City of Babylon. It is of those who are motivated by self -

love and flout the moral law by turning away from God and living evil lives.

Augustine also defined the society as a ‘multitude of rational creatures

associated in a common agreement as to the things which it loves’. If it loves good

things it is a good society and if it loves bad things it is a bad or evil society.

He claims that the church is the only really perfect society and is definitely

superior to the state, as the state cannot be above the church not even on a level with

the church.

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