Early Christian Theology_Augustine of Hippo

Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

converted around 386

More aware than earlier Fathers of the philosophical diffences between christianity and other views.

More personalistic than Justin, Origen.

 

Solioquies (dialogues with Reason)

"God and the soul, that is what I desire to know. Nothing more? Nothing whatever."

·         Truth is by nature imperishable, for even if it perishes, it is still true that truth has perished' therefore truth has not perished.

·         So truth is immutable and eternal, that is, divine

·         Forms exist in the mind of G

·         Human knowledge, then, is by divine illumination.

 

On the Teacher

1.     Teaching (est. by signs) is impossible, unless the learner already know he is being taught.

2.     So we can learn only because the mind already possesses truth

3.     Skepticism about much of sense-experience, particular occurrences. Knowledge mainly of universals in those occurrences, which we know innately. Historical events in Scripture.

 

 

On the immortality of the soul

But what about error? How can the mind, which is true, turn to "stupidity?"

 

A: error, like evil, is a privation of being, a defectiveness in the reality of the mind

 

This defect cannot destroy the soul altogether, for truth cannot perish.