A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

The Secular Science. At the same time it must not be supposed that the teaching of Augustine was by any means the only source from which this first period of the Middle Ages drew its materials of knowledge. A glance at the list of books in a mediæval library (see p. [327]) will not confirm such a supposition. Augustine does not include in his doctrine—massive as it is—all the factors that finally made up mediæval civilization. Even at the beginning there was a tendency toward secular science derived from Plato and Aristotle. Noticeable as this was at first it became prominent later. Secular science tried at first to modify scholasticism, and then later to gain an independence for itself. The doctrine of Augustine did not contain the germs of science. But at the start the Middle Ages had writings on science in the inadequate compendiums of Capella, Cassiodorus, and Boëthius, and in the fragments of the logic of Aristotle.

The Life of Augustine (354–430). Aurelius Augustine, often called “the Plato of Christianity,” was born in Thagaste, Numidia. His father was a Pagan, his mother a Christian; and it was his mother who contributed chiefly to the formation of his character. He was a boy of brilliant gifts, and was educated in the schools of Madaura and Carthage. At Carthage his life was full of dissipation, which he has described in his Confessions. He took up in succession all the scientific and religious problems of his time. He gave up the teaching of rhetoric, which he had practiced in several towns in Asia Minor and Italy, and began to study theology. He was troubled by his religious doubts and tried to find relief first in Manichæism, then in the skepticism of the Academy, and then in neo-Platonism.He was converted to Christianity through three influences: his study of Plato, the eloquence of St. Ambrose, and the unremitting moral influence of his mother. He became a priest, then a bishop, and was untiring in his activity both in the practical organization of the church and in the theoretical construction of its doctrines. He was especially active in his literary attempts to refute the Pelagian and Manichæan heresies, whose doctrines he had previously professed. His life falls at the time when the barbarian invasions were beginning and when Rome was crumbling. Moved by his Platonic idealism, he wrote his City of God, which, in an elaborate philosophy of history, shows that God’s city is not on earth, but in heaven.

The Two Elements in Augustine’s Teaching. The great masses of thought in Augustine’s mind reveal motion in two directions. On the one hand, he is the theologian who holds on high the conception of the authority of the church. On the other hand, he is the philosopher who speaks for the principle of immediate certainty for the individual. These are two foci about which his thought is in constant flux and often in contradiction. Augustine has, therefore, two criteria for truth: the truth that comes from an authority without, and the truth that comes from consciousness itself. The authority of the church and the authority of the immediate consciousness of the individual—these are the two central thoughts in Augustinianism. Augustine’s conception of the authority of the church acted upon him as a lofty ideal which both inspired and at the same time constrained his speculations. As he grew older he gravitated more and more toward it, and thereby became more conservative. But it was the other central thought—the authority of immediate consciousness—which he made the basis of a philosophy of original power. Through this he transcended his own time and became himself a modern, leading the Middle Ages up to him.

Augustine did not define accurately the spheres of philosophy and theology. He did not show whether reason or revelation had the higher authority. He did not try to decide between the intelligo ut credam and credo ut intelligam, that is, between the respective authorities of reason and faith. That became, in consequence, a central philosophical problem for the schoolmen. Nevertheless, the great inheritance which Augustine left the world was along the philosophical line of intelligo ut credam (of knowledge as the basis of faith instead of faith as the basis of knowledge).

The Neo-Platonic Element: the Inner Certainties of Consciousness. Augustine was not original in making the starting-point of his philosophy the inner certainties of consciousness. That was the point of view of his time, and the starting-point of the ascetic tendency both of Christianity and of neo-Platonism. He was dissatisfied with the world without, and turned away from it to the world within to find reality. But this had been a growing tendency ever since the time of Plato. Augustine’s originality lies in his psychological description of these certainties. He is the master of self-observation and introspection. He can describe inner experiences as well as analyze them. He puts his philosophy upon a solid anthropological basis by developing a psychology of the certainties of consciousness. In doing this he placed the inner experience in the central position of control. Thus he reached a well-defined position of “internality” for which the Stoics, Epicureans, neo-Platonists, and thepreceding Christian theologians had been groping; thus he anticipated Descartes and modern philosophy.

Man clings to life in spite of all its evils. This shows that there is a reality for the soul. The material world may pass away, but the reality of soul-life is assured. Man’s inner life is ever present and cannot be imaginary. The fact that there is such a thing as probability implies the existence of certainty. Where shall I look for certainty? In myself. Certainty is there as a fact of inner observation. There are my inner mental states—my sensations, feelings, etc., whose existence cannot be doubted even if the existence of the objects to which they correspond is doubted. I am certain also of my own consciousness at that moment. To doubt my existence is to assert my existence. To doubt also implies that I will remember, live—for doubt rests upon these former ideas. The temporary character of the material world only strengthens the reality of this inner world. The existence of the material world cannot be demonstrated, and so man is driven inward to find a basis for its reality. Thus by a deep insight, although without much logical reasoning, Augustine transcends Aristotle, and anticipates modern thought by finding reality in the unitary personality, whose existence is an inner certainty.

But Augustine is driven farther inward; for the certainty of the existence of God is involved in this inner certainty. My doubt about the character of the world of material things implies that their truth exists and that I have the capacity for measuring it. Such truths are universal. They transcend the individual consciousness, and their mutual agreement unites all rational beings in a common standard. On the other hand, thisunity of truths implies the existence of God. Truths are the Ideas (Platonic) in God’s mind.[52]

Full knowledge of God is denied to man in this life, but, nevertheless, all morality consists in love for God; all science is only an interest in the working of God in nature; all the beauty in the world around us points to the harmonious ordering of God; the history of the world is only the free act of God. Thus, in brief, does Augustine centralize the principle of inner spirituality—of “internality.” Thus does he put into control the certainty of consciousness.

This was Augustine’s great contribution to the world both in the sphere of philosophy and religion. We shall see how important this principle is in our tracing of modern philosophy. Its importance upon the growth of religion was so very great that we cannot pass it by without remark. “Augustine was the reformer of Christian piety.” In the midst of religion he discovered religion. He looked into the human heart and found it to be the lower good; he looked to God and found Him to be the higher good. In love for God, man becomes exalted to another being. This is the “new birth.” By this personal religion nature and grace are separated, but morality and religion are united. Sin is the disposition to be independent by living in a state of unrest in the desires. Sin is a state of lust and fear. All is sin in the heart of the natural man—in the heart apart from God. The pre-Augustinian religion of morality and baptism, animated byhope and fear, was supplanted by him with the conception of the desire to be happy by sharing in the bliss of God. Augustine passed from Christian pessimism to Christian optimism, to a confidence in pardoning grace. By faith and love God calls us back to himself and the soul acquires what God requires. Religion is personal and a thing of the heart. “Love, unfeigned humility, and strength to overcome the world, these are the elements of religion and its blessedness; they spring from the actual possession of the loving God.This message Augustine preached to the Christianity of his time and of all times.”[53]

But Augustine philosophically breaks with his own Platonism at one point, and finds not in the intellect, but in the will, the primary characteristic of this consciousness of inner certainty. The will is the inmost core of our being. All our mental states are formed under the direction of the purposes of the will. The striking exception to this is the cognition of the higher divine truth, in the presence of which the mind can be only passive. Revelation cannot be the production of the finite activity, but it is an act of grace before which the will is expectant and passive. Knowledge of the divine truths of the reason is the blessedness that results from the will of God and not of man. The will of man is transformed into faith, and yet even then an element of the human will is present, although passive, for the appropriation of the truth is an act of will. Thus, in regard to this difficult subject of the nature of the will, there are two observations to be made: (1) Augustine conceives the will, memory, and intellect as so intimately related as not to be faculties of the personalitylike the properties of a substance. They rather form an indissoluble unity of the substance of the soul. (2) The will is theoretically free, and Augustine is one of the most forcible defenders of free-will because he is also a defender of ethical responsibility and the justice of God. Theoretically the will is a force existing above sensuous nature and formally possesses the capacity of following or resisting inclination. Actually it is never free to choose, but it has the higher function of being determined by the Good.Only the good will is free.[54]