Saint Augustine of Hippo

GOD
- was not interested in mere speculations about the
existence of God.
- his philosophical reflection about God were the
product of his intense pursuit of wisdom and spiritual
peace.
- His philosophy is a profound meditation on the
relation between God and the human being
GOD
God is the living
personal God, the
creator of all things,
and the supreme
ruler of the universe
ACCORDING TO HIM GOD IS...
• An Absolute Spirit
• The Absolute will
• The Absolute
Intelligence
• The Absolute Freedom
• The Absolute Good
• The Absolute Holiness
• The Highest Being
 GOD IS....
..in no interval or extension of time
..pure or highest being
..in God there is no change either from nonbeing to
being or from being to nonbeing
..God as the source of being and truth
GOD IS....
 “THE ETERNAL ONE”

GOD

Human life must be live in the physical world..

Mutable world could not provide humanity with
Human need to know how to understand this
the true knowledge or spiritual peace
world in order to relate appropriately to it
WORLD = CREATION OF GOD
- An expression given by St. Augustine to
creation - Confessions
The universe changes constantly
 To change is to become something from what was not

 e.g. if a leaf changes from green to red, it becomes red from

what was not, i.e. what was not red
 So, change requires that something come from nothing, i.e. that
something comes from what was not.
 It is impossible under purely natural processes that
something come from nothing.
 So, there must exist something – God – that never
changes and miraculously creates each momentary
stage of the changing universe from what was not =
nothing (ex nihilo).
 To create ex nihilo is to create without using matter;
it is to create simply by decree, command or
thought.
Christian philosophers have struggled ever
since Augustine raised this question. Many
answers have been given but that of St.
Augustine is one of the most ingenious.
Manichaenism
• Manichaenism: Looked at reality in terms of an eternal
struggle between good and evil. Body=evil, Soul=good.
 Humans can not help but to sin and there is no free
will
 This let Augustine and other Manicheans atttribute
their sins to a principle somehow outside of them
selves
• Augustine became attracted to this belief at a young age.
Neoplatoism
• Soon Augustine was dissatisfied with this “solution” to evil and turned
to neoplatoism instead
• Neoplatoism was an expansion of Plato’s ideals that focused more on
religion
• Also focused on the concept of Immaterial Reality:
• The belief that evil is not a real feature of reality, but an incompleteness, or
a lack of good.
• (i.e., a cavity is not a thing but a lack of calcium)
Christianity
• After converting to Christianity Augustine remained influenced by
neoplatonic ideas but changed his view on evil
• Now he believed that evil is not a lack of goodness, but the result of
excessive self-love on the part of the sinner and the lack of sufficient
love for God.
• Spent lots of time battling heresies and helping to form the identity of
Christianity
Pelagianism
• The most difficult heresy to battle was Pelagianism:
• This heresy over accentuates the role of free will in salvation
and minimizes the role of God’s grace. It denied original sin
and said humans have the ability to become righteous through
free will alone.
• Was the opposite of the Manichees because it
overemphasized free will, while Manicheanism
minimized it.
• Augustine had the difficult task of finding the correct
balance between these two extreme beliefs.
Problems Brought Up by These Heresies/
Augustine’s Solutions
• If God is omniscient, then he knows the future. If he knows the future
then it must unfold exactly in accordance with his knowledge.
Therefore there is no freedom.
• If there is no freedom, then humans are not responsible for their
actions. Therefore, it would be immoral to punish them for sins.
• Problem: Either God is omniscient but immoral, or he is benevolent
but ignorant
Augustines’ Solutions
1. For God there is no past or future. Only an eternal present.
Everything exists in an eternal moment. God is outside of time.
2. God’s knowledge of the world entails necessity, but to deny that
necessity is incompatible with freedom.
3. Freedom is the capacity to do what one wants and one can do
what one wants even if God (or anyone else) already knows what
that person wants.
The End!