Augustine approaches the biblical text, but his mind is unable to penetrate its interior. For Augustine, faith is not enough to access the depths of biblical revelation. At the age of nineteen, he turned to rationalism and rejected faith in the name of reason.
Little by little, he changed his mind until he came to the conclusion that reason and faith are not necessarily in opposition, but that their relationship is one of complementarity. Faith constitutes an initial and necessary condition to penetrate the mystery of Christianity, but not a final and sufficient condition. Reason is necessary. Faith is a way of thinking by assent, and if there were no thought, there would be no faith. That is why intelligence is the reward of faith. Faith and reason are two fields that need to be balanced and complemented.
Augustine finds the starting point for his position in the dilemma faith / reason. Commenting on a fragment of the “Gospel according to John” (17, 3), he says: “The Lord, with his words and actions, has exhorted those whom he has called to salvation to have faith first of all. But then, speaking of the gift that he should give to believers, he did not say: “This is eternal life: that they believe,” but: “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only God, and the one whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.
He is situated between fideism and rationalism. To the rationalists he says: “Crede ut intelligas” (“believe in order to understand”) and to the fideists: “Intellige ut credas” (“understand in order to believe”).
Augustine wants to understand the content of faith, demonstrate the credibility of faith and go deeper into its teachings. Augustine maintains that the mind, while in doubt, is conscious of itself: if I deceive myself, I exist (“Si enim fallor, sum”). The path to certainty is interiority (“in interiore homine habitat veritas”1) which, through a process of illumination, encounters eternal truths and God himself. And here appears one of the most important Augustinian affirmations: “God is in the innermost part of each person.
Neoplatinism appears here in all its intensity: the eternal ideas are in God and are the archetypes according to which he creates the cosmos. God, who is a community of love, comes out of himself and creates, out of love, through the “ratones seminales” that explain the evolutionary process based on a constant creative activity, without which nothing would subsist. Everything that God creates is good; evil lacks entity, it is the absence of good and the undesirable fruit of human freedom.
And another of the master coordinates of Augustinianism appears: the “conception of time.” The notion of time itself creates a great perplexity: “What is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I have to explain it, I no longer know.” Starting from this perplexity, Augustine attempts a fruitful ontological reflection on the nature of time and its relationship with eternity. The Christian God is a creator but not a created God. Consequently, his “temporality” is radically different from that of his creatures. God defines himself as: “I am who I am,” and added: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you'” (Exodus 3:14). Therefore Philosophy
Augustine approaches the biblical text, but his mind fails to penetrate its interior. For Augustine, faith is not enough to access the depths of biblical revelation. At the age of nineteen, he turned to rationalism and rejected faith in the name of reason.
Little by little, he changed his mind until he came to the conclusion that reason and faith are not necessarily opposed, but that their relationship is one of complementarity. Faith constitutes an initial and necessary condition for penetrating the mystery of Christianity, but not a final and sufficient condition. Reason is necessary. Faith is a way of thinking by assent, and if there were no thought, there would be no faith. Therefore intelligence is the reward of faith. Faith and reason are two fields that need to be balanced and complemented.
Augustine finds the starting point for his position in the dilemma faith / reason. Commenting on a fragment of the “Gospel according to John” (17, 3), he says: “The Lord, with his words and actions, has exhorted those whom he has called to salvation to have faith first of all. But then, speaking of the gift that he was to give to believers, he did not say, “This is eternal life, that they believe,” but, “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
He is situated between fideism and rationalism. To the rationalists he says: “Crede ut intelligas” (“believe in order to understand”) and to the fideists: “Intellige ut credas” (“understand in order to believe”). Augustine wants to understand the content of faith, to demonstrate the credibility of faith and to go deeper into its teachings.
Augustine maintains that the mind, while it doubts, is conscious of itself: if I deceive myself, I exist (“Si enim fallor, sum”). The path to certainty is interiority “(in interiore homine habitat veritas”) which, through a process of illumination, encounters eternal truths and God himself. And here appears one of the most important Augustinian affirmations: God is in the most intimate part of each one of us.
Neo-Platinism appears here with all its intensity: The eternal ideas are in God and are the archetypes according to which he creates the cosmos. God, who is a community of love, goes out of himself and creates, through love, through the “ratones seminales” that explain the evolutionary process that is based on a constant creative activity, without which nothing would subsist. Everything that God creates is good, evil lacks entity, it is the absence of good and the undesirable fruit of man’s freedom.
And another of the master coordinates of Augustinianism appears: the conception of time. The notion of time itself creates a great perplexity: “What is time? If no one asks me, I know. If I must explain it, I no longer know.” From this perplexity, Augustine attempts a fruitful ontological reflection on the nature of time and its relationship with eternity. The Christian God is a creator but not a created God. Consequently, his ‘temporality’ is radically different from that of his creatures. God defines himself as: “I am who I am,” and added: “Thus you shall say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you’” (Exodus 3:14). Therefore God is outside of time while human beings are structurally temporal entities.
Influenced by Neoplatonism, Augustine separates the world of God (eternal, perfect and immutable) from that of creation (dominated by matter and the passage of time, and therefore mutable). His analysis leads him to the asymmetry of time. This asymmetry comes from the fact that everything that has already happened is known to us because we have experienced it and it is easy for us to remember it in the present, something that does not happen with the future. For Augustine, God created time “ex nihilo” at the same time as the world and subjected his creation to the passage of that time, hence everything in it has a beginning and an end. God, on the other hand, is outside of all temporal parameters.
Augustine rejects the identification of time and movement. Aristotle defines time as an arithmetic resource to measure movement. Augustine knows that time is duration, but he does not accept that this is identified with a spatial movement. Duration takes place within us and is the result of the ability to foresee, see and remember the events of the future, present and past. Augustine comes to the conclusion that the seat of time and its duration is the spirit. It is in the spirit that the sensation of duration (long or short), of the passage of time, becomes effective, and it is in the spirit that the duration of time is measured and compared. The spirit has the ability to foresee what will come, to notice it when it comes and to preserve it in memory once it has passed.a
Augustine states: “There are three times: the present of things past, the present of things present, and the present of things to come.” For these three presences have some being in my soul, and I see and perceive them only in it. The present of things past is the present memory or recollection of them; the present of things present is the present consideration of something present; and the present of things to come is the present expectation of them” (Confessions, XI and XX, 26), is outside of time while human beings are structurally temporal entities.
