Saint Augustine: Life, Philosophy, and Faith
Saint Augustine: Life and Historical Context
Saint Augustine (354-430 AD) lived during a difficult time. Originally from Numidia in North Africa, he experienced the social upheavals characteristic of the fall of the Roman Empire, which must have been a significant human and transcendental experience. The Empire had adopted Christianity as its official religion in 380 AD. Augustine’s reflections, therefore, were based on his observations, interpreting and making sense of the facts. At the time, followers of ancient cults interpreted the fall of the Empire as revenge from the gods for the rise of Christianity. Augustine approached history from a moral perspective, and this exercise manifested the same dialectic present in his anthropology: the history of mankind is a battle between good and evil.
Influences on Saint Augustine
- The reading of Cicero’s work (at age 19) awakened his interest in wisdom.
- This interest led him to Manichaeism, a doctrine with religious and rational elements that admitted two creative principles, one for good and the other for evil. He soon abandoned the sect.
- He fell into skepticism, questioning almost everything, which caused him suffering.
- Reading the work of Plotinus inspired him to attempt moral purification, which was initially frustrated.
- He rejected the increasingly skeptical attitude of academics (the successors of the Academy founded by Plato), who moved away from the principles defended by Plato, who also influenced him.
- He agreed with certain claims of Stoicism: happiness is achieved through the practice of virtue, self-control, courage, and equanimity in the face of misfortune. Happiness is accepting fate (everything is determined) with serenity.
- Reading the work of Saint Paul sparked his interest in Christianity. He converted at age 32 and later became Bishop of Hippo.
The Relationship Between Faith and Reason
Saint Augustine attempted to reconcile reason and faith, expressing the Christian God in the forms of Greek philosophy. When he was born, Christianity coexisted with Hellenistic systems that dominated the intellectual landscape. This is where the problem between reason and faith arises, with two possible solutions: conciliation and opposition. Augustine of Hippo is the most important thinker of the first centuries of Christianity and the one who established the theme of the relationship between faith and reason. He did not bother to demarcate boundaries between the two, but rather emphasized that both have the mission to clarify the only truly unique truth (for him, the Christian truth). In his own words, “Understand in order to believe, believe in order to understand.”
Augustinian Anthropology
Like Plato, and under his influence, Augustine distinguished two parts in man: soul (created, changing reality) and body (intermediate reality). He identified two aspects of the soul: a positive one, which is the real knowledge and the first evidence of the existence of God, and a negative one, which is sensitive knowledge and through which one can know God as the creator of reality. From this arises a dialectic anthropology, often expressed in dramatic terms, of constant struggle between good and evil. Thus, man lives stressed by two forces, each pulling in a different direction: an integrative tendency and a disintegrative tendency.
The Pursuit of Happiness
One result of this tension is that man feels he wants to be happy but cannot. Human beings have a permanent attitude of seeking. This momentum also occurs in the field of desire: he wants to do things that make him happy. But, according to Saint Augustine, he looks for happiness where it is not. The happiness he seeks is not in himself; he cannot achieve it with his own means. Only something greater, God, can make him happy. He expressed it with these words: “Whoever wants to be happy must obtain permanent assets.”
Since only God is the proper object to provide happiness, man can only become happy by autotrascending. But this exercise is not complicated, because Augustine knows that the human soul is a dwelling place of God, that one of the parts of the soul, the higher reason, communicates directly with Him. So this exercise of self-transcendence that he claims to meet God, to be happy, is also an exercise of introversion, of looking within oneself.