Saint Augustine’s Philosophy: Faith, Reason, and Humanity
1. Relationships Between Faith and Reason
In principle, faith and reason are two opposing concepts:
- Faith: Believing in what we *do not* see. It can be the basis for a theory to be proven.
- Reason: A basis founded on experiments and demonstrations.
Saint Augustine tries to reconcile faith and reason, attempting to convince people that the Christian religion is the best and providing arguments to support its believers. He links the advantages obtained over other religions to the prevailing belief that faith determines the beliefs of reason. Faith is necessary to investigate in the right way. Reason can never contradict faith. Belief is better than a rational irrational. Reason, being a human potential, is finite and unbounded. Faith is limited and does not change.
2. Knowledge and Man
For Saint Augustine, the model of knowledge and of what man is comes from the infallible: Faith, i.e., the Bible, where man is made in the image and likeness of God. His theory begins with the scheme of the creation of man by God. Adam and Eve are created in a paradise; they have no work but have to follow God’s orders and not take the forbidden fruit. As free individuals, they decide to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge and are expelled from the paradise where they lived.
To explain the existence of sin, Augustine says sins are caused by reason, for it is imperfect and may decide that acts are evil and wrong. As men are imperfect, we need an institution and a body of experts to mark the path of good conduct (the Church and priests) and get to heaven. We must use reason to decide what is good behavior in accord with our nature. Sin should be corrected because reason is consistent with faith.
Humans are distinguished from animals by reason, freedom, and grace. The soul is tainted by original sin, which shows the imperfection of men in choosing between good and evil. The Church acts with goodness and forgives sin. Saint Augustine is Neoplatonic, so his theory of knowledge will be very similar to that of Plato. In Plato, ideas are in the soul, which forgets them when hitting the body. Saint Augustine will say that God is within the soul, and when establishing a dialogue between body and soul, one is to find God. When we know our souls, we gain knowledge.
All men are able to acknowledge God, as He is worldwide. The Church helps people find their way. But not all men come to this knowledge.
3. The City of God
The City of God is the title of his last book, explaining the theology and philosophy of history. The theory presents a distinction between two cities, which are two states of mind:
- City of Evil: Selfishness, thinking more about meeting one’s own needs than others’ (City of the Devil). Identified with Babylon, as its laws are not connected with the Christian religion but with pagan corruption.
- City of God: What God wants, a religious self. It is identified with Jerusalem, a model city with God as a perfect idea where there is goodness and justice.
Saint Augustine says that the devil inhabits the City of Evil, explaining corruption where no religion reigns, and therefore there are no criteria. There are sins, but in the City of God, justice reigns, directed only by God. A person’s conduct decides the way of salvation; if one person lives religiously, they live in the City of God, as it needs only to perform a religious attitude regardless of the laws of the city.