Saint Augustine’s Theory of Knowledge and Divine Illumination
Wisdom and Enlightenment
The Philosophy of Saint Augustine
In Saint Augustine’s philosophy, as in Platonism and Neoplatonism, knowledge is a form of religious purification. The superiority of the intelligible world, the subject of true knowledge, requires the liberation of the soul from the body. Once released, and since truth is God, the soul will necessarily be directed to Him as the only object that can bring happiness.
Inspired by Platonic doctrines, Saint Augustine distinguishes three levels of knowledge:
- Sensible
- Rational
- Contemplation
(The latter two constitute intelligible knowledge).
Sensible Knowledge
Sensible knowledge is rooted in the activity of the senses, common to both animals and humans, and is aimed at the material world. This essential form of knowledge is not considered true knowledge but rather opinion. Yet, for Saint Augustine, sensation is an act of the soul. Stimuli are mere occasions for the soul to perceive.
Rational Knowledge
Rational knowledge is innate; it is knowledge gained by reason from itself and takes sensitive knowledge as its starting point. Reason, thanks to ideas, eternal archetypes, or models of all things, judges what is perceived, resulting in science. This form of knowledge is specifically human, lacking in animals.
Contemplation
The contemplation of wisdom, or knowledge, is philosophical knowledge that deals with universal, necessary, ethical, and religious truths that are eternal and immutable. Examples include the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. These truths or ideas are the criteria for judgment that reason uses objectively in cognitive activity. True wisdom lies in this contemplation.
Ideally, this knowledge will increase, and reason will be directed to the proper use of changeable and corporeal things, leading to the attainment of eternal things. In this way, man will achieve his supernatural end: bliss and happiness in the possession and vision of God.
Divine Illumination
The contemplation of eternal ideas, or the ideas of God, is not achieved through reminiscence (as in Plato), nor is it derived from human experience or produced by the human mind. Only divine illumination provides these eternal ideas, which have their origin and basis in the divine mind. The man who would find these truths or eternal reasons must internalize them. The eternal ideas of God are thoughts or specimen ideas.
To explain the relationship between eternal ideas and things, Saint Augustine uses a concept from Stoicism: seminal reasons. When God created matter, He introduced eternal ideas into it as seeds that develop over time. While the world was created at once, it may arise again as a deployment of the possibilities contained in the seminal reasons.
The Augustinian theory of illumination is natural. God offers it to every man who sincerely seeks the truth, even if he has not encountered the Christian message.
One can see the influence of Plato: the sun illuminates sensitive objects to be seen by the eyes. The idea of the Good illuminates the ideas that can be understood by the human mind.
The Augustinian theory of illumination has been subject to multiple interpretations. Illumination is based on the image of God in man and the theological truth that Jesus Christ, both God and man, serves as the inner master of man.
However, it remains a metaphor inspired by Plato’s concept of illumination and the Idea of the Good, derived from the eternal or seminal reasons.