St. Augustine’s Philosophy: Being, Knowledge, Love, and Happiness
Chapter 26 Part 2
Summary
The truth of being, knowing, and loving are intertwined. Academic arguments do not interfere because if I exist (Angan), I know (esxisto), and if I know, then I love (enotnces). We add love because I am not mistaken that I love; I do not love things that deceive (amo). Furthermore, all want to be happy, and this desire is inseparable from existence.
Analysis
St. Augustine criticizes the Academic philosophers. These skeptics of the New Academy (Neoplatonism), while asserting the existence of truth, denied the possibility of knowing it. St. Augustine uses the same argument against them as Plato used against the Sophists. The argument is the testimony of self-consciousness as the intelligible world. The intuitive self is evidence that substantiates the truth: even if we fool ourselves, we know that we know, and we add love. To the question, “What confirmed these certainties?” St. Augustine said that these certainties are reached not through the senses or imagination, but within consciousness: self-awareness (knowledge that the mind perceives by itself and in itself). Anything of which we are immediately aware is certain. St. Augustine believes that happiness is found only in wisdom, and this is ultimately the possession of truth.
Episode 27 Part 1
Summary
The love of existence is a natural inclination in humans. No one wants to die miserably or cease to exist but rather live. This love for existence is shared by all creatures: animals, plants, and even minerals (inert). All of them, through their movements, express their desire to live.
Analysis
With the term “love,” St. Augustine alludes to this tendency that forms a lifestyle. All creatures tend toward life and desire to exist, shunning death. This trend is witnessed by perception, manifested in their own lives, and for humans, it points to God, the creator. However, in the case of humans, love involves will and free will because to know is to love, and to love is also to know. Humans love existence and understand that this power is theirs and not that of any other creature since they have been created in the image and likeness of God. Knowing is an anxiety of the mind, but the process of knowledge into wisdom cannot be divorced from the will to happiness because both are one and the same thing.
Episode 27 Part 2: Essence, Science, and Love
Summary
The love of knowledge in humans is so strong that it prefers the suffering of consciousness to the joy of madness. This tendency is unique to humans since they are the only rational beings who not only feel the world but also have the ability to judge it, to do science on it. Although some animals have more developed senses, they lack the ability to judge things that are not tangible and manifest to our senses. Humans judge through an inner sense that perceives right and wrong and which reaches the certainty of their existence, known and loved.
Analysis
Humans also love to love knowledge because they are created in the image and likeness of God and, therefore, have a rational soul, which allows them to gain wisdom and receive divine illumination (Iluminación). This is not the common-sense knowledge of animals. Animals may have some sensory knowledge, but it provides no real knowledge, only a handy utility. This is due to two things: the deficiencies of the senses, which can be deluded, and sensible objects, which are not the subject of true knowledge. Divine illumination is not the feeding and breeding typical of the plant kingdom. Plants feel, but their feeling is passive, not active. Their inability to feel is compensated by their ability to be sensed. Divine illumination is knowledge of the intellect; it is what the mind perceives by itself and through itself and includes the intelligible world, that is, eternal truths and self-consciousness. The specific part of the human soul is the rational soul, and the highest part of this is thought, which has two functions: practical knowledge (rational knowledge of reason, judging from sensible things to intelligible models, mediating between the sensible and the intelligible, allowing for science) and contemplative knowledge (objective knowledge of the intellect, giving wisdom and intuition, reaching eternal ideas and truths). These immutable ideas, equivalent to Platonic ideas, are models of all that has been created by God. They are not created by the mind but are found only in the mind of God.