Augustine’s Philosophy: Truth, Love, and the City of God
Chapter 26 Part 2
Summary:
The truth of being, knowing, and loving does not interfere with academic arguments. If I exist, then I know that I know, and I love because I am not mistaken in my love. All beings desire happiness, which is inseparable from existence.
Analysis:
St. Augustine criticizes academic philosophers, specifically the New Academy (Neoplatonism), for their skepticism. They denied the possibility of knowing the truth, despite asserting its existence. Augustine uses the same argument against skeptics as Plato did: the testimony of self-consciousness. Intuitive self-awareness is evidence of truth. Even if we are deceived, the fact that we know we exist proves our existence. Love confirms these certainties. These certainties are reached through consciousness, not the senses or imagination. Self-awareness is the knowledge the mind perceives by itself. Augustine believes happiness is found only in wisdom, which is the possession of truth.
Episode 27 Part 1
Abstract: Analysis:
St. Augustine uses the term ‘love’ to describe the tendency of all creatures to seek life and avoid death. This tendency is witnessed by the common feeling of life. If love is man’s free will, then to know is to love, and to love is to know. Man loves life and knowledge, a power unique to him as he is created in God’s image. Knowing is the mind’s anxiety, but the process of knowledge into wisdom cannot be separated from the will to happiness, as they are one and the same.
Context
His Work:
The City of God, written in 22 books between 410 and 426, addresses the difficult times in Rome due to the Goths and the fall of the Roman Empire. St. Augustine reassures Christians who doubted the Church’s survival after Rome’s fall. His work proposes a new order founded on the transcendent, replacing Ancient Rome with a New Rome, Jerusalem. This celestial city is formed by those who love God more than themselves, while the city of sinners is formed by those who love themselves more than God.
Philosophical Tradition:
Augustine belongs to the Christian patristic philosophy movement, which arose in Christian communities across the empire. The patristic school is divided into three periods: 1) (Until the Council of 325) apologists defended the faith against persecutions and heresies. 2) (Until the Council of 452) the peak, with S. Augustine conceptualizing the main tenets of Christianity. 3) Decadence, with few original authors, allowing transmission through their works in the Middle Ages.
Epoca San Agustin
The link between politics and the Catholic religion, initiated by Constantine, had serious consequences, converting theological issues into political ones, causing stability problems in the empire.