The influence of St. Augustin on Philosophy
The author of this text is Agustín de Hipona (354-430), belongs to works by San Agustín, “Sermon 43” 4. It was a medieval philosopher who established the relationship between faith and reason using patristics and taking as a model neoplatonism. San Agustín develops the theme of the two types of knowledge that complement faith in the text, sensitive and rational knowledge, which I will talk about in the essay. To understand its philosophy and the central theme of the text, I will mainly exhibit Plato’s influence with Neoplatonism, Christianity, Hellenism with Cicero and Patristic. I will relate all this to the text and to conclude, I will make a critical reflection on his philosophy and his influence.
In the fourth century, the Roman Empire enters decline and crisis. With the edict of Milan in 313 Christianity begins to gain importance since it ceases to be convicted. The appearance of Hellenism makes a practical relationship between philosophy and Christianity whose central theme is God. Inside it arose stoicism, epicureanism, skepticism and after Plato’s philosophy, neoplatonism with Plotinus (203-262) was born. Makes an interpretation of Platonic philosophy preserving the figure of an eternal being that creates the world of ideas and the sensitive world. All these currents that were part of Hellenism together with Cicero, who reconciled Neoplatonism and Christianity, had happiness and criticized skepticism.In this way the path will begin to philosophical Christianity that was a source of great influence in San Agustín in its beginnings.
Christianity (branch of Judaism) was a theocentrist religion, so that its center was God and subordinated the reason to faith. The Church was the center of power and the fundamental basis of society at that time. Its objective was the understanding of the revelations collected in the Holy Scriptures and the understanding of Christian dogma (through faith given by God and helped from reason): Holy Trinity. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Saint Augustine defended the theory of creationism by which God creates the world starting from nothing, just like Plato with the demiurge or "nous" of Anaximandro that governed the universe. Saint Augustine defended that God had created human beings and because of this all our knowledge is true.
Faith and reason will constitute its central theme. Saint Augustine in the field of knowledge, defended that faith was obtained by divine revelation, establishes a comparison with Plato and his cave myth. God is the divine lighting that allows us to approach knowledge (illuminism) and ideas abandon the world of Plato’s ideas and become belonging to the figure of God. Through their knowledge method these two parties collaborate together and one depends on the other, philosophy was the servant of religion. Unlike, Saint Thomas (1224-1274) defended that faith and reason were autonomous but in both in case of contradiction, the true will be faith since this is divine creation.
Saint Augustine considered that men who act incorrectly do not do it because of God because God is perfect, but is the result of the lack or deprivation of good dependent on the human being. This will be called Agustinian metaphysical optimism that will oppose Manichaeism that showed the existence of good and evil. Reason and faith are complementary areas that God has given us "understands to believe, he believes to understand" although faith will always constitute the dominant role.
With patristic, neoplatonism continues to enjoy great relevance. The patristic (s. I-v) that was served as philosophy to reinforce theology, it was based on Church’s parents, the current of neoplatonism followed. They were defenders of faith over reason and were responsible for eliminating the heresies and movements that put the Church in a dangerous situation. Maximum representative was Plotino (205-270), he conceived God (one) as a creator and the existence of two worlds. Plato’s influence would also be the separation between body and soul.
Agustín differentiated platonic root knowledge levels. The sensations, the lower ratio (by judgment of corporeal objects) and the upper ratio (through wisdom and contemplation of eternal ideas without sensations through faith and reflexive lighting of God). The conception of Greek time, circular with an ordinary divinity, was different from Christian, eternal God created time, world and matter. The conception was linear. San Agustín argued that in its policy that there are two cities, the city of God and the earthly city. In the first there are those who love God and in the second human beings who leave the love of God aside.
Knowledge, in the light of the text, can be sensitive and rational. The second differs from the first because only human beings have it, composed of soul and intelligence too. This has been granted by God or architect. This knowledge and understanding is only possessed by humans and angels while sensitive knowledge is. The sensitive is captured through the senses and the rational through reason and intelligence as San Agustín says in the text.
For St. Augustine, what differentiates us from animals is our capacity for reasoning although it goes after divine faith, that all human beings had and was granted by God. To understand, according to Agustín and Christianity, we had to believe first in faith since there are concepts that cannot be rationally explained as Holy Trinity. On the other hand, the Monk San Anselmo de Canterbury (1034-1109), father of scholasticism, rationally proves the existence of God defended through ontological arguments.
Saint Augustine advocated the divine justice in which Jesus Christ prevailed as a prophet sent from God. Finally, the philosopher makes a call to the previous philosophers who transmitted their knowledge through poetry and thought that knowledge, apart from obtaining them by reason, had been given by God and were true and immutable as Plato’s ideas.
In conclusion, Augustinian philosophy gave great importance to faith followed by reason. San Agustín serves and gives rise to Platonic and Neoplatonic ideas through authors such as Plotino (203-262). His thought turns a philosophy that makes Christianity and the figure of God a great importance. Through Hellenism, Illuminism, Creationism and Patristic, it puts religion and philosophy jointly making it of great esteem for philosophers and religious. In San Agustín, human beings had been created by God, endowed with faith, reason and rational knowledge. Both parties started from the idea of good and could never be wrong due to their creation and perfection of the creator. The other platonic origin component of our being was the material body.
Therefore, all the currents of which San Agustín was based, served to perform a philosophy centered on faith and the reason that will inspire Santo Tomás (1224-1274), although this will grant more autonomy to each of theparts and will be influenced by the Aristotelian texts translated by Avicena (908-1037). In both authors their philosophies were articulated by God. Finally, St. Augustine was a philosopher who established the problem Fe/Reason in medieval philosophy that will inspire subsequent philosophers such as Saint Thomas.
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