Brother Lawrence Pilarca, OSB
05:520 Medieval Philosophy
Mr. Gill Ring, professor
1. Why did young Augustine turn from Christianity to Manicheism?
Answer: Augustine turned his back from Christianity to Manicheism when his questions on the absolute goodness of god was answered by the dualistic doctrine of the Manichees which states that there are two principles that are ultimate. And that the first one is responsible for good and for the human soul and the other one is for evil and matter that includes the body.
2. How did Platonism bring him back to Christianity?
Answer: Augustine’s readings on Latin translation of Platonic treatises contained in Victorinus led him to back to Christianity. Neoplatonism facilitated his conversion back to Christianity. Neoplatonism convinced him that there was a spiritual reality and the existence of evil can be reconciled with the doctrine of divine creation.
3. What for Augustine is the aim of Philosophy?
Answer: According to Augustine, the aim of Philosophy is to find knowledge that will attain lasting happiness. Man’s desire for happiness is the main goal of Philosophy and doing philosophy is the way to wisdom and the true wisdom is to be found only in in the knowledge and possession of God.
4. Why do we need Philosophy once we have faith?
Answer: According to Augustine, the precedence of faith should be followed by understanding and it is only in an intellectual and rational understanding that the meaning of faith and its implications is fully understood.
5. What is Augustine’s objection to the skeptic’s universal doubt?
Answer: Augustine objected to skepticism’s universal doubt because he himself was a lover of truth. He is a passionate seeker of truth in which must be the basis of living a happy life. Augustine did not like the skeptics in their doubts of the truths. Therefore, only the mind, not the senses can judge.
6. Why does Augustine deny that the senses can err?
Answer: According to Augustine, the soul is spiritual while the sensible object is material. Sensation according to him is the soul’s special concentration of attention arising from disturbances in the body. Inasmuch as the passive thing cannot influence the active, or the inferior act upon the superior, so it is with the sensible things in relation to the soul.
7. What is Augustine’s explanation of our knowledge of immutable, eternal truths despite the mutability and fallibility of our minds?
Answer: Augustine explains that the principle of life is truth and God as creator is the ultimate principle of life. The presence of truth in our intellect is the one that assures us of the presence of God. According to Augustine, the truth is eternal and immutable, and God alone has these qualities. Hence God is the truth. Augustine understood therefore that to live in Truth is to live in God and so if Truth exists, then God exists.
8. What is the theory of rationales seminalis intended to explain? Is it an “evolutionary theory”?
Answer: Augustine explains that though God created everything at the beginning, some things were complete and while others were incomplete and were in the form of seeds or seminales. They are progressively transforming since they were initially created in the beginning. Thus Augusutine does not hold evolutionary theory.
9. What does the theory of rationales seminalis in Augustine’s account of the production of things not present in the beginning have in common with the theory of illumination in his account of knowledge and the theory of grace in his account of right conduct?
Answer: The abovementioned theory supports the biblical theory of creation that God created everything in a period of time. Human, therefore, cannot know everything by themselves unless when illuminated by God through His grace. In each account, finite causation is insufficient.
10. According to Augustine, what existed before the world was created? Did God?
Answer: According to Augustine, to say that anything existed before is to express the existence of time before anything else. To say that God existed before the creation is to put God in time. Therefore, God is the beginning of everything, including time, and not Himself in time.
11. In Augustine’s conception of man, what is the relation of the soul to the body? Is man his soul?
Answer: For Augustine, man is his soul. He holds that the body is part of human nature that strives for happiness. But the most perfect part of man is his soul because according to Augustine, the soul is the guardian of the body and constantly watches over it.
12. Maurer notes that love and an ethics based on love are at the core of Augustinism. How so?
Answer: According to Augustine, everything is drawn to the center of the earth by its weight. He then, identifies the attractive force that draws him to his center –that is, God as love. For this reason, he says that his weight is his love. It therefore follows that love is to determine the kind of person he should be. For Augustine, to be good is to love the right thing at the right time and in the right proportion. In short, to be good is to have an ordered love. Hence, ordered love results into ordered person while disordered love results into a disordered person.
13. What are the two loves that distinguish the two “cities” – “Babylon” and “Jerusalem”, or the City of man or the City of God? Can one be a citizen of both?
Answer: According to Augustine, there are two loves. Men are united into two different cities depending on the kind of love that directs them, that is, the love of God that unites and leads men to the city of God and the love of self and the world that leads and unites them to the city of the world. Although Augustine holds the opposition between the two cities to be absolute, but he sees that one can belong to either or both for as long as one is in this life until the final demarcation is completed at the last judgment.
05:520 Medieval Philosophy
Mr. Gill Ring, professor
1. Why did young Augustine turn from Christianity to Manicheism?
Answer: Augustine turned his back from Christianity to Manicheism when his questions on the absolute goodness of god was answered by the dualistic doctrine of the Manichees which states that there are two principles that are ultimate. And that the first one is responsible for good and for the human soul and the other one is for evil and matter that includes the body.
2. How did Platonism bring him back to Christianity?
Answer: Augustine’s readings on Latin translation of Platonic treatises contained in Victorinus led him to back to Christianity. Neoplatonism facilitated his conversion back to Christianity. Neoplatonism convinced him that there was a spiritual reality and the existence of evil can be reconciled with the doctrine of divine creation.
3. What for Augustine is the aim of Philosophy?
Answer: According to Augustine, the aim of Philosophy is to find knowledge that will attain lasting happiness. Man’s desire for happiness is the main goal of Philosophy and doing philosophy is the way to wisdom and the true wisdom is to be found only in in the knowledge and possession of God.
4. Why do we need Philosophy once we have faith?
Answer: According to Augustine, the precedence of faith should be followed by understanding and it is only in an intellectual and rational understanding that the meaning of faith and its implications is fully understood.
5. What is Augustine’s objection to the skeptic’s universal doubt?
Answer: Augustine objected to skepticism’s universal doubt because he himself was a lover of truth. He is a passionate seeker of truth in which must be the basis of living a happy life. Augustine did not like the skeptics in their doubts of the truths. Therefore, only the mind, not the senses can judge.
6. Why does Augustine deny that the senses can err?
Answer: According to Augustine, the soul is spiritual while the sensible object is material. Sensation according to him is the soul’s special concentration of attention arising from disturbances in the body. Inasmuch as the passive thing cannot influence the active, or the inferior act upon the superior, so it is with the sensible things in relation to the soul.
7. What is Augustine’s explanation of our knowledge of immutable, eternal truths despite the mutability and fallibility of our minds?
Answer: Augustine explains that the principle of life is truth and God as creator is the ultimate principle of life. The presence of truth in our intellect is the one that assures us of the presence of God. According to Augustine, the truth is eternal and immutable, and God alone has these qualities. Hence God is the truth. Augustine understood therefore that to live in Truth is to live in God and so if Truth exists, then God exists.
8. What is the theory of rationales seminalis intended to explain? Is it an “evolutionary theory”?
Answer: Augustine explains that though God created everything at the beginning, some things were complete and while others were incomplete and were in the form of seeds or seminales. They are progressively transforming since they were initially created in the beginning. Thus Augusutine does not hold evolutionary theory.
9. What does the theory of rationales seminalis in Augustine’s account of the production of things not present in the beginning have in common with the theory of illumination in his account of knowledge and the theory of grace in his account of right conduct?
Answer: The abovementioned theory supports the biblical theory of creation that God created everything in a period of time. Human, therefore, cannot know everything by themselves unless when illuminated by God through His grace. In each account, finite causation is insufficient.
10. According to Augustine, what existed before the world was created? Did God?
Answer: According to Augustine, to say that anything existed before is to express the existence of time before anything else. To say that God existed before the creation is to put God in time. Therefore, God is the beginning of everything, including time, and not Himself in time.
11. In Augustine’s conception of man, what is the relation of the soul to the body? Is man his soul?
Answer: For Augustine, man is his soul. He holds that the body is part of human nature that strives for happiness. But the most perfect part of man is his soul because according to Augustine, the soul is the guardian of the body and constantly watches over it.
12. Maurer notes that love and an ethics based on love are at the core of Augustinism. How so?
Answer: According to Augustine, everything is drawn to the center of the earth by its weight. He then, identifies the attractive force that draws him to his center –that is, God as love. For this reason, he says that his weight is his love. It therefore follows that love is to determine the kind of person he should be. For Augustine, to be good is to love the right thing at the right time and in the right proportion. In short, to be good is to have an ordered love. Hence, ordered love results into ordered person while disordered love results into a disordered person.
13. What are the two loves that distinguish the two “cities” – “Babylon” and “Jerusalem”, or the City of man or the City of God? Can one be a citizen of both?
Answer: According to Augustine, there are two loves. Men are united into two different cities depending on the kind of love that directs them, that is, the love of God that unites and leads men to the city of God and the love of self and the world that leads and unites them to the city of the world. Although Augustine holds the opposition between the two cities to be absolute, but he sees that one can belong to either or both for as long as one is in this life until the final demarcation is completed at the last judgment.
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