Augustine’s Appraisal of Previous Natural Theologies

          Augustine deals with the various natural theologies in his book, The City of God.  As you explained in class natural theology can be divided into three types; the mythical, the civic, and the philosophical (or natural).  The mythical deals with the pagan gods, and the myths and legends surrounding them and their dealings with man.  The civic form concerns the civic devotion of the various Greek city states given to a particular deity.  One can look at the devotion of the citizens of Athens to the goddess Athena as an example of this.  Philosophical (or natural) theology deals with the use of the natural powers of reason in the investigation of divine matters.  Looking at nature and abstracting from it in order to understand the nature of the cosmos and of the Divine Nature itself.  When writing about Plato’s view of God in another  part of same book, Augustine divides natural theology in a different threefold manner [see Bourke, 136-137].  This time he divides it into: (1) moral or ethical, this part deals with what a person is supposed to do; (2) natural, this type of theology concerns the nature of things; and (3) rational, this form of theology concerns truth and falsity.  The first two types consist in “action and contemplation . . . the active part having reference to the conduct of life . . . the contemplative part to the investigation into the causes of nature” [Bourke, 136].  In reference to the third part he said, that it “discriminates between the true and the false.  And though this last is necessary both to action and contemplation, it is contemplation, nevertheless, which lay peculiar claim to the office of investigating the nature of truth” [Bourke, 137].

          Augustine mentions the various schools in The City of God, book VIII.  In that book he points out that it was “Thales, who held that the first principle of all things was water; Anaximenes, that it was air; the Stoics, that it was fire; Epicurus, who affirmed that it consisted of atoms, that is to say, of minute corpuscules” [Bourke, 58], for Augustine all of these schools were inferior to the Platonists.  The in class discussion centered mainly on the Stoics and the Epicureans, in your lecture you pointed out that Epicureans held that non-living things could bring about living things, and that Augustine recognized this idea as erroneous.  Augustine knew the principle that effects are like their causes, and that the greater cannot come from the lesser, so it follows that the Epicurean position cannot be correct.  The Stoics saw the Divine Nature as fire, a type of energy flow, as opposed to the Epicurean theory of particles.  For the Stoics the macroscopic matter is like knots in the fundamental matter; so in other words, the appearances are caused or held in being by the fundamental matter.  Material causality is central to their system and life is believed to be sleeping in matter.  All of the philosophical schools hold to a form of necessitarianism.

          Augustine viewed the Stoic school as second best, but he could not accept their idea of a Divine Matter.  Augustine formulated an argument in opposition to the Stoic view of God, by reflecting on the nature of the human person.  As he said, “. . . the Stoics thought that fire . . . one of the four material elements of which this visible world is composed, was both living and intelligent, the maker of the world and . . .  that it was in fact God” [Bourke, 58].  But in thinking this way they have shown that they are enslaved to the sensory world, yet he points out to them that “. . . they have within themselves something which they could not see,” and this something is the rational immaterial soul of man.  The soul is not composed of anything of the earth, it transcends it.  Augustine then asks, “. . . if this soul is not a body, how should God, its Creator, be a body?” [Bourke, 59].  Augustine’s point is simple, since the immaterial is greater than the material; it is irrational to posit that a material God could create an immaterial soul, because the greater cannot come from the lesser.  Thus God must be immaterial.  The impiety of the Stoics concerned the fact that they simultaneously believed the human soul and God were of the same nature.  To this Augustine responded by saying that the human soul is mutable, while God is immutable.

Where are the Forms?

          Augustine is not contradicting himself, because he is talking about two different, though related things.  When he talks about the superior form Augustine is discussing the way in which man comes to understand the nature of sensible and intelligible things.  So, in this part of The City of God, Augustine is explaining how man comes to know the nature of things.  The senses can bring data into the mind of man about the things in the world, “whether in the condition of a body, as figure, or in its movement, as in music,” but “it is not the mind that judges” [Bourke, 60].  Augustine believes that the superior forms or ideals are innate standards within the human mind by which we judge things, as he points out we could not make judgments, “had there not existed in the mind itself a superior form of these things, without bulk, without noise of voice, without space and time” [Bourke, 60].  But it is clear that the human mind is mutable, because otherwise “it would not have been possible for one to judge better than another with regard to sensible forms” [Bourke, 60].  He goes on to explain that the superior forms are in man’s mind in a different way than the First Form is in the mind of God.  As he said, “. . . the first form is not to be found in those things whose form is changeable” [Bourke, 60].  From this it is clear that the superior forms are mutable; while the First Form is immutable.  The superior form is a participation in the First Form, and because it participates in the First Form, it follows that it is dependent upon it.  The superior form is thus an imperfect and relative participation in the First Form.  Augustine distinguishes between the superior form and the First Form, correctly holding that they are distinct; the former is a created reality, and it is thus mutable; while the latter is an uncreated reality, and because it is in the mind of God it is eternal and immutable.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Vernon J. Bourke (Editor).  The Essential Augustine.  (Indianapolis:  Hackett Publishing Company, 1974).

Augustine's View of Natural Theology and the Forms

by Steven Todd Kaster

San Francisco State University

Philosophy 302:  Medieval Philosophy

Final Examination (Group B)

Professor J. Glanville

23 May 2000

Copyright © 2000-2025 Steven Todd Kaster