1. Augustine’s Confessions Book Two Chap IV? Reflects on how and why he stole some pears: on how and why he did wrong (evil) for its own sake Do we do this? Why? Chap V? We are attracted to material things which blind us to the superior things of God Can/do material things “blind us”? How? Why?

2. Confessions Chap VI? By indulging in material things we delude ourselves into thinking we are free Meaning? Examples? Chap VIII? Hints at an “original”, or communal sin we are all influenced by: friendship has potential to lead to evil and sin True? Examples?

3. Confessions Chap IX? Sin/evil appears to “seduce our soul” Seduce: Induce to have sex; Lure or entice away from duty, principles, or proper conduct; To draw aside from the path of rectitude and duty Suggests all sin is sexual in nature (?) True or false? Why? Examples? Chap X? I/we desire righteousness and goodness; it is through this that we find eternal life Have you ever felt drawn to the Good despite surrounding influences?

4. Augustine’s Ontology Dualistic overtones Focus on the Problem of Good vs Evil Challenge: while the sensible world (that we can see, touch, feel) is not evil in itself, our perception of this world naturally leads us to see things in a materialistic way (a limitation or distortion) We are generally unaware that the sensible is but a tiny portion of the real (Confessions, IV, xv. 24), an error Augustine increasingly attributed to Original Sin

5. Ontology continued Thus, we tend to focus on the sensible, viewing it as a self- contained arena which all moral questions are to be considered and resolved Natural and Moral Evil? Natural Evils: attributed to the limits of our perspective (myopic materialism) and our tendency to focus on our own self-interest (not truly evil in itself) Moral Evils: a product of human agency; results of a will attached to “lower goods”, treating them as if they were higher. Moral evil not so much a thing but the will turning away from God (more truly evil, sinful)

6. Augustine’s Doctrine: General Ideas Grounded in Neo-Platonic Philosophy Turned to Platonism to solve many of his solutions to the major problems related to Good and Evil Not just a continuation of Plato but a transformation of interpretation of Platonic ideals to fit a Christian cosmology Central Point of Platonism: the participation of the soul in a supra-sensible (?) world of Ideas, Forms, Spirit

7. Doctrine, General Ideas cont. Through participation in these higher ideals, the intellect acquires wisdom of God’s Truth While humans contribute to this, it is, in the end, God who bestows this Wisdom (Sophia, or Divine Wisdom). God becomes the Ultimate Holder of all Platonic forms of Truth, Beauty, Justice, etc., as well as the various models of all created things It is in the Word of God that these eternal truths exist

8. Meaning of Philosophy for Augustine Understood as the science for the solution of the problems of life His thoughts centered on God and the soul, and the problem of evil, which must be solved in order to know the nature of the soul *In essense, Augustine is more concerned with the solution of religious, ethical and moral problems than with pure philosophical speculation

9. Epistemology: Theory of Knowledge Influenced by Skeptics Saw the problem of knowledge involved two difficulties: 1) The existence of the Knower (or Knowing Subject); of which the Skeptics denied even existed 2) The Origin of Knowledge itself Regarding the first, Augustine came to affirming the existence of the knowing subject (you and I) with his famous saying, “Si fallor, sum”, “If I doubt, I exist”

10. Epistemology cont. Regarding the second challenge, as a Platonist, Augustine underrates sensitive cognition, which he does not make the foundation of knowledge Solution? Knowledge comes from Illumination: Just as the eyes need rays of sunlight to see, so too does the mind need the Light of God to know the world of intelligible things (Divine Wisdom, i.e. the Word of God

11. So, by itself, the intellect was incapable of acquiring knowledge of intelligible things, but needed Illumination The mystic schools of the Middle Ages would resort to this natural inability of the intellect, and affirmed that humility and prayer are the best means to acquiring wisdom

12. Augustine’s Metaphysics God as Being, Knowledge, and Love A priori proof of God’s existence: grounded in the presence of illumination within us: Can be reduced to the following: “We are conscious of possessing within ourselves ideas and formal principles which are by nature universal and necessary, outside the confines of time and space, eternal” However, these universal and necessary principles cannot take their origin from the external world nor from us (We are limited, contingent beings, devoid of universality). Therefore such universal principles presuppose God (?)