Reason and Faith in Augustine's Philosophy

Reason and Faith: Augustine intensely explored the relationship between reason and faith. In his youth, he left the Church due to the perceived incompatibility between the two. However, upon his return, he insisted that intellectuals must not abandon their rational demands when embracing faith.

A) The Harmony of Reason and Faith: Augustine believed in a single truth illuminated by two sources: reason and faith. While faith is the more powerful source, leading to the fullness of truth, both are in harmony.

B) Distinct but Not Confused: Augustine clearly distinguished between reason and faith, a distinction accessible to everyone.

C) Collaborative Discovery of Truth: Augustine's formula, "Ut credas intelligas. Crede ut intelligas" ("Believe to understand. Understand to believe"), highlights the harmonious collaboration between reason and faith in discovering truth. He explained this collaboration as follows:

1. Intelligence prepares for faith.
2. Faith guides and enlightens the intellect by suggesting new targets for reason, providing security in discovered truths, cautioning against errors, and facilitating the learning of new truths.
3. Reason clarifies and develops the content of faith.
4. Reason and faith converge in the love of discovered truth.

D) Augustine's Approach to Reason and Faith: Augustine did not always explicitly differentiate between speaking from reason alone (philosophy) and speaking from both reason and faith (theology). This was due to several reasons:

1. The unity of truth: As humanity is elevated to the supernatural by God, Augustine did not prioritize philosophizing about a purely "natural" man, which he considered non-existent. He was not a "pure philosopher" but a man seeking truth with his whole being, both rational and faithful.
2. Responding to Anti-Christian Polemics: Christianity faced philosophical systems that were partly comparable and partly incomparable to its own doctrines. Anti-Christian polemicists often attacked Christianity as a whole without distinguishing between its philosophical and theological aspects. In response, Christians, including Augustine, did not always meticulously distinguish between their roles as philosophers and theologians.
3. Platonic Influence: Augustine's Platonism held that reason's proper objects were intangible realities known through divine illumination rather than sensory experience. This minimized the distinction between the ideas of reason and the truths of faith, as both seemed to originate from a higher source.

Illumination and Metaphysics

First or Printed Lighting: Augustine's metaphysics of illumination involves two stages. The first stage, called "printed lighting," is natural and necessary for both bodies and spirits.

A) In Bodies: Printed lighting impresses physical numbers, space, and time upon bodies. These numbers are principles of order and proportion, representing necessity and determinism, implying that bodies act according to necessary material laws.

B) In Spiritual Beings: Printed lighting impresses spiritual numbers, which are of two kinds: logical numbers and ethical numbers.

1) Logical Numbers: These are the foreknowledge, stored in memory, of concepts and first principles of science. They enable the wise to understand the numbers imprinted on scientific knowledge and to reason about them.

2) Ethical Numbers: These are further divided into two types: rules of wisdom and lights of virtues.

aa) Rules of Wisdom: These are the foreknowledge, stored in memory, of concepts and first principles of wisdom (sapientia). They are rules of practical reason that guide moral action. However, they do not determine action; humans freely decide whether to follow them.

bb) Lights of Virtues: These are natural forces bestowed by God upon each individual to enable them to live according to the rules of wisdom.