St. Augustine: Life, Philosophy, and Theology

St. Augustine: Life and Works

Biography

Born in Tagaste, North Africa, in 354 AD, St. Augustine, son of a Christian mother, St. Monica, and a pagan father, Patricius, received a robust literary and philosophical education. He taught grammar and rhetoric in Carthage, Rome, and Milan. Initially adhering to Manichaeism, he later experienced a skeptical crisis before embracing Platonic and Neoplatonic doctrines. In Milan, influenced by his mother, St. Ambrose's sermons, and the New Testament, he converted to Christianity, receiving baptism from St. Ambrose. Returning to Africa in 391 after his mother's death, he was ordained a priest in Hippo Regius, becoming bishop four years later. He died in Hippo during the Vandal siege in 430 AD.

Augustine penned over five hundred works, including:

• Confessions: A thirteen-book autobiography exploring his personal journey, flaws, and conversion, highlighting the power of divine grace.
• De vera religione (On True Religion)
• De libero arbitrio (On Free Choice of the Will)
• De gratia et libero arbitrio (On Grace and Free Will)
• De Praedestinatione sanctorum (On the Predestination of the Saints)
• De Civitate Dei (The City of God): Written between 413 and 426 AD, this work presents a Christian philosophy of history, contrasting the earthly city with the city of God, and anticipating the fall of the Roman Empire.

The Illumination Theory

St. Augustine's Illumination Theory posits God as the supreme, eternal being. For Augustine, the soul and God are the two fundamental poles of thought. The external world serves primarily as a means to discover traces of God. Following Plotinus, Augustine believed that God, being beyond human comprehension, can only be conceived as the being whose essence is existence itself.

The Soul and God

Augustine viewed the human soul as an active substance created for, and yet imprisoned within, the body. He famously stated, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Augustine argued for God's existence by questioning: If reason can conceive of something beyond itself, and that something has nothing above it, then that something must be God.

Unlike Plato, Augustine believed the soul was created for the body and did not exist before it. He argued that knowledge of ideas doesn't come from a previous life but from God illuminating our minds, granting us a divine vision. Understanding, therefore, is a divine gift, and intellectual contemplation of God's work, enlightened by His presence, is accessible to all. God illuminates the soul to understand the world around us, thus giving Him glory.