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The Symbolism of Learning in St. Augustine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

David Chidester
David Chidester
Affiliation:
University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

There is widespread disagreement as to exactly what Augustine might have meant by his theory of learning, in which Christ, the truth, teaches within. The precise interpretation of Augustine's doctrine of illumination has been the subject of centuries of debate. How is this kind of learning process which Augustine outlines—a process by which the word of God illumines the soul—to be understood? The major schools of thought on this subject have been: the ontologistic version, which regards the immediate presence of the divine light, the continuity between the mind of man and the mind of God, as primary in the act of learning; the ideogenetic version, which regards the activity of the word of God, mysteriously producing ideas in the human mind, as primary in the learning process; and, finally, what we might call the normative version, which understands the metaphor of illumination to refer to the way in which the divine light provides an ultimate standard of certainty by which knowledge is evaluated, rather than describing an inner, psychological process through which the act of learning occurs.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 76 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 73 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1983

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References

1 The most concise synopsis of the various interpretations of Augustine's doctrine of illumination is found in TeSelle, Eugene, Augustine, the Theologian (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970) 103–4Google Scholar. For a survey of German debates on Augustine's learning theory, see Schuetzinger, C. E., The German Controversy on Saint Augustine's Illumination Theory (New York: Pageant, 1960)Google Scholar. The best representative of the ontologistic position is Nash, Ronald, The Light of the Mind: St. Augustine's Theory of Knowledge (Lexington: University of Kentucky, 1969)Google Scholar; for the ideogenetic position, see Portalie, Eugene, A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine (Ralph Bastian, trans.; Chicago: Regenery, 1960)Google Scholar; and the most influential proponent of what I am referring to as the normative position is, of course, Gilson, Etienne, The Christian Philosophy of St. Augustine (L. E. M. Lynch, trans.; New York: Random House, 1960).Google Scholar

2 For an early and influential formulation of this strategy, see Jolivet, Regis, Dieu Soleil dans Esprits; ou la doctrine augustinienne de l'illumination (Paris, 1934)Google Scholar. Other examples would include the following remarkably consistent restatements of the normative theme: “We may follow Gilson in supposing that Augustine was not concerned to formulate a theory designed to account for conceptual formulation; rather he was establishing a basis for testing the certainty of our judgements” (Howie, George, Educational Theory and Practice in Saint Augustine [New York: Teacher's College, 1969] 129)Google Scholar; “St. Augustine's divine illumination doctrine is not so much a theory of the origin of concepts as of the manner in which the human mind is enabled to make some judgements with certitude” (Bourke, Vernon J., A Guide to the Thought of St. Augustine [Chicago: Regenery, 1968] xxxi)Google Scholar; “It must be remembered that Augustine's problem is one concerning certitude, not one concerning the content of our concepts or ideas: it concerns far more the form of the certain judgement and the form of the normative idea than the actual content of the idea” (Copleston, Frederick, A History of Philosophy [Westminster, MD: Newman, 1950] 2/1. 80).Google Scholar

3 I am using the word, learning, to serve as a comprehensive term that encompasses in a dialectical relationship both docere, to teach, and intellegere, to know or understand. It is, therefore, a process that entails the transmission, generation or recognition of knowledge through the interaction of teacher and student. This most often occurs, for Augustine, within the context of a disciplina, or educational discipline.

4 All citations from Augustine's Confessions (PL 32. 659–868) are from the translation of Warner, Rex, The Confessions of St. Augustine (New York: New American Library, 1963).Google Scholar

5 On the role of wisdom in ancient Greek, Hebraic and, especially, Middle Platonic thought, see the introduction and bibliography to Winston, David, Wisdom of Solomon; A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979).Google Scholar

6 Eliade, Mircea, Myth and Reality (Willard R. Trask, trans.; New York: Harper & Row, 1963) 21.Google Scholar

7 Smith, Jonathan Z., “Earth and Gods,” JR 49 (1969) 107Google Scholar; reprinted in Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden: Brill, 1978) 109.Google Scholar

8 The term “synesthesia” refers to the psychological condition of sensory interpenetration in which two or more senses are integral to a single sensory experience, or, in its more radical form, two or more senses transfer across modes. A synesthete of the first variety might naturally associate colors with sounds, e.g., whereas a synesthete of the more radical type might claim to hear lights or see voices. For a basic introduction to literature and theory regarding synesthesia, see Marks, Lawrence E., The Unity of the Senses: Interrelations among the Modalities (New York: Academic, 1978)Google Scholar. There has been some interest in analyzing literary synesthesia, the appearance of inter-sense imagery in imaginative literature. Of particular interest is a study by O'Malley, Glenn, “Literary Synesthesia,” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 15 (1957) 391–411Google Scholar. Little has been done in the study of religious language to account for synesthetic statements, such as Augustine's assertion in his Tractatus in Joannis that in Christ “hearing is sight and sight is hearing” (18.9) or that “in your heart, where you see, there you hear” (18.10) or to explore the symbolic implications of inter-sense analogies, the convergence and interpenetration of sensory modes, in religious language, literature and experience.

9 Copleston, History of Philosophy, 1/1. 80. For an overview of Plato's theory of reminiscence, see Huber, Carlo E., Anamnesis bei Plato (Munich: Mittueber, 1964).Google Scholar

10 Some passages from Cicero that suggest the transformation of time in learning would include the following: “To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is man's life, unless woven into the life of our ancestors by the memory of past deeds” (De oratore 1.34); and he proclaims the learning of history as “witness of the ages, light of truth, life of tradition, teacher of life, messenger of antiquity” (De oratore 2.36).

11 Sermones 126.6 (PL 38. 701).

12 For important discussions of Augustine's understanding of creation, see O'Toole, Christopher, The Philosophy of Creation in the Writings of St. Augustine (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1944)Google Scholar and Pelland, Gilles, Cinq études d'Augustin sur le début de la Genèse (Tournai: Desclée; Montreal: Bellarmin, 1972).Google Scholar

13 The following translations from De Genesi ad litteram (PL 34. 245–486) and De Genesi imperfecta (PL 34. 219–246) are my own.

14 See Confessions, 12.13.

15 For a discussion of some of the issues involved in Augustine's understanding of materia, see Armstrong, A. H., “Spiritual or Intelligible Matter in Plotinus and St. Augustine,” Augustinus Magister (Paris: Etudes Augustiniennes, 1954) 1. 227–284.Google Scholar

16 Confessions 13.33 (PL 32. 866).

17 Retractationes 1.12 (PL 32. 602).

18 Howie, George, Augustine on Education (Chicago: Regenery, 1969) 15–16.Google Scholar

19 The following translations from De magistro (PL 32. 1193–1220) are taken from the translation of Leckie, George G., St. Aurelius Augustinus: Concerning the Teacher (New York: Appleton-Century, 1938).Google Scholar

20 It has been pointed out that there is no literal reference to verbum in this passage. See Johnson, Douglas W., “Verbum in the Early Augustine (386–397),” Recherches Augustiniennes 8 (1972) 25–53. But the refrain of “consulimus … consulamus” makes it clear that there is an explicitly verbal process intended here in Augustine's understanding of the interior consultation with truth. The learner listens to the interior magister.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Confessions, 11.11 (PL 32. 814).

22 De Genesi ad litteram 12.31.59 (PL 34. 479).

23 See Jansen, Lawrence F., “The Divine Ideas in the Writings of St. Augustine,” The Modern Schoolman 12 (1945) 117–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 On the location of the eternal ideas in the mind of God, see Feibleman, James K., Religious Platonism (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1959) 109ff.Google Scholar; Merlan, Philip, From Platonism to Neo-Platonism (2d ed.; The Hague: Nijhoff, 1960)Google Scholar; and Dillon, John, The Middle Platonists (London: Duckworth, 1977)Google Scholar

25 It is common to point to William of Auvergne and Gundissalinus as representatives of a medieval ideogenetic approach to Augustine's doctrine of illumination. This observation was made, e.g., in the dissertation of Franz Koerner, “Das Prinzip der Innerlichkeit in Augustins Erkenntnislehre” (Würzburg, 1953) 2; See Moody, Ernest A., “William of Auvergne and his Treatise De anima” Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science and Logic (Berkeley: University of California, 1975) 1–109. The De immonalitate animae of Gundissalinus is almost identical to the text of William.Google Scholar

26 A list of representative Augustinian ontologists would include Henry of Ghent (see Macken, R., “La Theorie de l'Illumination Divine dans la Philosophie d'Henri de Gand,” Recherches de Théologie Ancienne de Médiévale 39 [1972] 82–112)Google Scholar and Marsilio Ficino (see Kristeller, P. O., The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino [Virginia Conant, trans.; Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1964] 247)Google Scholar and, of course, in its most extreme form, the ontologism of Malebranche, when he insisted that “we see all things in God” (De la recherche de la vérité 3.2.6 in Lennon, Thomas M. and Olscamp, Paul J., trans., Nicolas Malebranche: The Search after Truth [Columbus: Ohio State University, 1980] 230)Google Scholar. Malebranche recognized that at certain points his radical ontologism departed from Augustine: “We further believe that changeable and corruptible things are known in God, though St. Augustine speaks only of immutable and incorruptible things.” For a discussion of the relation between Malebranche and Augustine, see Connell, Desmond, The Vision in God: Malebranche's Scholastic Sources (Louvain: Beatrice-Nauwelaerts, 1967).Google Scholar