t.Augustine, who was for nearly 1000 years the pre-eminent theologian of the
Church, set out the method by which the ultimate reality of God may be known.
According to St.Augustine God speaks directly to man in a non-material way.
"For when God speaks to man in this way, he does not need the medium of any material created thing. He does not make audible sounds to bodily ears; nor does He use the kind of 'spiritual' intermediary which takes on a bodily shape... But when God speaks in the way we are talking of, He speaks by the direct impact of the truth, to anyone who is capable of hearing with the mind instead of with the ears of the body."
The mind or intellect which is open to the truth is presented by God with truthful ideas. This is the concept of Divine illumination of the intellect.
"It was through that Wisdom that all things were made; and that Wisdom 'passes' also into holy souls and makes them friends of God and prophets, and tells them, inwardly and soundlessly, the story of God's works."
By Wisdom Augustine means the Holy Spirit. The source of knowledge of God is the Holy Spirit. Revelation is, then, the result of Divine illumination of the intellect by the Holy Spirit.
"We apprehend material things by our bodily senses, but it is not by our bodily senses that we form a judgment on them. For we have another sense, far more important than any bodily sense, the sense of the inner man, by which we apprehend what is just and what is unjust, the just by means of the 'idea' which is presented to the intellect, the unjust by the absence of it. The working of this sense has nothing to do with the mechanism of the eye, ear, smell, taste, or touch. It is through this sense that I am assured of my existence; and through this I love both existence and knowledge, and am sure that I love them."
Augustine is concerned with how he understands the truth. He points out that we all make truth judgments and that claim is beyond doubt. He does not go very deeply into the intellectual processes involved.
"For Augustine worked out his problems, as we all do, not by any a priori reasoning, but by actual contact with life and its difficulties. He tested his conclusions by the only satisfying criterion known to him: by seeing if they would work." G.R.HUDLESTON, Introduction to the Confessions
Augustine formed his problem understandings against the realities of life and tested his answers against later experience. His approach was scientific and consistent with the ideas later developed by the Oxford Franciscans.
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The Augustinian knowledge methodology may be summarised as follows.
St.Augustine's approach to knowledge was to consider the problems of the Christian Religion in his time, understanding these through his experiences in life. He saw the solutions to his problems to be knowledge, placed in his mind by Wisdom as the gift of God.
The common form is
PROBLEM ---> PROBLEM UNDERSTANDING ---> SOLUTION = KNOWLEDGE
The problem, after it has been considered and understood, produces a solution seen as knowledge. The solution is a truthful idea placed in the mind by God. God is understood in this context as Wisdom, or the Holy Spirit.
The form may be extended to
PROBLEM ---> CORRECT PROBLEM UNDERSTANDING ---> {The Holy Spirit} ---> SOLUTION = KNOWLEDGE
The problem, as it is correctly understood, is translated into a solution, in the form of truthful ideas, by the Holy Spirit. When St.Augustine sought to further his knowledge of Divine matters he met with problems, and by researching these problems he gained complete and true problem understandings. The solutions then appeared in his intellect as the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The examination of the paradigm raises the possibility that this method offers an understanding of the way that all knowledge, both spiritual and secular, is gained. In this case, the form may be further extended to
ALL PROBLEMS, CORRECTLY UNDERSTOOD ---> {The Holy Spirit} ---> ALL SOLUTIONS = THE CORPUS OF KNOWLEDGE
The Holy Spirit gives all knowledge, but only in response to requisitions for problem solutions. St.Augustine does not assert this general case but the claim appears in the Christian Scriptures.
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The Inner Sense of Truth
St.Augustine's work reveals a lifelong quest for the truth and he moved from position to position in an increasingly better understanding of religion. His inner sense of the truth was subject to continuous improvement. If his method of working is analysed it reveals a pattern based on problems and their solutions. Firstly he became aware of the existence of the problem which he then came to understand through study and experience. Secondly he became aware of the solution which was placed in his intellect by the Interior Master. Thirdly he examined the solution in relation to his problem understanding and judged it to be true.
Three understandings are involved in this process. These are the understandings of the problem, the solution, and the truth. These understandings are retained more or less permanently in Augustine's intellect. Putting this into the context of the saint's life the statement may be expanded to say that the understandings of all the problems that he ever investigated, and all the solutions he achieved to these problems, were retained in Augustine's intellect. For each problem he solved his understanding of the truth was expanded and improved. In the Augustinian model of the intellect this expanding understanding of the truth is the subjective philosophy. The subjective philosophy which is committed to its own truthful development follows the path of faith seeking understanding.
There is no need here to assume that St.Augustine correctly understood all his problems and, therefore, his solutions were always true. His doctrine of Predestination has been seen by later thinkers to be flawed, and this error may be traced to his incorrect understanding of the problem. It follows that incorrect problem understandings produce false solutions, which agrees with common experience.
The problem arises of the origin of false solutions. It appears that God the Interior Master matches the solution to the problem understanding and incorrect problem understandings can lead to incorrect solutions. Error is better than confusion, and false solutions may be seen as a stage on the path to truth, since their shortcomings will become apparent in later experience. For this reason science tests its theories to discover possible errors of understanding. This possibility of error gives the incentive to study the problem carefully since the problem must be understood correctly for the solution to be true.
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The Holy Spirit as the Teacher
St.Augustine understood intellectual enlightenments as originating with God. God, as the Teacher, imparts the Truth directly to individual intellects. The Next Page considers what the Scriptures have to say about the involvement of God the Holy Spirit in the teaching of knowledge