Faith over Intelligence

As Saint Augustine’s tale unfolds, it increasingly focuses on the contrasting, yet not opposite, natures of intelligence and faith. Saint Augustine has a constant love of learning, and he is often portrayed as extremely intelligent throughout the novel, but despite this Augustine claims that intelligence is not important – only faith truly matters to succeed, faith being an unshakable trust in existence and purpose, especially God’s.

Augustine read Aristotle's Ten Categories "and understood it without help. [...] Other people told me that they had understood it only with difficulty."  (Confessions 87). Augustine clearly understands what is presented to him, maintaining a notable openness of mind, along with a strong sense of skepticism. However, Augustine claims that intelligence is not important – only faith truly matters to succeed, faith being an unshakable trust in existence and purpose, especially God’s. Though Augustine is intelligent, it is of no use to him -- in fact, in many ways his over-questioning nature leads him towards sin. “Hardly had I brushed aside [my doubts], than, in the flicker of an eyelid, they crowded upon me again.” (Confessions 133) Augustine cannot convince himself of God’s existence merely on trust, and therein lies his fault. Augustine does not realize that he has been taking things on faith long before questioning his faith in God.

His great revelation is not immediately apparent once he makes it. As he says, “unless we took [many] things on trust, we should accomplish absolutely nothing in this life” (Confessions 117). Though he never once stopped believing in God, his faith was inconstant.  Saint Augustine relates many stories of his adventures that deal with faith – he begins his association with the Manichees through admiration of Faustus, a man, he is told, who “was very well versed in all the higher forms of learning and particularly in the liberal sciences.” (Confessions 92) Saint Augustine takes the fact on faith, believing that this high regard must correlate to intelligence. His disillusionment when he finds himself to be “none the better for [hearing Faustus talk]” is profound. (Confessions 97) Not knowing God, Augustine cannot bring himself to put his full trust blindly into something that he has not known himself. Although intelligence is not necessarily something bad, in Augustine’s case his curiosity and skepticism combine so as to weaken his already weak faith, leaving him floundering in doubt.

Augustine's Interpretation and Refection of His Journey

In this reading of Confessions, Augustine reflects and interprets his past actions to answer some of the questions he asks at the beginning of the text. The main question that he asks is “Can any praise be worthy of the Lord’s majesty,” which becomes the basis for asking more difficult questions such as “What, then, is the God I worship” and “How shall I call upon my God for aid” (21, 22). Augustine’s past journeys that he reflects upon is written in the present tense where he applies his interpretations of his actions. His interpretations allow for him to answer these difficult questions that trouble his understanding throughout his journey.

            Augustine describes in Books 4 through 6 his descent into sinfulness and his deep depression. He states “But where was I when I looked for you? You were there before my eyes, but I had deserted even my own self. I could not find myself, much less find you” (92).  Augustine reflects in his writings about his actions the question he asks at the beginning of what is God. Augustine recognizes God to be in everything; but because of his habitual sin, Augustine allows for the consequence of the separation between him and God. Becoming lost in his sin, he cannot find himself nor find God. He eventually realizes that the happiness he sought out for during his earlier life was found in his relationship with God.  As Augustine reflects his lowest point from his sin and his depression, he comes to answer more of his questions.

Augustine searches out for the answers and tries to find them among different respected people, such as Faustus, which ultimately fails. His descent into sin begins to make him question God and says, “Where were you all this time? … I had reached the depths of the ocean. I had lost all faith and was in despair of finding the truth” (111). In his reflection of his journey, Augustine begins to find the answers he seeks. He tries to understand what God truly is. One of his descriptions in the earlier part of the text was that “[God’s] works are varied, but [his] purpose is one and the same” (23). Even though Augustine’s journey was messy and full of suffering, he interprets his journey as God’s way of putting him on the right track. He states, “… for your purpose you make use of men whose hearts were set upon life of death… In secret you were using my own perversity and theirs to set my feet upon the right course” (100). Augustine understands that God uses different kinds of people and various kinds of situations in an individual’s life to fulfill his purpose. Understanding why these things in life must happen will not come easily, but the result of the purpose does, which is what Augustine realizes in his reflections. He states “For my part I was a prisoner of habit, suffering cruel torments through trying to satisfy a lust that could never be sates…. This was the state in which we remained until you, O God most high… had pity on our misery and came to our aid in a wonderful way that we could not understand” (129).

 Augustine writes this part of the text to interpret the journey he takes and how it led to his conversion and better understanding. Answering the questions of the identity of God and essentially in finding God, Augustine does this by reflecting the journey it takes him to get there. His journey was full of struggles and hardships because of his sins and misunderstandings, but he interprets this to be part of God’s purpose. Through Augustine’s reflection and interpretation of his journey, he gains a better understanding of God and a relationship with God.

Reasons for Confession

Augustine writes his book Confessions, to be exactly that: a confession of his sins. This may have little meaning to us, but to Augustine, his Confessions have a specific purpose. Augustine believes that confessing his sins will make him more able to praise God and to deepen his relationship with God. He also believes that only through confession will God heal him and make everything harmed within him by sin healthy again. These reasons for Augustine’s confession are important because by using his personal confessional experience he is trying to relate the benefits of confession.

First, Augustine sees confession as a means through which to praise God. He says, “Let me confess my sins to you for your honor and glory. Allow me, I beseech you, to trace again in memory my past deviations and to offer you a sacrifice of joy” (71). Augustine does not take pleasure in the fact that his past was sinful. But he feels that through examining his sinful experiences he can appreciate God better. Many times before his confession Augustine talks about not liking to recall his sin but that he is doing it to further his relationship with God: “The memory is bitter, but it will help me to savour your sweetness, the sweetness that does not deceive but brings real joy and never fails. For love of your love I shall retrieve myself...” (43). Augustine sees confession as a way to experience the goodness of God. By examining the sin he has committed in the past, it makes Augustine all the more able to praise and form a relationship with God.

Next, Augustine uses confessions as a way to heal from the sin he has committed. He says, “To him my soul confesses and he is its Healer, because the wrong it did was against him” (83). Augustine confesses to God because the sin he commits is direct wrong against God. Augustine believes that God is the only one who can heal the injury inflicted by sin. Augustine says, “Entrust to the Truth all that the Truth has given to you and nothing will be lost. All that is withered in you will be made to thrive again” (81). If he confesses to God and tells him all, he will be whole. Augustine makes it clear that without confession he believes that we lose something within us that is good and healthful. Sin somehow wounds us and we can only heal this wound through confessing our sins to God. 

Through looking at why Augustine is confessing, we can in turn see how Augustine is trying to relate the benefits of confession to the readers. One reason Augustine confesses is to better praise God and for a closer relationship to God. Also, he confesses in order to be healed from the sin he has committed. Augustine is happy with the results his confession has brought and in turn he is hoping that we as readers will also want the benefits of confession.

Types of Beauty in Augustine's Pear Narration

            Augustine’s narration of the time he stole pears as a young boy brings about a discussion of beauty and its connection to sin. Although it is established early on that humans are, “attracted to beautiful objects”, it is initially unclear what this means (49). In this narration, beauty connects humans with both the material world and with God. Thus, beauty catalyzes movement both toward and away from God. Based on this, I argue that beauty takes two distinct forms in this narration: physical beauty and what I will call divine beauty.

            Physical beauty refers to beauty that is apparent in an object’s secular value. This is the kind of beauty is held “by silver and gold and all such things” (48). These things have artificial value constructed by human society, so these objects are appealing in the way that they benefit a person on earth. This type of beauty is not restricted to physical appearance or objects, but it also extends to abstract ideas such as friendship. Friendship, while a “delightful bond”, has the capacity to tempt people to “abandon those greater and higher things, [God’s] truth, [God’s] law and [God himself]” (48). Although it is good, friendship does not always relate to one’s relationship with God, resulting in its ability to distract people from their devotion to God.  This capacity to direct people’s attention away from God and toward more earthly concerns means that physical beauty is not as good as divine beauty.

            Divine beauty derives from direct connection to God. For example, the pears that Augustine stole possess divine beauty because God created them (49).  In this sense, all things have the capacity for divine beauty, but there must be acknowledgment of their connection to God in order for this type of beauty to exist. The pears, even though they were involved in sin, are still beautiful because Augustine recognizes that God created them (49).  God’s truth “shines in beauty above all else”’ therefore, association with God creates the most esteemed type of beauty because of the implied connection to God’s truth. 

God's Varied Nature

                According to Saint Augustine, God created everything. As he puts it, “nothing that exists could exist without you” (22). In order to communicate the breadth of this conception, Augustine unifies opposites, pairing various contradictory qualities and juxtaposing concrete imagery with abstract imagery. This incongruity, though perhaps mind-boggling, expresses the all-encompassing nature that enables God to “fill all things” (23). Moreover, it provides a basis for the biggest contradiction of all: that although God created everything, God did not create sin.

                  From the start, Augustine establishes God’s character as multidimensional. He explains that “you are active, yet always at rest,” that “you can be angry and yet serene,” and that “you are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us” (23). Buttressing these initial statements is Augustine’s continual use of contrasting types of imagery. Again and again, depictions of physical phenomena come into play with depictions of wholly immaterial ideas, a practice encapsulated in the assertion that God is the “Lord of heaven and earth” (26). Through this proclamation, Augustine directly links God with both the spiritual and the material realms. Likewise, he later connects lactation to God’s abundance and describes God as “pruning back…thorns” (or sins) with “a gentle hand” (25, 44). In both cases, Augustine interprets God as using the physical world to orchestrate spiritual truth. Unions such as these communicate God’s pervasive and wide-ranging essence.

                With this established, Augustine may now safely conclude that “…all things find in you their origin, their impulse, the centre of their being” (22). Nevertheless, he contradicts this by claiming that there is one thing that did not originate with God, which is sin. Rather, sin is a purely human construct, even though God is responsible for human impulse. As Augustine puts it, “[although] you made man…you did not make sin in him” (27). Here, he seems to defy his earlier statement regarding the origin of impulse.  However, by establishing God’s nature as essentially varied, he has set a precedent for such incongruity. What is outwardly an inconsistent report can actually be explained through the character that Augustine has set up. God may be connected to everything, but he is also separate from something.

Augustine's Understanding of Sin

           Saint Augustine’s sinful confessions reveal a lot about his understanding of sin according to his relationship with God. Specifically, Augustine defines his sin as seeking “pleasure, beauty, and truth not in [God] but in [him]self and [God’s] other creatures,” (40). He clarifies that it is not pleasure, beauty, or truth that are sinful, but it is the incorrect source of them that is wrong. In looking at the way that Augustine derives pleasure, beauty and truth, his sinfulness in the name of God becomes clear. It similarly proves his devotion to his omnipotent God as the essence of Truth.  

            The trivial pleasure that Augustine derives from stealing pears ignores all regard for God as the true source of goodness. Augustine describes that this “pleasure consisted in doing something that was forbidden,” and “the thrill of having partners in sin,” (47, 52). Neither of these things focus on God as the source of their goodness, and therefore this fallacy results in sinfulness. In order to be true pleasure, it must be derived directly from God. The comradery that Augustine takes part in while stealing pears also separates him from God. According to Augustine, the most important relationship is with God and others are simply a distraction. Even a wife can inhibit this vital relationship with God. “He who is unmarried is concerned with God’s claim, asking how he is to please God; whereas the married man is concerned with the world’s claim, asking how he is to please his wife,” (44). In associating with others, Augustine loses the focus on God that is necessary to goodness.

            Augustine also acknowledges beauty as the source of superficial pleasure. “There is great pleasure, too, in feeling something agreeable to the touch, and material things have various qualities to please each of the other senses,” (48). He notes that while the pears he stole were not necessarily beautiful, there exist many “dazzling fantasies, illusions with which the eye deceives the mind,” (61). These earthly distractions may be beautiful, but their superficiality has no importance compared to God. Focusing solely on these entities would inhibit ones relationship with God and is therefore a sin.

            However, Augustine doesn’t entirely deny the goodness of earthly pleasures themselves. He describes goodness as a spectrum with that directly deriving from God at the top. The pleasures that Augustine seeks “can be occasions of sin because, good though they are, they are of the lowest order of good, and if we are too much tempted by them we abandon those higher and better things, your trust, your law, and you yourself, O Lord our God,” (48). Throughout his childhood, Augustine was far too concerned with the lowest pleasures, such as sex and thievery. He learns that it is not these actions that are sinful in them selves, but that they are sinful because they prohibit him from God. His newfound perspective depicts God as the true essence of the universe. Therefore, all actions must maintain a consciousness of God for the sake of God, otherwise they are proclaimed sinful. Since God is “truth itself,” Augustine must strive for understanding through actions devoted to God (61). Just as sin is contrarily caused by the ignorance of God, this wisdom that this pure action brings will relieve Augustine from all sin. This dynamic establishes God as a superior and omnipotent being who wields much power over Augustine’s actions.  

Socrates: Wise and Consistent

While Socrates’ peers in the Symposium are unable to give a correct definition of love, Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, and Alcibiades all define something else – what the ideal person should be like, through their constant praise of Socrates. These men praise Socrates for his wisdom, and consistent deeds, and through them, Plato shows what people should strive to be wise and consistent.

            Socrates’ wisdom is exemplified to the men when he gives his definition of love. When Socrates gives his speech concerning Diotima, he is  “finished with a loud applause” 212D. The level of excitement is one not reached previously by any of the other speakers.  He captures their attention because he offers an argument that they cannot refute, and have come to agree with. Socrates shows that he is the only one in the group capable of contradicting others arguments, while keeping their agreement. This speech, and the men’s approval show how people should strive to be wise.

            During his speech, Alcibiades praises Socrates not only for being brave in battle, and saving his life, but he marvels at how Socrates “started thinking about some problem or other” while the other men were resting from their war efforts. We see Socrates do this near the beginning of Symposium, as he stands under Agathon’s neighbor’s porch, in deep thought. The idea that Socrates is can act the same way whether at a dinner party or at war, shows that he is a very solid character. More examples of this are found in Alcibiades’ speech when he mentions many times, how even though many have seen Socrates drink; no one had ever seen him drunk.

           

            The comments about praise of Socrates referring to Socrates’ wisdom and consistency, demonstrate that  Socrates is Plato’s ideal character.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

The appreciation of love as expressed in terms of Diotima's revelations to Socrates; is presented as a tiered entity in terms of its lowest form, appreciation for solely the physical form, up to the highest, cognizance of the true nature of beauty, immortality. Alicibiades presents Socrates' as the epitome of a true lover as defined by this scale explicated by Diotima. Alicibiades accomplishes this through the association of Socrates to the gods and god-like imagery and disassociation from mortal beauty via Alicibiades himself; this juxtaposition suggests that Socrates is beyond his mortal brethren and that his  appreciation of beauty is divine.
The divine appreciation of beauty that Alicibiades perceives in Socrates is first presented in terms of his relationship with Alicibiades. Socrates refuses to take Alicibiades under his wing and rejects him despite his beauty, Alicibiades states "this unbelieveably insolent man-he turned me down! He spurned my beauty" (219C).  Yet such a rejection isn't unwarranted, Socrates declares that Alicibiades is expecting "more than his proper share" in their relationship(218E).  Specifically that Alicibiades expects Socrates to love him solely for his comely appearance while Alicibiades pursues his love of wisdom in Socrates' teachings.  Socrates readily looks beyond the physical form of Alicibiades and sees no justification for reciprocating in recognition of Alicibiades' higher form of love for Socrates' wisdom and thus Socrates himself.  In the rejection of such a temporary form, Socrates' maintains his status as a true lover by remaining loyal to the immortality of philosophy and the exchange of ideas.
Socrates' status as a lover isn't defined by this rejection of the lowest form of love, physical beauty, but rather according to Alicibiades, the existence of a greater wisdom within.  Alicibiades likens this wisdom to that of the gods, comparing Socrates to a "statue of Silenus...split right down the middle, and inside it's full of tiny statues of the gods"expressing that within Socrates lies godlike knowledge (215B).    Alicibiades later comes back to this allusion and describes that this knowledge described as the "figures he keeps hidden within" are seen only in the debate of philosophy, and that these figures were "so bright and beautiful, so utterly amazing" that there is no mortal comparision, they are "godlike"(216E-217A).  It is only in the exchange of ideas, within the debate of philosophy itself, is Socrates' love expressed.  It is for this reason that Alicibiades describes his as "crazy about beautiful boys...follow[ing] them around in a perpetual daze.  Socrates only sees beauty in the immortal exchange of ideas and for this reason passing them onto a new generation is a passion for him which Alicibiades interprets as a craze.  Socrates true love for the immortal meets Diotima's criteria for true appreciation of beauty as seen in the evidence presented by Alicibiades.  It is because Alicbiades recognizes this love of wisdom within Socrates that he desires him so and it is due to Alicibiades inability to reciprocate such an immortal love that his invitations are rejected.

Forever Imminent: Immortality, Love, Reproduction and Gender in Symposium

As discussed in class on Wednesday, Plato’s Symposium suggests two means to reach immortality through love. The first form of immortality comes through sexual reproduction of children, and is achieved through the love of a body, while the second form of immortality comes through collaborating in the creation of an idea. In this blog post I will prove that, first, immortality through ideas is seen as a higher form of immortality, and second, that the inferior immortality provided through children is associated with women, while the superior immortality provided through ideas is associated with men. Combined, these two points demonstrate how the imminence of women leads them to be inferior to the transcendence represented by men within the text.

Immortality through ideas is represented as the superior form of immortality when Diotima says (according to a long line of hearsay) that ideas “are more beautiful and more immortal [than human children]. Everyone would rather have such children [(ideas)] than human ones” (209 D-C). As Diotima is the one who clearly articulates the difference between the two forms of immortality, her opinion carries a large amount of weight. It is further backed up by the logic that every living thing “never consists of the same things, though [it] is called the same, but [it] is always being renewed and in other respects passing away, in [it’s] hair and flesh and bone and blood and [it’s] entire body” (207 D-E). Because all living things are constantly being worn away, transformed, and replaced by biological processes, they are not truly immortal evening during their own lives, and especially so through the lives of their offspring and their offspring’s offspring, all of whom will be continuously changing. This lack of permanence is clearly inferior, as the ultimate goal of love according to Socrates and Diotima is to know the nature of Love and Beauty, which “is always one in form” (211B). In this way, immortality through ideas is closer to the ultimate goal of love, and is superior to immortality through physical reproduction.

To reach immortality through offspring, a man and a woman must reproduce; but within Symposium, this act is represented primarily by the woman. While only males are discussed in terms of reaching for immortality, Diotima explains “some people are pregnant in body, and for this reason turn more to women” (208E). However, those who pursue the superior form of reproduction through ideas are presented as being attracted to men, as his drive to find someone to beget intellectually with leads him to a beautiful and noble soul as “such a man makes him instantly teem with ideas and arguments about virtue” (209 B-C). While those who wish to reproduce in body are attracted to women, it is assumed that those wishing to reproduce in mind are attracted to men.

By placing intellectual reproduction over physical reproduction and then associating women with the inferior of the two, Symposium attributes to the relegation of women to the realm of imminence and denies them the transcendence enjoyed by men.