Augustine's Confessions undergoes a thematic shift in book X, shifting his focus from his specific journey to the theological and philosophical considerations his journey towards God prompted. Augustine uses this new perspective to better express and analyze the answers he found to the questions he posited in book I. Augustine, through his debate of memory, more directly presents the means by which "[his] brothers" in charity can understand his and model their own journey towards God. Augustine demonstrates this by explaining the nature of the "inner man" and the faculties by which experiences are absorbed, the senses, and the means by which we understand our perceptions, memory.
Augustine explains the "inner man" by both what it is not and the faculty of reason that allows the perversion of the "bodily senses". The "inner man" for Augustine is his cognizance of a higher purpose of existence. He considers the faculty of reason allowed to this inner conscience to be representative of his soul. This is expressed in his contrast of animals with this inner conscience stating that "The animals...cannot inquire into is meaning...Man on the other hand, can question nature"(213). Augustine sees this extrasensory cognizance as proof of this "inner man" as his soul, explaining that the comparison of "the message" received through the bodily senses "with the truth that is in themselves" is the only means by which understanding can be achieved. Augustine posits the existence of his soul and the awareness, provided by the "agency of the outer part, that "God is not heaven or earth or any bodily thing" as proof of God's existence within his own soul; without it such awareness would be impossible.
Augustine uses the existence of God within himself not as a creation but as the steward of his soul as a lens to analyze the existence and purpose of memory. Augustine examines basics facets of memory, the specificity of memories, the storehouse like nature of his knowledge, and even the existence of ideas which within themselves have no specific means of being recorded outside of the visual or auditory vehicle by which they were perceived. Augustine sees the power of memory as "prodigious", in comprehensible literally in the total perception of all of ones memory but also the sheer existence of such a faculty. Augustine declares that he cannot know all that he is. He later comes to the existence of forgetfulness and remembrance and the duplicitous nature of the two functions. He analyzes the existence of forgetfulness in that is a state of a lack of current consciousness and not the absence of existence within the self or else one wouldn't know to remember it. Augustine then questions why regardless of the individual some understanding of happiness exists and that regardless there is a proclivity for pursuing it which he expresses in the example of two individuals joining the army. HE sees this proclivity as a basic understanding of what makes an individual happy and that material reminders are a type of forgetfulness of the pure joy that can be found in God. Augustive understands that while humans can be happy within the material world only because they know happiness because from the joy of God within their own soul that has only been forgotten.
Morgan does a good job analyzing Augustine's exploration of memory and forgetfulness. One point I found interesting within Augustine's text was his use of the term "image" (225). Augustine states that "If a thing vanishes from sight but not from the memory-and this may happen with any visible object-its image is retained within us and we look for it until it comes to light again" (225). This statement is followed by his discussion of forgetting, and how if one remembers that one forgot something, one must still remember it in some way. The juxtaposition of these two arguments makes me wonder whether Augustine intends readers to draw connections between the idea of an image of God being inherently present in the human mind, and the fact that humans were created in the image of God in Genesis.
ReplyDeleteMorgan's definition of "inner man" led me to an interesting and significant quotation on page 212: "The inner part of man knows these things through the agency of the outer part. I, the inner man, know these things; I, the soul, know them through the sense of my body." In this quotation, the reader sees, once again, the dichotomy that Augustine feels within himself- the battling of two contrasting ideas. On one hand, as Morgan describes, the "inner man" is what is able to see God, while, on the other, the body's limited senses thwart Augustine's goal.
ReplyDeletein response to lachlan i would say i think that is exactly what he is trying to do.
ReplyDeleteEmma's point brings up an interesting discussion. If the inner man is who truly matters, and he gains insight only through "the sense of [his] body" (212), then it stands to reason that the physical realities of the world matter less than what you believe. How you perceive the world, in effect, is how it is.
ReplyDeleteAugustine says that "...happiness cannot be seen by the eye, since it is not a material object" (227). Like Morgan has said, and Emma and Gabe have followed up on, Augustine views the inner man as more significant than the body, so happiness must be found inside rather than out. Because God is not the outside world, and is in fact inside, Augustine continues to say that the senses and temptations, and good things of the outside world must be balanced, for example when he discusses temptation through food, song, and sight. These things can be enjoyed, but not indulged in because God comes from within, and not from these things.
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