In Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine describes the
process of memory. A memory is the means of an image of something in the mind.
Memories enter the mind through the physical senses, but emotions are simply
already present in the mind. Augustine comes into conflict, when he tries to
place God in this spectrum of memory. Augustine makes the statements that God
cannot be perceived through the senses, and that God cannot be defined by
emotions, but still God is present in his mind. Because of this conflict, Augustine
reaches his previous conclusion that God is Truth – everywhere present,
constant, and is not confined to senses or emotions.
Augustine’s
basic definition of memory is “a storehouse for countless images of all kinds
which are conveyed to it by the senses” (214). God is in Augustine’s memory,
but God is not defined through what is picked up by the senses. This is
demonstrated when Augustine says “But what is my God? I put the question to the
earth, and it answered, ‘I am not God’” (212). In this quote, the earth
represents all things that can be sensed, and none of them are God. The only
other things in memory that are not discovered through the senses are emotions.
However, Augustine says, “I went on to search for you in the part of my memory
where the emotions of my mind are stored, but here too I did not find you”
(231).
Augustine
proves that God is not found in the physical world or in emotion, but still God is in
his memory, so Augustine realizes that he has to have learned of God in some
other way. Reflecting back to book one, Augustine quotes “For all things find
in you their origin, their impulse, the center of their being” (22). Augustine
says throughout Confessions, that we
are found in God, and because of this, we can know God in a way we do not
experience in memory or emotion. This greater understanding that we are in God,
is what Augustine defines as the Truth.
Anker accurately Augustine's understanding of God as more than a simple sensory or emotional memory. In order for Augustine to recollect the notion of God from his memory, Anker defends that since God is the origin of all things, we experience him through merely being. This correlates with Augustine's description of truth. Augustine says that in learning the trust, he learned about the truth, he has internalized God. "For I found my God, who is Truth itself, where I found truth, and ever since I learned the truth I have not forgotten it. So, since the first time when I first learned of you, you have always been present in my memory..." (230). While God himself cannot be contained in Augustine's memory composed of senses and emotions, God as a symbol for the truth can.
ReplyDeleteAnker's post made me think of another parallel between God and memory. On page 216, Augustine says, "The power of the memory is prodigious, my God. It is a vast, immeasurable santcuary." This quotation is a description not unlike the description of God that Augustine gives. Both God and memory are ever-present and unthinkably widespread. Augustine can not conceive the entirety of either idea.
ReplyDeleteThis post reminds me of how Augustine says that "there is something of the human person which is unknown even to the 'spirit of the man which is in him'" (182). Unlike emotion or memory, God is independent of the human mind and is more of an eternal standard, or Truth. I like that Anker identifies emotion and memory as finite and thus unable to contain God.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Anker in his assessment that we are in God and therefore he does not or cannot exist in our memories because that is inside of us. This connects back to Augustine's earlier observations about the substance or embodiment of God. In book VIII Augustine goes from first believing that God was in all things in the universe (138) to seeing all things in the universe as existing in God (150). This change in perspective allows Augustine to define the objects on the universe in terms of God; not to define God in terms of the objects in the universe. an important distinction.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Emma, I agree with her point about similarities of memory and God. Also, the similarities between memory and God explain why the pursuit of knowledge is a good action as compared to a sinful one. Memory can strengthen your relationship with God.
ReplyDeleteI see Augustine's argument of memory in two contexts, that we are in God or that we are of God (specifically that God isn't within us but our existence is instead tethered to his being). The latter still allowing for the first aside, i would like to contend that the reason we are aware of God but that we cannot know or remember God is that we can only recognize God as Augustine explained in terms of imprinting memory we are likewise imprinted with cognizance of God from the beginning of our existence but without memory or awareness of him within us. I see this logical progression as proof that we are rather of God and that instead of being within God, that we are now corporeally separated from God's being but that our soul can be within God as we can assume the inspiration for ourself was within God and came from God in our individual creation.
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