Augustine established that the distension of the mind is a necessary condition of our perceiving temporal wholes. At the same time, as Teske explains, this condition is unnatural to the rational soul and results from original sin.

The essays in this book, by a variety of leading Augustine scholars, examine not only Augustine's multifaceted philosophy and its relation to his epoch-making theology, but also his practice as a philosopher, as well as his relation to other philosophers both before and after him. Thus the collection shows that Augustine's philosophy remains an influence and a provocation in a wide variety of settings today.

In book eight of De trinitate Augustine of Hippo proposes two ways of coming to a vision of God, which have baffled me all my years of teaching Augustine.In the second of these he tells us to take “this good” and “that good” and to set aside “this” and “that” and promises that in doing so one will see God. Scholarlyliterature proved quite unhelpful in understanding what Augustine had in mind, especially since this procedure seems to presuppose that God, the (...) subsistent good, is present in particular good things and merely has to be unwrapped or unveiled in order for one to see the Good itself that is God. A clue to understanding what the bishop of Hippo had in mind can be found in his inversion of John’s claim in 1 John 4:8 to “Love is God.” Other Latin Fathers follow Augustine in this inversion, and Prosper of Aquitaine generalizes it for all the virtues or excellences. If one bears in mind the Plotinian doctrine of the integral omnipresence of suchvirtues or excellences, each of which is God, the sort of abstraction of the Good itself from individual good things, as Augustine proposed, becomes intelligible,and Henry of Ghent illustrates this sort of abstraction in his metaphysical argument for the existence of God. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of articles on Henry of Ghents philosophy with a focus on various topics in his metaphysics, such as his rejection of various points of Aristotelian philosophy and his appeal to Augustine and Avicenna. The articles deal with such questions central to Henrys thought as his intentional distinction and his metaphysical argument for the existence of God as well as its similarity to Anselms article in the Proslogion. They examine his account of human freedom, the analogy (...) of being, and his apophaticism in speaking about God, where he is clearly indebted to Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides. Roland J. Teske, SJ, Donald J. Schuenke Professor of Philosophy Emeritus (PhD University of Toronto, 1973) specializes in St. Augustine and medieval philosophers, especially William of Auvergne and Henry of Ghent. (shrink)

This present volume is the twenty-ninth in the Re-Reading the Canon series, the title of each of which volumes begins Feminist Interpretations of . . . . Surprisingly, the volume on Augustine has appeared relatively late in the series. The editor has collected eleven essays plus a poem on feminist interpretations of the bishop of Hippo, who has certainly exerted a powerful influence on the view of women in the Western Christian churches of all major denominations. Besides the essays, Stark (...) has provided a substantial introduction to the volume in which she touches upon the principal events of Augustine's life and briefly sketches the main points of each essay.The feminist interpretations of Augustine included in the volume represent a broad spectrum running from quite radical to fairly moderate or even tame approaches. In "Augustine, Sexuality, Gender, and Women," Rosemary Radford Ruether presents a call to critique the views of Augustine from which women and men have suffered for over 1500 years in Western Christianity. Anne-Marie Bowery argues in "Monica: The Feminine Face of Christ" that Augustine's portrait of Monica allows us to "reframe the masculine image of the divinity" that is. (shrink)

THE ARTICLE TRIES TO SHOW THAT AUGUSTINE’S CLAIM THAT THERE ARE NO ACCIDENTS IN GOD IS COMPATIBLE WITH THE CLAIM THAT GOD HAS CONTINGENT PROPERTIES. HIS DISTINCTION BETWEEN SPEECH ABOUT GOD, THOUGHT ABOUT GOD, AND THE BEING OF GOD ALLOWS HIM TO HOLD THAT GOD IS SIMPLE THOUGH A MULTIPLICITY OF TERMS WITH DIFFERENT MEANINGS ARE PREDICATED OF HIM. AUGUSTINE PROVIDES, IT IS ARGUED, A BASIS FOR A RULE TO ALLOW FOR A COHERENT DISTINCTION BETWEEN RELATIVE AND NON-RELATIVE PROPERTIES OF (...) GOD. (shrink)

The article claims that the concept of spirit or of incorporeal substance is a key concept in the thought of St. Augustine. It first recalls how the concept of spirit, which Augustine learned to conceive from the Platonists in Milan, permitted Augustine to extricate himself from Manicheism. Augustine, after all, was one of the very first in the Latin West to be able to think of God and of the soul as incorporeal. The paper shows how Augustine used the concept (...) of spirit in arguing against the corporealism of the Manichees and goes on to show from the Letters of Augustine how the bishop of Hippo used the concept of spirit against the Arians, how he held the spirituality of the soul as a fixed point of knowledge about the soul, how he used the concept of spirit to help Consentius to think correctly about God, to help Evodius to think correctly about the Trinity, to answer Volusian's questions about the incarnation, and to answer Italica's question about seeing God with the eyes of the body. In conclusion, the paper claims that the concept of a spiritual substance is one of the lasting elements of Neoplatonism in the thought of Augustine. /// O objectivo primordial do presente artigo é demonstrar que o conceito de espírito ou de substância incorporal constitui um conceito chave no pensamento de Santo Agostinho. Num primeiro momento, o artigo mostra de que modo o conceito de espírito, que Agostinho aprendeu a conceber dos Platónicos em Milão, permitiu a Agostinho libertar-se da influência do Maniqueísmo. Na realidade, Agostinho foi um dos primeiros na tradição do Ocidente Latino a ser capaz de pensar Deus e a alma como incorporais. O artigo mostra assim de que modo Agostinho usou o conceito de espírito na sua argumentação contra o corporealismo dos maniqueus, procedendo depois, a partir das Cartas de Agostinho, a uma demonstração do modo como o Bispo de Hipona usou o conceito de espírito contra os Arianos, de que modo ele defendeu a espiritualidade da alma como um ponto fixo no conhecimento acerca da alma, como ele usou o conceito de espírito em ordem a ajudar Consentius a pensar correctamente acerca de Deus, ou para ajudar Evodius a pensar correctamente acerca da Trindade, para responder às questões que Volusiano colocou acerca da incarnação, e para responder à questão de Italica acerca da visão de Deus com os olhos do corpo. Em suma, o artigo defende que o conceito de uma substância espiritual constitui um dos elementos remanescentes e duradoiros do Neoplatonismo no pensamento de Santo Agostinho. (shrink)

The paper explores three areas in which Avicenna had an important influence on the metaphysics of Henry of Ghent: first, in developing an argument for the existence of God in metaphysics rather than in physics; secondly, in his intentional distinction between essence and existence; and thirdly, in his arguments not merely that there is only one God, but that it is impossible for there to be many gods, his arguments which Henry clearly took from books one and eight of Avicenna’s (...) ’Metaphysics’. (shrink)

The heart of Book Two of De Iibero arbitrio is devoted to a lengthy argument that concludes that God is and is truly and sovereignly. This argument rests upon two crucial principia that have been called the principles of subordination and participation. An examination of their function in the argument reveals that Augustine could hardly have thought that he had produced a demonstration of God’s existence.

With his clear and accessible prose, impeccable scholarship, and balanced Judgment, Roland Teske, SJ, has been an influential and important voice in Medieval philosophy for more than thirty years. This volume, in his honour, brings together more than a dozen essays on central metaphysical and theological themes in Augustine and other medieval thinkers. The authors, listed below, are noted scholars who draw upon Teskes work, reflect on it, go beyond it, and at times even disagree with it, but always in (...) a spirit of respectful co-operation, and always with the aim of getting at the truth. Essays on Augustine contributed by Gerald Bonner, Charles Brittain, Joseph Koterski, SJ, Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ, David Vincent Meconi, SJ, Ann A. Pang-White, Frederick Van Fleteren, Dorothea Weber, and James Wetzel. Essays on Bernard of Clairvaux, William of Auvergne, and other medieval themes contributed by John P. Doyle, William Harmless, SJ, John A. Laumakis, Edward P. Mahoney, and Philipp W. Rosemann. (shrink)