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CHAPTER ELEVEN. Eternal Truth in Memory
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CHAPTERI E LEV E N Eternal Truth in Memory Augustine continues in chapters 24 through 27 to ask many questions about his search for the highest wisdom, but now he is less tentative in suggesting some answers to his queries. It is through the attribute of divine truth that he finds the best ground for his assertions. Analysis 10.24.35: All that he knows about God is kept in memory: "Nor have I found anything about Thee which I did not keep in memory, ever since I learned of Thee" (neque enim aliquid de te inveni, quod non meminissem ex quo didici te). All this questioning and mulling over possible answers is an exercise of the power to cogitate. "For, from the time that I learned ofThee, I did not forget Thee" (nam ex quo didici te, non sum oblitus tui). This was the constant message accompanying Augustine's self-accusations in the first nine books ofthe Confessions: he never ceased to believe in God. As he admits (Conf 6.5.8), "I always believed that Thou dost exist" (semper tamen credidi et esse te). But in mid-life he has come to greater appreciation of the importance of eternal truths. "Now, wherever I found truth, there did I find my God, Truth Itself' (ubi enim inveni veritatem, ibi deum meum, ipsam veritatem). So God is really there in Augustine's consciousness, and this presence is the source of his greatest joy. "Thou dost dwell in my memory, and there do I find Thee, when I remember Thee and delight in Thee" (manes in memoria mea, et illic te invenio, cum reminiscor tui et delector in te). The verb manere (manes) means to continue in existence, to abide or dwell, as used here and frequently in the next chapter. Our comment will attempt to show its special significance. I 191 192 I C HAP T ERE LEV E N Comment: In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, many thinkers will continue to insist with Augustine that truth is not only a conformity ofunderstanding with reality (adaequatio intellectus et rei) but that in its highest manifestation truth is a real being, God. Philosophers such as Anselm of Canterbury and Duns Scotus will argue that truth isĀ· not merely the concern of epistemology; for them, and indeed for all Scholastic writers on philosophy or theology, there is a metaphysical truth that serves as the ground for right judgments. Despite his admiration for Aristotelian philosophy (in which ontological truth is not prominent), Thomas Aquinas is no exception to this insistence on the existing reality of supreme truth. The Summa contra Gentiles (1.60.2) puts this concisely: "Truth is a certain perfection ofunderstanding or ofintellectual operation.... But the understanding ofGod is His substance.... It remains, therefore that the divine substance is truth itself."! From Augustine's opening sentence in chapter 24, we encoun-. ter the strong conviction that the only way that God (and so, supreme wisdom) is to be found properly is from inside human consciousness. As he says, "I have not found Thee outside it" (non te inveni extra eam). Later (chapter 26) we will see him asserting that God must eventually be discovered above the soul (supra me), but he continues to say that the approach to God is through introspection. This brings us to the central idea in chapter 25, which later Christian writers will call the "indwelling" ofGod in the human soul. Some thinkers call it the "inbeing" ofthe Creator in all parts ofcreation .2 This is not pantheism, for Augustine does not think that God is identical with the universe, nor that He exists only in the universe . But the divine immanence in the human spirit is to be understood in terms ofwhat we have already seen in connection with the complex meaning of presence (praesentia) in Chapter Five above. One being can be present to another in time and/or in space. Of course, in speaking of God, Augustine must take these terms in an analogous sense. God's presence is not restricted to time and place. The point is that Augustine thinks that God is always with His creatures , whatever their time or place may be, and he also thinks that God is inside people's minds. He operates inwardly in the human soul, cooperating with its good use offreedom and guiding the exercise ofintellectual judgment.3 In addition to this concept ofdivine presence, there is his view of continuous existence (manentia). Note its relation...