St. Augustine and the Second Way

ST. AUGUSTINE AND THE SECOND WAY Perusal of the more or less standard commentaries and histories of philosophy leaves the impression that St. Augustine's arguments for the existence of God had little impact on the development of medieval Gottesbeweise: that his attitude towards God was more influential than his existential reasoning,1 1 This impression emerges particularly from such discussions as Georg Grunwald's Geschichte der Gottesbeweise im Mittlealter bis zum Ausgang der Hochscholastik , Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters 6, 3 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1907) where reference is made to attitudinal and doctrinal influence, even on philosophical issues, but where the influence on the topic of Gottesbeweise is seen as limited to Platonic metaphysical points, which is another issue entirely. Clemens Baeumker in Witelo ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII Jahnhunderts, Beiträge 3, 2 (Münster Aschendorff, 1908) seems to adopt a similar stance. In vol. 2: pts. I and II of his History ofPhilosophy (Garden City: Image Books, 1962) Frederick C. Copleston mentions St. Augustine only in passingwhen discussing St. Thomas' arguments, and detects no relevant influence on the arguments of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor (2: I, 196ff. and 201ff.), or William of Auvergne (2: I, 250ff.). He does note an influence on the arguments of Alexander of Hales (2: 1, 267), but only incidentally and not in the full-blown sense I intend to establish with respect to St. Thomas. In his discussion of St. Bonaventure (2: 1, 280-87), Copleston sees an influence in the De mysterio trinitatis, but even here it seems to be more a matter of tradition than explicit debts owed to particular points in St. Augustine's arguments (See n. 3 below ). I could list other histories and commentaries, but the really telling point is that there is a general lack of references to debts owed to St. Augustine on specific points and specific arguments when the arguments for the existence of God are concerned, whereas this is not the case with St. Anselm, St. Thomas, Avicena, Aristotle or Moses Maimonides. Grunwald's classic exposition is here a case in point. St. Augustine is discussed separately at the beginning of the history proper, and never really mentioned again in the specific way that would indicate a concrete, individual influence and debt. The traditional stand on the relationship between St. Augustine's arguments for the existence of God and those proposed by later Scholastics was well expressed by Grunwald when he wrote: . . . [Es] bleibt die Problemstellung bei Augustin und vielen Scholastikern eine andere. Die Voraussetzung ist die Bestimmung Gottes als des höchsten, besten Wesens, und die eigentliche Frage lautet nun: Können St. Augustine and the Second Way35 and that his arguments, while they may have excited the admiration of his readers, historically were of little effect. Apparently , not even the Augustinian-Franciscan tradition constitutes an exception. Even here, so it would seem, the historical impact of St. Augustine's reasoning was overshadowed by the influence of the arguments of St. Anselm, Moses Maimonides, Aristotle and Avicenna; and if any philosophically relevant influence attached to his argumentation at all, it lay more in the attitude and world view expressed than in the content of his ratiocination.2 The works of Hugh and Richard of St. Victor, William of Auvergne and even of St. Bonaventure—to mention but a few instances—are generally viewed in this light.3 As to the Aristotelian current, matters seem to stand even worse. Certainly this is true if traditional appraisals of St. Thomas' writings may serve as a reliable criterion. Of St. Thomas' Five Ways, so we are told, only one—the Fourthbetrays an Augustinian influence, and an altered one at that. The Augustinian base of the argument, so it is suggested, has undergone a profound change in metaphysical import, and non-Augustinian elements have intruded themselves and come to play an important role.4 Assuming that I have understood the established opinion, and assuming further that this opinion is correct, there immediately arises the question of why this should have been the case. Why should there have been such a profound lack of influence diese oder jene Dinge...