Man and time in Saint Augustine

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

GOULART, Joender Luiz ^[1]

GOULART, Joender Luiz. Man and time in Saint Augustine. Revista Científica Multidisciplinar Núcleo do Conhecimento. Year 06, Ed. 12, Vol. 11, p. 05-30. December 2021. ISSN: 2448-0959, Access link: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/theology-en/man-and-time

ABSTRACT

The present study seeks to address the concepts of time, soul and human being. From this perspective, it aims to understand the human being and its relationship with time, based on the thought of Augustine. For that, it had as a guiding question: if Augustine is Neoplatonic, does he also conceive man as essentially just the soul or does he have another idea of ​​man? To carry out the study, bibliographic research was used based on authors who support the theme, including in this context, works by Saint Augustine. The work made it possible to conclude that time is what gives meaning to human existence. Man’s being is temporal and transitory, its mark is finitude. Man constitutes himself in the world, with his three temporal ecstasies. The present, the past and the future are not separate compartments, but constitute a single unit, where the most important thing is the future, because man is constituted in it.

Keywords: Time, soul, human being, Augustine.

1. INTRODUCTION

The philosophical conception of Saint Augustine, characterizes within the history of Philosophy, the medieval thought. His philosophical view expresses an articulation between rationality and Christian faith. His philosophy was influenced by Platonic thought and Christianity, while his concept of experience was based on Aristotle’s theory.

One passes from the old world to the new world through a rather sudden inflection, marked by the advent of Christianity. Of course, this mutation does not happen too quickly, neither in history nor in philosophy; but the lack of speed does not suppress its conflicting character. The alteration that took place in the Greco-Roman world, on the one hand, and in Hellenic philosophy, on the other, exceeds the mere historical happening in a strict sense. To stick to philosophy, it is enough to say that the philosophical thought that would dominate Europe in the Middle Ages did not emerge from the internal evolution of Greek thought, but from the interpretation of the world as a created reality, ontologically sustained in the being of God.

It was in this historical context that the thinker, in the eagerness of passionate search for knowledge, wrote great philosophical and theological treatises in order to make knowledge conscious for those who had entered a certain existential and religious crisis, due to the decline of the Roman Empire. Crisis that took place when the barbarians invaded Rome and the Christians wanted to return to paganism, because they believed that the pagan “gods” protected them more than the Christian God. So, Augustine elaborates two inseparable issues that will be addressed here: the problem of the essence of the human being and that of time.

Neoplatonists reduce man essentially to the soul. In this context, the present article aims to answer: if Augustine is Neoplatonic, does he also conceive man as essentially just the soul or does he have another idea of ​​man? Based on these questions, the present work aims to clarify Augustine’s concepts about time, the soul and the human being. For this, a bibliographical research was carried out on the main works of Saint Augustine, as well as relevant works by other authors on the subject. The article discusses the origin and conception of the soul; man as the image of God and his threefold constitution; the conception of spirit and body; the nature of time and its divisions and the concept of eternity.

The text shows the reader the process by which Augustine arrived at the physical and metaphysical conception of the human being. Man as a being that contains in itself material and immaterial reality, the body as something physical, and the soul and spirit as something metaphysical. The text also exposes the conceptualization made by Augustine in relation to time as a rational entity, and its respective division (past, present and future). He refers to time as something past, which does not exist, while the present is the present, which needs to pass into the past to be time. The future is what does not yet exist.

2. THE ESSENCE OF MAN AND TIME IN SAINT AUGUSTINE

2.1 THE ORIGIN AND CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL

Augustinian thought gravitates towards God and the soul. In search of understanding the essence of God and the human essence, Augustine articulates faith and reason in his relationship. Thus, from this articulation between rationality and Christian faith, Augustine incessantly seeks wisdom. The philosopher’s entire itinerary towards the knowledge of man is a narration of himself, which reveals an anthropological paradigm. Seeking knowledge, the author discovers the “I”, the immaterial reality of the human being. For Augustine, at a given moment in human existence, it is necessary to pause and ask what the soul is, and who, in fact, is the God that Augustine so longs to know. And so, based on this question, and influenced by Platonic philosophy, Aristotelian philosophy and the thought of Plotinus, Augustine considers the soul as the essence of man. Therefore, to understand the soul is to understand the essence of man.

In search of the enigma of man, Augustine developed his thinking centered on two distinct traditions in the conception of what man becomes: the theological, centered on the man created in the image of God, and the philosophical, which is represented in the Platonic formula: the soul. incarnated in the body and in the Aristotelian: an animal endowed with reason. The first tradition emphasizes his divine side and his condition as a person, conceiving him from above, in the image of God. The second, the empirical side of human nature.

Drawing on both traditions, Augustine develops the concept of creation. For Augustine, if creation exists, it is because there is a Creator Being, God. A creator who made all things ex nihilo. The world is created by God out of nothing, the Supreme Being created it in a state of indeterminacy and imperfection and gradually the various forms are determined and specified until the formation of ever more complete and faithful beings. God, therefore, placed latent germs in the original matter, destined to develop over the centuries: “Heaven and earth were created and are subject to changes and vicissitudes” (AGOSTINHO 1997, p. 333). Some created beings appear in their form, such as the soul, the stars, etc. Others with incomplete form, but endowed with intrinsic evolutionary virtues. As an example of this, Saint Augustine speaks of the first man and the animals that originated from raw matter by the evolution of some beings.

So, Augustinian philosophical knowledge, showing the nature of the intimate structure of the human, explained by the first causes and supreme principles, constitutes a primordial knowledge, since it does not aim to say what man has or what man does, but yes, what the man is. For this reason, Augustine resorts to Platonic, Aristotelian and Neoplatonic definitions; mainly to Plotinus’ philosophical system to understand the concept of God and man. Augustine elaborates, guided by Greek philosophy and guided by revelation, which works in his philosophy rigorously as a heuristic principle[2], centered on faith and reason, the concept of man as the image of God.

2.2 MAN AS THE IMAGE OF GOD

Saint Augustine, through biblical revelation, gives new impetus to man’s ontological meditation; discovers its intimacy, alien to Greek thought and, above all, analyzes it from the point of view of its being, as an image of God. This position is very fruitful, because it forces us to pose the question of man’s personal being, which, in Greek philosophy, would be hidden or almost ignored. Emphasizing man as imago Dei is of paramount importance to understand Augustine’s thought.

In this sense, Saint Augustine offers the most conspicuous example of translating the biblical doctrine on the imago Dei into the language of Platonic and Neoplatonic philosophy. In substance, Augustinian doctrine is clearly biblical. When dealing with imago Dei, the doctor of Hippo, he always starts from the classic verses of Genesis: “Let us make man in our image and likeness” (BÍBLIA, Gen, 1:27). And if there was, at one time or another, an oscillation in his thinking, this is due to the desire to remain faithful to the indications of the sacred text. As for form, however, Saint Augustine systematically extracts it from Platonic exemplarism.

Man as the image of God is the dominant theme of Augustinian reflection. It’s just a sociological reflection. However, the main objective of this work is to conceptualize, in the light of philosophical reflection, the essence of man. However, it is necessary, first, to understand what the image of God is in the light of theology so that it is possible to understand the philosophical aspect of the issue.

The human being, according to Augustine, is formed by a supreme being, God. Scripture says that man was formed by God in his image and likeness. When referring to man, the philosopher Augustine refers to the soul, as a rational and living being. Thus, one can present the ontological foundation of man as he is the image of God and Augustine resorts to the Platonic metaphysics of participation and exemplarity.

So, to explain his thesis that man is the image of God, the Saint starts from two fundamental premises: the first is that the image of God in man cannot consist in the material part of the human being, that is, in the body ; since the substance of God is not material: “Man was created in the image of God, not according to the corporeal form […]” (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 376). The second premise is that the image of God in man cannot be found in the lower part of the immaterial reality of man, that is, in the soul, since it is susceptible to failure. This being so, the image of God, in fact, consists in the spirit, for it is the noblest part of man, which is an immaterial substance not susceptible to error: “There is no doubt that man was created in the image of him who created him, not according to some part of the soul, but according to the spirit, where the knowledge of God can reside” (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 377).

Here are the main lines of the Augustinian doctrine on the image of God to show how this image provides the saint with a vast perspective, capable of encompassing and deepening all the fundamental points of anthropology, that is, the soul, the body and the spirit.

2.3 MAN AND HIS TRIPLE CONSTITUTION

In his work On the Happy Life, Augustine struggles to find the definition of man. In this work, there is a very characteristic discussion of his thought, that is, the Socratic method used by Augustine. During the dialogue, the author asks: “will it be evident to each one of us that we are composed of soul, spirit and body?” (AGOSTINHO, 1998, p. 124).

The purpose of the thinker, through this question, is to develop the human compound and to know man in his integrity. The determination of the understanding of man in Augustine includes other elements that make up the totality of his system. Thus, it is necessary to carefully study three elements of the Augustinian conception of man: the body, the soul and the spirit.

It should be emphasized that it is precisely at this point that the central motif of Augustinian anthropology is to be found. Specifically shown here is the process by which Augustine arrives at the physical and metaphysical conception of the human being. Man as a tripartite being, the body as something physical, the soul and spirit as something metaphysical. Augustine writes about this in The Confessions:

São as três partes de que consta o homem: espírito, alma e corpo, que por outro lado se dizem duas, porque com frequência se denomina a alma juntamente como o espírito; pois aquela parte do mesmo racional, de que os brutos carecem, chama-se espírito; o principal de nós é o espírito; em segundo lugar, a vida pela qual estamos unidos ao corpo se chama alma; finalmente, o corpo mesmo por ser visível é o último de nós (AGOSTINHO, 1998, p. 411).

After showing the three parts that comprise man, that is, the body, soul and spirit (a view deeply rooted in Christianity), it is relevant to resort to ancient philosophy, precisely to Platonic philosophy, for a better understanding of the concept of man. Since it was from the study of Plato’s philosophy that Saint Augustine elaborated his ontology about the concept of man.

Although the great Platonic influence on Augustinian anthropology is noted, it should be clear that Augustine will follow Plato only in the doctrine of the soul, adding another element, which is part of the essence of the soul, the spirit. But not in man’s; for for Plato, as has been seen, man is only the soul. Plato preaches the dualism of body and soul, that is, the two are antagonistic, antithetical. The new thing that Augustine presents in his anthropology is that the soul is not man, as Plato had said, because man is also body and spirit.

Therefore, it cannot be denied that Augustine took advantage of the Platonic understanding of man and wrote his treatise. However, he introduced deep modifications to them that make the human constitution threefold – spirit, soul and body. Taking into account the Augustinian thesis that man was created by God, in his image and likeness, and that God is Triune, it can soon be inferred that man is also composed of three elements.

In this way, this compound of spirit, soul and body, intimately connected, is called man. Incidentally, this name cannot be given when speaking of soul, spirit and body separately. Thus, it is in the substantial union of the spiritus, anima and corpus elements that man is completed. Although Augustine was from a time that affirmed the separation between the body and the soul, he does not affirm that the essence of man is a spirit and a soul that uses the body: “No man can exist without body, soul and spirit”. (AGOSTINHO, 1998, p. 17).

Augustine is aware of the problematic about man as a threefold being. Then, gradually, in his philosophical treatise, he is careful to conceptualize and prove the existence of the elements that make up man.

2.4 ORIGIN OF THE SOUL, ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN BEING

When inquiring about the origin of the soul, Augustine asks about the origin of the human being. According to him, the soul seeks to have a complete notion of the human being, although it is the compound of body, soul and spirit that constitutes the unity of the person. For the author of the Confessions, the soul has its own nature of God, because it was this one who created it. It was created to give life to the body and, therefore, essentially made to unite with it and form a substantial whole proper to each individual.

The human soul originated in the Trinity. But how did this origin come about? The question of the origin of the soul is confused in Saint Augustine. It is known that Augustine was a connoisseur of Neoplatonic philosophy, which defends the thesis of the superiority of the soul over the body. It is also well known, in Augustinian thought, that the origin of the souls of Adam and Eve were created directly by God. But how are the descended souls of Adam and Eve explained?

For the thinker Augustine, the possibility that souls come by emanation from the divine substance or that they pre-exist as Plato teaches is inadmissible. Nor is the eternity of the soul accepted, but immortality. Then, two main hypotheses given by Augustine about the origin of the soul will be presented: “all souls come from one, transmitted by generation” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 218).

The first, originating from spiritualist translationism, affirms that the soul of each man comes from the soul of his parents, in the same way that the body is generated by the body of his parents. However, to defend this thesis is to fall into contradiction. Since the soul is a simple substance, without composition, without division and without any possibility of change, how will it pass from parents to children?

The second hypothesis is that “at each human birth, a new soul is created by God” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 218). It constitutes, therefore, a creationist thesis. Augustine was inclined to this argument. In Free Will, he had not defended the thesis as an official, due to the difficulty of explaining the transmission of original sin. Although he has not made it official, the option for creationism is definitely accepted by the Augustinian tradition.

After presenting the origin of the soul, Augustine proposes another problem concerning the substantiality of the soul. The Augustinian philosophy affirms that the human being is constituted of two substances: the physical and the immaterial. The metaphysical substance has, in its constitution, two different elements: the soul and the spirit. They are not synonymous terms at all, but they are words that can be used indirectly to briefly describe the immaterial substance of the human being or specific and particular aspects of this substance.

The problem of the substantiality of the soul is a question that aroused great concern in Augustine. As stated earlier, his greatest yearning was to unravel the mystery of the soul and of God. As presented, the soul was created by God, therefore, it has its own substance: “it is a substance endowed with reason, able to govern a body” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 67). Substance, because it is contained within itself, has its own reality. It is endowed with reason.

The soul is still the superior part of the human being, and is responsible for governing the body. The soul is like a complete substance and unites with the body to animate and vivify it. However, Augustine could not explain what this substance is:

Se me perguntarem que é a composição do ser humano, respondo que ele é constituído de alma e corpo. O corpo é feito de quatro elementos (terra, ar, água e fogo). Quanto a alma, que atendo como substância própria, não saberia dizer de sua substância). (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 22).

Even though he did not explain the essence of the soul, Augustine shows the capacity of the human soul to know immutable and eternal things. For the soul to know immutable things, it must also be immutable, it must have the character of immutability and eternity. The soul is exempt from all bodily determination: it is immaterial; it’s spiritual. Although it is exempt, it is everywhere in the body, asserting the totality of its energy, tension, vital intention and care. The soul, although being a substance, has the purpose of animating and vivifying the body, which is also created by God. Now the soul, not being equal to God, but superior to the body, brings the body closer to God, because they are both in his image and in his likeness.

Augustine conceives of the soul as unique and alive, both internally and externally. The soul is everywhere in the body, asserting the totality of its energy, tension, vital intention and care. Boehner and Gilson state that, according to Saint Augustine, “the foundation of the union between soul and body lies in the mediating function of the soul between divine ideas and the body” (BOEHNER; GILSON, 1995).

Augustine, to explain the conceptual differentiation of anima and animus, uses the axiom: every man is a rational animal. Man is an animal, he is a being that has life. Anima is the term used to identify the level of reality that has life, this characteristic being attributed to animated beings or animals. Since man is an animal, he undoubtedly has a soul (anima).

However, man is a rational animal, thus possessing attributes of rationality. By making use of reason, a specific difference is added (animals that serve to identify a certain degree of life to which it belongs; the exercise of reason). So, the animus specifically designates the human soul, as opposed to the animal soul (anima).

Assuming that the soul (animus) is given by God to man at every human birth (creationist thesis) and that the soul has the function of giving life to the body, Saint Augustine comes to the conclusion that the human soul is a immaterial immutable substance, endowed with life and reason that guides the human body.

2.5 THEORY OF ILLUMINATION AS PROOF OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE SOUL

When dealing with Augustinian anthropology, one cannot fail to speak of the theory of knowledge, which is the basis for proving the existence of the soul. Man is the only being that has a rational soul (animus), with the capacity to know; being the only one who has the cognitive faculty. This faculty leads to the ability to discern good and evil; it constitutes the intellect, superior to all animals; providing the ability to reflect on oneself and on the world.

Man is also the only being capable of judging, because he is aware of himself and judges what is inside him, which is the truth. For Saint Augustine, man must first have the idea of ​​truth in order to recognize it. Experience is the source of recognizing and knowing. The object of knowledge, for Augustine, is the truth. The truth is in the soul, in reason. In order to know, the soul has an absolute truth as a norm, from which reason knows and judges. Reason makes judgment when there is an understanding of external things compared to the internal.

But if knowledge is not formulated by the senses, what is its origin, or who generates it? Where does this possibility of “knowing” and the act of knowing come from? Augustinian gnosiology reaches its conclusion with this question. Saint Augustine speaks of a divine illumination, which, together with intelligence, would be the cause of the generation of ideas. Therefore, it is not from the senses, but from God, that our knowledge proceeds, as well as all things.

That said, it can be specifically determined in the theory of enlightenment as proof of the soul’s existence. Saint Augustine presents the truth as secure and immutable. He believes that within the human soul there is a valuable certainty, that is, the truth, coming from God: “the soul and the body must receive the truth from another being, the immutable and eternal perfection” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 132). Augustine in his cogito affirms that the soul reaps the certainty of being and of being thinking. The soul knows some truths, above all as a principle of non-contradiction and of existence itself, because in this case doubt is a proof of existence. If man doubts that he exists, then it is because he exists, otherwise there would be no doubt.

Whoever doubts, in the very act of doubting, is aware of himself as a doubter; the certainty of being itself is indisputable. Whether man believes or doubts, affirms or denies, loves or hates, man’s consciousness of himself as an existing being is certain. So, by affirming that man is a thinking being, Augustine proves the existence of the soul. Thought is not the soul; the act of knowing that you think is what affirms the existence of the soul, because the faculty of thinking belongs to the soul.

In its objective aspect, conscience bears in mind the evident and universal principles (principles of a metaphysical, logical, moral order and intellectual representations of the external world, foundation of all true knowledge). Their truth is given by the participation and similarity (analogy) they have with divine ideas and consequently with the truth itself. Therefore, when studying Augustinian “innatism”, it will be noted that the solution given by the philosopher Augustine himself, on the question of how knowledge is given, starts from a central movement of Platonic inspiration: innatism.

For Augustine, ideas are innate only in the sense that the intellect expresses them from itself and does not take them from the sensible data, the sensible experience is only a stimulus, an opportunity, as for Plato, even though it is true in its great knowledge of particulars. Finally, for Augustine, innate ideas are ideas present in us. But not as data deposited in the soul of man as Plato claimed, but as an active and operative “presence”. Therefore, there is no Platonic innateness in Augustinian philosophy, but the presence of living principles.

When analyzing the Augustinian gnoseological problem, one can interpret his thought as idealist and immaterialist. Augustinian idealism of Platonic origin and Christian essence affirms that all knowledge is a product of the interior of man, that is, spiritual. Knowledge or truth occurs when, through divine illumination, the soul sees that the studied reality conforms to the prototype of ideas that has been in God from all eternity. However, man does not have a direct view of God when enlightenment takes place. Eternal reasons are the object of our intellect, it is a natural process, the truth is given to the intellect and intuited by it. So it can be concluded that the reality of the world of material objects is only in their existence as ideas, first in the mind of God and then in the mind of man, who is created by God.

2.6 THE CONCEPTION OF SPIRIT

The human spirit is a metaphysical element that is part of the immaterial substantiality of the human being, like the soul. The author of The Confessions conceives of the immaterial substance ordered hierarchically. Although it is a single substance, there are two parts in it: an inferior and a superior. That is, the inferior is the soul, the superior, the spirit: “the spirit (spiritus) is the soul (animus), but what is most noble in the soul (animus) (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 494)” . However, it should be noted that in the Augustinian philosophical system the concept of spiritus is complex. Although the terms spiritus and animus appear to be identical, Augustine places them within the same substance, however, as separate beings.

In this question of the spirit as something nobler in man, it is noted that it is a problem of a theological-philosophical nature, that is, a theological one due to the dogma of creation; and philosophical, due to Plato’s theory of ideas. However, it is necessary to present it, with greater clarity, to understand the complexity of the conception of man in Saint Augustine. In this theme of man, it has already been dealt with previously, at the level of clarification, man as an image of God, the imago Dei. It is necessary to return to the same question in order to present the totality of Augustinian ontology.

Augustine wants to identify the immaterial reality that is the spirit, to which the capacity to become the image of God is reserved, because God is Spirit and the human being cannot configure himself to the divine image except through this spiritual dimension, that is, , each human person resembles the Trinity in his spirit. When analyzing the term in focus from the point of view of Augustinian anthropology, a reference can be made to the spirit of man as the supreme nature of his being. As the supreme nature of man, Augustinian metaphysics affirms that the spirit is not contained in a form, but in a continuous becoming. However, how is this becoming of the spirit explained for Augustine?

For Augustine there is the reigning equality between the three terms. The three elements: consciousness, love and knowledge form a perfect unity. They are not three lives, but one; not three spirits, but one; in the same way, they are not three substances, but one: “These three things are a single unit” (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 290).

In relation to the unification of the plurality of functions of the spirit, it is unified in the soul substance, for it is in this substance that the indestructible nucleus of the ego is found. So, one can, for this reason, show the relationship between the soul and the spirit. “The soul is defined as a rational substance destined to govern the body” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 117), the self, as the last unit. The self that nestles all the threads of soul life. The self that has the attribute of consciousness. The self that loves your insides. So who is this me? This I am the spirit, the spiritual substance. Therefore, when the spirit knows itself, it knows itself as substance, for the I is a universe internalized in man.

Thus, it can be concluded that the spirit not only has knowledge of other things, but also of itself, and thus, in addition to loving other things, it also loves itself. Conscience, love and knowledge, therefore, are three dispositions of the spirit which are intimately united with each other, in such a way that there can be no conscience without knowledge and without love, nor knowledge without conscience and without love, nor love without conscience and without knowledge. . In fact, the triad within human knowledge has, like the Holy Trinity: the consubstantiality of three elements: conscience, knowledge and love. Therefore, man is, intrinsically speaking, the image of God, whose spirit has the divine reflection, because the primordial attributes of the Holy Trinity are: conscience, love and knowledge.

After finishing the analysis of the immaterial reality of man, that is, of the soul and the spirit in Saint Augustine, we will move on to the study of the problem about the physical reality of man, that is, the body. Body that is responsible for the conscience of the world in man.

2.7 THE CONCEPTION OF THE BODY

Starting from the premise that the body is a material substance, created by God, Augustine’s conception of the physical reality of man must be presented. For the thinker, the body belongs to the nature of man; so this is not only soul and spirit, but also body. The body is part of human nature. It is the physical substance of man, in which the soul is present, and of which it is the life: “There is certainly in the human body a certain volume of flesh, a species, form, order and healthy distinction. And this body is animated by a rational soul” (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 117).

For Augustinian and philosophical nomenclature, the body is synonymous with matter. It is true as a work of creation. It is part of the sensitive world. It has three dimensions: “there is no body without three dimensions. We cannot assume the existence of the human body if it does not present longitude, latitude and depth” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 32).

Another point of great importance in relation to the problematic of the body is the interpretation made by Augustine in relation to the concept given by Plato. For Plato, the body is just a tomb or prison, a prison of the soul, the place for the fulfillment of penalties. It is the root of all evil, the source of foolish loves, passions and errors. This idea that Plato has of the body is due to the doctrine of Platonic ideas. For Plato, man during his life should not be concerned with the body, since his pleasures are too ephemeral. Therefore, it is necessary to free the soul as much as possible from any communion with the body. For this prevents the acquisition of wisdom. Through the senses, that is, sight and hearing, which are the two most perfect senses, do not lead to knowledge in a rigorous and safe way. Only in pure reasoning is the truth revealed to the soul.

But why are the soul and spirit immortal and the body mortal? Augustine explains that God, in creating man in his entirety, created him for eternity, to be immortal; but by free will man himself chose his own death, that is, by original sin he introduced mortality into physical substance. Augustine’s reflection on the concept of the body wants to demonstrate that the body exists as a substance, although mortal. He does not want to demonstrate that the body is an instrument in the service of the soul, if that were so, the human body would be one more thing among things. But man is man only, because he has his physical substance together with his spiritual one. Substance that is in time and space: “I feel my body in space and time” (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 35).

Augustine repeats that man is formed of only two substances: physical nature and metaphysical nature, the first being composed of only one element, which is the body, and the second being composed of two distinct elements that are the soul and the spirit. When Augustine expounds his thesis, stating that man is a substantial unity of body, soul and spirit; he wanted to show that substantial unity occurs in the union between soul and body. Although they contain different substantial elements at the time of joining, they form the same unit.

After having seen the exposition of Augustinian ontology and the influence of Platonic ontology on Augustinian, one can deepen the question of time in Augustine, since the essence of man is part of the problematic of time. Therefore, it will be highlighted that time is the extension of the soul, a rational being.

2.8 TIME IN SANTA AUGUSTINE

From a question carried out in book XI of the Confessions about the essence of time: “What is time really?” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 342), Augustine writes about time. Saint Augustine made the study of time when he began to question whether creation took place in eternity or in time. Augustine analyzes the phases of time: the past, the present and the future, and concludes that before creation there was no time, there was only God, eternal and stable.

In order to understand Augustine’s problematic about time, it is necessary to keep in mind that he conceives it in two ways: time as a moment of creation and time as reality. Taking the former, it can be clearly seen that this conception of time encompasses God as creator of all things and existing from all eternity. The second conception, on the other hand, encompasses man from the point of view of creation and his relationship with the surrounding world.

Since God is the creator of all things, that is, of the entire universe and everything in it, Augustine’s statement is that there would be no time before creation. However, God does not precede time, but rather, he is prior to time, he is eternity[3]. Since God is the origin of everything, he is also the creator of all times, because time was born with creation (AGOSTINHO, 1997).

Time is passing now, it is never fully present. The past is driven by the future. All past and future are created and determined by the present being: “God”. The will of God is not created, because it is before every creature, nothing would be created if the will of the creator did not exist beforehand, a will that belongs to the substance of God. If before the Word there was nothing in heaven and on earth, neither did time. But God precedes time, for God is prior to all times. The creator’s eternity was always present. God’s day is perpetual, ours, “creatures”, is daily and finite. For Saint Augustine, therefore, time is a vestige of eternity.

In relation to the second way in which Augustine conceives time, that is, the conception that encompasses man from creation, the thinker analyzes time as something finite where the succession of years, days, hours takes place; that involves for man the notion of present, past and future. Time is identified with the temporary and the transitory, therefore time as such is characteristic for human life on earth.

2.9 THE NATURE OF TIME

When starting his reflection on the nature of time, Augustine refers to a paradox: the fact of, at the same time, knowing and not knowing what time is. If anyone speaks of time in his everyday colloquy, it is well known what he is referring to; if you try to set the time, the complication starts:

O que é realmente o tempo? Quem poderia explicá-lo de modo fácil e breve? Quem poderia captar o seu conceito, para exprimi-lo em palavras? No entanto, que assunto mais familiar e conhecido em nossas conversações? Sem dúvida, nós o compreendemos também o que nos dizem quando dele nos falam. Por conseguinte, o que é o tempo? (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 342).

Saint Augustine characterizes time in the psychological aspect. Asking about the way in which the learning of time takes place, he shows no concern for the ontological aspect of time, but states that time is a Distentio[4] of the soul: “I conclude that time is nothing more than extension. But extension of what? It would be surprising, if it weren’t for the extension of the soul itself” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 345). Augustine does not present the ontological character of time, but, above all, the adaptation of the soul to succession. His concern is not to conceptualize the essence of time. His biggest concern is knowing how to measure time and how to know its duration.

After analyzing the phases of time, that is, the past, the present and the future, Augustine came to the conclusion that there was no time before creation. However, after creation comes time in these respective phases. But what is meant by past, present and future in Augustinian philosophy?

2.10 THE THREE DIVISIONS OF TIME

Man, realizing that he exists from the past, the present and the future, is more concerned with the time that is passing and seeks to measure it. But time that does not exist cannot be measured. You can measure the present. Is time long when it lasts many years, or when many years are expected to come? And is time short when ten minutes pass or when ten minutes are expected to come? Saint Augustine asks himself, saying: “But how can something that does not exist be called long or short?” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 343).

Augustine questions the existence of the three times. If there is only the time we are living (present), the past and future, which are hidden, do not exist. Why are they talked about? You cannot see what does not exist, the past has already existed and the future is about to exist.

In relation to the past it is better to say, affirms Augustine, that it was long; and that the future will be long. And long is only the moment that existed; once past, it no longer exists and therefore could not be long, because in fact it did not exist. But one cannot say that the past time was long, because one cannot find what could have been long, since the moment that, once passed, no longer exists. It can be said that the time that is present was long, because it is long while it was present and, still, it did not pass when it did not exist and that, if it existed, it could be long. However, once it has passed, it could not be long, because it has ceased to exist and one cannot measure what no longer exists, what once was.

When speaking of past things, which are words and not the fact itself, man has them in his memory. It is possible to memorize and remember its duration while it was present. St. Augustine had outlined the process of remembering the past. The images of the events that happened, which passed through the senses and marked the Holy Spirit, are registered in memory.

Finally, not even the year, month, or day is totally present, because the year is made up of months that are in constant movement, in passages and totally dependent on hours and seconds that, in their movements, are no longer present. and fall into the past.

Can time intervals be measured, however? Interpreting Augustine, one can even compare one time with another and say that some are shorter than others, and that others are longer than others. And if it is possible to measure them, it is because you can see that they come and go. However, those times that pass can no longer be measured, since they no longer exist. What can be said to be measured is what is going through.

E aqueles que narram coisas passadas, não poderiam relatar coisas verdadeiras, se não as vissem na mente. Ora, se o passado realmente não existisse, de modo algum poderia ser percebido. De onde se conclui que tanto o futuro como o passado existem (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 346).

The past and the future exist. And wherever they are, they will no longer be past and future, because they, in themselves, do not exist: the past has passed and the future can still come. In relation to the past, it exists as memory, memories and images that are formulated by man as something that happened, and the future as something that he wanted to happen; and their past and future become present. As for the past, you can say it as an idea, word and image, starting from things already created, but it is not possible to predict the future act, because it does not yet exist and the ideas and images that are premeditated are no longer future and yes, present, because the non-existent events and movements of things in themselves are not seen, but the image that we formulate in the idea. Therefore, it is possible to say that it is the future, because it has not yet come, but the present, which is conceived by the mind. Man predicts the future, making it present. But the premeditated act cannot be present; it is the future, it is about to happen. Saint Augustine gives a clear example:

Vejo a aurora e posso predizer que o sol está para surgir. O que vejo é a claridade, o fenômeno que é presente, e o que “prevejo” é o futuro. Não é futuro o sol, porque ele existe, mas é futuro o seu surgimento que ainda não nasceu (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 347).

This means that it is possible to predict what exists and what is known. The future can only be idealized on top of something created, existing and known to man. In other words, the future is only predicted because man already has it in his image. So Saint Augustine comes to the conclusion that the three times do not exist. The present of past events is memory, the present of present events is vision, the present of future events is waiting. However, these three times are in the mind. It is possible to measure time as it passes. As for the past and future, it cannot be measured because they do not exist. Time is taken in space and gives man the possibility to measure it.

There are longer and shorter times, single, double and triple times. Saint Augustine, here, refers to the duration of the facts. Time is the movement of celestial bodies. Time is a kind of “extension”. For example: “this lasted as long as that”, or “this lasted twice as long as that”. For Saint Augustine, time is not the movement of bodies, but bodies that move in time. Time is used by the body to move from one point to another. The movement of bodies is measured by time.

Saint Augustine affirms that the past is no more and that the future is not yet. The present, if it were always present, and no longer passed into the past; that is, if it elapsed, it would no longer be time, but eternity. The being of the present, then, is a constant ceasing to be, through its movements that take it to the past. Saint Augustine still affirms that, in fact, time only exists in the soul of man, it is psychological. Only in the Spirit of man, and through his memory, are the three times maintained; past, present and future, which are seen in things and nowhere else but in the soul of man. Although it has a connection with movement, time is not in movement or in things that are always in motion, in oscillations, but it is in the idea, in memory and in intuition. Its waiting is entirely psychological, for it is nowhere to be seen, it is not material, it is not cosmological and it is not astronomical. Finally, from time there is memory, which keeps memories, becoming the object of human attention.

Memory becomes a matter of past, present and future expectation, which may be short or long. The meaning of time, therefore, for Saint Augustine, is entirely “spiritual” and in the light of eternity, which it is interpreted.

You can measure time as it passes, and you can only measure what exists. The past and the future do not exist, and the present has no extension; but the man measures it as he passes. Therefore, when it is past it is no longer measured, because there will be nothing more to measure. It can be interpreted that for Augustine the duration of time will not be long, if it does not consist of many movements. It can only come from the future and cannot pass through the present and can only end in the past. Because time implies past, present and future.

Time is measured, but there is no such thing as that which has no extension or that which has no limits. And you cannot measure the future, nor the past, nor the present, nor the time that is passing. And yet, time is measured. Something about him that is “engraved” in the soul as it passes and that remains “engraved” even after it has passed. As for the past, it only exists in the soul, its memory. It is not time that is long, for it does not exist, but the long future is the long wait for it. Nor is the past long, but the memory of it. The memory that returns to an activity that has already been done and to waiting for an activity to be done. Only man’s attention, at this moment, is still present, from which the future becomes the past. So, it can be said that time is a product of the soul, which makes it present through memory, in the case of being past; through attention in case it is current; and by waiting, if it is future.

For Saint Augustine time has its origin in God and it was He who created it, giving it movement. And all creation is an act of truth, an act of God. Therefore, it is starting from Eternity that Augustine interprets temporality. Given this assumption that time had its origin in eternity, it is possible to deepen what eternity consists of for Augustine.

2.11 ETERNITY IN SAINT AUGUSTINE

“What is eternity for that which had a beginning? It is the truth for the faith”[5] (AGOSTINHO, 1994, p. 176). Augustine, although saying that eternity is a matter of faith, intends to reflect on it in the parameters of reason. The thinker resorts, at the same time, to the light of faith and reason to elaborate the concept of eternity. Reason is called upon to clarify the data of faith: eternity as time that does not pass. If theology gives us the concept of eternity, it is now necessary to justify it by reason.

In relation to eternity it is not possible to attribute exactly what it is, that is, it is not possible to define its essence; however, it is possible to talk about it and conceptualize it through reason in a similar way to human time. Therefore, Augustine believes it is necessary to first demonstrate the existence of God, who for him is the foundation of eternity.

When interpreting the Augustinian theodicy, that is, the justification of the rational proof of the existence of God, the specific objective is to prove the existence of eternity, since, when dealing with the question of God, one will be dealing with a of the attributes of the Being of God: eternity. So, one could ask: What is the reason that led Saint Augustine to develop a treaty that justifies the existence of God, given that he never doubted the existence of something?

What led Augustine to justify the existence of God was the skepticism of several thinkers contemporary to him. Augustine, by faith, always believed in divine existence. But how to prove the existence of the Transcendent to unbelieving thinkers, since they do not exercise the same faith as Augustine? So, since it is impossible for skeptics to believe in God through the exercise of supernatural faith, Saint Augustine “abandons” the principles of his faith and elaborates in his philosophical system, the proof of the existence of God and eternity based only on reason.

In his work On Free Choice of the Will, Saint Augustine discusses with his interlocutor, Évodio, the question of free will. In this discussion, Augustine asks Évodius if he is certain that God exists: “Évodius, at least one thing is certain for you: does God exist?” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 77). From this question, Augustine elaborates his theses that intend to prove the existence of the divinity.

As there are people who are not “believers”, that is, who do not believe in God through faith, an indisputable argument is needed to prove the existence of God. Thus, relying on entirely certain rational truths, the Hippo thinker proceeds to prove the existence of God, based on the reality of created beings.

Augustine asks Evodius if he is aware of his existence: “So, then, in order to start from an evident truth to prove the existence of God and eternity, I ask you: do you exist?” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 80). Evodius agrees with Augustine on the reality of his existence. Boehner and Gilson state that it is: “the first time in the history of philosophy that there is a proof of the existence of God and of eternity in the most evident of truths, namely: in the existence of knowing consciousness” (BOEHNER; GILSON, 1970, p. 154).

Augustine asserts that if Evodius exists, he also lives and consequently has an understanding of his existence. These three realities, that is, being, life and reason (understanding), are three degrees of perfection in human beings, reason being the most excellent of the three, since the other two, intelligence and living, are together. with reason. As an example, it can be said that every stone exists and that every animal exists and lives. However, the stone does not live and the animal has no understanding of itself, so only man is able to have the consciousness that he exists, lives and understands.

Being rational, man is also able to judge himself and what is around him. So, in this way, it can be said that man is superior to the animal and vegetable, because whoever judges without being judged is superior and more perfect than those who are judged:

Com efeito, para todas as realidades inferiores à razão: os corpos, os sentidos exteriores e o próprio sentido interior, quem, pois, a não ser a mesma razão nos declara como é melhor do que o outro, e o quanto ela mesma ultrapassa-os a todos? (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 91).

But is there anything greater than reason? Here Augustine is faced with the following problem: is it possible to go beyond human reason? Based on this question, Augustine formulates his following thesis: “there is nothing in the world superior to reason: for what would you say, Évodio, it is possible to find some reality in the world, whose existence is not only known, but also superior to reason?” (AGOSTINHO, 1995, p. 92).

It is notorious that, in the world, there is nothing superior to reason, but reason intuit immutable and absolute truths, which are superior to it, as for example, the sum of two plus two is four. This is a universal and immutable truth. Therefore, it is necessary that there is something superior to mathematical truths, for who would judge it correct to say that two plus two equals four? Human reason? Human reason is certainly not, because reason is changeable and because it is changeable it is subject to error. So, there is an immutable, absolute and transcendent wisdom that is the creator of eternal and immutable truths. Was it God?

Augustine reaches the climax of his proof of the existence of God, that is, there is an eternal and immutable truth present in human reason, as mentioned, as an example, the mathematical truths; however, such truths depend on something superior to them. So that something superior is called God, for it is eternal and unchangeable. Consequently, any truth, according to Saint Augustine, that has the characteristics of eternity, can be the starting point for the proof of the existence of God. It is observed that the idea that truth is universal and eternal comes from Greek metaphysics, usually from Plato and Neoplatonism.

Thus, proving the existence of eternity means acquiring awareness of the presence of eternal and immutable truths in man. Thus, once the existence of eternity is proven by the proof of the existence of God, one can deepen the relationship between eternity and changeable time.

2.12 THE CONCEPT  OF ETERNITY

When developing the problem about eternity, Augustine shows the distinction between eternity and time. Augustinian metaphysics assumes two dimensions in time: an eternal singular and a transitory multiple. The first is eternity, a category diametrically opposed to temporality, however, it is not synonymous with timelessness. For, if that were the case, the idea of ​​eternity would be a kind of refuge, outside the historical and physical world, an opium of the people, something unattainable. The second is time with its respective divisions: present, past and future. It is the time of all reality. So, one could ask: is there any relationship between the two dimensions of time?

Augustine, when speaking of the two dimensions of time, shows the relationship between them. The medieval philosopher says that before the creation of heaven and earth there was no time (present-past-future), not even a movement; there was an eternal present, a single time of all times, eternity. Eternity, which for Augustine, is characterized not by an idea of ​​independence of relationship with the present, with the past and with the future, but eternity that maintains the unifying relationship of the two dimensions of time: the transitory and the eternal. Eternity is responsible for measuring and gathering the past, the present and the future and transforming them into the eternal. Hence eternity is a perennial present, an ever-again; each time the passage from the future to the present, from the present to the past, happens, eternity (God) is exercising its function, that is, measuring and transforming transitory linear time into singular time. However, one might ask: Why does eternity influence intransitory plural time?

Augustine then clarifies this question. When speaking of eternity, the thinker is also speaking of God who, for him, is synonymous with eternity. To present eternity as influencing plural time is to show that influence is possible because God-eternity is the creator of plural time. However, it is not in the singular (immutable) time that God precedes the times, because if that were the case, the Augustinian God would not be eternal, he would not be prior to the past, present and future. Augustine said, when reflecting on eternity:

Precedes, porém, todo o passado com a sublimidade de tua eternidade sempre presente, e dominas todo o futuro porque é ainda futuro, e, quando vier tornar-se-á passado. Tu, porém, és sempre o mesmo, e os teus anos jamais terão fim (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 342).

The days, years or months, for Augustine’s God, do not change, they are stable and eternal, because God is eternal. But by stable and eternal, Augustine does not understand that eternity is an empty permanence, without dynamics. Many interpret eternity as the image of a God who eternally contemplates himself with complacency and satisfaction. Augustine got rid of this questionable idea and replaced it with the concept of eternity, that is, eternity is the fullness, completeness of total time. Since eternity is the completion of time, God’s time, the same cannot be said of man’s time; since the days of men come and go, they are constantly changing, to the point of disappearing, because they cannot reach the totality of time. As for the creator, he is stable and unchanging. Nothing sets him in motion, in oscillation, unlike man, who lives in a true becoming.

Augustinian philosophy asserts that time had its origin in God. Time comes from eternity, for God is prior to all times. God created time the moment he uttered his word: “You spoke and time was created” (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 272). However, God’s speech cannot be equated with man’s, because man’s speech is fleeting, it flees and passes.

It was by the eternal speech of God that time was created. Through speech, God gave life to heaven and earth and to all things that have life, putting all of them in motion, spaces, courses, rotations and duration. Thus, according to the Augustinian view, temporality is an expression of the word of God himself:

Não houve, portanto, um tempo em que nada fizeste, porque o próprio tempo foi feito por ti. E não há um tempo eterno contigo, porque tu és estável, e se o tempo fosse estável não seria tempo (AGOSTINHO, 1997, p. 342).

Are man’s creations eternal, due to the idea of ​​their essence being eternal in the mind of God? God is creator, he is eternal, he does not change, he is neither past nor future. He is eternal now. It “creates” and “providence” (providence), it is the origin and sustenance. The man in his physical aspect appears and disappears in the course of history. And everything that man creates, he creates guided by his reason. He gives form to something that already exists, but this matter used is not created by him. Man creates based on something that already exists, unlike God who creates from nothing, so it can be concluded that man’s creation is not eternal. Eternal is the idea of ​​man in the mind of God, different from the creation of man. But is the matter used by man when creating something eternal? God created the world in time; thus matter is temporal transitory. It undergoes its changes and variations in space and time. Many things created by man even cease to exist with the passage of time.

So God’s act of creation does not take place in time; the creation of man is temporal, transitory, because he is constituted in the horizon of temporality. Before creation, everything was just eternity. God had created everything, for nothing then existed. He alone, from all eternity, exists. Time and changeable things were created, thought and uttered by the eternal, without any succession of thought. This is because, to God belongs eternity and, therefore, the simultaneous and total possession of all moments. Time has meaning only for man.

2.13 METHODOLOGY

The methodology refers to how the project will be conducted, covering the study of methods and the means available to reach a result, in order to capture and approach the subject in a satisfactory way.

[…] a metodologia é o conjunto de recursos técnicos de apreensão da realidade e nos serve para a obtenção dos dados empíricos e seu processamento, nos auxiliando na mensuração do objeto de estudo. Apesar de não conter a essência deste, é fundamental para melhor apreendê-lo. (LAKATOS; MARCONI, 2010).

It is important that the development of research is consistent so that it can show, in an effective and safe way, what is intended to be achieved. The research theme was guided by an investigation process based on the bibliographic research methodology. In the present research work, we seek to discover new concepts about a certain phenomenon. Namely: Man and Time. The article was elaborated from readings, summaries and bibliographical deepening in works of Saint Augustine himself and of other authors that deal with Augustinian themes, as it is in the bibliographic reference.

3. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS

The accomplishment of this work demonstrated that Augustine delved deeply into himself, into himself, carrying out important reflections in search of the truth. But as Augustine was a man of faith, his philosophical concepts were often born and mixed with theological notions.

According to his writings, this avid and arduous search for the truth was a constant along his existential path. It was through agonizing and disquieting moments, in the depths of his soul, that he developed his ontological philosophy and the concept of mutable time (present, past and future) and the totality of time: eternity.

Augustine wondered a lot about the relationship between time and man. He understood man as a being composed of physical and metaphysical reality, that is; body, soul and spirit. Being that, the spirit is the noblest part of the man, therefore it is the image of God. Still within the study of the essence of man, Augustine proved the existence of man by the theory of knowledge. He asserted that man exists because he has the faculty of doubting. Before creation, that is, before God created heaven and earth, there was no time, there was only eternity. Therefore, it is from eternity that Augustine interprets temporality.

Time was born with creation, that is, the movement was born, which can be long or short, depending on its movement. The past, present and future exist as memories and ideas. The past is gone and the future can still come. They exist as memory and expectation; in them the past and future become present.

The Augustinian argument about man and time reveals the great responsibility that the human being has in his hands, because the option to mature belongs to him, since time exists to improve the human person. However, according to Saint Augustine, it is necessary for man to open himself to his own being and to the Supreme Being, because a period will come when changeable time will give its last breath and there will be no more talk of it, and then one will talk about it. to the uninterrupted prolixity of eternity. Therefore, it is in time that man needs to reveal his whole being, so that his departure from changeable time to eternity is not his end, because for some, according to Saint Augustine, eternity will be the beginning without end, for others it will be the end without end and without beginning.

REFERENCES

AGOSTINHO, Santo. A Vida Feliz, Tradução: Nair de Assis Oliveira. 2.ed. São Paulo: Paulus,1998. Disponível em: https://www.academia.edu/5349908/SANTO_AGOSTINHO_A_vida_feliz. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

AGOSTINHO, Santo. A Trindade, Tradução: Agustino Belmonte. São Paulo: Paulus, 1994. Disponível em: https://portalconservador.com/livros/Santo-Agostinho-A-Trindade.pdf. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

AGOSTINHO, Santo. O Livre Arbítrio, Tradução: Nair de Assis Oliveira. São Paulo: Paulus, 1995. Disponível em: http://www2.uefs.br/filosofia-bv/pdfs/agostinho_03.pdf. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

AGOSTINHO, Santo. Sobre a potencialidade da alma, Tradução de Aloysio Jansen de Faria. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1997. Disponível em: https://docero.com.br/doc/80cc85. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

BÍBLIA. Gênesis. Português. In: Bíblia sagrada, Reed. Versão de Antonio Pereira de Figueiredo. São Paulo: Ed. Das Americas, Cap. 1, vers. 27.

BOEHNER, Philotheus.; GILSON, Etiene. Santo Agostinho, o mestre do Ocidente. In: História da Filosofia Cristã: Desde as origens até Nicolau de Cusa, Petrópolis: Vozes, 1970. Disponível: https://docero.com.br/doc/sxxv0vn. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

BOEHNER, Philotheus.; GILSON, Etiene. História da Filosofia Cristã, 4. ed. Petrópolis: Vozes, 1995. Disponível: https://docero.com.br/doc/sxxv0vn. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

LAKATOS, Eva Maria; MARCONI, Marina de Andrade. Fundamentos de Metodologia Científica, 7.ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2010. Disponível em: http://docente.ifrn.edu.br/olivianeta/disciplinas/copy_of_historia-i/historia-ii/china-e-india/view. Acesso em: 25 out. 2021.

APPENDIX – FOOTNOTE

1. 1. Heuristic – set of rules and methods that lead to the discovery and resolution of problems.
   2. By eternity Augustine understands that it is a present that does not pass, it is a permanent now. In eternity nothing passes, everything is present.
   3. Distension is nothing more and nothing less than the present, taking into account the past and the future, as the present realized and yet to be realized, respectively. This concept of time (distension) is based on Plotinus’ philosophy.
   4. Quantum ad id quod ortum est aeternitas valet, tantum ad fidem veritas.

^[1] Master’s in Professional Theology. Postgraduate in Philosophy and existence; Pedagogical Coordination; Teaching in Higher Education; Psychopedagogy. Bachelor in theology; Degree in Philosophy, Pedagogy and History.

Sent: November, 2021.

Approved: December, 2021.