CHAPTER IV Saint Augustine's Philosophy and Theology
SAINT AUGUSTINE was a very voluminous writer, mainly on theological subjects. Some of his controversial writing was topical, and lost interest through its very success; but some of it, especially what is concerned with the Pelagians, remained practically influential down to modern times. I do not propose to treat his works exhaustively, but only to discuss what seems to me important, either intrinsically or historically. I shall consider:
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First: his pure philosophy, particularly his theory of time;
Second: his philosophy of history, as developed in The City of God;
Third: his theory of salvation, as propounded against the Pelagians.
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I. PURE PHILOSOPHY
Saint Augustine, at most times, does not occupy himself with pure philosophy, but when he does he shows very great ability. He is the first of a long line whose purely speculative views are influenced by the necessity of agreeing with Scripture. This cannot be said of earlier Christian philosophers, e.g., Origen; in Origen, Christianity and Platonism lie side by side, and do not interpenetrate. In Saint Augustine, on the other hand, original thinking in pure philosophy in stimulated by the fact that Platonism, in certain respects, is not in harmony with Genesis.
The best purely philosophical work in Saint Augustine's writings is the eleventh book of the Confessions. Popular editions of the Confessions end with Book X, on the ground that what follows is uninteresting; it is uninteresting because it is good philosophy, not biography. Book XI is concerned with the problem: Creation having occurred as the first chapter of Genesis asserts, and as Augustine maintains against the Manichæans, it should have occurred as soon as possible.So he imagines an objector arguing.
The first point to realize, if his answer is to be understood, is that creation out of nothing, which was taught in the Old Testament, was an idea wholly foreign to Greek philosophy. When Plato speaks of creation, he imagines a primitive matter to which God gives form; and the same is true of Aristotle. Their God is an artificer or architect, rather than a Creator. Substance is thought of as eternal and uncreated; only form is due to the will of God. As against this view, Saint Augustine maintains, as every orthodox Christian must, that the world was created not from any certain matter, but from nothing. God created substance, not only order and arrangement.
The Greek view, that creation out of nothing is impossible, has recurred at intervals in Christian times, and has led to pantheism. Pantheism holds that God and the world are not distinct, and that everything in the world is part of God. This view is developed most fully in Spinoza, but is one to which almost all mystics are attracted. It has thus happened, throughout the Christian centuries, that mystics have had difficulty in remaining orthodox, since they find it hard to believe that the world is outside God. Augustine, however, feels no difficulty on this point; Genesis is explicit, and that is enough for him. His view on this matter is essential to his theory of time.
Why was the world not created sooner? Because there was no "sooner". Time was created when the world was created. God is eternal, in the sense of being timeless; in God there is no before and after, but only an eternal present. God's eternity is exempt from the relation of time; all time is present to Him at once. He did not precede His own creation of time, for that would imply that He was in time, whereas He stands eternally outside the stream of time. This leads Saint Augustine to a very admirable relativistic theory of time.
"What, then, is time?" he asks. "If no one asks of me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not." Various difficulties perplex him. Neither past nor future, he says, but only the present, really is; the present is only a moment, and time can only be measured while it is passing. Nevertheless, there really is time past and future. We seem here to be led into contradictions. The only way Augustine can find to avoid these contradictions is to say that past and future can only be thought of as present: "past" must be identified with memory, and "future" with expectation, memory and expectation being both present facts. There are, he says, three times: "a present of things past, a present of things present, and a present of things future." "The present of things past is memory; the present of things present is sight; and the present of things future is expectation.<sup>1</sup>" To say that there are three times, past, present, and future, is a loose way of speaking.
He realizes that he has not really solved all difficulties by this theory. "My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma," he says, and he prays to God to enlighten him, assuring Him that his interest in the problem does not arise from vain curiosity. "I confess to Thee, O Lord, that I am as yet ignorant what time is." But the gist of the solution he suggests is that time is subjective: time is in the human mind, which expects, considers, and remembers<sup>2</sup>. It follows that there can be no time without a created being<sup>3</sup>, and that to speak of time before the Creation is meaningless.
I do not myself agree with this theory, in so far as it makes time something mental. But it is clearly a very able theory, deserving to be seriously considered. I should go further, and say that it is a great advance on anything to be found on the subject in Greek philosophy. It contains a better and clearer statement than Kant's of the subjective theory of time--a theory which, since Kant, has been widely accepted among philosophers.
The theory that time is only an aspect of our thoughts is one of the most extreme forms of that subjectivism which, as we have seen, gradually increased in antiquity from the time of Protagoras and Socrates onwards. Its emotional aspect is obsession with sin, which came later than its intellectual aspects. Saint Augustine exhibits both kinds of subjectivism. Subjectivism led him to anticipate not only Kant's theory of time, but Descartes' cogito. In his Soliloquia he says: "You, who wish to know, do you know you are? I know it. Whence are you? I know not. Do you feel yourself single or multiple? I know not. Do you feel yourself moved? I know not. Do you know that you think? I do." This contains not only Descartes' cogito, but his reply to Gassendi's ambulo ergo sum. As a philosopher, therefore, Augustine deserves a high place.
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1 Confessions, Ch. XX.
2 Ibid., Ch. XXVIII.
3 Ibid., Ch. XXX.
圣奥古斯丁是一个著述极其丰富的作家，他的著作主要是关于神学问题。他的一些争论性的文章属于时事问题，于一旦成功之后随即失去其所有的意义；但某些文章，特别是关系到裴拉鸠斯教派的文章，却一直到现代仍然具有其现实的影响。我不想论及他所有的作品，我只是把我认为具有内在性的、或历史性的重要论著作一番考察：
第一：他的纯粹哲学，特别是他的时间论；
第二：在《上帝之城》一书中所展示的历史哲学；
第三：作为反对裴拉鸠斯教派而提出的有关救赎的理论。
1纯粹哲学
一般来说，圣奥古斯丁并不专心致力于纯粹哲学，但当他这样做的时候，却显示出很卓越的才能。历史上有许多人，他们纯粹思辨的见解曾受到符合经文必要性的影响，奥古斯丁在这一长串人物中则占据首要位置。然而这种情况对早期基督教哲学家们，例如对欧利根来说，便是不适合的。在欧利根的著述中基督教和柏拉图主义同时并存，且不互相渗透。与此相反，在奥古斯丁的著述中纯粹哲学的独创思想却受到柏拉图主义在某些方面，与《创世记》不相协调这一事实的刺激。
在圣奥古斯丁的著作中，《忏悔录》第十一卷是最好的纯粹哲学作品。一些普通版本的《忏悔录》只有十卷，因为十卷以后的部分是枯燥乏味的；其所以枯燥乏味正是由于这一部分不是传记，而是很好的哲学。第十一卷涉及的问题是：假如创世有如《创世记》第一章，有如奥古斯丁反驳摩尼教徒时所主张的那样，那末，创世一事是应该尽早发生的，于是他就这样假想着一个反对者，从而展开了他的论证。
为了理解他的解答，首先必须认清旧约全书中无中生有的创造，对于希腊哲学来说是一个完全陌生的概念。当柏拉图论及创世时，他想到的是一种由上帝赋予形相的原始物质；而亚里士多德也是如此看法。他们所说的上帝，与其说是造物者不如说是一个设计师或建筑师。他们认为物质实体是永远的、和不是被造的；只有形相才是出于上帝的意志。与此见解相反，圣奥古斯丁象所有正统基督教徒所必须主张的那样，主张世界不是从任何物质中创造出来的，而是从无中创造出来的。上帝创造了物质实体，他不仅仅是进行了整顿和安排。
希腊人认为不可能从无中创造的这一观点，曾断续地出现在基督教时代和导致了泛神论的产生。泛神论认为上帝与世界是不能区分的；世上所有的东西都是上帝的一部分。这种见解在斯宾诺莎的著作中得以充分地发展，并使得几乎所有神秘主义者受到了它的吸引。在基督教的所有世纪中，神秘主义者在奉守正统教义方面一直感到困难，因为他们难于相信世界是存在于上帝之外的。但奥古斯丁在这一点上却未感到困难；因为《创世记》已讲得很清楚，这对他来说是已经足够的了。他对于这一问题的见解对他的时间论有着重要意义。
世界为什么没有更早地被创造呢？因为不存在所谓"更早"的问题。时间是与创世的同时被创造出来的。上帝，在超时间的意义上来说，是永恒的；在上帝里面，没有所谓以前和以后，只有永远的现在。上帝的永恒性是脱离时间关系的；对上帝来说一切时间都是现在。他并不先于他自己所创造的时间，因为这样就意味着他存在于时间之中了。而实际上，上帝是永远站在时间的洪流之外的。这就导致奥古斯丁写出了令人十分钦佩的时间相对性理论。
"那么什么是时间呢？"他问道。"如果没有人问我，我是明白的；如果我想给问我的人解释，那末我就不明白了。"种种困难使他感到困惑不解。他说，实际存在的，既非过去；又非未来；而只是现在。现在只是一瞬间，而时间只有当它正在经过时才能加以衡量。虽然如此，也确乎有过去和未来的时间，于此，我们似被带入矛盾之中。为了避免这些矛盾奥古斯丁找到的唯一方法就是说，过去和未来只能被想象为现在："过去"必须与回忆相等同：而"未来"则与期望相等同，回忆和期望两者都是现存的事实。他说有三种时间："过去事物的现在，现在事物的现在，以及未来事物的现在。""过去事物的现在是回忆；现在事物的现在是视觉；未来事物的现在是期望。"说：有过去、现在和未来三种时间，只是一种粗率的说法。
他也了解用这种理论实际上并没有解决所有的困难。他说："我的心渴望知道这个最为错综复杂的谜。"他祈祷上帝开导他，并向上帝保证，他对这个问题的关心不是出于无聊的好奇心。"主啊！我向你坦白，我对于时间之为何物依然是盲无所知的。"但他所提出的解答要点是，时间是主观的：时间存在于进行期望考察和回忆者的精神之中。因此，如果没有被创造之物，也就不可能有时间，因而谈论创造以前的时间是毫无意义的。
我自己不同意这种把时间说成某种精神产物的理论。然而很显然这却是很卓越的理论，值得人们认真地加以考虑。我可以更进一步说，比起希腊哲学中所见的任何有关理论，这个理论乃是一项巨大的进步。它比康德的主观时间论——自从康德以来这种理论曾广泛地为哲学家们所承认——包含着更为完善，更为明确的论述。
说时间只是思惟的一个方面的这种理论，是主观主义的一种极端的形式。有如我们所见，这种主观主义是在古代从普罗泰戈拉和苏格拉底时代以来，逐渐成长壮大起来的。这种理论的感情方面是受到罪恶萦绕的一种观念，但这个方面比起智力方面的发生为其较晚。圣奥古斯丁提出了两种主观主义，主观主义不仅使他成为康德时间论的先驱；同时也成为笛卡尔的"我思想"（cogito）的先驱。奥古斯丁在《独语录》中这样说："你这求知的人！你知道你存在吗？我知道。你是从什么地方来的呢？我不知道。你觉得你自己是单一的呢还是复合的呢？我不知道。你觉得你自己移动吗？我不知道。你知道你自己在思惟吗？我知道。"这一段话不仅包括了笛卡尔的"我思想"；同时也包括了伽桑地的"我行走所以我存在"（ambulo ergo sum）的回答。因此，作为一个哲学家，奥古斯丁理应占据较高的地位。
从罗素的《西方哲学史》里摘录一段对奥古斯丁的评价
