There can be no change where there is no form.—St. Augustine

One thing that I have discovered in my reading of classical and contemporary philosophers is how those who consider themselves Platonists often have to modify their position to account for a more accurate understanding of concrete reality. For example, Plotinus had to adopt Aristotle’s categories of act and potency to account for change in the world, and Augustine, too, had to concede that form and matter must be united (in order to understand motion, change, and avoid some theological concerns). Contemporary Platonists are rarely strict Platonists. One way or another, everyone on the philosophical spectrum has to come to terms with physical reality. The question is, what is the correct approach? I believe Aristotle and Aquinas provide the best understanding of ontology (the nature of existing things) and metaphysics (the nature and properties of existence). I have already pointed out how Aristotle argues for the union of form and matter. Here, I want to explicate how and why Augustine, a Platonist, needs to modify his position in order to account for reality. Although it is rare to compare Augustine with Aristotle, in some ways he must adjust his overall approach and comes very close to Aristotle’s position.

In the physical and contingent world, matter and its forms must begin at their creation. Since matter and its forms can not exist separately, philosophers and theologians, of both Platonist and Aristotelian varieties, think that God could not have made them separately. It can not be thought, according to Augustine, “that God first created matter without form and then gave it form” (138). To explain this, he offers us an analogy of how music works. “Song is ordered sound, and although a thing may very well exist without order, order cannot be given to a thing which does not exist … We do not first emit formless sounds, which do not constitute song, and then adapt them and fashion them in the form of song (139). Thus, Augustine believes that God made form and matter at the same time. God “concreates” matter and form, puts them together at the same time and is the one who puts the form into matter. For Augustine, the form is not a separate entity, as Plato believed, but put into the matter by God. Augustine clearly modifies his Platonism at this point.

Struggling with the theological and philosophical implications of the created world, Augustine tells us “For the matter of heaven and earth is one thing, their form another. You [God] created the matter from absolutely nothing and the form of the world from the formless matter. But you created both in one act, so that the form followed upon the matter with no interval of delay” (italics added, 157).

The above passages are best read in light of Aquinas because Augustine provides the foundation for the Thomistic doctrine of concreation. Concreation simply means “created together.” In fact, it was Augustine’s teaching that form and matter had to be created at the same time, and that form must follow upon matter, that leads Aquinas to coin the term “concreation” meaning that God created Form and matter at the same time. Why do both Augustine (a Platonist) and Aquinas (an Aristotelian) believe that form and matter must have been created at the same time? Simply because it is impossible to have form without matter, and matter without form. Both Platonists and Aristotelians must face the concrete facts of reality.

Aquinas is helpful here. When examining Augustine’s position of concreation, Aquinas says “if formless matter preceded in duration, it already existed; for this is implied by duration … To say, then, that matter preceded, but without form, is to say that being existed actually, yet without actuality, which is a contradiction in terms … Hence we must assert that primary matter was not created altogether formless” (344). Neither, however can the form of a material thing be created without matter. Aquinas reminds us, “Forms and other non-subsisting things, which are said to co-exist rather than to exist, ought to be called concreated rather than created things. (245)” The old Aristotelian adage, “no form without matter, no matter without form” still holds true.

Even more fascinatingly, Augustine believes that the form must be in the material object itself in order to account for change. “There can be no change where there is no form” (129), according to Augustine. This parallels exactly what Aristotle and Aquinas hold to. Without the potentiality of form, something can not change. If the acorn does not have the form and potency of the oak tree, it will not grow into a majestic oak tree.

Aquinas was one of the first great thinkers to realize that Platonists must modify there position at times. He tells us in his Summa Theologica, “Consequently whenever Augustine, who was imbued with the doctrines of the Platonists, found in their teaching anything consistent with faith, he adopted it; and those things which he found contrary to faith he amended” (446). Clearly, Augustine understood the metaphysical and theological problems which arise when form and matter are separated. For Christians, Christ shed real human pH typable blood on the cross—not some Platonic version where the real blood exists as an ideal in the transcendent realm. The union of form and matter has significant implications when it comes to Christ’s atoning death. For rightly believing Christians, Holy Communion makes no sense without the union of form and matter.

Christian Platonists such as Augustine, do need to modify their position in order to correspond to correct theology. They also need to modify their position to account for a correct understanding of ontology and metaphysics. When I read contemporary Christian Platonists, such as J. P. Moreland and Peter van Inwagen, they too make similar adjustments to their ontology and metaphysics. It is simply very difficult to account for a pure separation of form and matter in physical reality without going into one error or another. Reality has its own intractable way of being. Aristotle was on the right path by adopting a common-sense approach which accounts for reality as we know and experience it. As T. S. Eliot discovered after converting to Christianity, reality is the determinant of order.

Works Cited:

Aquinas, Thomas. The Summa Theologica, Volume 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 17. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999

Augustine. Confessions. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 16. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.