Intellectual History, Metaphysics, Philosophy, Uncategorized

Aristotle and Augustine on Being, Truth, and Logic: Part Two

by Dave Seng

Note: The first part of the series can be found here. In that post, we explored some possible overlap between Aristotle and Augustine and the nature of being. In this post, we will continue the conversation as it relates to being and truth.

The first theme one comes to is the relationship between truth and being—an examination of the connection between what is, with what is true1. Aristotle and Augustine ground the truth of things in being, or reality. For example, Aristotle in his Metaphysics makes the connection between that which is and that which is true:

It is right also that philosophy should be called knowledge of the truth. For the end of theoretical knowledge is truth, while that of practical knowledge is action (for even if they consider how things are, practical men do not study the eternal, but what is relative and in the present). Now we do not know a truth without its cause; and a thing has a quality in a higher degree than other things if in virtue of it the similar quality belongs to the other things as well (e.g. fire is the hottest of things; for it is the cause of the heat of all other things); so that that which causes derivative truths to be true is most true. Hence the principles of eternal things must be always most true (for they are not merely sometimes true, nor is there any cause of their being, but they themselves are the cause of the being of other things), so that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect of truth. (512)

Aristotle believes there is a universal and transcendent quality to truth and many different things can participate in truth or be called true. Aristotle indicates that universal things, like being or truth, are in some sense eternal, or transcendent, because they are what particular things, which are temporal and always changing, participate in. If there is something that demonstrates truth, there must be a higher source which is the cause of that truth, because Aristotle is interested in investigating the primary causes of things. Similarly, in prayer-like fashion to God, Augustine writes in his Confessions:

I looked at other things too and saw that they owe their being to you. I saw that all finite things are in you, not as though you were a place that contained them, but in a different manner. They are in you because you hold all things in your truth as though they were in your hand, and all things are true in so far as they have being. Falsehood is nothing but the supposed existence of something which has no being. (63, Emphasis added)

At least two things are important in these passages. First, each thinker holds that the being of things are true in as much as they correspond to reality. And second, it is the eternal or transcendent things which provide the foundation for the things of this world. What is it these philosophers are trying to explain? One of the central concerns for the metaphysician is to get the terms “is” and “is not” correct. If one does not get the nature of reality right, she runs the risk of getting everything else about it wrong. Augustine reminds readers that things are true in so far as they have being, and false if they have no being. And Aristotle makes a similar claim when he says that as each thing is in respect of being, so is it in respect to truth. Aristotle puts a finer point on this concept when he says, “Again, ‘being’ and ‘is’ mean that a statement is true, ‘not being’ that it is not true but false” (538). Augustine and Aristotle are telling readers that a thing (or perhaps concept) must correspond to reality in order to be considered true. If something has no being or actuality in reality, it is not true. (For Aristotle, that which is “act” or “in act” is that which has existence or participates in existence.) This is simply a restatement of the correspondence theory of truth—truth is that which corresponds to reality. Truth is grounded in being or reality. Each thinker agrees with this. But do they have good reasons that support this position? Aristotle and Augustine would point to the laws of logic for support.

Aristotle and Augustine believe the basic laws of logic reflect the nature of reality (or being). The foundational laws of logic are generally considered to be the law of noncontradiction (nothing can both be, and not be at the same time and same way), the law of identity (a thing is what it is, a true proposition is true), and the law of excluded middle (something either is or is not, with nothing in between; a proposition is either true or false). The correspondence theory of truth depends on the laws of logic because they are basic properties of being. In addition, the laws of logic are considered among the first principles of being because all other laws and principles follow from them. The law of excluded middle and the law of identity follow from the law of noncontradiction. The law of noncontradiction holds primacy because it is a judgment between being and nonbeing, which is one of contradiction because one must first discern whether something is or is not. Augustine restates the law of noncontradiction and places it as the first principle of logic when he says, “For nonentity is contrary of that which is” (397). A judgment between compatibility or contradiction must first be made between what is and what is not. Speaking about the law of noncontradiction, Aristotle says that it is “naturally the starting-point even for all the other axioms” (525). Identity and excluded middle logically follow.

Next time, well look at another way the law of noncontradiction has primacy and Augustine’s use of it.

1A full conversation about the nature and metaphysics of truth is beyond the scope of this essay. Here, the primary focus is on descriptive truth—truth as an agreement between human cognition and external reality.

Works Cited

Aristotle. The Works of Aristotle: 1. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 7. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Augustine. The Confessions, The City of God, On Christian Doctrine. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 16. Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., 1999.

Philosophical Theology, Theology, Uncategorized

St. Augustine on Death and Confession of Christ

by Dave Seng

For no sooner do we begin to live in this dying body, than we begin to move ceaselessly towards death. — St. Augustine

Maybe it is because we are in the season of the year in which dark and deathly images prevail in our neighborhood, or perhaps it could be the fact that my beautiful wife works in the area of providing social services to the elderly and dying, or it just could be that I never really came out of my existential phase, but whatever the reason, I have recently been thinking about the philosophical and theological aspects of death.

St. Augustine, one of the greatest intellectual figures in Western Christianity, thought and wrote a lot about different aspects of death. In the following chapter, St. Augustine addresses the question, what happens to those who die unbaptized and yet confess Christ as Lord and Savior? That might sound like an odd question to those belonging to American evangelicalism, but as a confessional Lutheran and classical Christian, baptism is the central sacrament which works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this, as the words and promises of God declare (Small Catechism, IV). So, although the concern which St. Augustine addresses, might sound odd to those adjacent to (though perhaps not completely outside of) classical Confessional Christianity, it really was of first importance to the early church.

St. Augustine restates the theme of this chapter several times. It is the comfort in which Christians have in the face of death. “Precious, therefore, is the death of the saints, to whom the grace of Christ has been applied with such gracious effects, that they do not hesitate to meet death themselves, if so be they might meet Him.” Christians, as justified sinners, receive the victory Christ achieved over death. That is why we can not separate our doctrine of justification from a correct understanding of death. The Gospel is simply this—Christ who did not need to die, since he was sinless, entered into death (Phil. 2:7, I Cor. 5:7, I Pet. 3:18), died “for us” (Mark 10:45, Rom. 5:6, I Thess. 5:10, Heb. 2:9) and conquered the devil and death and rose with power over them. Christians receive the gracious imputation of Christ’s righteousness to their account by genuine confession or by baptism. Either way, the sinner is declared right before God because of Christ’s righteousness. This is why justification is the gospel and the reason Christians do not have to fear death.

Of course, St. Augustine has a lot more to say about death, and what it means to the Christian. There is much more to say about this topic. Nonetheless, I found this chapter particularly insightful. Enjoy it and I encourage everyone to read the rest of St. Augustine’s City of God.

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St. Augustine, City of God, Book XIII, Chap. 7.

Of the death which the unbaptized suffer for the confession of Christ.

For whatever unbaptized [literally “unregenerate”] persons die confessing Christ, this confession is of the same efficacy for the remission of sins as if they were washed in the sacred font of baptism. For He who said, Unless a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God, (John 3:5) made also an exception in their favor, in that other sentence where He no less absolutely said, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven; (Matthew 10:32) and in another place, Whosoever will lose his life for my sake, shall find it. (Matthew 16:25) And this explains the verse, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints. For what is more precious than a death by which a man’s sins are all forgiven, and his merits increased an hundredfold? For those who have been baptized when they could no longer escape death, and have departed this life with all their sins blotted out have not equal merit with those who did not defer death, though it was in their power to do so, but preferred to end their life by confessing Christ, rather than by denying Him to secure an opportunity of baptism. And even had they denied Him under pressure of the fear of death, this too would have been forgiven them in that baptism, in which was remitted even the enormous wickedness of those who had slain Christ. But how abundant in these men must have been the grace of the Spirit, who breathes where He lists, seeing that they so dearly loved Christ as to be unable to deny Him even in so sore an emergency, and with so sure a hope of pardon! Precious, therefore, is the death of the saints, to whom the grace of Christ has been applied with such gracious effects, that they do not hesitate to meet death themselves, if so be they might meet Him. And precious is it, also, because it has proved that what was originally ordained for the punishment of the sinner, has been used for the production of a richer harvest of righteousness. But not on this account should we look upon death as a good thing, for it is diverted to such useful purposes, not by any virtue of its own, but by the divine interference. Death was originally proposed as an object of dread, that sin might not be committed; now it must be undergone that sin may not be committed, or, if committed, be remitted, and the award of righteousness bestowed on him whose victory has earned it.