Ethics

The Augustinian philosophical thought is attributed to Aurelius Augustine, a North African native who in spite of being geographically far from the intellectual capitals at the time made substantial contributions to Western philosophy. He spent most of his life in his native country of North Africa and in his early years, he subscribed to a movement that was at the time known as Manichean propaganda. The Manichean propagandas ideals were the complete contrast of what became of his thoughts later in life after renouncing the movement. His thoughts are contained in his writings such as on the trinity and on the free will. Augustine did convert to Christianity later and became an ecclesiastical writer and thinker but of his thoughts pointed to a neo Platonist philosophical dispensation. Indeed, he had a high regard for Platonism terming it as a philosophical thought that managed to transcend generations because of its adaptability.

The high regard, with which he held the neo platonic philosophy, especially having termed it transcendent, meant that the philosophy acted as the template for his entire life. That put him in a unique position as far as western philosophy is concerned because then he had to combine his belief in an ancient philosophy with Christianity. The two were not necessarily compatible. This paper explores the Augustinian philosophy and in particular delves in its views regarding Gods existence.

As noted earlier, the Augustinian philosophy is wide, and it is important that before narrowing down to its views on the existence of God, it would be prudent to first take a general look at some of its key concepts. The philosophy covers a wide area of human existence and to understand it, one would have to deduce some of its major pillars. However, given that it is not an orderly or compartmentalized presentation of philosophical thoughts an attempt to apportion them in to definite themes may carry a risk of distorting the view.Knowledge

The Augustinian philosophy classifies the acquisition of knowledge in two by reason and by authority. Acquisition of knowledge through reason entails using logics and evidence to arrive at a conclusion. Using this form of knowledge acquisition, one has to be inquisitive and interrogate the sources of information available and thereafter make an inference. The latter source of knowledge is based more of belief than logic. One may unquestionably believe certain things without caring much about the credibility of the sources. All human beings for example, believe their births to be a result of interaction of two particular people, whose identities they have come to believe as true.

 If the by reason form of knowledge acquisition were to be used then one would want to question the credibility of the people giving the information on the parents. These may be the midwives, doctors and other witnesses. Another feature of Augustinian Philosophy on knowledge is the rejection of skeptics. One of the hallmarks of skepticism is doubt. The philosophy however finds doubt a necessary ingredient in proving that which is being doubted.  Accordingly, our very doubt, for example, regarding mans existence is evidence of existence is the first place.

Human nature
On happiness, Augustinian philosophy terms a happy person as one who has all that he wants and wants nothing wrongly. He however says that people have different aims in life and for that reason everyone will find happiness in different places. In addition, everybody is in pursuit of happiness. The philosophy also extols the importance of education, perceiving it as one of the mind opening endeavors a person can engage in. Being a philosophy written by an ecclesiastic, it pays homage to a Supreme Being and in fact, points to a respect for God as the ultimate sign of ethics. In other words, one cannot claim to live a life of righteousness if there is no respect and love for God.

The philosophy has a view on human freedoms as well. Freedom is of two forms one is the absolute freedom and the second one is the freedom with consequences. This understanding of freedom implies that man may be free to make choices but this is very limited because in the end the choices made may have a great bearing on how life will turn out. Human beings cannot exercise freedoms the way a falling fruit will exercise directional freedom when falling. A fruit does not have to worry about the place its final destination during a fall instead it will just rely on its weight for such a determination. For the human being however, an equivalent action will imply thoughtless actions, which will obviously be accompanied by consequences. From that, it is clear that the philosophy does not believe that absolute human freedom exists it may in an ideal situation.

Existence of God
This is perhaps the most important aspect of the philosophy for the purposes of this paper. A look at this philosophy should reveal how the author of the philosophy perceived the doubts and theories related to the existence of a God. Theories trying to support or refute the existence of a God or Supreme Being have been advanced by philosophers, scientists and other thinkers. The main philosophical arguments can be summed up in to four these are ontological, design, moral and first cause arguments. The classification is a summary of philosophical thoughts and not by any means, an attempt to classify the philosophers. They all present their independent thoughts, which do not necessarily conform to the four groups.

The Augustinian philosophical thought was authored by a theologian and for that reason such a thinker may have had little time to focus on the existence of a God. The interest of such persons would be to convince as many people as possible to follow the teachings of this Supreme Being and may not have therefore, had the time to convince the people that a God exists because that is an inherent truth according to them. In any case, most of the people who have gone in search of such truths have mostly been skeptics out to prove a point. Scientists for example, would want to prove there is no God so as to lend credence to their theory of evolution. Philosophers on the other hand would want to prove or disapprove the existence of a God so as to propagate certain schools of thought. Augustine may have been a philosopher and a great thinker but his philosophical thought on the existence of a God may have been clouded by his conversion to Christianity. It is possible that from then henceforth he could have lost his objectivity and only looked up to theories in support of Gods existence. For that reason his theories have to be properly dissected because of the resultant conflict of interest. The Augustinian philosophy is guided by eternal truths in its beliefs that a God exists. Within the philosophy, eternal truths are represented symbolically using geometry and mathematics.

Trinity
The philosophy cannot be complete without the mention of trinity. According to the philosophy, trinity finds a wide application as opposed to the commonly held view of it being that of the father, son and the Holy Spirit. A practicing Christian will, if asked, offer that the embodiment of trinity. For the philosophy however, trinity is a near omnipresent phenomenon. Firstly, there is the trinity that exists within the human soul. For the human, trinity is conceptualized by the presence of three aspects within the same person these are being, knowing and willing. The symbolic importance of this concept according to the philosophy is that indeed, the idea of the trinity is applicable in any situation and that using this one should not find it hard to conceptualize how the same can be said of God. The philosophy, having convinced one to accept the idea of trinity within the human being, then attempts to connect human existence with Gods presence without creating an ideological tension on the question of potential rivalry between the two.

Eternal truths
Augustinian philosophy likens the existence of eternal truths as evidence of the existence of a God. Before analyzing the veracity of this contention, it is important to first of all understand the meaning of eternal truths-according to the philosophy. Eternal truths are part and parcel of the human beings everyday life. Eternal truths are absolute and have no room for modification or inquisition they are static. Going against such truths will be mere contradiction and may not change anything.

For instance, in the 17th century, Isaac Newton came up with the law of gravity. Within it, he specified that if an object is left in the atmosphere, it will fall in a particular direction. He did not create this law as it was already in existence. What he did was to merely promulgate it and come up with the specifics. If the case were to the contrary then objects would have been falling in the opposite direction up until the time he discovered the law. If one therefore defies such a law, he is not defying Isaac Newton, rather it will just be going against an unalterable truth, and it may be fraught with consequences.

On the other hand, the result of the Presidential election in 2008 implied that president Barack Obama was the best leader America could have had at the time. This truth can be interrogated, and it was, because not all people agreed with it, going by the way Americans voted. If there was any eternal truth in politics for example, so that going against a certain politician or party would amount to going against an eternal truth then by now a number of countries would be extinct. Instead, when such a thing happens the countries just undergo a period of economic recession, or experience human rights abuses. To sum it all, eternal truths are cast in stone.

Non-Euclidean geometry
Another element, closely related to the concept of eternal truth, is geometry. The philosophy uses geometry to deduce some inferences and it is equally important to understand it before going ahead to interrogate the validity the arguments contained thereof. To understand the non-Euclidean geometry, which is a branch curved out of the mainstream geometry. Non-Euclidean, as the name suggests, is the alternate presentation of the Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is the study of conventional geometrical shapes such as triangles and squares. Euclidean geometry came in to practice from the work of Euclid (330-275 BC), a Greek mathematician who came up with postulates that became the laws of geometry. The most important of these postulates is the parallel lines postulate, which is the fifth postulate. In the non-Euclidean postulate, the sum of angles within a shape does not necessarily conform to that which is the Euclidean geometry would assume.

For instance, the sum of angles within a triangular shape would be 1800 . That arises out of the assumption that the lines that will make up the shape will all be straight. What if one of the three lines making up the shape would be is a curved line. The resultant shape would obviously fail to add up to the required number of degrees because the points of interaction between them would not allow. Non-Euclidean geometry would mostly apply to shapes that are hyperbolic or elliptic they cannot be treated using the same rules of geometry that apply to Euclidean geometry.

Existence of God
Having understood the concept of eternal truths and geometry, it is now time to explore the Augustinian philosophy with regards to the existence of God. The philosophy makes substantial reference to the existence of a Supreme Being and although it does not make a direct reference to the reasons of its existence, it does give pointers as to why there may be such a being on earth.

Eternal truths and existence of a God
Eternal truths are not there to be challenged, and so is Gods presence. For this theory to hold any water two things have to be proven one is that there is that there are eternal truths and two, that these eternal truths can prove the existence of a God. According to the philosophy, people come to the conclusion of the existence of a triangle via a sequence of mental processes. The mental process is simply the authors thought of how the human mind perceives things. The mind will appreciate the shape of a triangle by continuously seeing the triangles and their similarities.

With time, one gets to associate the triangular shape with that of a triangle, which makes objects with similar shapes triangles. This is the argument by analogy which was first used by Augustine, the philosophys author. It attempts to explain how a human being comes to appreciate that another being with similar characteristics is indeed a fellow human being. In accordance to the learning theories from the philosophical thought explored earlier, getting to appreciate a fellow human being is a matter of reason and not authority.

When one sees a body that has a similar shape and the same body carries out functions in a similar manner then the other body has to be a human being as well. Similarly, after seeing a number of particular shapes one is convinced that they belong to a particular class. The thought process here appears insulated from challenges because indeed, the argument has just concluded that all three sided geometrical shapes have similarities and should therefore be called triangles and classified as such. However, much as the thought process appears to lend credence to the fact the shapes can only be triangles one may still question the validity of assuming that just because the human mind has perceived them to be so then they are eternally triangles. To put in another way is to ask whether the definition of triangle would remain valid beyond the current universe or life.

Descartes, another great philosopher in the seventeenth century relied on the existence of eternal in his attempt to explain Gods existence.  Should the arguments on eternal truths prove to be nonexistent or feeble then the whole of Descartes argument will be invalidated. According to Descartes, the existence of an eternal truth is evident enough that there is a God because this God is responsible for the creation of this eternal truth.

There is a slight contradiction of these theory with that of the philosophy. A contradiction with any other school of thought would have been acceptable, but in this case, the two are interdependent and for that reason they have to show maximum congruence. God created man with sufficient freedom to differentiate the right from the wrong. The idea is that by creating man God wanted to put a being on earth that would govern itself in the best interest of all the earth. God would then allow himself to sit back and watch the creature he had created using all its capabilities and be impressed whenever it did things accordingly.

It is therefore questionable for the same God to create eternal truths and thereby impose rigidity upon the same human beings that were supposed to use the God given discretion to differentiate right from wrong. Assuming that God intended the triangle to be a three sided figure, it would have been more appropriate to create triangles with a multiplicity of sides so that the human being would be able to differentiate and say the true triangle according to God is the three sided triangle. That would in turn give God a sense of pride because according to the philosophy God created man in his own image, meaning that anything right a man does gives God a sense of pride. After all, one of the objectives of creating mankind with the sort of freedom enjoyed is to create genuine good. Gods intention here is to create a universe in which any good that comes out of it is genuine and not out of coercion.

To dispute Gods role in the creation of eternal truths is not tantamount to questioning Gods freedom in the creation of the universe. There is no question as to how free God was during the creation, only that in the process he may have restricted himself for the sake of achieving certain ends. In any case, Descartes appears to tear in to Gods independence because one may find it hard to conceive where these truths were before God declared them as eternal truths.

This may particularly arise if one were to imagine what the world would have been like had God chosen other truths as the eternal truths. Or put in another way, God could have had a choice of creating other truths but instead, chose to create the ones in play at the moment. That then implies that God is not free because before creation there were a set of truths that were already there and it was just for him to pick the ones that would be appropriate. Therefore it gives one the idea that these truths were preordained, something that is unacceptable for anyone who believes in the superiority of God.

Staying with the idea of Gods superiority (and therefore independence), another matter that arises with regards to Gods independence is how much freedom this God has in as far as altering the truths are concerned. God, being the Supreme Being cannot be bound by anything (including the eternal truths), and for that reason one can question the extent to which these truths can be altered. In short, it is unacceptable for God to be bound by anything be they laws or beings.

Giving it a consideration however, one finds that these are eternal truths (according to Descartes). The doctrine implies that God created eternal truths, meaning that they cannot be altered. Matters are not made any better by the fact these are truths and any attempt to alter them will result in a contradiction, which equates to a lie. In other words, were God to alter the truths sometime in future, then the new truths would render the old truths lies. Of course, God cannot want to be called a liar, and to prevent such an occurrence the truths have to remain as they are. Effectively that means God is bound to leave them untouched. Accordingly, God loses his power as far as that is concerned.

A further questionable aspect of geometry is the introduction of non Euclidean geometry.

Non Euclidean geometry
When Euclidean geometry was introduced by Greek mathematicians around 300 BC, led to the systemization of geometry using the five postulates that had been derived by Euclid. For the next two thousand years, this geometry enjoyed a monopoly until the emergence of no Euclidean geometry later. The assumption during all this time must have been that use of non straight lines in the geometrical shape would lead to a figure that could not be analyzed mathematically. However, things changed in 19th century when Gauss and Lobachevsky, in their works came up with non Euclidean geometry. With the successful introduction of non Euclidian geometry, the previous monopoly was cut short. In effect, this meant that postulates that had been earlier on been advanced by Euclid and taken as gospel truth were now being put under the microscope. For the two thousand years that the Euclid geometry enjoyed a monopoly for example, there was a strict belief that the angles within a triangle added up to one hundred and eighty degree.

In one of its references to the truths, the Augustinian philosophy refers to the truths found within the Euclidean system as eternal truths. It is on the basis of the existence of these eternal truths that it alleges the existence of a supreme being. The Augustinian philosophy was authored centuries ago and by the time the author died the only school of geometry was the Euclid one. However, a lot has since changed. In addition to the fifth and most important postulate being challenged, a new school of geometry emerged. More importantly, the school has provided important developments in the fields of architecture, engineering and mathematics and is responsible to some of the most magnificent structures in the worlds. The most magnificent structures during Augustines time could have been the pyramids only, which were all constructed in accordance with the Euclidean geometry.

The philosophy therefore, relied on Euclidean geometry as an indication that a Supreme Being existed. Hence, if the author of the philosophy awoke today and found the role played by non Euclidean geometry in the advancement of humanity, it would be a big surprise. This then calls to question the earlier assumption that there are eternal truths. Truths cannot come in halves. This is especially so when one is referring to such a matter. The paper made such a reference earlier in reference to Gods inability alter the truth in relation his powers.  An inalienable characteristic of telling the truth is credibility. For one to lay claim to being truthful, there has to be consistency a lack of it in the smallest proportions kills disqualifies all other truths notwithstanding the truthfulness of the previous pronouncements.

A good illustration of this would be a witness in a court of law. All an attorney needs a times is to show that the witness lacks credibility and the whole evidence adduced by the said witness will be thrown out by the courts. This may fail to make sense to everyone because the fact that I have some issues with my credibility does not make what I said an automatic lie.

Similarly, the fact that Euclidean geometry has been supplemented by the emergence of a non Euclidean geometry makes the whole idea of eternal truths questionable. It does not just dismiss the idea of geometry being an eternal truth it questions the whole philosophys belief that there are eternal truths.

Furthermore, the truth according to the philosophy is neither created nor changed and above all it is eternal. This accordingly leads the philosopher to believe that since these qualities are unique to the truth, it is indeed eternal and only God can have such characteristics. The only problem is that the discovery of non Euclidean geometry appears to have created a new truth. The difference between this and the discovery of Newtons laws of gravity is that while the non Euclidean geometry was a modification of earlier beliefs, the latter was a mere awakening to a reality that had been in existence for a long time. People were already aware that anything falling would fall in the direction of gravity, what they were not aware of perhaps was why that was the case. For the case of the geometry however, it was assumed for a long time that the geometry could only exist in the form of triangles, squares and circles.

Consequently, the discovery of non Euclidean geometry was a new creation of truth. That goes contrary to the principles of truth as laid down by the philosophy. The truth is supposed to be created or changed and yet, the emergence of this other school of geometry does that. Those whose lives were between the two thousand years of Euclidean monopoly will find it hard to understand how the sum of angles within a triangle can fail to add up to one hundred and eighty degrees. By contrast, those who lived in the pre-Newtonian times will not be surprised that there are equations describing how an object falls down.

At the end of the paragraph the philosophy says of the relationship between the eternal truths and God

..Thus, our view is that we see God when we see eternal truths, and not that these truths are God, because the ideas that these truths depend on are in God

Given that God is responsible for eternal truths, and that existence of these truths appears to be in doubt, it simply follows that Gods existence as well is in doubt. On a more positive note, the philosophy does not make a direct connection between the eternal truths and God. It would have been worse for example, had the philosophy called the eternal truths God. Such a direct relationship would have meant that inexistence of a direct truth would also mean that no God exists. The kind of relationship implied here is just cause for doubt regarding the school of thought so that one is able to just dismiss the rationale without having to connect the ineligibility of the rationale with the existence of a God. For that reason the failure of that theory does not directly imply that there is no Supreme Being, it just dismisses the argument, but other means may prove its existence.

Relativism in eternal truths
Closely related to the discovery of non Euclidean geometry is the theory of relativism. In one of its attempts to illustrate eternal truths, the philosophy makes reference to arithmetic, something that latter day subscribers to the philosophy question its rationale. For example, two times two is four. Using computations as evidence of eternal truths may be all that reliable because there is no guarantee. That is the exact question posed by the philosophys subscribers, when they use an example of how two and two can be combined to give four.

The arguments weakness is that there is no guarantee that algebra, or any other computations for that reason have an absolute truth. The first loophole can be seen in the disapproval of the fifth postulate of the Euclid geometry. If that could be rendered impotent then it is very possible that all truths created using human logic can equally go the same way. A good place to start from will be the holy trinity. This is one doctrine that the philosophy very much ascribes to. Yet, it is one of the contradictions to the eternality of the truth regarding additions. The first instance of trinity is applied on the human being. In an attempt to sell this concept to its readers, the philosophy starts by postulating that the human being is a three in one. Those are three beings in one.

Applying the same concept to the Supreme Being, the philosophy then makes reference to a God who is three in one. The philosophy was obviously aware of the implications of these and one can therefore, be at pains to comprehend how it could have intentionally decided to contradict itself. In all fairness, the philosopher may have been fully aware of this, meaning that their perception of trinity could have been much different from the usual understanding one may have for a three in one. However, it just provides a very simple contradiction because whichever the case, trinity has shown that one times three can still be one.

Additionally, the concept has been applied to the human being as well, meaning that even if one cannot even cut it some slack by assuming that it only applies to the Supreme Being only. This brings in the theory of relativism. Proponents of relativism in philosophy argue that some of the predicates such as is right, is rational or is right would be best if they were accompanied another predicate so that its form is for example, is rational according to. According to this theory therefore, the supposition that seven added to three equals to ten cannot be held as true.

As it stands, the philosophy only equates a combination of seven and three as ten, making to attempt to first understand whether this three and seven are constant. In another example within the philosophy, God uses plural when he says let us make man in our own image and likeness An ordinary mortal would not have used said our instead my would have been the most appropriate preposition. What comes out of this is that logics as we understand them do not necessarily conform to those of other places for example, the extra terrestrials.

Those contradictions in fact, need not go beyond the earthly understandings in to the world of extra terrestrials there are examples already such as computer programming. Anyone familiar with mathematics used by engineers and computers scientist would readily attest to this fact. In creating their program, these engineers do not use the computations as it is conventionally understood one added to one may equate to zero. It is therefore not an eternal truth to say that four plus four is equal to eight, and even if it were, it would need relativity for it to be valid.

It is therefore important for proponents of this school of thought to recognize the futility of trying to impose what is true for a particular group of beings in total disregard of what others may consider true. Relativism in fact, appears to be the missing ingredient in both postulations because both of them were not necessarily wrong one was overtaken by time while the other appears to fall short of universality that it associated with in the context of the philosophy.

Had the author to the philosophy been forward looking enough, these truths would have had their predicates so that the truth surrounding Euclidean geometry would have been considered true for as long as non straight lines had not been incorporated in to triangular shapes. Of course it would be unfair to expect that the philosophers would have had the foresight to make such predictions. Unfortunately, it is not a question of them being able to make predictions the bottom line is whether there is anything known as an eternal truth.

The introduction of relativism is not an attempt to provide the author with a safety so as to justify any postulation that has been found to be wrong with the fullness of time it is a test of whether there is any validity in their constructs. Simply put, the question is on whether there is such a thing as an eternal truth. It therefore becomes hard to conceive what it would be to have an eternal truth in light of the two that have already failed the test. For instance, according the theory of relativism, the geometrical truth would have been true had the author included a disclaimer outlining the limits of this truth. Instead, the author posted as an inviolable truth thereby immunizing it from any modifications.

Within relativism, this situation could have been mitigated had the author added an addendum to the effect that the truth was limited to particular situation or time period. However, much as that lends credence to the theory, it denies it the element of eternity. It would stop being an eternal truth and the author would have to acknowledge as much thus robbing the works of a vital tool in its quest prove Gods existence.

The underlying inference is that eternal truth does not exist. Relativism is not there to convert a truth in to eternity it is simply there to increase the applicability of that truth. After all, the philosophy preempts such an attempt by referring to the truth (eternal) as unchangeable or not capable of being created. An attempt to introduce relativism in to the truth in this case would amount to changing or mutating it, something that goes contrary to the postulates of the philosophy. Evidently, eternal truths as a way of proving Gods existence are not viable. At best, they are contradictory while at worst they are simply nonexistent.

Although for the purpose of sparing this philosophy, it is better off for it to have the truths being false. The main advantage with this philosophy is that it has not directly linked the presence of eternal truths to God. It has just associated the presence of eternal truths to existence of a God. To better illustrate this it would be worthwhile to consider the scripture in the Christian bible that says In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This is a popular bible scripture that Christians sometimes rely on to show the infiniteness of their God.

Had the wording of the philosophy also followed the same lines then the invalidation of the eternal truths would have rendered the whole philosophys reference to a God invalid. Hence, had the philosophy been about God being the eternal truths as is the case with the bible, then absence of invalid truths would have meant absolute lack of a God. That fact gives the sympathizers of the philosophy some leeway of mending it or at least trying to rationalize some of the things. Matters are even made worse by the philosophys frequent reference to God because the absence of a God makes substantial portions of it inapplicable. For now however, the philosophy just needs to get rid of its reference to eternal truths and probably presents its argument regarding the presence of a God in another way. That is of course a much better outcome than having the whole of it invalidated just because non Euclidean geometry was discovered.

Conclusion
A plausible reason for the failure of this philosophy to give a substantial explanation on the matter of Gods existence is the ecclesiastical nature of its author. Indeed, Augustine had so much belief in God that his definition his views on happiness were centered on complete love for God. Subsequently, such a person could not have been expected to actively inquire about the existence of God because that must have been a foregone conclusion. His philosophy cannot therefore be judged on that basis alone. If anything, the author should get some credit for even contemplating the possibility of the absence of a God. A good analogy for that would be having the pope trying to come with thoughts of a God being present.

Dismissing the philosophy on the basis of it failing to give a satisfactory explanation on Gods existence is synonymous with throwing the baby with the bath water. Going through the philosophy, one finds equally important and valuable teachings on matters such as human nature and education. Perhaps the responsibility of refining the philosophy should have been done by later philosophers such as Descartes, who found the Augustinian philosophy valuable. This group should have found ways of modifying the philosophy to suit the changing times especially given that they lived at time when non Euclidean geometry had just been discovered. It is this failure by Descartes and similar minded philosophers to provide a heat sink that exposed the philosophy to such forms of sacrilege.