The Overcoming of Scepsis : an Introduction to a Study of St. Augustine

It was tbe question : "What is beata vita?" that St. Augustine had to ask after his conversion of 386. In that same year he had retired to Cassiciacum, devoted to writing four books : "Contra Academicos", "De beata vita", "De ordine", and "Soliloquia", the last only half finished when he left for Milan in the following year. While thus engaged he was mainly concerned with defining the conception of "beata vita" as clearly as possible. But to define the beata vita presupposes the overcoming of the scepsis of the Academy, which was his own as well ; for at one time of his life he had also been a sceptic, through the influence of which, however, he could get away from the Manichaean dualism. Be it as it may, in order to define the beata vita, he asks in the so titled Dialogue : "Manifestum vobis videtur ex anima et corpora nos esse compositos?" For to define the human being as composed of anima (ψνχη) and corpus (σωna) is not Christian but Hellenic, because according to the Christian way of definition the human being is composed of πνενna spiritus) and σapξ (earo), as is shown by the word of St. Paul. To overcome the scepsis meant thus for St. Augustine to overcome Hellenism. The epistemology of the "Contra Academicos" is a criticism of the Academic scepticism. St. Augustine summarises here the scepticism of the Academic School into two points : (1) nihil percipi posse, and (2) nulli rei debere assentire, and in concluding his criticism he insists that knowledge is not something probabile as the Academicians teach, but consists in scire based upon certitudo. Thence he develops the epistemology of the Theory of the Two Worlds after the example of Plato. But in distinction from the case of Plato, the phenomenal world is for him not only δpaγá, but also natura creata created by God ex nihilo. Plato explains the relation between the Ideas and the world of phenomena by means of the conception of participation, but if we look for anything corresponding to participation in the case of St. Augustine, it must be sought in ecelesia, peccatum, gratia, etc., these intermediating between God and creatures. Thus it is that in the theory of knowledge of St. Augustine the doctrine of illuminatio plays so important a part. St. Augustine excels Plato by far in his philosophy of belief, in spite of his being a Platonist in his theory of knowledge. His overcoming of scepsis was the way leading to his philosophy of belief