Augustine and Plotinus

This essay was written for a class I was teaching on God the Son. As a result, portions of it, especially the last sections, have already been covered in other essays on this website. The material on Augustine and Plotinus, however, is new to this web site. Be that as it may, I will include the entire essay.

Some years ago while reading Karl Barth I ran across of a comment of his to the effect that the theology of Schleiermacher is a synthesis of scientific rationalism and medieval mysticism. I've searched for the reference to this quote but have never been able to find it. In any event, this essay on Augustine and Plotinus investigates aspects of the influence of Plotinus on Augustine as seen in his Confessions. In particular, I will focus on Augustine's encounters with God. Augustine's theology significantly influenced the Middle Ages, and this would include his understanding of how we know God.

In Book Seven, chapter 9, of his Confessions, Augustine discusses certain Platonists and affirms a number of their insights. He was, at the time, reading the doctrines of the Neoplatonists, especially as influenced by Plotinus. According to Plotinus there is the One, “the first, the good, the absolute, the unconditioned, the transcendent, the absolute, the infinite, the father.”(1) The One is immutable, beyond the changing variations of the material world or the fantasies of the mind. Second, there is the Logos, the Word or structure, which in Platonic philosophy is a mediating principle between the ultimate and phenomenal existence. This Word is the divine Mind or Nous (mind), the archetype of the realm of ideas. According to Plotinus, the Word looks upward to contemplate the Infinite One, and at the same time, downward, generates the world soul which is the organ by which all things exist. When Augustine read this, he equated the infinite One with the Father and the Logos with God the Son, believing that the philosophers had penetrated partially into Christian truth. Augustine saw, however, that the philosophers had not penetrated to the heart of the Christian faith because they did not know that the Word became flesh and died for our sins.

How did these philosophical conceptions come into existence? When surveying the phenomenal world, we might notice two great realms of existence, mind and matter. The Greeks and Roman philosophers who went in the direction of mind believed that ideas, the Platonic forms, were ultimate. Those who went in the direction of matter, made matter the ultimate, as seen, for example in Lucretius. At the same time, the world is composed of the one and the many, many things coming together to form one and unities often disintegrating into the many. The impulse toward the one led to the perception of the One that lies behind all things, and this One, the absolute, the transcendent, the unconditioned, is the ground of the many as mediated by the Logos. Without the One, all is ultimately chaos without coherence. In regard to the One, Augustine will say, after reading Aristotle’s description of the ten categories of accidents, and how they inhere in their subjects,

What did all this profit me, since it actually hindered me when I imagined that whatever existed was comprehended within those ten categories? I tried to interpret them, O my God, so that even thy wonderful and unchangeable unity could be understood as subjected to thy own magnitude or beauty, as if they existed in thee as their Subject--as they do in corporeal bodies--whereas thou art thyself thy own magnitude and beauty(2)

When we see a massive and beautiful mountain, we say that it is vast and beautiful, and the adjectives modify their subject, the mountain. But, for Augustine, this is not true of God. God is himself his “own magnitude and beauty.” He is also his own Love, Goodness, and Truth, and in God, all these qualities are God, for if they were distinct, several properties, God would not be one but many. This is the doctrine of the divine simplicity, seen in theologians such as Aquinas or Lonergan.

From the perspective of Plotinus, there are three realities, the One, the Logos or Nous, and the world soul giving rise to the phenomenal world. Experiencing God involves beginning with the phenomenal world, and then, leaving these ever-changing material elements behind, one ascends to the platonic forms (the Logos or Nous), the good, the true, and the beautiful which lie behind the phenomenal world and give the world its hints of beauty, truth, and goodness. Then, leaving the mental forms behind, the soul can perceive the One who lies beyond the forms, the One who is the Absolute, the Transcendent, the Eternal, and the Immutable. In other words, by means of a mystical ascent, one passes from the created world, to the Logos, and from there, to the Father of the Logos, the eternal One whose reality is perfect, eternal rest. This One is mystically perceived since a “being” who is immutable, who is his own goodness, beauty, and truth, is beyond comprehension. Unless, however, the soul ascends to this place of endless rest, a person is ever plagued by the blows and misfortunes of life. As Augustine proclaims in the opening lines of the Confessions, “thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.”(3)

Within the Confessions there are two descriptions of the ascent to God. The first is found in Book Seven, chapter 17. In this vision Augustine passes through created things arriving at his mind which transcends itself by “abstracting itself from the contradictory throng of fantasms in order to seek for that light in which it was bathed.”(4) Then, in an instant, "with the flash of a trembling glance, it arrived at that which is. And I saw thy invisibility [invisibilia tua] understood by means of the things that are made. But I was not able to sustain my gaze.(5)

Augustine then states that he could not maintain this vision of the Absolute because he lacked sufficient strength, and further, this “strength” could only be received by embracing the “Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,”(6) who by his humility and love would give Augustine the grace to attain God. From this point onward, Augustine is increasingly aware of the truth of the Christian faith but unable to leave behind his lesser loves. He became convinced that, unless he renounced these loves, he would never return to the Source of eternal rest and felicity. Finally, tormented by his inability to let go of his sin, he went into a garden and heard a voice, seemingly that of a child, urging him to pick up and read. He did so, laying hold of one of Paul’s epistles, and his eye fell upon Romans 13:13. Here is his description of what happened next,

I snatched it up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.(7)

He had become a Christian. Immediately he ended his worldly career, gave up his professorship with its income and fame, and further, put away the mother of his son, the woman he had been living with for some years. These renunciations were followed by his baptism on Easter in the year 387.

Augustine believed that the soul could ascend to God only by choosing the Eternal Good above all lesser things. For that reason, he applied the words of Jesus to his life: “Then Jesus told his disciples, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’” (Matthew 16:24-25) This raises a question for serious readers of Augustine: If knowing God is the purpose of the Christian life, and if God can only be known by following in the footsteps of Jesus and renouncing lesser loves to do the Father’s will, then what must I do now to deny myself? That is a fundamental question that Augustine poses for us.

Historically, within the tradition of Christian spirituality, the process by which the soul is cleansed of its lusts for lesser loves is called the way of purgation. The process by which God illumines the soul to the truths of the Christian faith, is illumination, and the process by which the soul goes forward to final union with God is simply called “union with God.” The first entails the confession of sin, the second, the adoption of belief and resultant acts, and the third, knowing God which results in the praise of God. All three of these aspects are found in the Confessions, confession of sin, affirmation of faith, and the praise of God. One commentator, knowing the spiritual tradition of the West, as well as possessing a detailed knowledge of the Confessions, states the following, "Because it is such a threefold confession, St. Augustine's book is a unique description of the threefold way that makes up the spiritual life. It is a case history, without parallel in the library of psychology, of a soul as it travels the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way."(8)

Not long after his conversion Augustine and his mother were deep in conversation at Ostia, a town on the Tiber. As they conversed, they were lifted up to God. This encounter with God differs from the first vision in several respects. First, similar to the original vision, Augustine ascends by leaving behind the world of sense, coming to his own mind and going beyond it, so that he and his mother come to the eternal Wisdom where they “just barely touched her [Wisdom] with the whole effort of our hearts.”(9) He then describes his coming to the eternal Wisdom in terms of sound, passing through speech to the silence of the Eternal. He notes that if this encounter could be sustained, then they “with rapid thought might touch on that Eternal Wisdom which abides over all.”(10) It is significant that Augustine does not claim to have actually “heard” or “beheld” the eternal Wisdom, but only that he might have if the encounter had been sustained. In fact, he asks when it will be possible to apprehend this eternal Wisdom, and concludes that it will only be after the resurrection. “But when shall such a thing be? Shall it not be ‘when we all shall rise again,’ and shall it not be that ‘all things will be changed’?”(11)

Several observations are now in order. First, and here I am indebted to an outstanding article by Bogdan D. Bucer,(12) the text of Book Nine would seem to say that Augustine did not believe the vision of God was possible in this life. In this life, one “might touch on that Eternal Wisdom,” but no more. Only when believers are transformed in the life to come will true knowledge of God become possible. Be that as it may, both encounters with the Ultimate, narrated in the Confessions, are significantly influenced by Plotinus.

Plotinus, through writers such as Augustine, and above all, through another Christian writer, Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite (c. 500), has had a profound effects upon Christian theology and spiritual practice. Dionysius advocated a form of Christian mysticism that combined Christian thought with Plotinus. He was widely read and quoted throughout the Middle Ages, and his mystical theology has influenced modern thought as well. Among modern theologians, the works of Schleiermacher, Tillich, and Macquarrie have affinities with this mystical approach. My next step is to contrast the two visions of Augustine with what I take to be an orthodox understanding of knowing God.

There are a number of individual theophanies described in Scripture. For example, there are Isaiah’s temple vision and Paul’s encounter with Christ on the way to Damascus. By and large, however, the great manifestations of God described in the Bible are public events perceived by the senses. God coming down upon Mount Sinai in smoke, fire, and thunder was the great Old Testament theophany, and in the New Testament, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus were the decisive manifestation of God’s glory. Both were public events received through the senses, things seen and heard. What happened in these events? Let us restrict ourselves to Christ.

First, people saw Jesus, heard him, and touched him. As it says in I John 1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, …” Secondly, he was not only physically seen and heard, but when seen and heard by the power of the Spirit and received in humble obedience, believers heard and saw God. By Chalcedon the divine nature is in union with the human nature. By the communicatio idiomatum, the words and deeds of Jesus are the words and deeds of God so that God is seen and heard. The two natures, human and divine, come together to form one person. In the words of Chalcedon,

recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ; ...

Further, it needs to be said that knowing God is simply not reducible to perceiving the human nature alone. The two natures of Christ are both perceived, each in union with the other. The means by which we see the human nature are the senses. The means by which we see and hear the divine nature is what Dr. Mary Ford calls the nous.(13)

In Christ, there is no knowledge of the divine nature without, at the same time, knowing the human nature. This is because the two natures are inseparable. In the moment that Augustine began his ascent to God, whether the account of Book Seven or Book Nine, he transcended sense impressions, followed by a transcendence of the realm of ideas, followed by an ineffable vision of the One (Book Seven), or scarcely touching the supreme Wisdom (Book Nine). The divine Wisdom, however, was only approached when “fancies and imaginary revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every sign and every transient thing--for actually if any man could hear them, all these would say, ‘We did not create ourselves, but were created by Him who abides forever’--and if, having uttered this, they too should be silent, …”(14)

In other words, the soul passes beyond the physical world to a knowledge, or the hint of a knowledge, of a reality beyond sense impressions. There all is silence, including whatever sense impressions one might have of the human nature of Jesus. We receive sense impressions of Jesus’ human nature, for example, by reading the Bible or by Christ-centered worship. In Augustine, however, we now have a way of coming to God which bypasses the human nature of Jesus, and this in contrast to Chalcedon which claims that the divine nature is only given in union with the human nature, “without separation; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics of each nature being preserved …” In Augustine, however, the human nature is left behind, and this under the influence of Neoplatonism.

There is another feature of this mystical encounter that merits our attention. Namely, it is impersonal. In the moment of final union, when the soul comes in contact with the divine, all distinctions fade away and the One is known directly. A personal encounter implies a distinction between two selves in encounter. A soul has not truly perceived the One if it is still aware of distinctions between itself and the One. When all is one, that distinction fades away. A contemporary example of this mystical tradition is Tilden Edwards, founder of the Shalem Institute, “an ecumenical Christian organization devoted to the support of contemplative spirituality."(15) He describes the highest moment in the spiritual life with these words,

With the impetus of further grace (God's free, gifted movement in and among us), met with our consent, this unity of creation is deepened to its source in God. Our being in God is manifest. Our imagined substantive sense of self dissolves, and along with it our imagined sense of God. No longer is it a subject-object relationship with God, but a subject-subject relationship, so intimate and consuming as to “know” no distinction (even though in reality a distinction remains). Now we become clear that contemplation is not an experience to be gained (there is no one left to “gain” anything), but an eternal identity to be realized.(16)

This, to my mind, denies the Incarnation. It is our bodily otherness that separates us from one another and makes us distinct selves as we meet each other. When we meet God in Christ, it is the distinctiveness of the words we read, the Eucharist we share, the empirical realities reflecting the human nature of Christ, that distinguishes us from God who we meet by means of these empirical realities.

With the advent of the scientific revolution, the knowledge of God split into two forms, although the roots of the division go far back into antiquity. Essentially, it was believed that one knew facts about God, for example, the facts of Scripture, or one knew God mystically. For example, major portions of North American evangelicalism have adopted the epistemology of a particular philosophical school, namely Scottish Common Sense Realism.(17) According to this school, the mind has a clear perception of facts, and from these facts, can deduce general conclusions. Further, these facts are evident. Anyone with an open mind can clearly see the facts just as anyone with eyesight can see a tree. Such an approach is scientific, similar to the empirical or scientific method. From this perspective, Scripture is a set of facts, things known about God. That Scripture may be more than facts, that it might reveal the divine nature perceived by the nous as one reads the human words and deeds of Christ, and that facts about God are not the same as personally knowing God, lies outside its purview. Theologically, this perspective is Ebionite, denying that human realities can convey the divine nature, or more accurately, that the divine nature can even be known.

Or, as an example of the mystical approach, there is Anglican theologian John Macquarie. In his view, when one encounters the holy, one does not encounter a particular being, but “being itself.”(18) By the communicatio idiomatum, however, God in Christ is a particular human being, the man Jesus. It is appropriate to speak of God as a particular being. Given his perspective, Macquarrie will deny that knowing God is a personal I-thou encounter since that holds true only for particular beings.(19) In other words, for Macquarrie, God is known mystically, beyond the distinction that exists in the I-thou encounter.

The position taken here, however, does not deny mystery in regard to God. Throughout Scripture, there is a reserve in knowing God in which God transcends human knowing even in the act of being known. A good example of this is the encounter of John 20:26-28. Here Thomas puts his fingers in the nail prints, his hand in Christ’s side. These were empirical facts, and they conveyed the reality of God in union with the facts as Chalcedon proclaims. For this reason Thomas will exclaim, “"My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28) Thomas recognized the divine nature, but at the same time, touching Christ in the resurrection, a form of creation out of nothing, pointed to the transcendent, holy God who can do things beyond human understanding.

Another beautiful example is Isaiah 6.(20) I have included a short essay on this passage showing how God is known concretely, yet in ways that preserve God’s transcendence and mystery. Or, to put it another way, one can know God concretely and objectively, in union with the empirical given to the senses. Yet at the same time, these same empirical realities point beyond themselves to the holy, living, transcendent God.

Whether Augustine thought God could be immediately known in this life is debatable, but he is in accord with the great spiritual tradition to believe that such encounters with God in this life are transient in nature. We walk by faith not perfect sight. But seeing in a mirror dimly is far better than no sight at all, and as Paul proclaims in First Corinthians 13, there will come a day when we will see Christ face to face.

Although, to my mind, Augustine’s appropriation of Plotinus is theologically suspect, he does make a very a significant point: seeing and hearing God normally requires growth in grace. I use the word “normally” because there are examples of God speaking and appearing to people in a state of deep sin. Paul on the road to Damascus is an example. In fact, no one is so pure that they can hear and see God apart from Jesus setting us right with God by his atoning work on the cross. Once justified, however, we are qualified to enter into God’s presence that we might see and hear him. Entering into his presence, however, requires not only justification, but also sanctification. God speaks and appears to those who seek him, who obey his commandments, who walk the arduous path in which the body and soul are stripped of their sins and the heart is purified so that God can be seen and heard. In the words of Jesus, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Or in John 14:23, Jesus will say, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Or Paul will say that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). Belonging to Christ Jesus means knowing him in his two-fold human and divine nature, and through him, knowing God the Father.

What happens to believers as they come before God to see his face and hear his Word? Paul contrasts his fellow believers with the Israelites who could not bear to see the glory of God in the face of Moses. Moses, therefore, wore a veil, but this is not true for those who turn to the Lord Jesus.

But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:16-18).

As we consider the theological landscape today, we may note several great divisions, among them the Protestants, the Roman Catholics, the Pentecostals, and the Orthodox. All have their strengths and weaknesses. Protestants have a strong emphasis on the Word of God. This is to the good, and in reference to revelation, it can probably be said, biblically speaking, that the Word is primary. Nevertheless, Scripture clearly proclaims that one can not only hear God, but also see him. The Orthodox understand this, and have developed ways of worship that set forth the Brightness (a word from Athanasius) of God. This is to be affirmed, strongly. For that reason, I have included a few ideas taken from Lossky’s beautiful book, The Vision of God.(21)

I have also included a contemporary account of seeing and hearing God, the testimony of Carolyn Graham.(22) Her encounter with God can be explained in psychological or other categories, but for those who believe, it rings true. Notice that Carolyn Graham described the written words seen through the sense of sight as having divine authority: “The words I saw spake to me with the absolute authority of a divine voice.” That is, she read words that were first spoken by a human being (Isaiah) and written in a book (the observable human nature), and at the same time, these words were “a divine voice,” that is God himself speaking. The human and the divine came to her as a unity, as a personal address, God personally speaking to her as observable words.

The same could be said of Augustine’s encounter with the Word in the garden. This experience, to my mind, fits the biblical pattern. He hears a voice telling him to pick up and read. He does so. His eye falls on Romans 13:13. “ … instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.” In that moment, several things happened. First, he read the words of Paul who was an ambassador of Christ. As an ambassador of Christ, Paul sets forth the human nature of Christ by his teaching and preaching. This preaching and teaching also conveys the divine nature since the human and divine natures of Christ cannot be separated. As Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives him who sent me (Matthew 10:40). In receiving Jesus, one receives God. As Augustine received the human nature of Christ given in the words of Paul, words received through his senses, he also received the divine nature. In this encounter, he was acted upon by God. Immediately he was set free and empowered to believe and let go of his lusts. Within the history of Christian spirituality, however, his Plotinian vision, rather than the event in the garden, has had the most influence.

As one considers these matters it becomes clear that there is great variety in how people come to know God. Some people, like Carolyn Graham and Augustine, have dramatic encounters. Others like C.S. Lewis meet God in more subtle ways. Lewis read and thought his way into the Christian faith. It was a process of years. At the end of the process, having gone from a belief in the Absolute, to Spirit, to theism, to going to church and hearing the words and deeds of Jesus, he finally came to believe and in believing to know the divine nature. This process was so subtle that, at the end, he was not quite sure how it happened. Here are his words,

I know very well when, but hardly how, the final step was taken. I was driven to Whipsnade one sunny morning. When we set out I did not believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and when we reached the zoo I did. Yet I had not exactly spent the journey in thought. Nor in great emotion. “Emotional” is perhaps the last word we can apply to some of the most important events. It was more like a man, after long sleep, still lying motionless in bed, becomes aware that he is now awake.(23)

Finally, where does one today encounter the human nature of Christ in union with his divine nature as one person. Worship is paramount, as well as daily Bible study and prayer, receiving and giving Christian ministry, all the ways in which the words and deeds of Jesus are set forth, and this in the context of the entire biblical revelation. As these things happen, and as believers seek God, they know him as the Son of God, and through him, the Father.

Fifty or sixty years ago the cultural landscape of America was very different from what it is today. In those days, there was a strong sense of right and wrong, and when someone like Billy Graham would preach the gospel of salvation in Christ, people listened because they knew they were sinners. We are now into our third generation of young people raised with little parenting and saturated with the paganism of our culture. Justification by faith means little to such people since they have little concept of sin or a righteous, holy God. Further, in this post-modern, relativistic culture, any concept of truth, absolute truth, is easily discarded. Years of watching commercials have convinced most young people that words are always in the service of money and power. This comment by Dr. Mary Ford, however, speaking of the knowledge of God, is surely relevant,

And it is important to emphasize this reality especially today, because this is what can enable us to get beyond the foggy impasse of postmodern relativism. If one can have direct knowledge of God, knowledge through communion, through the nous (rather than the mind), then there is a kind of knowledge which is not relative, but has an absolute character.(24)

If we, as believers, are to convey the gospel to this broken world, we need to show people that they can know God as revealed in Christ Jesus. This is what people are longing for. They want to know the final reality, God himself. Let us understand this theologically, and let us put it into practice by surrendering our hearts to God that we may know him, in a glass dimly to be sure, but still, utterly real. Let us end with these words of Jesus, already quoted, but surely of great import: "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (John 14:23).

Endnotes

1. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by John K. Ryan (Garden City: Image Books, 1960), p. 22.
2. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.vii.html, Book Four, chapter XV, section 29.
3. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.iv.html, Book One, chapter I, section 1.
4. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.x.html, Book Seven, chapter XVII, section 23.
5. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.x.html, Book Seven, chapter XVII, section 23.
6. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.x.html, Book Seven, chapter XVII, section 24.
7. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xi.html, Book Eight, chapter XII, section 29.
8. Augustine, The Confessions of St. Augustine, translated by John K. Ryan (Garden City: Image Books, 1960), p. 29.
9. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xii.html, Book Nine, Chapter X, section 24.
10. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xii.html, Book Nine, Chapter X, section 25.
11. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xii.html, Book Nine, chapter X, section 25
12. http://www.bgbucur.com/PDFuri/AugustineTheophaniesandVisionofGod.pdf
13. http://rsanders.org/patristic-exegesis.htm
14. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.xii.html, Book Nine, chapter X, section 25.
15. http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/tildenedwards.htm
16. Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence (San Francisco: Harper, 1987), p. 5.
17. Marsden, George M, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 14.
18. John Macquarrie, John, Principles of Christian Theology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977), p. 94.
19. Macquarrie, Principles of Christian Theology, p. 93.
20. http://rsanders.org/isaiah-six.htm
21. http://rsanders.org/the-vision-of-god.htm
22. http://rsanders.org/carolyn-grahams-witness.htm
23. C.S. Lewis, C.S., Surprised by Joy (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., 1955), p. 237.
24. http://rsanders.org/patristic-exegesis.htm