Laela Zwollo: St. Augustine on the Soul's Divine Experience: Visio Intellectualis from Book 12 of De Genesi ad litteram libri XII

St. Augustine taught that the verses Genesis 1:26-27: “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image after our likeness...God created man in his own image...” were referring to the image of God, imago dei, a potential within the highest region of the human soul (mens) or intellect.

My communication/paper will cover St. Augustine’s treatment of the imago dei in his work Gen ad litt, as it occurs in two contexts:

i. within his interpretation of the creation story, particularly the creation of the human soul in “intelligible heaven” in books 1 and 3; 

and ii. within his explanation of the “three visions” in book 12. 

In the latter, his interpretation of imago dei as existing in the human intellect bears a direct relationship to his discussion of images in the corporeal world and to the different kinds of sight. The sight of the mind’s eye, the visio intellectualis, is a potential force operating in the upper regions of the human mind which re-works the impressions of the visual world – with the grace of God - to a divine epistemological experience.