Augustine’s theory of illumination has received increasing attention in recent decades, but the way that that theory is itself deeply interwoven with Augustine’s actual practices of enquiry has received rather less attention. In the present paper I shall suggest that there is a marked consistency between Augustine’s philosophical views about how knowledge acquisition should work, and the particular actions that constitute his own quests for understanding. My focus in this instance will be upon two texts in which Augustine is particularly revealing regarding the activities upon which he relies in his pursuit of truth: the final books of the Confessiones and De Trinitate.
Through careful examination of a select set of relevant texts, the influence of Augustine’s theory of illumination on his practices of enquiry will be examined. Particular attention will be given to the way that the notable theoretical connection made between internal illumination and the divine person of the Son, is able to birth a mode of enquiry which defies the rigid division between interiority and exteriority. To put the matter more precisely, Augustine does not seem to perceive even the most interior corner of his soul as a place where he is alone. This means that trust, a virtue generally thought to obtain chiefly to external relations (whether between persons or between a person and an object), is here employed in Augustine’s own interior functioning as well. As one would expect from Augustine’s theory of illumination, however, this interior instance of trust is not rigidly confined to the internal but serves as the key to Augustine’s view that his perception of external things, and particularly external intelligibles, is reliable. In this way certain theological convictions regarding the creative power of the Son and the ongoing presence of God to the soul end up deeply shaping the practices of truth seeking in which Augustine engages and the conclusions on the basis of those practices to which he comes.
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