Augustine of Hippo
354-430 · Latin Fathers · Household name
Augustine was a North African bishop who wrote the first book in which a man tells God about his own past, stolen pears and mistresses included: the Confessions invented introspective autobiography in the West. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you, it begins. He joined Plato's philosophy to Christian faith, taught that evil has no substance, being a hole where a good should be, and that nobody turns good without grace first.
Signature
The position Augustine is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Order
- leans Vertical
- Agency
- Divine Providence
Positions on the 9 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- strongly leans Purposeful (96 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Mind
- strongly leans Beyond Brain (100 on a 0–100 scale from Brain Only to Beyond Brain)
- The Divine
- leans Describable (25 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Identity
- strongly leans Unchanging (10 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- strongly leans Inherent (100 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Vertical (12 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- strongly leans Unity (0 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- strongly leans Transcendence (100 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- strongly leans Objective (100 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
11 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Augustine refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Monarchy / Confessional State
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Union with God
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Good Real, Evil Privative
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - End of Things
- Division of Good and Evil
What is the ultimate end of all things? - Perception
- Direct Realism
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Grounded in God / Receptive Intellect
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Divine Command
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Divine Providence
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Eschatological
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Authority
- Divine Revelation / Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Logos
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Paradox
- Apophatic Pointer
What is the status of paradox? - Law
- Divine Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Virtue to Cultivate
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?