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Dictionary of the History of Ideas

Studies of Selected Pivotal Ideas
  
  
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1. Saint Augustine's God is self-identical, immutable,
not in any way changed by the created world. The
Ideas are God's ideas; they constitute eternal perfection
imperfectly mirrored in all individuals and species. God
did not have to create. He did so, in order that crea-
tures might share in his goodness.

The material world, therefore, is not intrinsically
bad. God endowed it with seminal principles (rationes
seminales
) which can be brought to fruition under
appropriate conditions by created agents. The creating
of the seminal principles is always the work of God.
A mother and father, for example, do not create the
child, but their “creative” action brings the form of
the child as created by God into fruition.

In this view, God allows persons to make a difference
in the actual history of the world. Yet, at every point,
Augustine protects the insuperable glory, goodness, and
creativity of God against any alternative that might
even seem to limit his power. Thus, the doctrine of
seminal principles enables Augustine to deny that any-
thing kept God from creating the world and all it could
become “from the beginning.” Nor is God limited by
time since he created time with the world.

Yet tension exists in this view. Augustine attributes
free will to man. Man is responsible for whatever
changes for good or evil depend upon his use of free-
dom. The goodness in the world and in man are not,
therefore, a reflection of God only. But if God does
create human freedom, must it not be possible for
persons to contravene God's purpose? Augustine, intent
on preserving God's sovereignty, holds that the outcome
of human existence is predestined. He even adds that
men cannot believe in God except as God in his grace
moves them to do so, with no regard for their present
and future merit. Thus Augustine's emphasis on both
freedom and predestination, on both the immutability
of God and his immanence in the changing world,
raises difficulties which such theism must confront.