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.
