Chapter 13 Self-Quiz

. Augustine claims to be able to refute skepticism by

arguing that God would not deceive us.

showing that it is absurd to think we could be mistaken about everything.

pursuing that skeptical infinite regress right to its end.

a direct appeal to Christ, the Interior Teacher.

. Augustine

agrees with Socrates that virtue is knowledge.

agrees with Socrates that the explanation for wrongdoing is ignorance.

agrees with St. Paul that our wills are divided and that we cannot heal ourselves.

agrees that the self-reliance of the Stoics is the key to happiness.

. Augustine was attracted to the Manicheans because they

seemed to deal with the problem of evil rationally.

held that there is one God, omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good.

took the Scriptures literally.

thought, as Augustine himself did, that will was more fundamental than intellect.

. Augustine solves the problem of natural evil by

feeding the hungry and providing for the poor.

accepting that there is, always has been, and always will be an evil power in conflict with the good.

arguing that without evil there couldn't be any good.

denying that evil is a positive reality.

. One crucial step in Augustine's argument that God must exist is this:

Truth exists and is superior to all.

Whatever is superior to us is God.

Either nothing is superior to truth or there is something superior to truth.

As the measure of all that is and of all that is not, there is nothing superior to us.

. Unlike Plotinus, Augustine holds that

all of being streams incessantly in an eternal emanation from the One.

the created world is not continuous with the being of God.

worldly things differ from each other in both being and goodness.

all that is arises mysteriously out of the primal nothingness.

. In meditating on the puzzling nature of time, Augustine concludes that

time is an illusion and only God's eternity exists.

neither the past nor the future nor the present can have any reality at all.

time came into being with the creation.

God endures through all past and future time, as well as in the present.

. Sin, according to Augustine, is

having a disordered love life.

not to be attributed to babies, who are truly innocent.

something that just happens to us-- a fate we cannot help.

a mistake we make when we don't know better.

. Why do we sin? Augustine answers that

we were created with a flaw that tends toward evil.

we are made to sin by the Evil One, who tempts us and leads us into evil.

there is no cause for it.

it is because we have a body dragging us down from the spiritual plane.

. A good and happy life, Augustine thinks, is

the result of an act of free will that straightens out our disordered loves.

one of those things that are in our power, as opposed to things not in our power.

the result of God's grace.

reached by identifying yourself with the pure, unsullied soul within.

. Citizens of the heavenly city

have a dual citizenship.

live lives of quiet perfection, in contrast to the citizens of the earthly city.

pursue peace, in contrast with the citizens of the earthly city.

are those who have died and gone to heaven.

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