The Divine Illumination theory. Interiorized truth

Abstract.

Man is a rational animal, that “the Lord God formed”¹ “in his own image”² and likeness. At this point one must always clarify however, that the dissimilitude between God and man is far greater than the similitude between man and God. God allows us to share in him, Reason itself. Thus arguably our reason is God’s greatest gift to man. It makes us stand out in nature amongst the many the animals and plants. Having established that the rational soul is created by God, it is of crucial importance to discuss how our soul shares in or interacts with the transcendental. In Sacred Scripture the transcendental, God, is repeatedly referred to as eternal Light. In the Old Testament the prophet-king David says to God:

“…you are my lamp, O Lord…[that]…lightens my darkness”³.

In general light is bright, flashing and illuminating. Where there is light there is no darkness, which is why darkness is considered simply to be absence of light - just as evil is considered a mere absence of the good⁴. Thus divine light is considered to clear up intellectual doubts and spiritual mistakes, darkness and evil. In this respect it is common practice to refer to a person who is highly intellectually gifted as an ‘enlightened’ or wise person. Wisdom, a form of divine light, “is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness”⁵. In light of the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Peace of our Lord⁶, in the New Testament, Christ says that the divine light now “dwells with[in]…[us]…”⁷. It is this same Spirit of God, Spirit of truth⁸, that guides us, our rational soul (i.e. our spirit), “into all truth…[to]…glorify…[God]…”⁹. The following academic paper will thus proceed to discuss man before God, examining in great detail the different interpretations of the so-called theory of Divine Illumination with major focus on the works of St. Augustine of Hippo, arguably one of the greatest proponents of the latter.

Introduction.

“Man stands in need of being enlightened by God”¹⁰. This enlightenment, illumination, is any clear manifestation of the truth to us, or divine assistance to the intellect in better understanding the truth. One could also call it the entry of light into the mind. The theory of divine illumination is generally conceived to be distinctively Christian and Augustinian, although it also played a role in classical Greek, neo-Platonic and medieval Islamic philosophy. However in the more recent past, ironically especially during the Age of Enlightenment ¹¹, the theory has been invoked by many, such as Kant, to explain rational insight – that is, a priori¹² knowledge. In Augustinian understanding of philosophy, the function of the divine light within the human mind is to enable it to acquire new spiritual knowledge. In his theology however, the role of divine grace is to enable the divine light to illumine the intellect in order to believe what God has revealed and assist the mind to better understand what it believes¹³. The former, philosophical, is the main topic of discussion of this academic paper, whilst the latter, theological matter, consist, in brief terms, of the following¹⁴:

“When God touches man’s heart through illumination of the Holy Spirit man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could not reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself…[to God]…”¹⁵.

Hence let us now look at the development of this theory throughout philosophical thought with major focus on St. Augustine’s interpretation.

I hereby certify, except where references show otherwise, all material contained in the academic paper is entirely my own work.

[Matthias Reichard – 03.03.2018]

Divine illumination in Pre-Augustinian thought – the ancient background.

Firstly is necessary and certainly very useful to begin this discussion by introducing the ancient background to this theory: Plato, Aristotle and other pre-medieval thinkers. As is known Augustine, a scholastic, is in many ways is (neo)-platonic in his philosophical and theological thought, which underlines the importance of these ancient sources for our discussion. Plato himself is undoubtfully the father of the philosophical tradition to which the analogy of light is fundamental.

For instance in his Republic¹⁶ , Plato employs the analogy of light and vision in connection to the process of understanding or of knowledge very frequently. In his Seventh Letter¹⁷ the philosopher spoke of flashes of understanding and of insight in the mind as a flood of light. Plato in many way appears to give a straightforward expression of a theory of illumination, however fails to be clear as to who provides said illumination, the entry of light into the mind. This is seen in his Apology when Socrates remarks:

“I have a divine…sign…[that]…began when I was a child. It is a voice…”¹⁸.

Apuleius later wrongly identified the source of Socrates’ illumination as a friendly demon, and argued that Socrates was only illumined because he was the most perfect of human beings¹⁹. Plato’s Meno²⁰ talks about a priori principles and the Phaedo²¹ even talks about universal principles that can be interiorly grasped. The reason why the Platonic conception of this theory is so underdeveloped in comparison to Augustine’s, is because Plato, i.e. Socrates, only spoke of this illumination exclusively in regards to the moral sphere²².

Further, Plato’s famous theory of Forms²³ is very much linked to this theory of recollection , in that man’s mind has a sort of built in grasp of the Forms, suggesting the soul must have been illuminated by someone at some point. Plato developed a detailed correspondence between physical and intellectual sight, according to which understanding depends on intellectual illumination by ‘the Good’, just as vision depends on a physical illumination of the eye and the objects²⁴.Similarly, the philosopher²⁵ , Aristotle also seems to invoke the divine when he remarks the following concerning the ‘active intellect’:

“This intellect is separate, unaffected, and unmixed, being in essence activity…It is not the case that it sometimes thinks and at other times not. In separation it is just what it is , and this alone is immortal and eternal” ²⁶.

This text could suggest the active intellect is in essence something divine, illumined by God, and not a human faculty at all, which is a thought that was upheld in post-Aristotelian times by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Avicenna, Averroes and certainly by St. Thomas Aquinas. In the next section the developments of these classical philosophical approaches will be discussed before commencing the main segment on St. Augustine and his theory of illumination.

Divine illumination in Neo-platonic thought – the (pre-)contemporary Platonists.

To understand Augustine theory of divine illumination, one has to examine the contemporary thought that influenced him in his writings, the Neo-platonic philosophies, on this matter. We shall thus look at the philosophical development before Augustinian times.

Albinus, who lived in the first century A.D., for instance, took the step of placing the Platonic forms within a divine mind, and in effect, identifying the “intelligible world” with the mind of God. He held that the intelligible light emanated from the divine mind and in illuminating the human mind endowed it with understanding.

Similarly, (pseudo-)Dionysius’s favourite designation for God, the absolutely transcendent one, was in terms of light. He believed that God is the intelligible light beyond all light and the inexhaustible rich sources of brightness that extends to all intelligence. His illuminating activity gathers and reunited all that it touches; it perfects creatures endowed with reason and understanding by uniting them with one all-pervading light²⁷. In true Neoplatonic fashion, the pseudo-Dionysius conceived of the cosmos as a hierarchically order system, descending in order of reality and value from its source, the One – this process is understood as emanation. Illumination then is the means by which the intellectual creatures ascend and return to unity, and the hierarchy is defined as the divine arrangement whereby all things, participating in their measure in the divine light, are brought back to as close a union with the source of this light as is possible for them²⁸. Illumination is also the intermediate stage of approach to God, between initial purification and final perfection, so writes Dionysius²⁹.

Another important landmark of the philosophical developments in pre-Augustinian times is Plotinus. He is perhaps one of the most influential philosophers in terms of the Neo-Platonic features found in Augustine, mentioned several times in his writings. Plotinus, just as did Dionysius, did not believe in an ontological gulf between creator and creature which is so fundamental in Christianity. Rather, Plotinus, lays out the principle of emanation in this manner:

The One begets

Intelligence, Intelligence begets

Soul and Soul

begets souls

Further, Plotinus regards the soul as a result of generation, thereby rejecting the principle of creation. Since the soul is produced in divine order, the light which illumines it can remain divine even though it becomes the light of the soul. Consequently, it is clear that the negation of creation and the ontological gulf between God and man posed no problem for Plotinus as he writes:

“All of this must exist in the most blessed nature…for if it is just this way, and it is self-evident that it is this way…and if there is something after the One, it is self-evident to it that it is itself that…and that what truly is in the intelligible world. Thus real truth is not in harmony with something else, but with itself, and says nothing else besides itself…”³⁰

Then there is the philosophy of Porphyry on the soul, who was the student of Plotinus. He is regarded as one of the first representative of the Christian Neo-platonic school, as he deliberated among others on the question of the hypostatic union and the trinity. On divine illumination, Porphyry advanced the idea, that the process of emanation could lead to the divine light reaching the human soul. However he stressed the fact that only the human soul is endowed, to share or be part of the One to receive divine illumination³¹ .

Lastly, Iamblichus of Syria, further developed Porphyry’s ideas. He stated that just because the human soul is the only soul of the creatures disposed to receive divine illumination, it does not mean that the soul as a whole is illumined. This means that Iamblichus made a prudent distinction and advocated the idea, that the soul has many parts, which in turn means that it is also possible to for the human intellect to be partially illumined and not solely as a whole unit.

In the years that followed these Neo-Platonists, there was the surge of more and more Christian Platonist, who assimilated the (Neo-)Platonic tradition into Christian doctrine such as but not limited to: Origen, St. Ambrose of Milan and St. Gregory of Nyssa. They establish that man has a desire for union with God in knowledge and love and that the acquisition of this capacity is the source for salvation. Further such thinkers, like later Augustine, believe in Christ as the teacher , magistro, of their souls - the teacher that by grace illuminates the intellect. It is by this grace of God’s self-revelation to our innate spirit that we participate in salvation.

“Platonic Christianity essentially describes the Christian life as growth of a spiritual desire for God rather than as the faithful obedience to the divine commands through which one earns a reward in the next life”³²

Divine illumination in the works of St. Augustine – Christ the inner teacher.

Throughout his long career as a philosopher and theologian, St. Augustine stresses the role of divine illumination in human thought. In many texts Augustine speaks about the divine light in reference to man’s intellectual knowledge. In his Confessions especially, he invokes the divine illumination constantly, and makes bold claims for its global necessity.

“Thy beams shine upon me and chase away my blindness”³³

Let us proceed step by step through his work, showing the aspects of his theory of illumination in detail, to come to a deeper understanding of the truth he is trying to convey.

“I shall mount beyond this my power of memory, I shall mount beyond it, to come to You, O lovely Light”³⁴

Firstly, in Book X of the Confessions St. Augustine famously establishes: beata vita est gaudium de veritate³⁵ . He also makes clear that the soul is the highest of the forms of human nature and that it acts a mirror of the trinity. Our soul, mind, is composed of memoria, voluntas et intelllectus, according to St. Augustine. Such is the Trinity composed of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The highest form of these in his eyes is clearly the intellect, which allows us to participate in the truth:

“Who is He that is above the topmost point of my soul?”³⁶

The philosopher also speaks of the inner truth present to the mind that allows us to access objective first principles, justice for instance - “I stored in my memory…the truths themselves”³⁷.

When Augustine thus speaks of our memory, in a very platonic way he makes it seem like God somehow fills our minds, “Thou dost raise up him whom Thou fill…”³⁸. Yet he also suggest that God is clearly not equal to our mind, “…so You are not the mind itself, because You are the Lord God of the mind…”³⁹. Therefore God is not encompassed in our mind, but He is rather the light (above) of our soul.

[...]

¹ [ 1 ] Gen. 2:7

² [ 1 ] Gen 1:27

³ [ 1 ] 2 Sam. 22:29, RSV or Ps. 18:28

⁴ See St. Augustine of Hippo, De civitate Dei contra paganos, Book XI, Chapter 9

⁵ [ 1 ] Wis. 7:26

⁶ [ 1 ] Jn. 14:26-27

⁷ [ 1 ] Jn. 14:16-17

⁸ [ 1 ] Jn. 16:12-16

⁹ [ 1 ] ibid

¹⁰ [ 2 ], 38

¹¹ Considered to have been from 1715 to 1789

¹² See Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason

¹³ See [ i ]

¹⁴ See [2], 1993

¹⁵ St. Augustine of Hippo , In Jo. ev. 73, 3: PL 35, 1823

¹⁶ See [ B ], Book VI, Chapter XXII, 507-508, pg. 218-219

¹⁷ Plato, The Seventh Letter, 341c and 344 b

¹⁸ [ D ] 31d, pg. 36

¹⁹ See Lucius Apuleuis Madaurensis, De deo Socratis, XVII-XIX

²⁰ See [ D ], 70a-100b, pg. 59-87

²¹ See [ D ] 74a, pg. 111

²² See [ C ], 243 BC, pg. 26

²³ See [ B ]

²⁴ See [ ii ]

²⁵ See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae

²⁶ [ E ], Book III, Chapter vi, 430a, pg. 169

²⁷ See Dionysius the Areopagite, De Divinus Nominibus, IV, 6

²⁸ See Dionysius the Areopagite, De Coelestia Hierarchia, III, 1

²⁹ See Dionysius the Areopagite, De Ecllesiastica Hierarchia, V, 1, 3

³⁰ See [ c ], pg. 108-109

³¹ See [ c ], pg. 201-202

³² [ e ], Introduction, pg. 9

³³ [ A ], Book X, chapter XXVII, pg. 236

³⁴ [ A ], Book X, chapter XVII, pg. 228

³⁵ [ A ], Book X, chapter XXIII, pg. 233

³⁶ [ A ], Book X, chapter VII, pg. 217

³⁷ [ A ], Book X, chapter X, pg. 221

³⁸ [ A ], Book X, chapter XXVIII, pg. 236

³⁹ [ A ], Book X, chapter XXV, pg. 235