And the whole of this discussion may be summed up in the following syllogism. The Greeks give us the major premiss: If such gods are to be worshipped, then certainly such men may be honoured. The Romans add the minor: But such men must by no means be honored. The Christians draw the conclusion: Therefore such gods must by no means be worshipped.
I call this summary "remarkable" for two reasons. First, the nature of the syllogism here shows itself to be such that the act of drawing a conclusion exceeds and does not automatically follow the manifestation of premises. The Christians do not achieve their conclusion on account of being supplied with any further matter of fact than those which were already available to the Romans. A historical comma transpires between the premises and the conclusion. Perhaps this comma shares its source with the obtuseness of St. Augstine's imagined interlocutors, against whom at the beginning of Book II he complains:
If the feeble mind of man did not presume to resist the clear evidence of truth, but yielded its infirmity to wholesome doctrines, as to a health-giving medicine, until it obtained from God, by its faith and piety, the grace needed to heal it, they who have just ideas, and express them in suitable language, would need to use no long discourse to refute the errors of empty conjecture. But this mental infirmity is now more prevalent and hurtful than ever, to such an extent that even ater the truth has been as fully demonstrated as man can prove it to man, they hold for the very truth their own unreasonable fancies, either on account of their great blindness, which prevents them from seeing what is plainly set before them, or on account of their opinionative obstinacy, which prevents them from acknowledging the force of what they do see. There therefore frequently arises a necessity of speaking more fully on those points which are already clear, that we may, as it were, present them not to the eye, but even to the touch, so that they may be felt even by those who close their eyes against them.
Second, St. Augustine here indicates in passing his general theology of history in a way that amplifies its centrality to philosophy. That Christians are conclusion-drawers has everything to do with the fact that for St. Augustine the Christian age is the final immanent development of history. This fact in turn is not merely a way of interpreting the chronology of events but permeates the temporality of all intellectual learning. The significance of the comma noted above between the minor premise and the conclusion is that only Christ brings anything to a conclusion.
It is certainly a refreshing thing to hear from a man who was and is TRULY WISE such as St. Augustine.
ReplyDeleteTwo brief remarks to honor the remarkable:
1. "The Greeks give us the major premiss: If such gods are to be worshipped, then certainly such men may be honoured. The Romans add the minor: But such men must by no means be honored."
Of course the most profound addition to this syllogism, the addition that alone will be able to afford NEW and TRUE KNOWLEDGE, must arrive, as with all syllogisms, by way of the conclusion. Nevertheless, I think we must also make an effort to appreciate just how profound the syllogism is prior to its conclusion. For example, why should the Romans have to add to what the Greeks first were bound to devote themselves to? Why shouldn't the Greeks simply be able to know from the outset what the Romans in fact had to add? Augustine is correct: the Romans did have to establish the minor premiss, but why? What sort of revelation led them to do this and why was it not available to the essentially different revelation constitutive of the first premiss?
2."That Christians are conclusion-drawers has everything to do with the fact that for St. Augustine the Christian age is the final immanent development of history. This fact in turn is not merely a way of interpreting the chronology of events but permeates the temporality of all intellectual learning."
It is this "temporality of all intellectual learning", or rather, a reinterpreted variant of it, that I had in mind when I remarked earlier that I "think one must exercise patience of an extraordinary measure when they are descrying what appears WITHIN HISTORY. This last qualification, namely that of the historical provision of the phenomena at hand, is the key, and the main reason why thinking of this sort must be ventured ---yet never ventured as if it were undangerous, as if it were a safely established doctrine or creed...modern impiety hides in ancient piety, provided one does not hear the latter statement as an anachronistic "mapping", but understands it in terms of the concealment of time (i.e. epoche).
But what role does patience have if the Christian age has already ushered in the conclusion to history? And if there remains still something to wait for in history (and not in an eschatological coda), how in piety will you explain this deficiency in the beginning of the Christian age?
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, I do not see the import of the Roman cognizance of the minor. Isn't it just that time was needed to make evident the ignominy of the actors? But something more than time had to bring the world into the Christian age.
I will not address you first question in anything more than a brief reference, since to do so would we require a very very long discussion that probably is best had in speech and not writing. All I will say is: have you stopped becoming Christian, or is your conversion still underway? What has already happened in Salvation History ---is not this very event also still happening? And are we also waiting for it to happen? Is the center of Salvation History not one to which we have constant recourse, since in it are also the beginning and the end?
ReplyDeleteThere is no need to take up that litany of questions here.
But I do not want to let your other question lie fallow:
"Isn't it just that time was needed to make evident the ignominy of the actors?"
The is question seems to me to be perfectly correct in its suggestion. But this is precisely that regarding which I see cause for great marvel. The transition was merely a matter of time. What was this simple and obvious need for time? Why did the Greeks not already know? What was this naivete and how was it dispelled or lost? In this regard, I must also refer back to an old post of mine in which referred to "obviousness as a function of time": http://seynsgeschichte.blogspot.com/2009/12/heideggerian-hyperbole-part-2-nature-of.html
I would not be surprised to learn that the terms in which I posed my question were saturated with wretchedly unredeemed ratiocination, knowing how little I know of real religion.
ReplyDeleteAs for my other point, I just meant that I don't see why the unconcealment of the obvious ignominy of the actors should be considered a moment of intellectual learning, since time and not a teacher made it clear.
The un-redemption of thinking, insofar as the later is pre-christian, was exactly what I was referring to. Therefore you have truly spoken to the content of my response in speaking of your lack of knowledge of "real religion".
ReplyDeleteAs for your other point, I think it is a little to reductive to employ a distinction BETWEEN time and the teachers of a given time, even though, after much preparation, this dististinction could be made in an entirely different way.
Why, on the other hand, you wish to confine the scope of interest to a moment of INTELLECTUAL learning, when the latter has its very essence (and redefinition) in the unconcealment of which you have made mention, is uncelar to me. But even if we do not want to dogmatically assert what the last sentence puts forth; you have not addressed the other component of my question: why did the Greeks NOT know? Why were they pre-disposed to such "ignorance"? Returning to our logical formulation: Whence the major premiss? This is ALWAYS an important question to ask.
lots of typos...mea culpa
ReplyDeleteBy "a teacher" I meant not a teacher of a given time, but the teacher acknowledged by St. Augustine to be the teacher of all times.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that one in possession of the major premise alone does not fail to conclude for want of a teacher or of obedience to the teacher, but only information, whereas someone in possession of the major and minor but not the conclusion has either not been taught or has denied the teacher.
My conclusion from these things is that the Greeks are not to be blamed for their devotion but that no one is a Christian who sees their error and does not reject their devotion. What difference does it make what the cause is of their ignorance of the minor?
The difference I am interested in can be approximated with the following observation: what you hastily characterize as a matter of "information" or lack thereof has not been determined as to the nature of the relation it shares with what the Greeks did in fact already know, i.e. their divine revelation and the peculiar thinking that eventually emerged from the same soil. Should we simply and without a second thought, write off this strange state where the Greeks are culpable and yet not --at least not in the sense that you ascribe to someone "in possession of the major and minor"? Is it not interesting that even the Romans, inheritors as they were of what was once Greek, were more culpable than the Greeks as a result of the fact that they had the mediation of an inheritance, thereby inheriting more than the Greeks bequeathed, indeed two premises and not one? An inquiry into the major premise of those arguments that are fundamental in character is an inquiry into their presupposition AS SUCH. This is particularly important here, because of the remarkable incongruity manifest in the way the Greeks are at once the most ignorant, and yet the most far-reaching in Augustine's remark: for it is with the Greeks that the very form of the entire didactic sequence is grounded ---the syllogism itself is Greek.
ReplyDelete