gods.eternal.knowledge.augustine英文资料.pdf

Cambridge Companions Online /cambridge/companions/ The Cambridge Companion to Augustine Edited by David Vincent Meconi, Eleonore Stump Book DOI: /10.1017/CCO9781139178044 Online ISBN: 9781139178044 Hardback ISBN: 9781107025332 Paperback ISBN: 9781107680739 Chapter 2 - God’s eternal knowledge according to Augustine pp. 37-59 Chapter DOI: /10.1017/CCO9781139178044.005 Cambridge University Press john c. cavadini 2 God’s eternal knowledge according to Augustine What human being can know the design (consilium) of God? Who will be able to think (cogitare) what the Lord intends (velit)? For the thoughts of mortals are timid and our attempts at discovery are uncertain. For the corruptible body weighs down the soul, and the earthly habitation depresses the mind as it thinks many things.1 This passage from the Wisdom of Solomon (Wisd 9:13– 15), here taken from Augustine’s citation of it at City of God 12.16, is perhaps the best summary of Augustine’s teaching about God’s eternal knowledge.2 The most basic mistake that a human being can make, with reference to God’s knowledge, is to underestimate the unique- ness and the superiority of God’s mind, and to measure it unduly against a human standard. It is the articulation of this uniqueness that is the underlying theme of all of Augustine’s discussions of the matter. For Augustine this will mean, ultimately, the insufficiency even of philosophy, to provide an adequate account of what seems to be an almost uniquely philosophical topic, God’s eternal knowledge. This is true despite undoubted areas of agreement between pagan philosophical teachings and Christian doctrine that can s