Individuals turned and continue to turn to God and religion in times of tragedy and in ancient times they used God to explain events like natural disasters. For centuries humans have pondered whether or not this supernatural entity actually exists. One philosopher and theologian named St. Augustine searched for proof that God exists and in return had major impact on Christianity. Before converting to Christianity, however, St. Augustine believed in Manichaeism. Manichaeism focused on the contrast of good and evil as well as darkness and light. After picking up the bible and reading through it, he abandoned Manichaeism and converted to Christianity. It is then that he decided to use philosophy to make clear to others what he discovers himself which is that God exists. One of his most important and influential texts is called Confessions. In this text he poses questions and uses his own development of thought to find a rational explanation or proof of the existence of God. St. Augustine believed that Philosophy is at the service of religion and can be used to convince those who don’t believe that God exists. He uses reason to “explain” the existence of God; that is the belief of God. In books I-IX, St. Augustine mostly talks about his life and in book X makes a leap into the analysis of this philosophical and theological issue. He begins his search by first stating that the problem/proof of God’s existence is a problem of knowledge, more specifically self-knowledge because St. Augustine has doubts and shows skepticism. He puts the question of “what is God?” to the world and does an external search. He is unable to find an answer this way and so he asks himself this question and conducts an inner search or self-examination. St. Augustine believed that turning to the body and the senses for answers was unreliable because the knowledge that senses acquire is unstable. Instead, he preferred searching the soul or the mind for an answer because the knowledge acquired or discovered by the soul is unchangeable. As he was going through this inner search he touched on memory and the different aspects of it. St Augustine thinks that perhaps humans have forgotten that they know God. He uses memory along with senses, feelings, facts/knowledge, forgetfulness and happiness to try to find the proof of God in different types of memories. In his search for God through memory and happiness he poses the problem that is “whether happiness is in the memory” (Augustine,226) and if it is how did it get there.
St. Augustine compares memory to a “great field or a spacious palace, a storehouse for countless images of all kinds which are conveyed to it by the senses.” (Augustine, 214). Not only does it keep things that are obtained by the senses but also keeps other thoughts that end up being forgotten. St. Augustine describes memory as being something dynamic because by will he can recall things he wishes to remember and the things that he is able to recall come to him at different speeds. He states, “Some things it produces immediately; some are forthcoming only after a delay, as though they were being brought out from some inner hiding place; others come spilling from the memory, thrusting themselves upon us when what we want is quite different” (Augustine, 214). He also points out that memory is so immense that it would be too difficult to fit all of it in the “narrow” (Augustine, 216) mind. He asks questions like, “But where is the part of it which it does not itself contain? Is it somewhere outside itself and not within it? How, then, can it be part of it, if it is not contained in it?” (Augustine, 216), to reveal to the reader that there must be some other form of memory which is not human memory. This other form of memory which we are unable to recall from is that in which the memory of God exists along with possibly the first memory of happiness.
St. Augustine states that when searching for God he is searching for a life of happiness, but he is not sure whether this happiness is in his memory and he just forgot it or it’s something he still needs to learn about “as if it were something unknown” (Augustine,226) to him. Happiness is a universal desire that everyone tries to achieve. Some are happy because they already reached that state while others are happy because they are seeking that state. Since it is so desired by everyone, people must have knowledge of what happiness is or might have seen it somewhere. If the knowledge of happiness is in the memory it means that in the past the individual was happy. This leads to St. Augustine’s further search into the question of whether happiness is in the memory and how happiness can be used as proof that God exists.
St. Augustine first addresses whether happiness exists in the memory as something that he has seen or sensed. He decides that it can not be possible because happiness is not a physical object and is not in the memory like an object that he has seen before. He then begins to think of happiness in the memory in the way that numbers are in our memory. Once again St. Augustine believes that this is not possible because “once we have the knowledge of numbers we cease trying to acquire it: but even though we have knowledge of happiness, and love it for that reason, we continue to wish to achieve it, so that we may be happy.” (Augustine, 227) Happiness, unlike numbers, is not something that people stop searching for. He then wonders if happiness is in the memory like the art of public speaking is. When listening to a person speak with “eloquence” the listener is able to recognize that eloquent speaking with their senses and have knowledge of it. They might even desire to learn how to speak eloquently as well. However, St. Augustine explains, “in the case of happiness there is no bodily sense by which we can experience it in others.” (Augustine, 227) He then proceeds to search for the memory of happiness in the way that we remember joy. St. Augustine mentioned joy earlier in book X as one of the feelings that we have in our memory and he made a distinction between joy and happiness. When someone is sad they are able to remember times when they experienced joy. Likewise, when someone is unhappy they are able to remember happiness. The feeling of joy exists in the mind as a memory. Since this is true, Augustine then asks himself when was the first time that he experienced happiness so that he is able to recall it and long for it. To answer this question Augustine distinguishes true happiness from false happiness.
For St. Augustine true happiness is the knowledge of God. This means that not all people desire true happiness because there are those who do not believe in God. He states that true happiness “is to rejoice in the truth, for to rejoice in the truth is to rejoice in you, O God, who are the Truth, you, my God, my true Light, to whom I look for salvation.” (Augustine, 229). Now his definition of happiness becomes simply the “enjoyment of truth” (Augustine, 229). If people love truth so much it means that just like happiness it is innate and exists somewhere in the memory. Some people that are after a false happiness misinterpreted the memory of happiness. This false version of happiness gets in the way of the true version of happiness.
Augustine is able to show that we all have memory of happiness because happiness is a state that everyone strives for. If it is something that we strive for, then it must exist in our memory. Without this memory we would not be on a constant search for it because we would not know what we are looking for. If this memory exists in the mind without it being put in there by the senses, then it is innate. Since true happiness is belief in God and this kind of happiness is innate, this means that the memory of happiness was put into us by God.
With his ultimate goal of finding proof of God, St. Augustine embarked on a journey of self-examination. He began the journey externally by questioning the outside world and ended the journey internally by finding that God exists in his memory. He discovered this by examining the way that senses, feelings, facts/knowledge, forgetfulness and happiness exist in the memory and how each one of them got there. He determines that innate knowledge, like the knowledge of happiness, which was not obtained through the senses and exists in the mind as well as in the memory was placed into the memory by God.