Vikram Kumar

In Book 2 of De Libero Arbitrio (Lib. Arb.), Augustine devises a proof of God’s existence and also seems to identify God with truth. In this paper, I reconstruct two distinct proofs: (1) Augustine’s proof of God’s existence and (2) his argument for the identification of God with truth. While scholars have long recognized that Augustine offers a proof of God’s existence in Lib. Arb. 2.14–39, the fact that he has two dialectical aims in this section of the dialogue has been overlooked in the secondary literature. An upshot of disentangling these dialectical aims is that the two proofs turn out to be doctrinally neutral, resting not on any specifically Christian tenets, but rather on Augustine’s commitment to the existence of the intelligible Forms.

In one of his earliest dialogues, the Soliloquia, Augustine identifies the liberal arts (disciplinae) with truth (veritas), and employs this somewhat puzzling identification as a premise in his infamous proof of the immortality of the soul (Sol. 2.24). In this paper, I examine Augustine’s argument for this peculiar identification. Augustine maintains both (1) that the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are true, and (2) that the liberal art of dialectic (disciplina disputandi) is the “truth through which all disciplines are true” (Sol. 2.21). I argue that Augustine identifies the liberal arts with truth because (1) the constituent propositions of the liberal arts are learned, and (2) dialectic’s structure is essential to the liberal arts. I further suggest that the subject matter of each liberal art reflects a distinct segment of intelligible reality, that is, the realm of the intelligible Forms.