Do you know the concept of guilty pleasures? Till some
weeks ago it was unknown to me, but it is taking pleasure in listening to music
which is considered wrong. The context was pop music, but transferred to my taste
of music it is something like admiring Brahms and Bruckner, but secretly also
having a weak spot for waltzes and operettas from late 19th century
Austria. I confess… Talking about confessions, I have also a guilty pleasure in
reading Saint Augustine’s Confessiones.
It is the kind of literature left aside by classicists – too late, too
Christian - and by theologians – old stuff and in Latin. Besides isn’t that the man to whom we own the
burden of original sin? Yes, but he was an existentialist writer. Of course he
expresses himself in the ideas of his time – how could he else? – but there is
something fascinating in his soul searching and his intellectual honesty.
Augustine is contemplating God’s eternity and the
relation between eternity and time. The question is: if God is eternal, why
isn’t the world eternal? Or in modern terms: why is there something rather than
nothing and what was there before the Big Bang?
Confessiones 11.11.13
qui haec dicunt nondum te intellegunt, o sapientia dei,
lux mentium, nondum intellegunt quomodo fiant quae per te atque in te fiunt, et
conantur aeterna sapere, sed adhuc in praeteritis et futuris rerum motibus cor
eorum volitat et adhuc vanum est. quis tenebit illud et figet illud, ut
paululum stet, et paululum rapiat splendorem semper stantis aeternitatis, et
comparet cum temporibus numquam stantibus, et videat esse incomparabilem, et
videat longum tempus, nisi ex multis praetereuntibus motibus qui simul extendi
non possunt, longum non fieri; non autem praeterire quicquam in aeterno, sed
totum esse praesens; nullum vero tempus totum esse praesens; et videat omne
praeteritum propelli ex futuro et omne futurum ex praeterito consequi, et omne
praeteritum ac futurum ab eo quod semper est praesens creari et excurrere? quis
tenebit cor hominis, ut stet et videat quomodo stans dictet futura et
praeterita tempora nec futura nec praeterita aeternitas? numquid manus mea
valet hoc aut manus oris mei per loquellas agit tam grandem rem?
qui haec dicunt:
those who say that the world must be eternal
conor conatus sum:
to try
sapio sapivi: to taste, perceive, understand
paululum: for
a moment
rapio rapui raptum:
to seize
nisi ex multis
praetereuntibus motibus : it is by movement that time is constructed
e.g. the movement of the stars.
sed totum esse
praesens: eternity is not an extension of time, but an absence of time and therefore
everything is present there, as there is no movement.
omne praeteritum
propelli ex future: all past to be driven away by the future i.e. there is
a constant flux.
ab eo quod semper est: i.e. eternity
quis tenebit cor
hominis: because our mind (`cor’)
is constant moving, we are unable to grasp fully the idea of eternity.
quomodo stans
aeternitas dictet: eternity `dictates’ time
valeo valui:
to be able to
loquella:
discourse
agit: treat
Saint Augustine answers now the question what God did
before He created the world: nothing!
11.12.14
ecce respondeo dicenti, 'quid faciebat deus antequam
faceret caelum et terram?' respondeo non illud quod quidam respondisse
perhibetur, ioculariter eludens quaestionis violentiam: 'alta,' inquit,
'scrutantibus gehennas parabat.' aliud est videre, aliud ridere: haec non
respondeo. libentius enim responderim, 'nescio quod nescio' quam illud unde
inridetur qui alta interrogavit et laudatur qui falsa respondit. sed dico te,
deus noster, omnis creaturae creatorem et, si caeli et terrae nomine omnis
creatura intellegitur, audenter dico, 'antequam faceret deus caelum et terram,
non faciebat aliquid.' si enim faciebat, quid nisi creaturam faciebat? et
utinam sic sciam quidquid utiliter scire cupio, quemadmodum scio quod nulla
fiebat creatura antequam fieret ulla creatura.
quidam …perhibetur: someone is alleged to
ioculariter:
playfully
eludo elusi elusum:
to mock
violentiam
`force, earnestness’
alta scrutantibus:
for those examining deep items
gehenna (Hebrew):
hell
libentius:
willingly
unde: by which
audenter:
boldly
si enim faciebat,
quid nisi creaturam faciebat? i.e. to create means to create something, but
this would imply – according to Augustine -
the beginning of time. So the answer to the question of what God did before
the creation must be `nothing’.
et utinam sic sciam
quidquid utiliter scire cupio, quemadmodum scio quod nulla fiebat creatura
antequam fieret ulla creatura: And I pray I could know whatever I desire to
know to my advantage in the same why as I know that no creature was made before
any creature was made.
Translation by J.G. Pilkington (Edinburgh: T. & T.
Clark, 1886)
13. Those who say these things do not as yet understand
You, O Thou Wisdom of God, Thou light of souls; not as yet do they understand
how these things be made which are made by and in You. They even endeavour to
comprehend things eternal; but as yet their heart flies about in the past and
future motions of things, and is still wavering. Who shall hold it and fix it,
that it may rest a little, and by degrees catch the glory of that everstanding
eternity, and compare it with the times which never stand, and see that it is
incomparable; and that a long time cannot become long, save from the many
motions that pass by, which cannot at the same instant be prolonged; but that
in the Eternal nothing passes away, but that the whole is present; but no time
is wholly present; and let him see that all time past is forced on by the
future, and that all the future follows from the past, and that all, both past
and future, is created and issues from that which is always present? Who will
hold the heart of man, that it may stand still, and see how the still-standing
eternity, itself neither future nor past, utters the times future and past? Can
my hand accomplish this, or the hand of my mouth by persuasion bring about a
thing so great?
14. Behold, I answer to him who asks, "What was God
doing before He made heaven and earth?" I answer not, as a certain person
is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question),
"He was preparing hell," says he, "for those who pry into
mysteries." It is one thing to perceive, another to laugh—these things I answer
not. For more willingly would I have answered, "I know not what I know
not," than that I should make him a laughing-stock who asks deep things,
and gain praise as one who answers false things. But I say that Thou, our God,
art the Creator of every creature; and if by the term "heaven and
earth" every creature is understood, I boldly say, "That before God
made heaven and earth, He made not anything. For if He did, what did He make
unless the creature?" And would that I knew whatever I desire to know to
my advantage, as I know that no creature was made before any creature was made.
