All created things are transient parts within a temporally ordered whole: they rise, grow, reach perfection, decay, and die; they exist only by God’s gift and form a meaningful whole by succession, like words in speech—so they should be a ground for praising God, not objects to which the soul clings in love, since their passing nature cannot provide rest.

By Augustin d'Hippone, from Les Confessions

Key Arguments

  • He insists that every created thing participates in temporal flux: "Things rise and set: in their emerging they begin as it were to be, and grow to perfection; having reached perfection, they grow old and die.19 Not everything grows old, but everything dies."
  • He stresses the paradox that the quicker something comes to be, the quicker it tends toward non-being: "So when things rise and emerge into existence, the faster they grow to be, the quicker they rush towards non-being. That is the law limiting their being."
  • He explains that God has given creatures only so much being, as temporal parts of a larger whole: "So much have you given them, namely to be parts of things which do not all have their being at the same moment, but by passing away and by successiveness, they all form the whole of which they are parts."
  • He uses an analogy from speech to show how successive parts form a meaningful whole only by ceasing: "That is the way our speech is constructed by sounds which are significant. What we say would not be complete if one word did not cease to exist when it has sounded its constituent parts, so that it can be succeeded by another."
  • He concludes that such transient things should be used as a ground for praise, not as resting places: "Let these transient things be the ground on which my soul praises you (Ps. 145: 2), ‘God creator of all’.20 But let it not become stuck in them and glued to them with love through the physical senses. For these things pass along the path of things that move towards non-existence."

Source Quotes

For wherever the human soul turns itself, other than to you, it is fixed in sorrows, even if it is fixed upon beautiful things external to you and external to itself, which would nevertheless be nothing if they did not have their being from you. Things rise and set: in their emerging they begin as it were to be, and grow to perfection; having reached perfection, they grow old and die.19 Not everything grows old, but everything dies. So when things rise and emerge into existence, the faster they grow to be, the quicker they rush towards non-being.
Things rise and set: in their emerging they begin as it were to be, and grow to perfection; having reached perfection, they grow old and die.19 Not everything grows old, but everything dies. So when things rise and emerge into existence, the faster they grow to be, the quicker they rush towards non-being. That is the law limiting their being. So much have you given them, namely to be parts of things which do not all have their being at the same moment, but by passing away and by successiveness, they all form the whole of which they are parts.
That is the law limiting their being. So much have you given them, namely to be parts of things which do not all have their being at the same moment, but by passing away and by successiveness, they all form the whole of which they are parts. That is the way our speech is constructed by sounds which are significant.
That is the way our speech is constructed by sounds which are significant. What we say would not be complete if one word did not cease to exist when it has sounded its constituent parts, so that it can be succeeded by another. Let these transient things be the ground on which my soul praises you (Ps.
What we say would not be complete if one word did not cease to exist when it has sounded its constituent parts, so that it can be succeeded by another. Let these transient things be the ground on which my soul praises you (Ps. 145: 2), ‘God creator of all’.20 But let it not become stuck in them and glued to them with love through the physical senses. For these things pass along the path of things that move towards non-existence.

Key Concepts

  • Things rise and set: in their emerging they begin as it were to be, and grow to perfection; having reached perfection, they grow old and die.19 Not everything grows old, but everything dies.
  • the faster they grow to be, the quicker they rush towards non-being. That is the law limiting their being.
  • to be parts of things which do not all have their being at the same moment, but by passing away and by successiveness, they all form the whole of which they are parts.
  • What we say would not be complete if one word did not cease to exist when it has sounded its constituent parts, so that it can be succeeded by another.
  • Let these transient things be the ground on which my soul praises you (Ps. 145: 2), ‘God creator of all’.20 But let it not become stuck in them and glued to them with love through the physical senses.

Context

Book IV, section x (15): In a prayerful reflection following his discussion of friendship and sorrow, Augustine sets out a metaphysical and spiritual account of created temporality and its proper use.