1. Year of Faith. The ways that lead to knowledge of God-
Pope Benedict XVI 14 November 2012
• “What answers, therefore, is faith required to give, “with
gentleness and reverence” to atheism, to scepticism, to
indifference to the vertical dimension, in order that the
people of our time may continue to ponder on the
existence of God and take paths that lead to him?”
“We should be gentle to
atheists and sceptics”

2. Year of Faith. The ways that lead to knowledge of God-
Pope Benedict XVI 14 November 2012
• I want to point out several paths that derive both
from natural reflection and from the power of faith
itself. I would like to sum them up very briefly in
three words: the world, man, faith.
“reason”

3. A. The world-
St Augustine, who spent much of his life
seeking the Truth and was grasped by the Truth, wrote a very beautiful and famous
passage in which he said:
“Question the beauty of the earth, question the beauty of the sea, question
the beauty of the air distending and diffusing itself, question the beauty of the sky...
question all these realities…
All respond: ‘See, we are beautiful’. Their beauty is a profession [confessio].
These beauties are subject to change. Who made them if not the Beautiful One
[Pulcher] who is not subject to change?”
(Sermo 241, 2: pl 38, 1134).
“Interpret this passage from St.
Augustine- proving the existence
of God.”

4. • Augustine’s logic:
1. We see beautiful things, places, people.
2. Their beauty changes and fades away.
3. If no beauty were permanent, then where did we derive the notion of “The
Beautiful”?
4. Unless it was ‘in-built’ in our minds.
5. Seeing beauty in nature is a recall of “beauty”-dormant in our
consciousness.
6. Who placed it there?
7. “GOD”- the creator and source of all beauty.

5. Augustine’s point:
In the City of God, Augustine provides the following deductive aesthetic argument:
. . .beauty. . . can be appreciated only by the mind. This would be impossible, if this ‘idea’ of
beauty were not found in the mind. . . But even here, if this ‘idea’ of beauty were not subject to
change, one person would not be a better judge of. . . beauty than another. . . and the same
person could not make progress towards better judgement than before. And it is obvious that
anything which admits of increase or decrease is changeable. This consideration has readily
persuaded men of ability and learning. . . that the original ‘idea’ is not to be found in this
sphere, where it is shown to be subject to change. . . so they saw that there must be some being
in which the original form resides, unchangeable, and therefore incomparable. And they rightly
believed that it is there that the origin of things is to be found, in the uncreated, which is the
source of all creation.
(Book VIII Chapter 6 pp.702-703 e-book edition)

6. SW:
• Instructions:
1. Read and analyze the argument from Augustine on beauty and God's
existence in slide #2.
2. If your reading is good enough, you will understand that the argument in
itself is not that complete unless you add the ideas from The City of God and
you can find the argument in slide # 5.
3. Your task therefore is to reformulate / reconstruct Augustine's argument/s
from beauty for the existence of God.