Page 2

Though memory proves the locus of any and all conscious knowledge, yet such knowledge remains incomplete, always fathoms behind the fullness of being. After a deep searching of memory Augustine returns to wonder, “Great is the power of memory, an awe-inspiring mystery, my God, a power of profound and infinite multiplicity. And this is mind, this is myself. What then am I, my God? What is my nature? It is characterized by diversity, by life of many forms, utterly immeasurable.” (194) In light of this impossible difficulty in comprehension, knowledge both of the self and of God becomes equally difficult. A relation to our own self, to our essential being, proves as unfathomable as our relation to God! Thus, either the self becomes a ridiculous idea, or we begin to realize that to know ourselves is to know our relation to God. 

Clearly, all knowledge of the self arises from memory, for what do I know of myself except what I recall from memories of my life and my thoughts, of experiences and desires? I have knowledge of myself through recollection of experiencing life with myself. And where else but in memory may one seek knowledge of God? I have knowledge of God through recollection of experiencing life with Him. Augustine confesses, “If I find you outside my memory, I am not mindful of you. And how shall I find you if I am not mindful of you?” (195) Nothing can be grasped by the mind, save that mindfully remembered. Thus, all we know of God derives from our meditative contemplation of His revelation throughout the tale of our lives. In this the primary purpose of Augustine’s Confessions unfolds. Augustine opens Book 10 imploring, “May I know you, who know me.” (179) He reflectively writes of his life to better remember and therefore better know God.

Augustine asks “But when I love you, what do I love?” for love desires full, conscious fellowship with the beloved. Contained in every moment of this rich storehouse of memory is the presence of God, always in and through and with all things. I know myself as that presence which experiences and receives every moment, and I know God as that presence which gives and ordains every moment. “There is a light I love, and a food, and a kind of embrace when I love my God – a light, voice, odour, food, embrace of my inner man, where my soul is floodlit by light which space cannot contain, where there is sound that time cannot seize, where there is a perfume which no breeze disperses . . . and where there is a bond of union that no satiety can part. That is what I love when I love my God.” (183)

Although our knowledge of God, the finding of Him with the instrument of the intellect, remains within the reflective domain of memory, still Augustine senses the incompleteness of this relation. Through conscious intellectual knowledge, God is only known abstractly as that which unites, transcends and necessarily lies behind, through and in all things and events. But a greater problem arises, how do I come into a knowledge of God? Immediate reflection seems aware of the self; there seems no moment of estrangement from a basic, self-consciousness. Yet how and at what point do I come into knowledge of God? When do I enter into His presence and fellowship? Our lives seem so devoid of this abiding comfort and surety. Even for those who have known it, quickly and for long periods again estrange themselves from it, and only with difficulty return to His presence again. How are those who have never consciously known its fullness to discover it? How can we know that which memory does not record entrance of? How is a new relation to God begun, for surely we know that it has been absent. God is most often lost from us, not found. 

Augustine frames this problem in the language of Plato’s Meno; “Then how did these matters enter my memory? I do not know how. For when I learnt them, I did not believe what someone else was telling me, but within myself I recognized them and assented to their truth. . . . So they were there even before I had learnt them, but were not in my memory.” (189) Not only the presence of God, but such idealities as numbers and abstract concepts or forms, must already be present within the memory in order to be recognized as such. I must already posses an idea of four in order to sensorily experience anything in groupings of four. Similarly, I must already posses an idea and knowledge of God in order to recognize and discover Him anywhere. Knowledge exists only within memory, yet how can such idealities, and God Himself, already be present in memory, accessible to the conscious for reflection, before it is even first learned or recollected? Precisely, what is this ache and estrangement from God, if He already exists within my memory to be reflected upon? Thus Augustine ponders, “is it by remembering, as if I had forgotten it and still recall that I had forgotten? Or is it through an urge to learn something quite new?”