¶ … Augustine's main problem when it came to conceiving of the spiritual nature of God? What solution did he find?
Before answering this question, it is important to clarify what exactly is meant by "spiritual nature of God." Many things could be meant by this phrase, but for the purposes of this essay, I stipulate that it refers to "any substance... other than that which the eyes normally perceive" (Conf., VII.i.1). In many senses, Augustine was rather positivistic in his inability to imagine that things existed beyond what his physical eyes could see. He relied completely on his physical senses for information concerning the nature of reality, and was intent on describing the world around him strictly in human terms. Thus his difficulties with understanding what people meant when they portrayed God in ways that were not readily evident to his five senses:
was becoming a grown man. But the older I became, the more shameful it was that I retained so much vanity as to be unable to think any substance possible than that which the eyes normally perceive. From the time I began to learn something of your wisdom, I did not conceive of you, God, in the shape of the human body but how otherwise to conceive of you I could not see (VII.i.1).
Most importantly, he describes his inability to conceive of God as a problem within himself. Quite differently from what the Manichees might argue, Augustine's incapacity to view God had nothing to do with any force outside of him, but existed squarely within his own being. He describes his inability to conceive of God in terms of having a clouded or blurred vision:
My heart vehemently protested against all the physical images in my mind... they attacked my power of vision and clouded it... I felt forced to imagine that something physical occupying space diffused either in the world or even through infinite space outside the world (VII.i.1)
Augustine speaks of the solution to this problem in terms of a sudden change. This change occurred within him, but was initiated by God. The change, once it occurred, effected irreversible results; his "vision" was forever changed so that he would always have a memory of this perfected sight.could now "see" those things that previously eluded his gaze:
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