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Outward Signs - The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine's Thought (Hardcover)
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Outward Signs - The Powerlessness of External Things in Augustine's Thought (Hardcover)
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We are used to thinking of words as signs of inner thoughts. In
Outward Signs, Philip Cary argues that Augustine invented this
expressionist semiotics, where words are outward signs expressing
an inward will to communicate, in an epochal departure from ancient
philosopical semiotics, where signs are means of inference, as
smoke is a sign of fire. Augustine uses his new theory of signs to
give an account of Biblical authority, explaining why an
authoritative external teaching is needed in addition to the inward
teaching of Christ as divine Wisdom, which is conceived in terms
drawn from Platonist epistemology. In fact for Augustine we
literally learn nothing from words or any other outward sign,
because the truest form of knowledge is a kind of Platonist vision,
seeing what is inwardly present to the mind. Nevertheless, because
our mind's eye is diseased by sin we need the help of external
signs as admonitions or reminders pointing us in the right
direction, so that we may look and see for ourselves. Even our
knowledge of other persons is ultimately a matter not of trusting
their words but of seeing their minds with our minds. Thus Cary
argues here that, for Augustine, outward signs are useful but
ultimately powerless because no bodily thing has power to convey
something inward to the soul. This means that there can be no such
thing as an efficacious external means of grace. The sacraments,
which Augustine was the first to describe as outward signs of inner
grace, signify what is necessary for salvation but do not confer
it. Baptism, for example, is necessary for salvation, but its power
is found not in water or word but in the inner unity, charity and
peace of the church. Even the flesh of Christ is necessary but not
efficacious, an external sign to use without clinging to it.
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