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Book 10
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Confessions, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Faith and Conversion
Sin and Salvation
Interpreting the Bible
God, Goodness, and Being
Time, Eternity, and the Mind
Summary
Analysis
[1-2] Augustine begins by praying that God will grant him an ever-deepening understanding of the Bible, not only for himself, but for the sake of those he wishes to serve. [3] In particular, he pleads with God to help him understand what Moses meant when he wrote, “In the Beginning [God] made heaven and earth.” [4] It’s clear that Earth and the heavens were created, because they exist and are subject to change; it’s also clear that God is the one who made them, because they are beautiful and good, although not in the same way that God is beautiful and good. [5] Augustine further ponders that God didn’t work in the way that a human craftsman does, because no materials existed from which he could have created heaven and earth. Instead, God created by his Word.
Augustine’s opening prayer reflects his concern as a bishop to accurately interpret the Bible for those under his authority, and it’s no surprise that he chooses to focus on the opening verse of Genesis, since interpretation of Genesis caused him so much difficulty in his Manichee days. In doing so, Augustine doesn’t just offer an interpretation but models the prayerful, humble posture he believes is necessary for an interpreter of the Bible. Heaven and earth are good because God made them, but by their nature as mutable things, they can’t exist in the same way as God exists (that is, their existence is contingent on God; God is contingent on nothing).
Themes
[7-8] Augustine concludes that in this case, God’s “Word” refers not to speech that is heard and then passes away, but to his Word “who is God with you.” [9] It is only by the light of Wisdom that this mystery can be understood. [11] The concept of eternity, “in which there is neither past nor future,” versus time, which is always moving, is beyond the mind’s ability to grasp. [12] If someone asks what God was doing before he made heaven and earth, Augustine says that God made nothing before he made heaven and earth. [13] Further, it makes no sense to say that God allowed untold ages to pass before he undertook the work of creation; how could time have existed at all if God had not yet created anything? Whatever there was before God created could not properly be called “time” at all, since God is before all time and the maker of it.
In Genesis, God creates by declaring things into existence; but Augustine interprets Genesis in light of the Gospel of John, wherein God’s “Word” also refers to Christ, eternally coexisting with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Augustine regards time as one of the key puzzles found in Genesis. God’s relationship with time is completely different from the way humans relate to it. So, the very concept of eternity is beyond humans, who can’t understand what could have existed before creation. Augustine tries to show that the question of what God did “before” creation is wrongheaded, since time itself is something God created.
Themes
[14] Though the word “time” is readily understood when people use it, time is actually very difficult to define and cannot even be said to exist in the present (since if it were not always moving on to become the past, it would be eternity, not time). [15] Even though we often talk about the present as though it has duration, it never does; even the most minute segments of time are constantly passing away.
Augustine points out that although people constantly throw around the idea of time, they can’t pin down what it means, since by its very nature, it is constantly moving, and humans are only really capable of talking about it as something that has happened in the past or will happen in the future.
Themes
[18] Augustine asks God’s help in pressing further and exploring in what sense the past and future can be said to exist. When we recall the past or plan for the future, we do so by means of memories we picture to ourselves in the present, or actions we premeditate in the present. [20] Technically, then, it is more accurate to say that there is a present of past things (the memory), a present of present things (direct perception), and a present of future things (expectation). But Augustine concedes that it’s best to comply with common usage and simply refer to the past, present, and future.
Augustine’s discussion of time is heavily influenced by his philosophical studies; scholars see echoes of Platonist, Aristotelian, and Stoic thought in his discussion. He also connects his discussion of time to his earlier discussion of memory, which is one way of reckoning with time’s passage. Because time is created by God and interpreted by mortal humans who lack God’s eternal perspective, it is a deeply religious problem for Augustine, not just philosophical.
Themes
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[23] Continuing to beseech God’s help for the questions that weigh on him, Augustine wonders whether it’s true to say that a “day” consists of “the movement of the sun through its total orbit,” the time needed for the completion of that orbit, or a combination of the two. He decides that the first option cannot be right—after all, the sun once stood still in answer to someone’s prayer, yet time continued to pass. [25] He ultimately dismisses all these options, noting wryly that while he knows he has been talking about time for a long time, he still doesn’t know what time is.
The length of a day is relevant for Augustine because Genesis describes God’s creation of the universe as taking place over a sequence of days. His conjectures about what constitutes a “day” are difficult to follow, but the point readers shouldn’t miss is that Augustine ultimately finds time impossible to define—yet he still finds the question worth prayerfully exploring, because it touches on God’s being and humans’ inescapable dependence on God. Readers should also note Augustine’s reference to a story in the book of Joshua, in which God caused the sun to stand still in order to let the Israelites finish and win a battle against the Amorites. His use of this example demonstrates that even though Augustine criticized aspects of Manichean interpretation as being excessively literal, that doesn’t mean his own interpretation was solely metaphorical.
Themes
[27] Augustine also ponders the problem of how time is measured, concluding that his mind does so by comparing things—for instance, the relative length of syllables—that are fixed in his memory. [28] Again, the mind expects the future, attends to the present, and remembers the past, with all three functions engaged when, for example, Augustine recites a psalm from memory. These three functions apply to a person’s whole life, and indeed to the history of humanity.
Augustine considers that human beings’ whole experience of the world is filtered through time, and that even if they don’t realize it, people’s minds are constantly dealing with the past, present, and future at any given moment—like when a person remembers, utters, and anticipates the verses of a Psalm.
Themes
[29] Augustine concludes that though God is eternal, Augustine himself is constantly subject to change—and this will continue until he is “purified and melted by the fire of your love and fused into one with you.” [30] Knowing that God is the eternal Creator is more important than asking nonsensical questions, like what God was doing before he created, or unanswerable ones, like why he decided to create.
For Augustine, there is a sense in which the experience of time constantly pulls human beings away from the simple union they will one day experience with God. While he obviously finds value in asking questions about time, that doesn’t mean the answers are necessarily within human comprehension; and asking them irreverently, without humility before God, is worse than not asking them.
Themes
