Author:
HU Aixin, Associate Professor, School of Humanities, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
Abstract:
The doctrine of "rationes seminales" or "ratio causalis" represents a paradigmatic example of the contextualization of Christian thought during the Patristic period. Augustine, drawing upon the Stoic natural philosophical proposition of "seminal reasons", sought to resolve the exegetical difficulty of reconciling the accounts of simultaneous creation and continuing creation between chapters one and two in Genesis. He adopted the Stoic conception of "seminal reasons" as an organizing principle governing the development of natural entities. However, he subsequently introduced a new expression, "causal reason", emphasizing its primacy over "seminal reasons" in creative activities. This move allowed him to expunge the residual material-corporeal elements of the Stoic Logos-doctrine from the Christian conception of God and the natural world, while transforming the Stoic notion of "development" into a concept of "progress" informed by the Christian understanding of time. For Augustine, it is "causal reason", determined by the divine will, that constitutes the fundamental organizing principle of the natural world. It can be signified by created nature but does not itself reside within that nature as a sign. This perspective inadvertently contributed to the medieval tendency to devalue or disparage the natural world.
Keywords:
seminal reasons, hermeneutics, development, Augustine
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