St. Augustine's Confessions

From the metaphysical perspective, the individual is always a compounded wealth of decisions made and yet to be. One of the more pressing questions lies at the behest of faith, finding divinity among and aside from the physical world around them. To that extent, one of the earliest platforms to have made such progress in finding such a metaphysical answer is that of St. Augustine, from the Christian angle. From his Confessions, the process of proving God in one's life is a hierarchal one, taking root within human sensation and branching toward what forms human sentience, already a far greater force of will than among other organisms. Not only are sense and their processing built hand in hand, but the product thereof is further related

This to be confused with the “good” associated with Aristotle’s definition of “mean,” for “if anyone can [always perform at peak capacity], it is the man who knows, just as in…all matters which give scope for care and prudence.” (Aristotle, 274) Thus, knowledge of God is not as practical as any human experience, most likely acquired “a posteriori,” rather after the performance of an action involved with the experience. Instead, Augustine details that this inkling and desire toward knowing God, as ubiquitous and omnibenevolent a being that can be described, is innate since conception, being “a priori,” before any experience is able to conjure knowledge of the subject. Both categories are combined into one device that proves vital to finding this objective:

God is already instilled as a force of shaping oneself from birth and continues to conjoin with “a posteriori” experiences in a catalogue. However, one must also know that memory isn’t enough to consider such to be joined so simply, given that memory is present in many forms among many organisms; with that case present, what makes human memory different from any other animal? The soul now makes its entry, providing moral and intellectual justification through the conscience. For example: the normal animal memory, say a Lion, would simply coordinate the basic life-retaining needs to be satisfied, leading to the Lion killing herds of Gazelles to feed, with the routine becoming, by human standards, stagnant. Human memory, when combined with the soul, can trace every single dilemma present in such a routine: what nutrition would such a habit procure, is loss of life necessary for sustenance, and why am I even in the Savanna to begin with? Thus, in interacting with one’s environment, a human perceives what elements are involved in the dilemma, allowing the senses to work in tandem with the memory and soul. However, it becomes clear that Augustine notes the dissuading effects of perception to find happiness in the “gratification of empty nature” and “empty pomp of living.”