Ordem, beleza e perfeição do universo: a Filosofia da Natureza em Santo Agostinho

Abstract

The present dissertation aims to demonstrate that in their cosmological-philosophical journey, fighting the followers of Mani, Augustine being heavily influenced by the Neoplatonic Philosophy of Plotinus and by the Scriptural-Christian Theology, builds a Philosophy of the Nature consisting as guideline of the exegesis of the Jewish-Christian Scriptures, but especially of the creation account exposed in the first chapters of Genesis, however, in most cases with allegorical exegesis with Neoplatonic prism. Therefore, in his philosophy of the world, Augustine played both as a biblical exegete as a Neoplatonic philosopher, which resulted in a philosophical cosmology with elements of both, limiting the first to give philosophical coherence, and the second not to contradict the Scriptures. We will study that the great motivating force and guiding of the Augustinian cosmology was the Manichaean Dualism, which understood that the cosmos is the result of mixing between light (good) and darkness (evil), thus creating beings who are in their natures particles of light and darkness, thus resulting in the thesis that there are ugly and evil creatures by nature. Ideas like those espoused by Manichaean of his time, Augustine led to theorize about various aspects of their cosmology, since the theory of the beginning and process of formation of the world, until the theory of the holistic cosmic-ordering, defending the thesis that the cosmos has a single source (creatio ex nihilo), God, and as he is the Supreme Good, the Nature both viewed each creature in particular, as the standpoint of the whole, is good, beautiful and perfect.