![]() ![]() There is constant motion between layering and revealing. I’ve treated the waistcoat as if it were a corset, so that it becomes the first layer in the process of putting clothes on the body. I have a fantastic relationship with money. I think there is something about luxury – it’s not something people need, but it’s what they want. ![]() You’re only as good as your last collection, which is an enormous pressure. ![]() Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. 2, p.Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. For the sound of those two syllables in itself conveys no true knowledge of His nature but yet all who know the Latin tongue are led, when that sound reaches their ears, to think of a nature supreme in excellence and eternal in existence. For on this principle it is that He is called Deus (God). And yet God, although nothing worthy of His greatness can be said of Him, has condescended to accept the worship of men’s mouths, and has desired us through the medium of our own words to rejoice in His praise. And this opposition of words is rather to be avoided by silence than to be explained away by speech. Thus there arises a curious contradiction of words, because if the unspeakable is what cannot be spoken of, it is not unspeakable if it can be called unspeakable. And so God is not even to be called “unspeakable,” because to say even this is to speak of Him. How do I know this, except from the fact that God is unspeakable? But what I have said, if it had been unspeakable, could not have been spoken. Have I spoken of God, or uttered His praise, in any worthy way? Nay, I feel that I have done nothing more than desire to speak and if I have said anything, it is not what I desired to say. Or is the signified of a signifier actually our own false mental image of God, and Godinhimself is something more distant?Īugustine feels this, and we’ll leave this post here confronting the vast mystery of the divine: However, for St Augustine’s argument about signa and how they work, God is a res - he is the signified of a signifier. God is not a thing inasmuch as God is not a being among beings. Not being deep into scholasticism, I won’t judge the accuracy of that. God is being itself (FYI: St Augustine agrees, see De Trin 5) - ipsum esse. As people who think that Thomas Aquinas is the height of theological awesomeness like to point out, God is not even a being. This student even has a copy of a book called God Is No Thing, after all. One of my students expressed his surprise at Augustine having included God amongst the res. At a certain level, all res may even be seen as signa that point us to God, depending on how you look at it.Īnd the ultimate signum that shows us the way to God is the incarnate God Himself, the perfect signum for the res that God is. All other res exist for the purpose of being used to help us enjoy God more. Ultimately, in Augustine’s view, God is the only res that we are to enjoy. To represent these oral signa, we have invented writing, itself a further system of signa that represent the res that are the signa of spoken words.Īugustine then goes into a discussion of how all res can either be enjoyed ( frui) or used ( uti). Language is made up of oral signa that disappear as soon as they come into existence. All signa are res, but not all res are signa. Others are human conventions, such as language. Some signa are natural, like smoke being the signum for the res that is a fire. His basic approach to language is that it is part of the wider universe of signs, or signa, all of which point to things, or res. In De Doctrina, St Augustine deals with the important question of language (for how can we read and interpret Scripture without thinking about what it actually is?). A few weeks ago I had the delightful opportunity of teaching my excellent group of students at Davenant Hall De Doctrina Christiana by St Augustine, or On Christian Teaching. ![]()
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