St. Augustine on The Immortality of the Soul

In De Immortalitate Animae, St. Augustine proposes a proof for the immortality of the soul. In this post, I outline his proof.

First, St. Augustine argues that if an object (e.g., science) exists, and it must exist in another object (e.g., the human mind), then if the former (i.e., science) is immortal, then the latter (i.e., the human mind) is also immortal:

“If science exists anywhere, and if it can exist only in the realm of that which lives and always is, and if anything, in which something else dwells forever, must itself always be, then that must live forever in which science exists.”

Second, St. Augustine argues that “nobody denies that science exists”. In addition, he argues that science is immortal because “whatever exists and is immutable must necessarily exist always”, and that “there is an immutable science”:

“And whoever asserts that only the straight line drawn through the centre of a circle is longer than any other line not drawn through the centre, and that this statement belongs in the realm of science, as much as admits that there is an immutable science.”

Last, St. Augustine argues that science must exist in the human mind because “science can exist only in that which lives”, and “science cannot possibly exist in something that does not learn”:

“Again, science can exist only in that which lives. For nothing that does not live learns anything, and science cannot possibly exist in something that does not learn.”

Therefore, he concludes that “the human mind […] lives always”.