On Christian Doctrine by St. Augustine

St. Augustine is accepted as the first linguist theorist. Through he was not born Christian; he adopted Christianity, later on introduced himself as the most significant Christian thinker after St. Paul.

He is a neo- Platonist because he believes in two worlds; world of god and world of human being.

The essay “On Christian Doctrine” brings Augustine to the attention of modern semioticians and literary theorists. For him, signs are things used to signify something and words are things, the whole use of which is signification. For him all signs are things, not all things are signs.

A sign is important because it points to something else and that something else is ultimately for Augustine the trinity of father, son and Holy Ghost. The Value of sign therefore is not pleasurable in itself but rather in its use in the movement of signification towards God.

However signs cannot embody God because God is too great to be described in words. So in the middle age, Bible was claimed to be holding the primary of religious teaching so reading and understanding Bible is reaching near to the truth.

Augustine takes signs as the basic element of language. Sign is always referential since it stands for other. He classifies signs as natural and conventional.

Natural signs are universal so are unchangeable, e.g. smoke signifies five but conventional signs are the result of cultural construction which are prevalent in certain culture e.g. ‘sindur’ is a conventional sign that represents married Hindu women.

Conventional signs are to be enjoyed because it is the human product. He prefers those signs, which are applicable in day-to-day language and are enjoyable at the same time but the signs, which are intended only to be enjoyed, create confusion.

    There are two reasons why things written are not understood: they are obscured either by unknown or by ambiguous signs.

Signs are either literal or figurative. Literal signs do have single meaning whereas, figurative signs occur when that thing which we designate by a literal sign is used to signify something else. E.g.; bos(ox) has two meanings one is animal, another it refers to an evangelist. Such figurative signs are also called allegory, which Augustine prefers.

According to the Holy Scripture, the leading of Christianity involves faith, the hope and charity. Charity led by faith and hope is the grater goal of Christianity. Augustine believes that if one has the access over Bible, obeys and endures god, he/she can easily reach closer to god.

Thus, for Augustine literature, which helps to put near to trinity, is welcome. According to him, trinity is the ultimate truth and we can reach up to the truth by the language; the greatest language, which is available in holy Bible in which words of God are recorded, therefore it is known to be Holy Scripture.