Augustine's Thought On Personality

As a Christian, Augustine is committed to the belief that God created the human soul, "God, then, made man in His own image. For He created for him a soul endowed with reason and intelligence, so that he might excel all the creatures of earth, air, and sea."

Augustine admits that other animals surpass us in strength and other physical abilities, but avers that our superiority consists in our having a rational soul or a mind, which should rule the other dimensions of human nature if we are to be well-ordered.

"Man, then…is a rational soul with a mortal and earthly body in its service." This is Platonic by nature, focusing on the soul and not the body, but later he describes a more Aristotelian definition, "Man is an animal, rational, and mortal." Augustine believes that the mind or rational soul is independent of the body. We try to locate the soul in the body by a physical location, but it is in fact not a physical thing but as an aware, animating, motivating principle.