Augustine's Thought On Reality

For the Christian Augustine the three types of reality are God, souls, and bodies (as creatures). All of them are good, to the extent that they exhibit "measure, form and order," and that there is no separate world of Forms.

"There is a nature, which is subject to the changes of both time and space, as the body; and there is a nature which is not subject to space but only to time, as the soul; and there is a nature which is subject to neither space nor time, and that is God," who is spiritual and eternal.

Augustine states that the world of God's creations have a hierarchy of being, with animate creatures "ranked above" inanimate ones; "among the things that have life, the sentient are higher than those which have no sensation"; in the category of "the sentient, the intelligent are above those that have not intelligence"; finally "among the intelligent, the immortal" rank "above the moral." In example, God is higher than man, man is higher than animals, animals are higher than plants, plants are higher than rocks, and rocks are the lowest of all.

Augustine holds that the soul is a spiritual substance created by god. Second, it is immortal and Godlike in spiritual nature. Third, the soul is united to the body, so it can move and control it. Next, the effect of the soul's union with "this mortal and frail body" is that they must someday separate with the death of the body. And lastly, the effect of this separation on the soul depends on whether the soul is to be punished for sins or rewarded for virtue.