CREATIO NUMERORUM, RERUM EST CREATIO

THE RECAPTURE OF THE PLOTINIAN HENOLOGY IN AUGUSTINE’S THOUGHT REGARDING CREATION

Abstract

The world is understood in the Medieval Latin tradition as the self-expression of the Divine unity, then it is essential to give ourselves the means to grasp the symbolism in which the Creator manifests himself. Being, understood here as an expression of the divine Word, has the same relational structure as the sign. The metaphor which consists in thinking the world as a book, expression of Verbum Dei, whose essence is to be a sign, point towards the Whole Other, that we are in the powerlessness to think in its quiddity. It is not enough to say that creation is a book, or the manifestation of the Creator, it is also necessary to offer a key to its reading. Sure of the signifying function of the world and of the impossibility of positive knowledge of the Creator, the whole stake for Latin philosophical thought is then to pierce the internal structure of this symbolism capable of delivering an understanding of the world as a sign that points to the Principle. Understanding the architecture of the symbolism of the world, unveiling the very structure of the manifestation in order to pose from the inside the need for its rooting in the Principle, was a constant concern of Augustine. In his long quest for a symbolic reading of reality, he showed a persistent and growing interest in mathematics.