The concept of the inner word (verbum intimum) byAugustine
Keywords:
Augustine, The inner word, Consciousness and Language, Divine creation and human creation, The relationship of thinking to languageAbstract
According to Augustine, the inner word is the basis on which human action is based behaviorally or linguistically. He explains how knowledge contributes to the formation of human awareness on the one hand, and on the other hand he shows how this awareness is manifested in action and in conventional spoken language, which is considered a manifestation of the inner word which has not Language and sound. It is an idea that remains with its owner until it is expressed and known. The relationship between thought and human reality is a close relationship that expresses the dialectic in which reality contributes to the formation of thinking, and shows the effect of thinking in shaping reality according to human science and knowledge. To clarify this issue, Augustine draws a comparison between divine creation through the word and human creation - so to speak - to clarify that the two actions are similar in principle, as each action is preceded by an internal word, but the divine word is always true because it conforms to a fixed and eternal knowledge, and the human
word is variable because it arises from a variable knowledge that changes according to its subject.