A Philosophical Dialogue on the Nature, Origin, and Measure of the Human Soul
The Opening: Evodius Poses the Question
We are at the very beginning of the dialogue. Evodius, Augustine’s friend and interlocutor, has been reading and has encountered a problem that he believes Augustine can resolve. He is not seeking a definition of the soul or an account of its nature in the abstract; his question is far more specific and concrete.
Evodius states his difficulty plainly: he has long been seeking to understand the greatness of the soul — not its magnitude in physical space, but what kind of quantity or measure belongs to the soul. He asks Augustine directly: “Where does the soul get its greatness? How far does it extend? And if it is not extended in space, what does its greatness consist in?” He confesses that he has heard many arguments, but none have satisfied him. Some say the soul is as great as the body it inhabits; others say it is larger; still others say it is not extended at all. He wants Augustine to lead him through the problem, step by step.
“I have been asking myself, for a long time now, what is the greatness of the soul. Not how great it is in terms of quantity of space, but what kind of quantity this is, and what we should think about it.”
Augustine responds not by giving an immediate answer, but by laying down a method. He warns Evodius that the investigation will require careful reasoning — that they must not leap to conclusions, but proceed in an orderly fashion, moving from what is more certain to what is less certain. He establishes that they will reason together, with Augustine guiding the inquiry but Evodius providing the responses that will move the argument forward.
This opening matters because it sets the entire work in its proper context. The question is not “What is the soul?” but “What is the *greatness* of the soul?” — and this distinction is crucial. Augustine will spend the entire dialogue showing that the soul’s “quantity” is not spatial but power-based, a matter of capacity, reach, and activity rather than extension.
The First Movement: Defining the Terms — What “Greatness” Means Here
Augustine immediately leads Evodius into a clarification of terms. He asks Evodius to consider what we ordinarily mean when we speak of a thing’s greatness. In bodies, greatness is measured by spatial dimensions — length, width, height. But Evodius has already conceded that the soul is not a body, or at least that he does not know whether it is. So Augustine presses him: If the soul is not extended in space, then its greatness cannot be spatial. What, then, is it?
Augustine offers a preliminary distinction. He says that some things are called great because of their bulk (moles), while others are called great because of their power (potentia). A small fire can be great in power, though small in bulk; a large corpse is great in bulk but has no power at all. The soul, he suggests, is great in the second sense. But Evodius is not yet satisfied: he wants to know *how great* the soul is in its power, and whether this greatness can be measured in any way.
Augustine then introduces a crucial distinction: there are two kinds of quantity — quantity in the proper sense, which belongs to bodies and their spatial dimensions, and quantity in a transferred sense, which belongs to things that are not bodies. The soul’s greatness is quantity in the transferred sense. He compares it to the way we speak of a “great mind” or a “great love” — we mean not that the mind or love is physically large, but that it has great capacity, great reach, great intensity.
The argument here is careful and deliberate. Augustine is not dismissing Evodius’s question as confused; rather, he is refining it. He is showing that the question “How great is the soul?” is a real question with a real answer, but the answer will not be in inches or pounds. It will be in terms of what the soul can do, what it can know, what it can become. This sets the stage for the entire inquiry that follows.
The Second Movement: The Soul’s Power in the Body
Having clarified the kind of quantity at issue, Augustine now turns to a concrete investigation. He asks Evodius to consider the soul’s activity in the body — not abstractly, but empirically. What does the soul do in the body? How far does its power extend?
Augustine begins with the simplest observation: the soul gives life to the body. Through the soul, the body is alive; without the soul, it is a corpse. This is not a small power: the soul animates the entire body, from head to toe, from the largest limb to the smallest organ. And it does so not by being physically coextensive with every part, but by a kind of presence that is not spatial.
He then moves to the senses. The soul uses the body’s senses to perceive the world: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. But here a remarkable thing emerges: the soul is not limited to the body’s boundaries. Through sight, the soul reaches out to the stars; through hearing, it takes in sounds from far away. The soul’s power extends beyond the body’s skin, and yet the soul itself does not leave the body.
“Do you not see that the soul, by means of the eyes, extends its power to the very stars? For it sees them, and the act of seeing is itself an act of the soul, not of the body alone.”
Evodius agrees, and Augustine presses further: What about the body’s growth and nourishment? The soul governs these as well, directing the body’s development from infancy to adulthood, coordinating the digestion of food, the healing of wounds, the maintenance of health. The soul does all this without itself growing or shrinking — a baby’s soul is not smaller than an adult’s, though the baby’s body is much smaller.
This section is laying the groundwork for a key point: the soul’s greatness is manifested in its integrative power — the ability to unify and govern a vast multiplicity of bodily parts and functions. The soul is not great because it is spread out, but because it holds together and directs what is spread out. Its greatness is the greatness of a principle of unity, not of extension.
The Third Movement: The Soul’s Operation through the Senses — The Hierarchy of Perception
Augustine now deepens the investigation by examining the soul’s activity in sensation more closely. He distinguishes between the body’s role and the soul’s role in perception. The body’s sense organs receive impressions — the eye is struck by light, the ear by sound — but it is the soul that perceives. The body is like an instrument; the soul is the musician.
He presents a hierarchy of the senses, from the lowest to the highest. Touch is the most basic and most widely distributed — it is found all over the body. Taste and smell are more refined and localized. Hearing reaches farther and is more discriminating. Sight is the highest of the bodily senses, capable of apprehending the most subtle differences — light and color, shape and motion, beauty and ugliness.
But Augustine makes a critical point: each sense has its own proper object — sight apprehends color, not sound; hearing apprehends sound, not color. Yet the soul itself is capable of judging between the senses. The soul can compare what it sees with what it hears, and can recognize that both are perceptions of the same object. This power of judgment — the interior sense — is higher than any individual sense, because it rules over them and coordinates them.
“The soul not only perceives through the senses, but it also judges what it perceives. It knows that it sees, and it knows that it hears, and it distinguishes between the two.”
This interior sense is a first step upward in the soul’s hierarchy of powers. It shows that the soul is not merely a passive receiver of sensations, but an active agent that organizes, compares, and evaluates sensory data. The soul’s greatness is shown in this active, synthetic power — it is not simply “there” in the body, but is constantly at work, unifying the manifold of sensory experience.
Evodius is impressed by this, but Augustine warns that they have only begun. The soul’s powers extend far beyond the senses, into memory, reason, and ultimately into wisdom. Each level reveals a greater greatness — a greater capacity, a wider reach, a higher activity. The dialogue is now ready to ascend from the bodily to the intellectual.
The Fourth Movement: The Soul’s Power in Memory — The Inner Storehouse
We are now at the point in the dialogue where Augustine turns the investigation inward, away from the soul’s operations on the body and the senses, toward its own inner powers. This section begins the soul’s ascent from the bodily to the intellectual by examining memory, which Augustine presents as a faculty far more vast and wondrous than anything discussed so far.
Augustine asks Evodius to consider what memory contains. It is not simply a record of past sensations, but a vast inner realm that holds images of things seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched — even when those things are no longer present. Evodius agrees that this is remarkable, but Augustine pushes further. Memory also holds things that were never received through the senses at all: numbers, dimensions, logical relations, the liberal arts, and the very meaning of words. When we think of a triangle, for example, we do not recall a particular triangle we once saw; we hold the form of triangularity itself, which the mind grasps through its own power. Augustine calls this the inner storehouse of the soul, a “vast and infinite interior” where all knowledge is kept.
“Great is the power of memory, something terrifying, my God, a deep and infinite manifoldness; and this is the mind, this is I myself.”
This passage is a direct foreshadowing of the *Confessions*, but here it serves a precise argument within the dialogue. Augustine is showing that the soul’s greatness does not consist in ruling the body or in organizing sensations, but in its capacity to hold within itself an entire world — images, concepts, numbers, and even the principles of truth itself. The soul is not dependent on the body for all its content; it has its own native wealth. Evodius begins to see that memory is not a mere receptacle, but an active power that can recall, compare, and recombine what it holds, and that this power points to something even higher.
This section matters because it moves the soul’s greatness from the external to the internal. The soul is not great because it moves a hand or sees a color; it is great because it contains within itself a universe of images and ideas, and because it can turn its attention inward to contemplate them. Memory is the bridge between the senses and the intellect, and Augustine is leading Evodius to see that the soul’s true home is not in the body but in this inner realm.
The Fifth Movement: The Soul’s Power of Intellect and Reason
Augustine now ascends beyond memory to the highest power of the soul: reason or intellect (the Latin *ratio* and *intellectus*). This is the faculty by which the soul judges, compares, and discerns truth. While memory holds images and concepts, reason actively grasps what is true, false, good, or evil, and it does so not by reference to the senses but by its own inner light.
Augustine presents a crucial distinction. The senses perceive individual things — this white stone, that sweet taste. Memory holds the images of many such things. But reason grasps what is universal: the nature of whiteness itself, the principle of sweetness, the rules of number and harmony. Reason does not learn these from the body; it recognizes them through a kind of inner illumination. Augustine calls this the inner light of the soul, by which it judges all things. When we say that a proof in geometry is certain, or that a moral action is just, we are not appealing to what we see with our eyes; we are appealing to truths that reason sees within itself.
“Reason is the mind’s power to discern the true, not through the senses, but through itself.”
Evodius asks how reason can be sure that its judgments are correct. Augustine responds that reason does not invent truth; it discovers it. The truths of mathematics, for example, are not made up by the human mind — they are necessary and eternal. The soul’s greatness consists in its ability to participate in these eternal truths, to be illuminated by them, and to use them as standards for judging everything else. The soul is not the source of truth, but it is the only creature on earth that can recognize it.
This section is the philosophical heart of the dialogue. It establishes that the soul’s highest power is not its control over the body, nor its memory of images, but its intellectual grasp of changeless truth. The soul is great because it can touch the eternal. And yet Augustine immediately adds a caution: most people live far below this level, caught up in bodily desires and sensory distractions. The soul’s greatness is a potential, not always an actuality. The task of philosophy — and of Christian wisdom — is to awaken the soul to its own highest power.
The Sixth Movement: The Seven Levels of the Soul’s Activity
Augustine now introduces a formal framework that organizes everything discussed so far. He proposes that the soul’s operations can be arranged into seven levels or stages of activity, each higher than the last. This is the most systematic part of the work, and it serves to give a complete anatomy of the soul’s powers.
The first level is animation — the soul’s giving life to the body. This is the most basic power, which even plants possess: the power to make a body live, grow, and reproduce. The second level is sensation — the soul’s power to be aware of the body and its environment through the five senses. This is shared with animals. The third level is art — the soul’s power to organize, produce, and create through skill, as in building, painting, or music. This is distinctively human, because it involves planning and intention. The fourth level is virtue — the soul’s power to control its own desires and passions, to act justly and temperately, and to live in accordance with reason. This is the beginning of moral excellence.
“The fourth level is the power by which the soul purifies itself and perfects itself in virtue, making itself fit for the contemplation of higher things.”
The fifth level is tranquility — the soul’s state of inner peace and stability, achieved through the practice of virtue. At this level, the soul is no longer disturbed by passions or external events; it rests in its own rational order. The sixth level is approach — the soul’s turning toward the source of truth, its earnest striving to see and understand the eternal. This is the threshold of wisdom. The seventh and highest level is contemplation — the soul’s actual vision of truth itself, the direct and intuitive grasp of the divine. This is the goal of the entire ascent, the fulfillment of the soul’s greatness.
Evodius is struck by this scheme. He sees that his earlier confusion about the soul’s greatness came from treating it as a single thing, when in fact it is a hierarchy of powers. The soul is not simply “great” in one way; it is great in different ways at each level, and its full greatness is realized only when it reaches the highest level of contemplation. Augustine emphasizes that all humans have the lower levels — animation, sensation, art — but few ascend to virtue, tranquility, and contemplation. The soul’s true greatness is not given automatically; it must be achieved through effort, discipline, and grace.
This section matters because it gives the whole dialogue its structure and its goal. The earlier discussions of the soul’s power over the body, the senses, and memory are now seen as stages in a larger ascent. The seven levels are not merely a classification; they are a ladder. The soul’s greatness is measured by how high it climbs. Augustine is preparing Evodius — and the reader — to understand that the soul’s ultimate purpose is not to master the world, but to see God.
The Seventh Movement: The Soul’s True Greatness Lies in Contemplation
Augustine now brings the entire argument to its climax. Having laid out the seven levels, he focuses on the highest: contemplation. This is not a power the soul exercises through the body or through reason alone, but a direct vision of truth itself — of God, the source of all truth. Augustine describes it as a kind of seeing that surpasses all other knowledge.
Evodius asks how this is possible. How can a human soul, bound to a body and distracted by sensations, attain such a vision? Augustine answers that the soul cannot do it by its own power alone. The soul must be purified by virtue, disciplined by reason, and then lifted by grace. The lower levels are necessary preparations, but they are not sufficient. At the moment of contemplation, the soul is no longer looking at images or concepts; it is looking at the very light by which all truths are true.
“For the soul sees truth itself, not through any body, not through any image, but through itself, and in that vision it finds its greatest joy and its fullest being.”
Augustine warns that this vision is rare and fleeting in this life. Most souls are too distracted by the body and the world to sustain it. But even a glimpse of that light transforms the soul, ordering it toward the good and filling it with a peace that nothing else can give. The soul’s greatness is fully realized only when it is united with God in this way. All the lower powers — animation, sensation, art, virtue — are steps toward this end. They are not ends in themselves.
This section is the theological and philosophical summit of the dialogue. Augustine is not merely describing the soul’s capacities; he is pointing to its ultimate purpose. The soul was made for contemplation. Its greatness is not a possession to be proud of, but a capacity to be fulfilled in God. The dialogue, which began with a simple question about the soul’s size, has ended with a vision of the soul’s destiny. Evodius is left in awe, and Augustine concludes that they have done enough for one day — though the subject is inexhaustible.
The Eighth Movement: The Soul’s Relation to God — The Source of Its Greatness
LOCATE: This section marks the dialogue’s turn from the soul’s internal powers to its external relation — specifically, its dependence on God as the source and sustainer of its greatness.
PRESENT: Augustine now takes the final step in his argument. He has shown Evodius that the soul is not great by its own nature, but by participation in something greater. The soul’s greatness is not a property it possesses independently; it is a gift received from God. Evodius asks directly: “If the soul is so great, why does it not always remain in contemplation?” Augustine answers that the soul is not self-sufficient. It was created from nothing, and it tends to return to nothing unless it is held in being by God. This is why the soul falls — not because it is evil, but because it is weak. Its greatness is borrowed.
Augustine introduces the distinction between the Creator and the creature. The Creator alone is great by nature. The creature — the soul — is great only by participation. He says: “The soul is great, but not in the same way that God is great. God is greatness itself; the soul has greatness as a gift.” This distinction is crucial. Evodius had been tempted to think of the soul as a kind of divine thing, a spark of the eternal. Augustine corrects this: the soul is not God, nor a part of God. It is a creature, made in the image of God, but not identical to God. Its greatness is therefore fragile and dependent.
The dialogue then addresses the problem of sin. Why does the soul, if it is so great, turn away from God? Augustine explains that the soul’s greatness includes the capacity for free will. It can choose to turn toward God or away from Him. When it turns away, it does not become smaller in substance, but it becomes disordered. Its greatness is still there, but it is misdirected. The soul’s disordered love — loving lower things instead of God — is the root of all sin. Evodius recognizes this from his own experience: the soul is great enough to know God, but too often it chooses lesser goods.
“The soul is not great because it is itself, but because it clings to that which is truly great. Its greatness is measured by its union with God.”
CLARIFY: This section transforms the entire dialogue. What began as a question about the soul’s physical size has become a theological inquiry into the soul’s relationship with God. Augustine is careful not to let Evodius fall into pride. The soul is indeed great, but its greatness is derivative. The soul’s true dignity lies not in its own power, but in its capacity to receive and reflect God’s greatness. This is the point toward which the entire dialogue has been moving: the soul’s greatness is a mirror of God’s glory, not a rival to it.
The Ninth Movement: The Soul’s Restoration — The Role of Grace
LOCATE: Having established the soul’s dependence on God, Augustine now turns to the question of how the soul can be restored when it falls — and here he introduces the concept of grace as the necessary element for the soul’s healing.
PRESENT: Evodius now asks a practical question: “If the soul falls so easily, how can it rise again?” Augustine answers that the soul cannot rise by its own power. Just as the soul’s greatness is a gift, so its restoration is also a gift. He introduces the grace of God as the means by which the soul is lifted from its fallen state. The soul, left to itself, tends downward toward the body and the world. But God, in His mercy, reaches down to the soul and draws it upward. This is the opposite of the soul’s natural tendency: the soul can only ascend if it is pulled by grace.
Augustine explains the process of conversion — the soul’s turning back to God. This is not a single event, but a gradual reordering of the soul’s loves. The soul must first recognize its own sickness — its disordered attachments — and then receive the medicine of grace. The humility of the soul is essential. Evodius had earlier admired the soul’s power; now Augustine shows him that the soul’s greatest act is not to assert itself, but to humble itself before God. He says: “The soul becomes great not by rising up in pride, but by kneeling down in humility.”
The dialogue then turns to the role of Christ as the mediator. Augustine does not develop a full Christology here, but he points to Christ as the way by which the soul returns to God. Christ is the perfect example of humility: though He was God, He took on human form to lift the fallen soul. Evodius is struck by this — the greatness of the soul is not in its own achievements, but in the fact that God Himself chose to descend to its level. This is the paradox at the heart of the Christian faith: the soul’s greatness is revealed in God’s condescension, not in the soul’s ascent.
“The soul is restored not by its own striving, but by the grace of Him who came down to lift it up.”
CLARIFY: This section introduces the crucial theological concept of grace. Augustine is not a Pelagian — he does not believe the soul can save itself. The soul’s greatness includes the capacity to receive grace, but it cannot produce grace on its own. The soul’s restoration is a gift, not an achievement. This point is essential for understanding Augustine’s later works, especially his writings against Pelagius. Here, in this early dialogue, the seed of that later doctrine is already present.
The Tenth Movement: The Soul’s Future — Resurrection and Eternal Life
LOCATE: In the final major movement of the dialogue, Augustine looks forward to the soul’s ultimate destiny — the resurrection of the body and the soul’s eternal rest in God.
PRESENT: Evodius now asks about the soul’s fate after death. He wonders: if the soul leaves the body, what happens to its relationship with the body? Augustine explains that the soul does not lose its connection to the body even after death. The soul continues to exist, and it awaits the resurrection of the body. This is not a return to the same earthly body, but a transformation into a spiritual body — a body suited for eternal life. The soul’s greatness is not complete without the body, because the soul was made to animate a body. The resurrection completes what was begun in creation.
Augustine then describes the state of the blessed soul: eternal contemplation of God. This is the final end of the soul’s journey. The soul that has been purified by grace and restored to its proper order will see God face to face. This vision is not a momentary experience, but an eternal, unchanging act. The soul’s greatest power — its intellect — will be fully satisfied. Evodius asks: “Will the soul ever tire of this vision?” Augustine answers: “No, because the vision itself is infinite. The soul will always see, and always desire to see more. This is not a restless desire, but a restful one.”
The dialogue closes with a vision of the Kingdom of God, where the soul and body are united in perfect harmony. Augustine speaks of the New Jerusalem — the city of God — where the soul dwells in eternal peace. The soul’s greatness, which was always a reflection of God’s greatness, will be fully realized in this state. Evodius is filled with hope. He now understands that the soul’s greatness is not a possession to be guarded, but a destiny to be fulfilled. The dialogue ends with Augustine’s final words: “Let us strive toward that goal, knowing that the soul’s greatness is but a foretaste of the greatness of God Himself.”
“The soul will rest in God, and in that rest it will find its true greatness — not as a possession, but as a participation in the eternal life of the Creator.”
CLARIFY: This final section brings the dialogue to its eschatological conclusion. Augustine has taken Evodius — and the reader — from a simple question about the soul’s size to a vision of the soul’s eternal destiny. The soul’s greatness is not a static quality; it is a dynamic journey toward God. The resurrection and eternal life are the fulfillment of everything the soul was made for. Evodius began the dialogue wondering about the soul’s dimensions; he ends it contemplating the glory of God. The dialogue has transformed his understanding entirely.
The Eleventh Movement: The Soul’s Return to Its Origin — The Ascent Begins
LOCATE: Augustine now turns from the future glory of the soul to the present task of the soul’s return to God, explaining how the seven levels of activity provide a path of ascent.
PRESENT: Augustine presents the seven levels of the soul’s activity not merely as a description of what the soul does, but as a ladder of ascent back to God. He tells Evodius that these levels are not simply categories of operation but stages of return. The first level, animation (the soul’s giving life to the body), is the foundation; the second, sensation (the soul’s perception through the senses), builds upon it; the third, art (the soul’s ability to produce works of skill and beauty), rises higher; the fourth, virtue (the soul’s moral purification), marks a decisive turn inward; the fifth, tranquility (the soul’s peace through the mastery of passions), brings stability; the sixth, contemplation (the soul’s direct vision of truth), opens to the divine; and the seventh, union with God (the soul’s rest in its Creator), is the goal.
Augustine emphasizes that this ascent is not automatic. The soul must actively choose to move upward. As he puts it, the soul must “turn away from the lower things and turn toward the higher.” This turning is conversion — a deliberate reorientation of the soul’s attention and love. The soul that clings to bodily pleasures, honors, or worldly goods remains trapped at the lower levels, unable to rise. The soul that begins to love truth, virtue, and God begins the ascent.
The key to the ascent is purification. Augustine explains that the soul must be cleansed of its attachment to the temporal and material. This cleansing is not a punishment but a healing. The soul has become sick through its love of lower things; it must be restored to health through the practice of virtue. The fourth level — virtue — is where this purification begins in earnest. Here the soul learns self-control, courage, justice, and wisdom — not as external rules but as habits of the soul that align it with the eternal order.
“The soul must be purified by virtue, cleansed from the stains of earthly desires, so that it may be fit to see the light of truth.”
CLARIFY: Augustine presents the soul’s journey as both a metaphysical and moral ascent. The seven levels are not just a description of what the soul is; they are a prescription for what the soul must do. The soul’s greatness is realized not by remaining where it is but by moving toward its source. The ascent requires effort, discipline, and the reorientation of love. The soul must become what it was meant to be through purification and conversion.
The Twelfth Movement: The Soul’s Knowledge of Itself — The Inner Turn
LOCATE: Augustine now examines how the soul comes to know itself, arguing that self-knowledge is essential for the soul to understand its own greatness and its relation to God.
PRESENT: Evodius asks how the soul can know itself if it is invisible and immaterial. Augustine responds that the soul knows itself not through the senses but through self-presence. The soul is present to itself in a way that it is not present to anything else. It does not need to look outward to see itself; it needs only to turn inward. This turning inward is not a withdrawal from reality but a deepening into it.
Augustine develops this idea with a striking analogy. He compares the soul to the eye. The eye can see many things — colors, shapes, movements — but it cannot see itself directly. It can see its reflection in a mirror, but that is not a direct self-vision. The soul, however, is different. The soul can see itself directly, without a mirror, by introspection. This is because the soul is not a material organ but a spiritual substance that is always present to itself.
Yet Augustine acknowledges a difficulty. Many souls do not know themselves. They are distracted by external things, lost in the world of the senses, and unaware of their own nature. Self-knowledge, therefore, requires a deliberate effort to withdraw from the noise of the world and attend to the soul itself. This is what the philosophers call the “turn inward” — the movement of the soul from external perception to internal awareness.
When the soul turns inward and knows itself, Augustine says, it discovers three things: that it exists, that it lives, and that it understands. These three — existence, life, understanding — are inseparable in the soul. The soul cannot exist without living, nor live without understanding. This unity in trinity is a reflection of the divine Trinity, though Augustine does not press the analogy too far. He simply notes that the soul’s self-knowledge reveals its structure as a unified, living, thinking substance.
“The soul knows itself best when it turns away from all external things and enters into itself, where it finds itself present to itself.”
CLARIFY: Self-knowledge is the foundation of the soul’s ascent. Without knowing itself, the soul cannot know its own greatness, its own weakness, or its own need for God. The turn inward is not narcissism; it is the first step toward the turn upward to God. The soul that does not know itself cannot properly orient itself toward its Creator. Self-knowledge reveals both the dignity and the dependence of the soul — its greatness as a spiritual substance and its limitation as a created being.
The Thirteenth Movement: The Soul’s Love — The Engine of the Ascent
LOCATE: Augustine turns to the role of love in the soul’s journey, arguing that the soul’s movement toward God is driven not by knowledge alone but by love.
PRESENT: Evodius asks whether knowledge of the soul’s greatness is enough to achieve union with God. Augustine replies that it is not. Knowledge illuminates the path, but only love can walk it. The soul must not only know the good but love the good. This love is not an emotion or a feeling in the modern sense; it is a deep ordination of the soul — a directing of the whole self toward its object.
Augustine explains that the soul naturally loves. It cannot help but love. The question is what it loves. The soul that loves the body becomes attached to the body; the soul that loves the world becomes entangled in the world; the soul that loves itself wrongly becomes proud and self-enclosed. But the soul that loves God becomes oriented toward God. This love transforms the soul, drawing it upward.
The transformation of love is central to Augustine’s understanding of the soul’s journey. The soul must learn to love things in their proper order — God above all, the soul itself next, and the body last. This ordering of love is what Augustine elsewhere calls “rightly ordered love” (ordinata dilectio). When love is disordered — when the soul loves the body more than the soul, or the world more than God — the soul becomes deformed. When love is rightly ordered, the soul becomes beautiful and begins to reflect the image of God.
Augustine tells Evodius that the soul’s love can be strengthened through practice. By repeatedly choosing to love the good, the soul develops a habit of love. This habit becomes second nature, so that the soul spontaneously turns toward God. This is the work of virtue — not merely knowing the good but training the soul to delight in it.
“The soul is drawn upward not by its feet but by its loves; for love is the weight of the soul, carrying it where it longs to be.”
CLARIFY: Love is the engine of the soul’s ascent. Without love, knowledge remains cold and ineffective. The soul must not only understand its greatness but desire to fulfill it. This desire is love in action. Augustine’s emphasis on love prevents the dialogue from becoming an abstract intellectual exercise. The soul’s journey is not a matter of theory but of life. The soul becomes what it loves — if it loves the body, it becomes bodily; if it loves the soul, it becomes spiritual; if it loves God, it becomes divine.
The Fourteenth Movement: The Soul’s Freedom — The Choice of the Will
LOCATE: Augustine now addresses the question of free will, explaining how the soul’s freedom is essential to both its fall and its ascent.
PRESENT: Evodius raises a troubling question: if the soul is made in the image of God and called to greatness, how does it fall into sin and misery? Augustine answers that the soul falls through the will’s free choice. The soul is not compelled to sin; it chooses to turn away from God and toward lower things. This turning is the essence of sin — not the commission of particular acts but the fundamental orientation of the soul away from its Creator.
Augustine explains that the will is the soul’s power of self-direction. The soul can direct itself toward God or away from God. When it directs itself toward God, it acts according to its nature and finds fulfillment. When it directs itself away from God, it acts against its nature and falls into disorder. This is why the soul’s greatness is not guaranteed; it must be chosen and maintained through the right use of the will.
Yet Augustine acknowledges that the will is not neutral. After the first sin — the original turning away from God — the will became weakened. It is now prone to error and vice. The soul finds itself divided, wanting what is good but unable to consistently choose it. This is the condition of the wounded will — a will that knows the good but cannot fully embrace it without divine help.
Freedom, Augustine says, is not simply the ability to choose anything. True freedom is the ability to choose the good without hindrance. The soul that is enslaved to its passions is not free, even if it can choose among them. The soul that is liberated by grace and virtue is truly free, because it can act according to its deepest nature — which is to love and serve God.
“The soul’s freedom lies not in the power to choose evil but in the strength to cleave to the good from which it can never be separated.”
CLARIFY: Free will explains both the soul’s fall and the possibility of its restoration. The soul is not a puppet; it is a responsible agent. Its greatness includes the capacity to choose — and the risk of choosing badly. But freedom is not merely the raw power of choice; it is the perfection of the will in love of the good. The soul’s true freedom is found in submission to God, not in autonomy from God.
The Fifteenth Movement: The Soul’s Unity — How the Many Powers Belong to One Substance
LOCATE: Augustine returns to a question raised earlier by Evodius: how can the soul have so many powers and yet be one thing?
PRESENT: Evodius is puzzled. The soul seems to have many functions — giving life, sensing, remembering, thinking, willing, loving. How can these all belong to a single substance? Augustine responds by insisting on the soul’s absolute unity. The soul is not a composite of parts, like the body. It is a simple spiritual substance that expresses itself in many ways.
To illustrate, Augustine uses the analogy of a single source of light. A lamp casts light in many directions, but the light is one. Different objects are illuminated in different ways, but the illumination itself is not divided. So too with the soul: it is one source of life and activity, but it acts differently in different contexts. The soul gives life to the body, senses through the body, remembers past experiences, reasons about abstract truths, and reaches toward God — but it is the same soul doing all these things.
This unity is essential to the soul’s greatness. If the soul were a collection of parts, its greatness would be merely aggregate — the sum of its parts. But because the soul is one, its greatness is qualitative, not quantitative. The soul is great not because it has many powers but because it is a single spiritual substance capable of union with God.
Augustine further explains that the soul’s unity is the foundation of its identity. The soul remains the same person from infancy to old age, despite all changes in the body and in knowledge. This continuity of identity is possible only because the soul is a simple, indivisible substance. The body changes constantly; the soul remains itself.
“The soul is not many things but one thing, and from this one thing all the diverse powers of life, sense, and understanding flow.”
CLARIFY: The soul’s unity is a central theme of the dialogue. Augustine wants to prevent Evodius from thinking that the soul is a collection of faculties or a material compound. The soul is one, and its greatness is the greatness of a unified spiritual substance. This unity reflects the unity of God, who is simple and undivided. The soul’s many powers are not contradictions but expressions of its single, rich nature.
The Sixteenth Movement: The Soul’s Image of God — The Trinitarian Structure
LOCATE: Augustine now explores the most profound implication of the soul’s nature: that it is made in the image of the triune God.
PRESENT: Augustine tells Evodius that the soul’s unity is not a blank simplicity. Within the soul’s unity, there are three fundamental activities that reflect the Trinity: being, knowing, and willing. The soul exists, it knows itself, and it wills its own good. These three are distinct yet inseparable — they are not three souls but one soul with three aspects.
Augustine develops this idea with careful precision. The soul’s being corresponds to God the Father, the source of all existence. The soul’s knowing corresponds to God the Son, the Word or Wisdom through which all things are known. The soul’s willing corresponds to God the Holy Spirit, the bond of love between the Father and the Son. This is not a perfect analogy — the soul is a created image, not the uncreated Trinity — but it is a real likeness.
This trinitarian structure is what makes the soul capable of knowing and loving God. Because the soul is an image of the Trinity, it can be drawn into communion with the Trinity. The soul’s knowing reaches toward the truth of God; its willing reaches toward the goodness of God; its being rests in the existence of God. The soul finds its fulfillment not by becoming God but by being united to God through knowledge and love.
Evodius asks whether all souls have this trinitarian structure. Augustine answers that all rational souls do, though in most souls the image is defaced by sin. Sin does not destroy the image, but it obscures it. Through grace and virtue, the image is restored and made bright again. This restoration is the work of the soul’s entire journey — to become what it already is, to realize the image of God within it.
“The soul bears the image of the Trinity: it is, and it knows itself, and it loves itself and its Creator; and in this trinity, the soul is the image of God.”
CLARIFY: This is the theological heart of the dialogue. The soul’s greatness is not merely its own; it is a participation in the greatness of God. The soul is an image of the Trinity, and its journey is a return to that original likeness. Understanding the soul’s trinitarian structure transforms how we understand everything Augustine has said before. The soul’s powers, its unity, its capacity for knowledge and love — all are reflections of the divine life.
The Seventeenth Movement: The Soul’s End — Rest in God
LOCATE: Augustine now concludes the dialogue by describing the soul’s final end, the goal for which it was made and toward which all its movements tend.
PRESENT: Evodius asks what the soul will ultimately achieve if it completes its ascent. Augustine replies that the soul’s final end is rest in God. This rest is not inactivity but the fullness of life — the perfect and eternal enjoyment of God. The soul that reaches this end no longer struggles, no longer falls, no longer desires anything beyond God. It is satisfied completely.
Augustine describes this rest as a state of blessedness (beatitudo). The blessed soul sees God face to face, knows God as it is known, and loves God without hindrance. This vision is not a momentary glimpse but an eternal possession. The soul enters into the joy of its Lord and remains there forever. This is what the soul was made for — nothing less than the vision of God.
The dialogue ends with Augustine urging Evodius to set his heart on this goal. The soul’s greatness is not a possession to be proud of but a capacity to be fulfilled. The soul is great because it can contain God — not in the sense of limiting God but in the sense of being united to God. All the soul’s powers, all its levels of activity, all its struggles and growth — all lead to this one end: rest in the embrace of the Creator.
Evodius acknowledges that he now sees the soul differently. What began as a question about dimensions has become a vision of destiny. The soul is not measured in inches or feet but in its capacity for God. The soul’s greatness is the greatness of a vessel made to hold infinite life.
“The soul’s greatness is not in its own power but in the God who made it, and in whom alone it can find rest.”
CLARIFY: The dialogue ends where it began — with the question of greatness — but transformed. Evodius asked how big the soul is; Augustine has shown him what the soul is for. The soul’s greatness is not a fact to be measured but a destiny to be realized. The soul is great because it is made for God, and its greatness is fulfilled only when it rests in God. This is the final answer to Evodius’s opening question.
