Augustine on the Existence of the Past and the Future

Abstract

Abstract In the eleventh book of the Confessiones Augustine puts forward several considerations about the nature of time. The received view is that he held that only the present exists, while the past and the future do not exist. This received view has recently been attacked by Paul Helm and Katherin Rogers, who have offered alternative interpretations according to which Augustine held that the present has no privileged ontological status, and that past, present and future all equally exist. The aim of this paper is to defend the received view vis-à-vis these attacks. I argue that the received view fits best Augustine’s view of God’s eternity and relation to time and should therefore be preferred.