Woot! SAPIENTIAE LUX has released her first full album AGAINST THE SKEPTICS (PRESENTED BY SAPIENTIAE LUX). Click the image to hear it on YouTube. Read below to find out more.
LUX wanted me to thank everyone who waited so patiently for it which at least includes yours truly who made it. You can learn more about that project at https://sapientiaelux.com/
This song takes the tracks and lyrics from the AUGUSTINUS VOX album of the same name and reimagines them with a new sound and female lead. The lyrics mostly remain unchanged though there could be a few creative liberties taken by the A.I. engine such as extra lines or emphasis in places different than the VOX album.
My favorite song on the LUX album I think is The Search Ain’t Over. That song expresses the longing for finding the truth.
For those who may not know Against the Skeptics is the name of Saint Augustine’s earliest surviving work. It was written in Latin with the title Contra Academicos and is a total of three books long with each book about an hout read. Works like this were intended for repeat reads and for discussion. You can actually listen to the first two books on our YouTube channel here:
The album like it’s VOX twin, reimagines Augustine’s work in the form of an introspective rock album. The intent is to help the listener experience the argument of the work as the singer moves from doubt to certainty.
The actual written work is pretty different in some ways. In the written version, Augustine and friends are at a farm house in the country reading philosophy and having arguments like whether the truly happy person knows the truth or only seeks the truth. Eventually they also explore an ancient philosophical perspective called Academic Skepticism and whether it is true and possibly misunderstood. Some of the concern here is that skepticism is so strong an argument that people maybe gave up on the search for truth. Augustine wants to restore people’s faith in finding the truth and help them understand that truth can be known. I thought the skeptic position of truth being unknowable really parallels some thinking I have occasionally encountered in conversations or experienced through disinterest in matters of religious or philosophical thinking. Ultimately I think everyone wants to be happy and know what is true however over time people, myself included here, can despair of every knowing with certainty and we get jaded by lots of flashing messages that promise highs and end in lows. We can also get quite discourage when folks we respected and listened to turn out to be hiding some terrible sins or personality traits that really hinder our ability to accept any truth they might have shared. I am reminded that even a bad man can share a real truth but their badness can lead us to dismiss the truth they shared. We need to sometimes distinguish between what is to be condemned and what is to be accepted in a person.
One significant part of the album is I Think Therefore… This is a track that echoes the work and a significant point that if you can be certain that you exist because you think. This means that there is a truth that can be known about the world and existence which proves truth is not impossible to know. Also the group explores how doubt itself points towards truths existence. Things like this provide us encouragement I think in our own journey and are ways God helps us come to know Him.
The written work is full of all sorts of fun anecdotal portions and discussions. I have a part below I enjoyed. I laughed a bit that the stenographer recorded Alypius’ excusing himself. It is quite an abrupt interruption and sounds like he is anxious to be anywhere but there. I also especially like Augustine’s approach to revisiting rash points and his note about how consideration of big ideas makes small people grow. I think this passage is a helpful guide for any discussions we may have today.
Here is a small part of the text from Book 1:
Licentius said, “If it’s a big matter, it needs great men.”
“Don’t look,” I replied, “especially in this little farm, for what’s hard to find anywhere. Just explain why you said what you did and on what reasoning it seems right to you. Great matters often make small people grow.”
He said, “Since you press us to argue against each other—and I trust you want this for our good—why can’t someone be happy while seeking truth even if he never finds it?”
Trygetius said, “Because we want the happy person to be a wise person perfected in all things. Someone who is still seeking is not perfected. So how can you claim such a person is happy?”
Licentius asked, “Does the authority of the ancients carry any weight with you?”
Trygetius answered, “Not of all of them.”
“Of which then?”
“Of those who were wise.”
“So you don’t think Carneades was wise?”
“I’m no Greek,” he said. “I don’t know who this Carneades was.”
“What about our Cicero—what do you think of him?”
After a long pause he said, “He was wise.”
“Then does his view on this question carry weight for you?”
“It does,” he said.
“Then hear it,” said Licentius. “I think you’ve forgotten. Cicero held that the one who seeks truth is happy, even if he cannot reach the discovery of it.”
“Where did Cicero say this?”
“Who doesn’t know,” Licentius replied, “that he strongly affirmed that nothing can be fully grasped by humans, and that nothing remains for the wise person except the most diligent search for truth—because if he were to give his assent to uncertain things, even if by chance they were true, he could not be freed from error, and that is the greatest fault in a wise person. Therefore, if the wise must be happy, and if the search for truth is the complete task of wisdom, why hesitate to think that the happy life can come from the search for truth itself?”
“May I go back,” said Trygetius, “to what I granted too quickly?”I said, “I don’t usually allow that to those who argue not from a desire to find the truth but from childish vanity. But with me—especially since you’re still to be nourished and brought up—not only do I allow it, I even want you to have it as a rule: you ought to return and examine what you carelessly conceded.”
Licentius added, “I count it no small progress in philosophy when the victory of argument is despised compared to finding what is right and true. So I gladly agree and allow Trygetius to revisit what he thinks he conceded rashly—it’s my case, after all.”
Alypius said, “You see that I haven’t yet taken up any role here. But since my planned trip forces me to break off, my co-judge will kindly take double power until I return, for I see this contest will go long.”
When he left, Licentius said, “Bring up what you conceded rashly.”
Trygetius said, “I rashly granted that Cicero was wise.”
“So Cicero wasn’t wise—the man through whom philosophy in Latin was both begun and completed?”
“Even if I concede he was wise,” he said, “I don’t approve of everything he said.”
“Then you’ll have to refute many other things of his, so you don’t seem shameless in rejecting this point under debate.”
“What if I’m prepared to affirm only this one thing he didn’t judge rightly?”
“I don’t care,” Licentius said, “as long as I bring forward reasons strong enough to prove what I intend.”
“Go on,” Trygetius said. “What could I do against a man who declares himself Cicero’s opponent?”