Saint Augustine was heavily, if not totally, influenced by Platonism and Plato´s ideals, especially the ideals of "The Forms", the real personifications of what we see in the sensible realm. So for example, Beauty, which, according to Platonic philosophy is an intangible Form that exists in a realm of light and that is its true form. However, because humans have a body that tie them to earth, they depend on senses to be able to understand and even experience a mirror image of the true Form of Beauty. Another thing in Platonism was that they believed the body was a prison that incapacitated people to experience the true Forms and also that we all emanate from a higher being called The One, a being from which everything originated but with whom we have no connection because we do not exist in this being´s mind. We are just byproducts. Although Saint Augustine´s view, as said, was influenced by Platonic views, he was also influenced by Christian views. To Saint Augustine, there is a One, a superior being from who all Forms emerge, and this being is called God. God is unchanging and from him emerges all creation, the sensible and abstract, but unlike the One, God involves himself with his creation and nothing is created that he does not want. Thus, all creation is good.
