The Value of the Frailty of Human Knowledge in the Age of AI — With a Focus on Augustine's Inner Word and Semiotics —

This paper examines the theological and epistemological value of the weakness of human knowledge in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), with particular focus on Augustine's doctrine of the inner word (verbum mentis) and his semiotics of external signs. In an era that reduces knowledge and consciousness to functional performance, the dignity of those who are linguistically, intellectually, or mnemonically fragile is profoundly threatened. Against this backdrop, this paper argues four interconnected theses. First, drawing on Augustine's distinction between the inner word and sensory imagery, it contends that the sacraments constitute divinely fitting signs for those with linguistic disabilities and for infants who have not yet attained verbal capacity. Second, from Augustine's theory of dual storage — whereby the inner word is retained not in the living body but in the soul — it follows that the personal identity and salvific knowledge of those suffering from dementia and related memory disorders remain intact. Third, the paper proposes an epistemological model in which eternity and time operate organically together, resolving the contingency problem exposed by the Gettier problem through an Augustinian illumination theory grounded in God's own self-knowledge rather than in human rational capacity. Fourth, by substituting the concept of knowledge (scientia/cognitio) for reason (ratio) as the epistemological foundation, the paper contends that human beings are called to cultivate inner life and remain receptively dependent upon divine revelation. The paper concludes that Augustine's semiotic framework reframes the weakness of human knowledge not as deficiency but as the very condition of dependent listening toward God — thereby providing theological grounds for the church community to care for the intellectually vulnerable and to approach the Word in humble attentiveness. Keywords: Augustine, inner word (verbum mentis), semiotics, weakness of human knowledge, sacraments, illumination theory, Gettier problem, artificial intelligence (AI), epistemology