"this wholeness, this all-or-nothing character"
Alasdair MacIntyre, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry: Encyclopedia, Genealogy, and Tradition. (1990, p. 99)
“Each specific Augustinian thesis stands or falls, from the Augustinian standpoint, as part of the overall scheme of belief. Abstract the parts from that whole, treat them as if they are not parts, and you no longer have the Augustinian theses but only a counterfeit version of them. And it is the scheme as a whole which requires that it be believed before it can be understood. So that there seems to be no way to pass a verdict on the Augustinian scheme of theoretical and practical enquiry from any standpoint which is not that of a participant in that enquiry.
“It is to this wholeness, this all-or-nothing character of the Augustinian scheme that the form of the university curriculum at Paris was to owe its shape. Each part contributes a necessary element in the movement towards a more adequate understanding of perfection, both the to-be-perfected status of humanity and the timeless perfection of God, a movement which, embodied in a particular human life, is the enquiry of that particular person about his or her own good.”
From the Augustinian perspective as described by MacIntyre, it seems to me, truth is an integral whole the apprehension of which always evokes awe, and such awe is the necessary beginning of the work of inquiry.