Confessions vs. Gita
When ancient people look to understand religion, it is easier for them to relate to a higher power, also known as a god. Throughout the world and through time, there have been hundreds of different religions that have been established, and in the writings by people of these various groups there are often stories about conversation with the gods. This helps other people in understanding and conforming to the same beliefs. Two of such examples of this style of analyzing what gods are, are found in St. Augustine’s Confessions and The Bhagavad Gita.
St. Augustine’s Confessions is written through the Christian perspective of religion. Christianity is founded on the idea that there is one God who oversees all actions. Though all actions are observed by a higher power, God instills in us a free will. As Christians we are free to make our own decisions whether right or wrong. In his Biography St Augustine expresses that he feels like a sinner. He struggles with the fact that he is a thrill seeker. He loves to watch blood sports. He watches gladiators fight to the death and commit murder. Not only does he watch, but he enjoys observing these acts. He is also expressing his sins in his biography when he writes about stealing, which is another sin. He steals pears for fun. St Augustine doesn’t even eat the pears he steals, but throws them to the pigs to eat. Through the story St Augustine struggles interna...
Although Augustine grew up knowing about Christianity, as his mother, Monica, was a devout Christian, he spent much of his early years indulging in worldly pleasures until finally converting to Christianity at the age of 32. This is unlike Perpetua in the fact that she became a member of the faith at a young age, against her father’s wishes while Augustine chose to rebel against Christianity. The fact that Augustine’s mother was a Christian who urged him to also convert is also contrasting from Perpetua’s story, as is apparent by Monica’s reaction upon her son telling her that he is no longer a Manichee, but still not a Christian. In Augustine’s words, “she did not leap for joy . . . for which she wept over me as a person dead but to be revived by you [God].” Therefore, Monica was saddened by the fact that her son was not a Christian, while Perpetua’s father was distraught over the opposite, her decision to be a Christian. Once Augustine had finally converted to Christianity, he interpreted his faith differently than Perpetua had. He believed that God is good and humans are also by nature good, but that “free will was the cause of our doing ill.” To him, being a Christian meant that he must not use his free will for evil, that he must resist the urge of temptation and follow God’s path of goodness. While Augustine believed in sacrificing desires of the flesh for God, there was no emphasis in his time on giving up his life for his religion as it was in Perpetua’s. These dissimilar qualities between the lives of Perpetua and Augustine are the effect of Christianity’s movement from a secretive, minority faith to a legitimate, national
Unlike other texts of the time, Augustine’s confessions are less of an epic tale or instructive texts, both of which soug...
Augustine begins by debating whether baptized believers of God are indeed sinful or sinless. He says that when one is living in the world they are sinful but if one is baptized into the faith of Christ then their sins are washed clean. Augustine says that once one is born of God they begin to not have sin in their life. But they would have had sin from their past life because a new life begins at baptism. So if one was to say they did not say that they had sin they would be lying and not telling the truth. Therefore here lies the conundrum, Augustine faced.
Saint Augustine confesses that in his sixteenth year of life he committed the sin of stealing pears. He tells not of being hungry and desperately needing to steal them for satiation, nor of desiring the pears because they were beautiful and tasteful, but confesses that the act of stealing the pears and committing the sin in itself is what was so enticing. Later in life as Augustine reflects on this act he also comments that his reasoning for stealing the pears was the feeling of camaraderie that he and his companions felt after the sin was committed.
The relationship between entertainment and violence has always been rife with controversy. Today’s debate over violent video games, movies, and television shows is yet another manifestation of this timeless issue. In Confessions, Augustine addresses how humans consume violence as entertainment and proposes two reasons for why they do so. One is an act of pleasure seeking that uses the sight of tragedy or violence to bask in the feeling of false pity. The other is a carnal desire for excitement and adrenaline fueled by primal instincts. According to Augustine, both motivations degrade and dehumanize the viewer of violence. However, Augustine deeply valued the importance of learning from any viable source; Cicero’s Hortensius convinces him “that
Throughout the Confessions, Augustine provides a journal of his life, especially his education. Augustine the narrator comes to the conclusion that his education had been granted by God and therefore should have been accepted graciously. However, at times, Augustine the character disregarded this gift and sinned. I think Augustine the narrator may have been too harsh on his character’s alter ego. He was a child, and therefore still had much learning to do, which is why he was forced to attend school. In addition, children make mistakes such as being plagued by distractions and disobedience. Shouldn’t a man who follows the Catholic faith be able to understand and comprehend that through our sins and mistakes, we are allowed to repent and that enables us to grow and become closer to God?
St. Augustine considers his mother as a crucial factor in his conversion to Catholicism. However through the analysis of his Confessions it leads me to believe that St. Augustine’s mother was not a decisive figure. Monica was in the background keeping him in thought and prayer however Augustine’s watershed moments came as a result of his own examination of readings as well as his conversations with his friends and mentors. Therefore I argue that Monica had delayed Augustine’s baptism and it was his own experiences that allowed him to come to God.
Christianity teaches that in order to be able to truly serve God, one must give up worldly pleasures, which are deemed selfish. Throughout literature, many authors touch on this subject, some in very direct manners. Such is the case in Cervantes’ Don Quixote and St. Augustine’s Confessions. In excerpts from each, the narrator describes how he had undergone a change from relishing in worldly and selfish activities to renouncing such immoral pleasures in order to follow the moral path to God. As each passage progresses, the narrator tells of his past and his new thinking in the present, and ends by praising God for His mercy. Throughout the passages, several dichotomies exist between the past and the present, positive and negative, moral and immoral. In the end, it is the mercy of God that acts as the driving force behind each man’s change in thoughts and actions. The moral laws of religion outweigh man’s desires, as can be seen through the diction in each passage as the narrator contrasts his negative past with the positive present by denying that which he once loved, and as he praises God for granting mercy for his sins.
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
One of the most documented and honest journeys to accepting Christ is presented in St. Augustine’s book, Confessions. He embarks on a mission to find truth and explains the many barriers he had to overcome to understand the greatness of God. Throughout the book, St. Augustine lays out different significant milestones that enabled him to overcome certain barriers of thought that he originally believed. These significant milestones included him meeting Ambrose the Bishop of Milan, the learning of Neoplatonism, meeting Simplicianus and Ponticianus which lead him soon after to convert, and finally reaching the end of his journey to Catholicism when he becomes baptized. Each of these milestones presented a realization that played a significant
This paper will outline specific points in Saint Augustine’s Confessions that highlight religious views following the fall of Rome. Though Augustines views on religion may not reflect that of most people in his time period, it still gives valuable insight into how many, namely Neoplatonists,, viewed God and his teachings.
Augustine. “Confessions”. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006. 1113-41. Print.
In his Confessions, Saint Augustine warns against the many pleasures of life. "Day after day," he observes, "without ceasing these temptations put us to the test" (245).[1] He argues that a man can become happy only by resisting worldly pleasures. But according to Aristotle, virtue and happiness depend on achieving the "moral mean" in all facets of life. If we accept Aristotle's ideal of a balanced life, we are forced to view Saint Augustine's denial of temptations from a different perspective. His avoidance of worldly pleasures is an excess of self-restraint that keeps him from the moral mean between pleasure and self-restraint. In this view, he is sacrificing balance for excess, and is no different from a drunkard who cannot moderate his desire for alcohol.
In his Confessions, St. Augustine writes about a large number of topics that continue to have relevance today. The text documents the development of Augustine’s faith and his Christian philosophy, and one thing of particular interest is his argument for the nature of evil. Christianity predicates several important ideas that Augustine builds upon in his philosophy, and within its context, he presents a thorough, compelling argument against the problem of evil that identifies evil as a misperception.
Author Claudia Gray stated, “Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day” (Goodreads). Evil and sin exists in our world today and the temptation they bring bounds many human’s spiritual being. Finding the root of all evil is a hard and torturous concept to understand, but knowing one’s own free will helps bring understanding and deliverance from the evils of the world. Throughout the book Confessions Saint Augustine “ponders the concepts of evil and sin and searches the root of their being” (Augustine 15). The existence of evil is one of the most worrisome challenges a Christian or any individual deals with throughout life. Saint Augustine’s beliefs concerning the root of all evil and sins transforms as he begins to grow and develop in the knowledge of his free will and spiritual being. Early on, he believes “God created all things and evil is a thing, therefore God created evil” (Augustine 73-74). From this he conceives the notion that God cannot be good if he knowingly created evil. As Augustine begins to grow in his spiritual walk, his views begin to evolve as he questions his Manichee’s beliefs and explores the concepts of good and evil. From his inquiring Augustine develops the question, what is evil and what if evil did not need creating? He asks, “Do we have any convincing evidence that a good God exists” (Augustine 136-137)?