Reason In St. Augustine's 'The Confessions'

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Recommended: Can faith and reason coexist

Robert Jastrow once said, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.” This quote shows how necessary it is to have reason to understand faith and have faith to understand reason. Our faith builds on our reason. Faith is the evidence of things we cannot see. It is believing in something because your life experience or history has proven it to you. Reason is the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgements based on logic and facts. If we understand faith and reason correctly, …show more content…

Augustine’s The Confessions, it starts off with Augustine going down the wrong path. He has strayed from God and turns towards sexual adventures and pleasure. He is devoted to what makes him feel good, such as women and materialistic things, not God. Augustine states, “I did not realize that it belonged to the very heart of my wretchedness to be so drowned and blinded in it that I could not conceive that light of honour, and of beauty loved for its own sake, which the eye of the flesh does not see but only the innermost soul” (Augustine, pp. 176). This quote shows that Augustine had a hard time getting out of this phase in his life and back on the path towards God. He was blinded by his pleasures and desires that he did not feel like he was doing something wrong at the time. Now as he thinks back on his past, he realizes that was not a way to achieve happiness.\. He needs to channel his faith and reason to accomplish a new life with God. Augustine is on a journey to Christianity to find happiness within himself and to live a better life without so much lustful sin. His epiphany brings him to begin studying religions and moving around being influenced by other religions. But he soon starts to have doubts about Catholicism and goes back to his lust for sex along with his other pleasures. But along his journey through Milan, Augustine receives a divine message. He could not find his way back to God with just reason, he needed his faith. His faith in God is what brings

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