In book 8 of Confessions it divulges the story of the moral conversion of Augustine written in 386 AD (Russo 14). In the beginning of the book it starts by explaining how Augustine obtained knowledge from the books of the epistles of St. Paul and the Platonists. Despite being aware that God is real, and is the supreme being of righteousness and power, he still ambivalent of it being not sufficient. In the book, he struggles with recognizing the contrast in logically being aware of something and following the bible by living a righteous life. For example, in the book it states “there is a difference between knowing what is good and going the good” (Russo 14). Later, he had an epiphany that the reason he cannot discover the difference between …show more content…
Also, he learned from speaking with Alypius in the garden that refusing to accept Jesus as his savior will lead him into a destructive path (Russo 15). After having a conversation with Alypius, he feels remorseful and ashamed of his behavior because he was not able to resist his immoral habits of participating in sex, obtaining wealth, and power, and chasing fame (Russo 16). Moreover, he questioned if he was capable of not indulging in of those immoral activities. As a result, he is uncertain if he is able of accepting Jesus Christ as his savior, and live a righteous life. In fact, in an attempt to justify his actions, Augustine believes that if he was not able to refrain from his mundane, sinful habits then God, and Jesus are “the ultimate source of delight” (Russo 17). While in the garden, feeling despair by his actions, and not being able to forsake his immoral lifestyle, he begins self-harming by ripping his hair out of his head and crying out because of his lack of self-control (Russo …show more content…
Or alternatively, diverge to the path of accepting Jesus Christ as his savior; thus, living a modest life and abandoning the need for materials and pubic status (Russo 17). Later, Augustine finds himself asking and being able to answer the question, if will he be able to accept his new epiphany or remain practicing the same immoral lifestyle, due to lack of self-discipline? While sobbing in the garden, he felt the urge to relinquish his earthly desires, and follow the path of goodness, and righteousness. This all occurred when he heard a voice of a child saying “pick up and read, pick up and read” (Russo 18). Augustine took the voice of the child as divine intervention to read, and follow his bible; consequently, he began reading a scripture about the commandment against lewdness. Upon reading the scripture in the bible, he was able to convert to Christianity instantaneously because he felt that it was a message to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in its lust” (Russo
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.
From the beginning of creation to the fictitious lands created by J. R. R. Tolkien himself, the distinctions between good and evil rise from the shadows and into the light. Specifically, in the Confessions of St. Augustine all things created through the light of God are seen as wholly good, while the absence of such light and goodness is considered evil. Tolkien’s novel elaborates on the work of Augustine and establishes the differences between forces of good and evil in the land of Middle Earth. Augustine and Tolkien in their works Saint. Augustine Confessions and The Fellowship of the Ring address the issues that arise from an individual 's struggle to escape the temptations of evil and succumbing to their lust for power rather than asserting
Unlike other texts of the time, Augustine’s confessions are less of an epic tale or instructive texts, both of which soug...
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...
Augustine remarks that he sees man as seeking what gives him glory rather than what brings glory to God. When talking about self Augustine shares that he enjoyed studying Latin in school simply because it came easy to him, not because it brought glory to God. As he grew, he was, in the eyes of his society, an upstanding citizen, he did nothing inherently wrong. However, Augustine believes he did considerable wrong; rather than living for and seeking after the Lord, he was living for and seeking after his own desires. These claims exemplify mankind’s tendency to turn its back on its beliefs and the One in whom they
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
Petrarch is modern because he says he climbed it for his own personal enjoyment and for god. In the reading it states “I admired every detail, now relishing earthly enjoyment, now lifting up my mind to higher spheres…” This is an example of where Petrarch talks about how he climbed ‘the windy peak’ for self fulfillment and to admire the sights all around. The line continues to say “...after the example of my body, and I thought it fit to look in the volume of Augustine's Confessions…” The quote shows how he sees that religion is also important for him. He also talks about all the things he sees at the top and how he enjoys to look at them. He talks about the rivers and the sea and how beautiful they look from the top.
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?
Saint Augustine believed that grace is impacted by Adam and Eve’s sin and the reason that sin keeps happening is because of people having sex. He believes that when humans have sex, they are committing a sin which needs to be repented in order to be in the good grace of god. Augustine also believes that everyone was born into original sin which means that you are born with the knowledge to only sin and to do the wrong thing. This also means that when you have a choice between doing the right thing and being sinful, being sinful will always be more attractive, which is to be disobedient from god. To Saint Augustine, the urge to be evil and to sin was always greater than anything else, which caused all of the bad in the world and why the world
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.
7-12- Again Augustines thoughts on God reflect that of the religious teachings of his day, namely those of the Neoplatonists. For example he refuses to speculate on how the soul joins the body to become an infant and even follows Plato when he suggests that this life could possibly be some kind of “living death”. He then goes into an examination of his infancy, which he depicts as a quite pitiful state. He described himself as a sinful and thoughtless creature who made demands on everyone, wept unceasingly, and gave everyone a hard time that took care of him. Though very brutal in his self examination, he later states that he does not hold himself accountable for any of these sinful acts because he simply can’t remember them.
In his Confessions, Augustine relates that, in his school years, he was required to read Virgil’s Aeneid. The ill-fated romance of Aeneas and Dido produced such an emotional effect on him. Augustine says that Virgil’s epic caused him to forget his own “wanderings” (Augustine 1116). He wept over Dido’s death, but remained “dry-eyed to [his] own pitiful state” (Augustine 1116 – 7). Augustine later rejects literature and theater because he believes that they distract the soul from God. Nonetheless, Augustine shares many of the same experience as the characters in the Aeneid. Augustine discovers that love can be destructive, just as it was for Dido. Both Aeneas and Augustine of them give up love for the sake of duty. Aeneas leaves Dido to fulfill his calling given by the gods. Augustine ends his lustful affairs in order that he may devote himself to his God.
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.
St. Augustine's sordid lifestyle as a young man, revealed in Confessions, serves as a logical explanation for his limited view of the purpose of sexuality in marriage. His life from adolescence to age thirty-one was so united to passionate desire and sensual pleasure, that he later avoided approval of such emotions even within the sanctity of holy union. From the age of sixteen until he was freed of promiscuity fifteen years later, Augustine's life was woven with a growing desire for illicit acts, until that desire finally became necessity and controlled his will. His lust for sex began in the bath houses of Tagaste, where he was idle without schooling and "was tossed about…and boiling over in…fornications" (2.2). Also during that time, young Augustine displayed his preoccupation with sexual experience by fabricating vulgarities simply to impress his peers. In descript...
..., the closer he was really moving toward God. He began to realize that God is all good, so nothing he creates will be of evil. “God does not create evil but it is of the world” (Augustine 230-31). Once he took responsibility for his personal life and spiritual walk, Augustine began to uncover the truths to his life. He reveals one must take responsibility for their actions and confess to develop a stronger connection with God. He then comprehends; God allows bad things to happen in your life to show you that you need him. Evil is not a lesser good, but it is a reflection of ones moral well-being. In order for one’s well being to be saved one must confess their sins to Christ.