3. Discuss Augustine’s Confessions as a spiritual autobiography, a personal narrative of one’s spiritual journey. Note that Augustine addresses God himself, not a human audience. (The first paragraph of the excerpt in our book begins with “What have I to say to Thee, God, save that I know not where I came from…” [Vol. 1, p. 834]).
He explains this by discussing the unjust law system. He states, “One may well ask, "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer is found in the fact that there are two types of laws: there are just laws, and there are unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "An unjust law is no law at all” (3). C. Claim about Reading 2 (state what is the claim that you will be making about your second reading)
In Book 2 of the Confessions, Augustine tells us the story of the pear tree. Even though his theft might seem like a youthful mistake to us, it continues to bother the adult Augustine as he looks back on his childhood. Augustine gets so worked up about those pears because now that he is older, and very religious he sees the wrong of the situation that he committed. Augustine had committed many sins in his life, but the pear theft story was one of the first ones that started it all. Yeah, Augustine does say that as an infant he would sin because of the tantrums he would make, but he did not sin because he wanted but because he did now know that he was sinning.
Augustine faces many decisions in his life which lead to him feeling grief or sorrow about the decisions he makes. This allows the reader to relate to Augustine because many people have felt the same way before about their own life. The emotions that Augustine feels and the struggle he has with his belief in God and the Christian belief are very relatable to many people. I mean in today society many people struggle with their own standing with the Christian
He also many references from the Bible for example he uses Job 2:7,8. St. Augustine goes to Carthage looking for emotional and physical love. He found it then he began to fear of jealousy which all people in relationships have when they are not together. Augustine claims that nonfiction watching and reading only divert the thoughts of people into false
Growing up the son of two very Christian parents, I have heard my fair share of sermons, with varying ranges of quality. The most common traits among the more successful communicators include passion, demonstration of thought, carefully crafted diction, and the ability to include believable personal testimony. From the beginning of Confessions, St. Augustine demonstrates the validity of his convictions, in a manner akin to a devoted pastor in today’s Church environment. Although some of Augustine’s notions are outdated, he voices the magnitude of his commitment to the God as his savior in a similar rhetorical fashion as a spokesman/woman for a Church would today, showing that he laid a foundation for the field of theology today. Even though
When Augustine started speaking about Mani that’s when he started to read about Manichean. He started to believe them because of how they speak “the truth.” Soon after, Augustine went through a hard time when his friends died. After his friends passed away Augustine made the decision to convert from Manichean
yourself and or act determines where you fall on the scale. It’s kind of like heaven or hell. If you do good in the world without sin, you go to heaven and when you do bad with sin, you go to hell. St. Augustine combined two worlds with different views on God; Neoplatisim and Christianity. All things created, whether it is good or evil; it exists in God.
Problems of Evil: There has been a great debate on the existence of God. Christian Theology describes God as omnibenevolent and omniscient thus making God morally perfect. The problems of evil refute this assumption of a perfect of God by stating that both can’t co-exist. This paper will dive into the main problems of evil and how they disprove the idea of god. In addition, it will show how the philosopher Augustine created the theodicy for the existence of both Evil and God and if he solved the problem for the existence of evil.
Augustine, in the early part of his life, struggles with faith and morality, for he is more fascinated by rhetoric than by God. As he grows older, however, he begins to explore religion more, and he eventually becomes a Catholic. Augustine’s book, The Confessions, details his progression from Manicheeism to Catholicism. The writings of the apostle, Paul, greatly influenced Augustine’s conversion. One specific writing of Paul’s that appears to have been especially resonant with Augustine is 1 Corinthians 6, in which Paul discusses the immorality or careless sexual behavior.
1. I think that crying is dear to us because as humans we want to feel some pity, but it also is a good way to express anything wrong or bad that is going on in our lives. There is a way in which the tears pouring from the eyes of the strongest person can heal. Broken hearts can become new again from simply crying to God with our sorrows. He comforts us, but we as human soften need to be reminded, we are forgetful people.
Pelagius’ idea was that humans could receive salvation when they earned it and chose to just stop sinning. Augustine thought differently in the fact that all physical things are evil, and that all spiritual things are good. He disagreed by stating that immorality is a matter of will and that it resulted from Adam and Eve
Once the goodness is blocked and shadow is cast, the desire to act in ways inconsistent with God’s goodness comes from somewhere. Some would argue that the catalyst to act in ways inconsistent with God’s will has at its core the seed of sin. If God is as pure and powerful as Augustine believed, why do we in moments of darkness use our free will to act in ways inconsistent with the goodness of God and on occasion act in evil ways? These questions are neglected in Augustine’s
Moreover, Augustine argues, since it is “God who made human beings good, it is God, not human beings, who restores human beings so that they are good. He sets them free from the evil that they have brought upon themselves, if they will it, believe, and call upon him.” Since we have by our own will brought upon ourselves sin; we cannot be healed from our sin without the grace of
He is beginning to realize that he has to change his ways in order to reach absolution. In the ninth book, Augustine shows how he was able to finally connect with God through his books and teachings. “I read on: Tremble and sin no more, and this moved me deeply, my God, because now I had learned to tremble from my past, so that in the future I might sin no more.” (Book IX, Section 4, Page 187) This shows that Augustine was finally able to find God through the readings of the Bible.
