Materially, Augustine would describe himself as a soul and body made one at his birth. He says that God is the instantiation of both life and being, and He joins these two qualities in humans when they are born into the world.

To ask Augustine who is he as an immaterial person, he would answer that he is a gift from God, and a sinner. He is very harsh on himself, especially as a young boy, of being a terrible flawed sinner, only saved by the things from God he sought. In the ending of the chapter talking to God he concludes, “…I will be with you; because this too is your gift to me – that I exist” (24).

Augustine depicts his childhood as being harsh and full of sin. He finds that he was of greater sin as a boy than as an adult. Even as an