Analysis Of Augustine's 'My Argument'

Augustine’s Confessions is a diverse blend of autobiographical accounts as well as philosophical, theological and critical analysis of the Christian Bible. Augustine treats his autobiography as an opportunity to recount his life and mentions how each event in his life has a religious and philosophical explanation. Augustine had many major events happen in his life but only 3 events would deem of extreme importance to his journey to faith. Theses major events were Book II how he describes that he considered his time of adolescence to be the most lurid and sinful period of his life, Book III how this becomes the lowest point in his relationship with God because his

In the Confessions by Saint Augustine, this great philosopher experiences many problems and emotions related to sin and evil. As a boy, he often felt darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God. Augustine started out in childhood with a restless heart because he had to live in two different worlds. These worlds consisted of his mother’s Christian faith, and the world of everything else. These two worlds confused and disturbed Augustine as a child. Augustine’s father was pagan and his mother was Christian, and they both wanted him to be very successful in the world. As he became confused, he began asking questions that could not be answered such as, “Humans often feel restless, but what is it they need to feel at

During that time, not only did he face numerous bouts of “soul searching,” he also engaged in intellectual examinations of events often viewed as acts of dissidence. Whether by acting out his erotic desires or by playful thievery, Augustine delved into examining the nature of sin as a means of understanding man’s true intentions with every action. As Augustine discussed and acted out his sexual desires, he stood firm to his idea that he did it out of an innocent need for love. In addition, Augustine’s pear theft acted as a means of showing that one who commits a criminal offense may not fully understand all of the implications it may hold for that person.

In Augustine’s Confessions, he confesses many things of which we are all guilty; the greatest of which is his sadness of not having a relationship with God earlier in his life. He expressed to us that to neglect a relationship with God is far worse than the pity he felt for Dido. In reviewing his life, he had come to examine life and how there are temptations in this world that can keep us distracted. He tells to us how he became aware of this fact; everything is negligible except love for God, and his own guilt at not having found this truth sooner.

As I had entered into my boyhood around the age of five or six, I noticed that my selfish human condition had grown and manifested itself into a more complex process. That urge to attain power and authority over people and things had grown stronger and more sophisticated. The desire I once had to benefit myself by crying as an infant grew into a desire to benefit myself by cheating and stealing as a young boy. One of my earliest memories as a boy is stealing from my families close friends. The part that troubles me most is the fact that I was fully aware of the healthy relationship that existed between my family and the family I stole from. The bag of quarters I stole from them was not out of hatred or vengeance; I stole because the thought of doing something illegal while getting away with it was too enticing to resist. I saw the stealing of the money as an indication that I am a power seeking person. The fact that I would steal from friends to benefit myself proves that I have been deceiving and greedy in nature since my infancy. Although I do agree with Augustine when he introduces very

However, Augustine has another agenda- his confessions are also meant to show his praise and love for God. He says this in the fifth book with: "Accept the sacrifice of my confessions by the agency of my tongue, which Thou has formed and quickened, that it may confess to Thy name... But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thine own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee." This is a clear declaration of his praise to God, and ​almost another underlying message of the text to the audience. So as he is writing about his life, he is trying also to set an example to the audience about how his choices were not always the best and use this as a guide to their own lives. And finally through his story, use his conversion and change as a way to praise God to show that even someone who "strayed off" the path was able to redeem themselves and how merciful and good God is to accept someone even as sinful as he was.

Topic:Essay Assignment Augustine's Confessions Throughout Confessions, Augustine's view humans-- essential nature interesting differences , time periods civilizations, humans. The classical Greeks , optimistic, Europeans Renaissance Age Enlightenment, humans optimistically: center "measure" creation; supreme strivers, good evil; characterized reason, inherently good perfectible.

Augustine is our exemplar to human nature, as well as the guideline to what it means to be human. He demonstrates both the good and bad qualities that humans obtain and show that not everything can always be all-good. In the Confessions Augustine talks about how he knows about his own imperfections. He states “At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures” (Augustine, Confessions, pg. 24). Many of his imperfections have brought a new way of thinking about the human being. In the Confessions, Augustine focuses on his autobiography and how sin comes from inside us humans. From this we have learned about the term introspective conscience and how it depicts when someone is constantly looking at him or herself and looking at the motivation to sin.

Therefore, he presents his thoughts and actions in a raw way and seems to work out on paper his motivations coming to conclusions as to what could cause these actions to occur. For example, he spends a lot of time analyzing the actions of one particular night. Augustine seems fixated and haunted by his act of stealing the pears from a neighborhood tree. Spending the most time on this event in Book 2, he recognizes how he became almost obsessed with the feeling of wrongdoing. He admits that there were better pears elsewhere that he could likely receive for free, however, it was the adrenaline from doing something as scandalous as stealing that gave him

I now am a much more careful driver and even a less careless person in other aspects of life after the consequences and feelings that occurred from getting pulled over. Augustine reflects on his actions in shame just like me and we both realize people that loved us warned us against these deeds. We both realize that our actions had very little gain. He states, “…we did eat a few, but that was not our motive: we derived pleasure from the deed simply because it was forbidden” (II.9). Augustine knows that he only shook those pears down because it was against the rules instead of actually needing the food. I knew that I really didn’t need to be home, I didn’t need to speed or disregard stop signs, but for personal want I did it anyway just as he

Augustine acknowledges that the crime that he committed, he loved it. The weird thing is that he enjoys doing these type of crimes for reason. He explains it more when he states, “If I had liked the pears which I stole and actually desired to enjoy them, I could by myself have committed that wicked act, had it been enough to attain the pleasure which I sought” (33). Which in other words, he said that if would have stolen the pears for pleasure then it would be a crime. But this time he committed the crime for the reason of pressure. He even states that the act of crime that he did is worse than the sin that Adam and Eve did back in the Garden of Eden (33). Therefore, the risk of hanging out with dangerous friends can lead you to horrible

To Augustine, an evil act is one that moves any member of creation towards exclusion from God’s universe. If a being with free will elects to move away from God for a temporal end, they are moving towards corruption or death and unleashing this force on the world around them. Once a body becomes in entirely corrupted it has no existence whatsoever, it is irrelevant to this reality and we can only imagine it based on the imprint left before it was no more. This is the ultimate death; complete exclusion from God’s universe and Augustine contrasts it with the ultimate Good, which is complete inclusion with God’s universe. Once something is outside of God’s universe, it is impossible for it have any effect. (7.13.1)

In his second book of confessions, Augustine is down to earth and honest with the readers. He is a rotten, “wasted away”, sinful young man who realizes that he was wrong and wants to become one with Christ again. He goes to list off his sins including sexual impurities and theft. He is most upset by knowing that he had mixed priorities and that he once took pleasure in committing those sins. Augustine (397) writes, “Could I find pleasure only in what was unlawful, and only because it was unlawful?” (p. 6). He says that his only reason for doing wrong was just to be able to say he did wrong. Augustine also mentions that he felt pressured by his peers and that his parents were not proactive in stopping him from committing those sins.

In Book III and chapter IV of Confessions, Augustine presents the reader with a very “unstable period” of his life. He was nineteen years old and his father had passed away . During this time Augustine read Cicero’s Hortensius which was a “defense of the study of philosophy, exhorting readers to look for truth in whatever guise truth may take” During this time he resolves to look for the truth. While searching he comes across the bible which he “finds disappointing and disillusioned and moves on to

In Saint Augustine’s Confessions, he reflects on his past experiences and grapples to find certainty in understanding his numerous ties to the material world. As he continues to reflect on these moments of incontinence, Augustine recognizes that God’s presence never left him alone although God did not directly stop him in his choices. Augustine himself causes his soul’s miserable condition, so he himself must be the one to find and choose fulfillment of his soul in God, whose eternal stable nature can provide rest, as God alone is “the constant cause of inconstant things” (Conf. 1.9). Just as he learns in schooling, “free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion,” God’s gentle nudging for Augustine to find faith is the upward push necessary to break his chains. So, Augustine must let go of turning to lower, fleeting goods by distinguishing which experiences harm or benefit his soul (Conf. 1.23).