Essay about Augustine And Love

He talks about the two loves formed by the two cities: "the earthly by the love of the self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God" (Placher 119). Giving all thanks to God, there Augustine understands all the good he does on earth will lead him to the city of God. However, if humans live on earth for their own self, they will not be able to enter the city of

Young Augustine weeps for the woman who dies for her love, as an older Augustine weeps over his complete ignorance and incontinence. Young Augustine is ignorant of the presence of God in his life, and is compelled not to weep for his own spiritual distance from God, but instead for a tragedy that, in the mind of the older Augustine, is incomparable to the tragedy of being without God. The older Augustine is compelled by his advanced knowledge of the Lord’s proximity to lament his previous lack of control over his habits, proclaiming “I had no love for you and ‘committed fornication against you’ (Ps. 72:27); and in my fornications, I heard all round me the cries ‘Well done, well done’ (Ps. 34:21; 39:16) … I abandoned you to pursue the lowest things of your creation.” (Conf. 16). This reveals that Young Augustine lives an entirely habitual life, never thinking of God or his importance, instead concerned with material and worldly concerns such as reputation and honor. This state of pure habit does not leave space for Young Augustine to have continence, and leaves him to act out his life according to passion and emotions.

Throughout Confessions, Augustine, in retrospect, rejects many of the texts he came across in his life. He first exhibits this when he describes how wrong it was to have reacted emotionally to the Aeneid. He “wept over Dido, who ‘died pursuing her ultimate end with a sword’” (Conf. 1.21), while at the same time he failed to realize he was “dying by [his] alienation from [God]” (Conf. 1.20). Here Augustine laments the fact he wept over Dido’s death while at the same time worsened his own condition by ignoring God and his own sinfulness. He is highly critical of himself in the way he approached the Aeneid as a child, describing himself as having “abandoned [God] to pursue the lowest things of [God’s] creation” (Conf. 1.21). Because the Aeneid leads Augustine further away from God it cannot have any significance in one’s life.

At a younger and earlier stage of his life, St. Augustine felt abandoned in some way by God and found no strong connection to a higher being as he developed into a materialist who could only grasp tangible concepts. Little did he see in his life that God was with him through his trials and tribulations as a man on a journey who fell into a life of sin through lust and stealing. Augustine writes, “But in my misery seethed and followed the driving force of my impulses, abandoning you. I exceeded all the bounds set by your law, and did not escape your chastisement-indeed no moral can do so” (Confessions 2:4 p. 25). This driving force was God’s providence. Augustine was spending time in sin, God was punishing him with a sense of emptiness that could not be filled. By turning to such pleasures, he turned away from God and needed such illicit things to realize that he needs a sense of something more in his life. He states, “Before you I lay my heart and my memory. At that time you were dealing with me in your hidden

     Augustine on his own view stole the fruit for the mere enjoyment of the sin and theft that the stealing involved. He says in (II,4)

XII, p. 130). It is obvious from this quote that Augustine now fully subscribes to the idea of only one God, who created “all things.” This differs from Gnostics, who believed in two Gods—one of matter and one of the spirit. This is shown in the Gnostic Gospel of Mary, which states, “Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature” (Mary 4:30). This means that matter and nature are “contrary,” meaning they are two separate things that were created by two different Gods.

In the book Augustine’s Confessions, there were multiply themes in the story which made the book great. One theme of Augustine’s Confession is the problem which many Americans face today. That is evil. Evil is everywhere in the world. Augustine lost his mistress, mother and even his own son in the book. He had to also figure out why god is punishing people with these action. So found out the answer to the evil, Augustine ask why is God good and still allows suffering to exist. Augustine found out that evil because of the free will that people have. God lets human pick what to do with their lives and the evil comes from the choices which you have decided. For example, a pregnant mother decides to drink alcohol while carrying her baby around. When the baby is finally born, the baby has problems with earing, talking, or even speaking. This is the evil choice which the mother had made. There are many kinds of evil and one of them are natural evil. Natural evil is a disease which another human has and it spreads around town. For example, people during the winter time have the flu. The flu spreads around town and soon enough, everyone will have it. This is a natural evil because you didn’t cause it. Another example of natural evil is the black plague. The black plague spreads all over Europe and killed about 30 to 60 percent of Europe. The black plague was started in China due to the workers not cleaning up there shop. Soon enough, it was death of 350 million people. It is said to

With god aware of the evil that humanity has created, Augustine’s explanation of how god has already forgiven and created a way for humanity to embrace the light provide spiritual reasoning for sins that are committed. As with the sacrifice of Jesus and offered redemption of the many sins that are committed reflect the all-knowing and forgiving nature of god. Through his personal experience Augustine’s mental state throughout his life until finding god is one of the factors for his conclusion to the problem and question. Putting this in perspective, to know the god has already forgiven through redemption and has already sacrificed for humanity, further prove key elements in his perfect state being that he is all loving and all knowing. Furthermore, to think god in the event of being merciless and vengeful or angered by humanity which causes him to inflicts evil onto the world by his will is not a valid reason due to the sacrifice and redemption which he has allowed to happen in restoring the good which his creation lacks.

In book 1 of Confessions, Augustine described his infancy and the period he went to school. During this time, he raised many questions about God, one of them being how to reach for God if he didn’t know what God actually is. Augustine’s point makes sense because it is difficult to imagine yourself trying to find something that you do not know how it looks like. For him, the solution was to believe in God and as a result everything else would be taken care of. Still on book 1, Augustine stated that when he was a child, he was not innocent, but rather selfish as he had needs and motivations that were far from God’s principles and rather closer to the “sinful world”. And who was to blame for Augustine’s behavior? Maybe his parents and teachers, who did not know the real purpose of education, which was to teach about Christianity, instead of language rules. As Augustine wrote, “I was told that (…) [to] do well at my study of grammar and get on in the world.

Augustine implies God initiates the God/ man relationship. God created man in his image, gave him the power of prayer to speak with him whenever he wants to, and before the fall, speak with him face to face. I believe God does initiate the relationship for the very reason that he created us, he clearly wants us, and he sent his son to die for us, how or why would someone do all this for someone/thing he does not love and desire a relationship with? Man did not create God, God created man.

He philosophised original sin and about evil and free will. Original sin is the teaching that everyone is born sinful and with a desire to disobey God, as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s actions in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3). The effect of original sin is damnation, where, until a person dies, that person will be distanced from God. There is possible redemption through baptism. According to Augustine, original sin explains the “presence of sin in human history” (genocide, war, cruelty, exploitation, abuse) (Class notes, August 8 2015). This means that evil has entered the world due to a disconnection with God. The reasons for evil according to Augustine is that God is not present in all things and that evil only happens because of God’s distance from material reality Class notes, August 8 2015). Augustine stated, “God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.” This purports that humans are too distracted by the materialistic to fully accept God into their lives. Also, people have the free will to live ‘Godly’ lives, but individuals can also choose evil by giving into the pursuit of worldly pleasure, therefore, being less like God. Additionally, humans cannot take all the credit for when they do good, but take all the blame if they do evil. Augustine philosophised about original sin and its occurrence through evil being present in the world, this

The cause of evil itself, according to Augustine, is the human will, and thus all blame for it rests on our shoulders, not on Gods. We willfully turn our souls away from God when we perform evil deeds. Even the punishment that God imposes on us for our evil is something that we brought on ourselves. Consequently, a first solution that Augustine offers to the problem of evil is that human will is the cause of evil and reason for divine punishment. A second and related solution is that the evil we willfully create within our souls is only a deprivation of goodness. Think of God’s goodness like a bright white light; the evil that we humans create is like an act of dimming that light, or shielding ourselves from it to create an area of darkness. It is not like we’ve created a competing light source of our own, such as a bright red light that we shine around to combat God’s bright white light. Accordingly, the evil that we create through our wills is the absence of good, and not a substantive evil in itself.

One of the opening lines of his Confessions may provide a clue: “Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you” (21). This suggests that man possesses an innate instinct to seek God and spiritual enlightenment. It implies that man, as a product of God, will inherently desire knowledge of and a relationship with his creator. Augustine continues by saying: “The thought of [God] stirs [man] so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (21). This suggests that though man may struggle on earth, should he decide to turn to God he will experience peace and rest in the Lord. Here Augustine also states that unless man has found God, “he cannot be content,” implying that those who have not found God will feel a constant inner void.

In the beginning, God created the world. He created the earth, air, stars, trees and mortal animals, heaven above, the angels, every spiritual being. God looked at these things and said that they were good. However, if all that God created was good, from where does un-good come? How did evil creep into the universal picture? In Book VII of his Confessions, St. Augustine reflects on the existence of evil and the theological problem it poses. For evil to exist, the Creator God must have granted it existence. This fundamentally contradicts the Christian confession that God is Good. Logically, this leads one to conclude evil does not exist in a created sense. Augustine arrives at the conclusion that evil itself is not a formal thing, but the

The content of my paper will be an analysis of Augustine’s Confessions. I will focus on the first nine chapters of the book. First, I will write an introductory page about Augustine. Second, I will explain why Augustine wrote the Confessions and the importance of the Confessions as a philosophical work. I will analyze Augustine’s view of God and show the main theme of his book, which is, the sovereign God of grace and the sovereign grace of God. I will focus on Augustine’s view of God and His grace.