Augustine The Visible And The Invisible

In The Confessions, Augustine goes on a journey to discover the truth, and purses the ideals of how he should live and what he finds value in. In his pursuit for the truth and his journey through life, Augustine is faced with obstacles that significantly shaped who he is, forming his very thoughts contained in the novel. The obstacles Augustine had to face through his life was the confrontation of sin and why humans perform sinful actions, the passing of his friend, and the passing of his own mother.

I really enjoyed reading your discussion post. I agree that Augustine philosophy and theology still impact the church today. Christianity is a journal and it does take years to understand the scriptures and how they relate to our Christian walk with Christ. Christians are commanded to witness to people and impact their lives. Ferguson states, “The presbyter Simplicians took on Augustine as his personal project. Augustine read the commentary on Paul written by Marius Victorinus, who had been converted in 355 from Neoplatonism to Christianity.” We as Christians must minister to people and help them changed their lives so that they can have a relationship with Christ.

John of Damascus argues in favor of Icons. He begins with a definition of images and worship. He argues that an image is a representation of “invisible and intangible things, on which they throw a faint light” (John of Damascus, 1). This definition is attractive, especially when applied to religious figures because it provides worshippers with a better understanding of God and His decrees. John argues that God permits images, such as the ark, the staff, and the tabernacle (2). John affirms, “I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter…” (2). According to John, God reduced himself to matter for worshippers to create visual representations of God. These images represent the

Augustine yearns to be a great rhetorician and studies the textbooks of rhetoric in order to become the best in the art of eloquence. Incidentally, he stumbles on a book of Cicero that leads in an unexpected direction. After reading Cicero’s Hortensius, Augustine begins to reestablish a relationship with God, as he says, “It altered my outlook on life. It changed my prayers to you, O Lord, and provided me with new hopes and aspirations…I began to climb out the depths to which I had sunk, in order to return to you.” (III.4, pp58-59). Among all his companions, only Augustine is able to see beneath the surface of Hortensius’ eloquence and embrace its truth. This is important to highlight because Augustine’s focus on the literary work’s content rather than its style indicates an awareness that is not found anywhere else in Book III. Augustine’s language is able to show that he sees the truth of Hortensius with the use of “hopes and aspirations”, and the positive connotation conveyed through these words contrasts with the negative implication of lust. For the first time in the book, Augustine sees beyond his lust and metaphorically begins to “climb out the depths” of the hissing cauldron in the first sentence. Nonetheless, his transfiguration is uncomplete because it is missing God Himself. Augustine explains this when he says, “These were the words which excited me and set me burning with fire, and the only check to this blaze of enthusiasm was that they made no mention of the name of Christ.” (III.4, pp59). The only things that checks Augustine’s enthusiasm for Cicero’s book is that it “made no mention of the

For example images of Saints and the lives they lived give us something to aspire towards almost acting as a manual of how we can live a fulfilled life in participation with God.Saint John also argues that the commandment given to Moses that worship of idols and graven images is forbidden ( Exodus 20:3-4) is not applicable anymore as we are living in a new era ushered in by Christ who supports images and to show this he gives ( Matthew 22:17) as evidence.

Throughout his Confessions, Augustine's view of humans--our essential nature has interesting differences from the way in which others, in different time periods and in different civilizations, have seen humans.

You prompt us yourself to find satisfaction in appraising you, since you made us tilted toward you, and our heart is unstable until stabilized in you. Quintessentially, this quote from Confessions symbolizes Augustine’s perilous journey towards Christianity. Although appearing earlier in what is colloquially known as the “first autobiography”, Augustine expounds on this very idea throughout his writings. Whether that includes his attraction and disdain for Manichaeism or his affinity with Neo-Platonism, one could argue this quote acted as the foundation of his inquisitions of these pre-modern dogmatic sects. Augustine, despite his perils with intellectual paradoxes, sought to understand these rigid entities that seemed to have variant

The idea of the hero in Greco-Roman culture was integrated into the idea of the saint (in the process of conversion and totalization) by way of Christianity's adoption of and ancestry in the Greco-Roman culture. As Professor Ambrosio indicates, "The need and the search for meaning is shared by all human beings" (Hero or Saint Saul of Tarsus). Thus, it is no surprise to find that a pagan Greco-Roman title is applicable to a Christian whose virtue is viewed as greater than that of ordinary men just as the hero is viewed as greater (in fame, bravery, strength) than ordinary men. The fact that two of early Christianity's most heroic figures (St. Paul and St. Augustine) were Roman makes this integration even less surprising. This paper will discuss the way in which the hero is integrated into the idea of the saint by comparing Saul of Tarsus with Augustine of Hippo two men who underwent a conversion and rose to "heroic" or "saintly" heights in terms of Christian virtue.

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

One of the greatest problems Augustine struggles with in the course of his spiritual journey was with the image of God. Augustine was struggling with the idea that anything not occupying space could still have an existence. For a long time, he pictured God as “a secret breath of life” or like sunlight, when he shouldn’t have been “picturing” him at all. “My eyes are accustomed to such images,” he writes, “and my heart accepted the same structure.” In Book IV, Augustine was trying to conceive how God could have beauty and magnitude as attributes; he failed to realize that “you [God] yourself are your own magnitude and your own beauty.” This error led Augustine further into problems of trying to imagine God. Under the influence of Manicheism,

Before submitting himself to God, Augustine lived a life controlled by various sinful tendencies such as theft and lust. Surrounded by strong believers of Catholicism, such as his mother, St. Monica, Augustine grew up questioning Christ and the faith and rather explored other religions. Two religions that Augustine devoted himself to were Manichaeism and Neoplatonism. While both religions had strengths and flaws, neither truly satisfied Augustine’s spiritual emptiness. Before devoting himself fully to the Catholic faith, Augustine is seen as an honorable saint because of the significance of his works and teachings. Augustine’s conversion from Manichaeism to Neoplatonism to Catholicism as noted through Confessions, transformed his life from being powered by sin and immortality to a life dominated by rectitude and devotion.

Many saints were first some of the most frequent sinners. How could a leopard rub off all of his spots? Can people truly change their ways? Stories of conversion may seem unlikely, but for some they are pure fact. One of the most renowned stories of conversion is the one of Saint Augustine. Saint Augustine of Hippo by his own omission started his life in a circle of lust, pride, and vanity. He says in his book Confessions, “here proud, there superstitious, everywhere vain.” Saint Augustine’s life is a story of a man born on religion, drawn towards sin, and reclaimed by the light in time to become one of the most influential men of Western Christianity.

The “City of God” is an eloquently written challenge, from Saint Augustine, for human society to choose which city it wishes to be a part of, the city of God or the city of man. As described by Augustine, the city of God is a metaphorical place where the citizens love, glorify, worship, and praise God. They find their strength and authority through mutual servitude with Yahweh. This city is then compared to the earthly city where the people love themselves, glorify themselves, find strength in themselves, and worship themselves or created things. The earthly city seeks praise from people and strives for domination. These two cities are the crux of Augustine’s novel which entails people to be worthy citizens of the City of Heaven, despite the devastating fall of Rome. Many people questioned whether Christianity was at fault for Rome’s demise, claiming that the pagan gods were angry that Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, thus the pagan gods were thought to have left, leaving Rome vulnerable to attack. Thereby, Augustine sets out to dispute these beliefs by stating that God initiated all of creation, and in such a grand plan, the fall of Rome is rather insignificant. The more important issue is to choose a life in the city of man or the city of God, of which Augustine marks the parameters with compelling metaphors that beg the reader to choose the everlasting city because it provides the achievement of peace, the achievement of a purposeful ending, and the

Saint Augustine of Hippo in his Confession asserts that the world is limited in space, and its existence is limited in time. (Augustine Confessions, p.160) Time… It is what every human being deals with every day and characterizes it as the combination of past, present and future. The progression of time turns into our experience, so that the future will come to replace the present, which, in turn, will become the past. Whatever we do, time flows and will flow in one direction, and the clock will always tick at the same pace.

Theologians, Biblical scholars and Christians all over the world often wrestle with two extremely important questions about their faith. These questions are, "What is God like?" and "How should we live in response to God?" Some feel that we need others to direct us, some feel we need them to challenge us, but everyone agrees that we need others. That is exactly how Saint Augustine struggles to find his faith and beliefs. He found it extremely difficult to come with a conclusion when it was staring at him straight in the face, but just as he did, we draw up our own conclusions with the guidance of others.