Augustine Worldview Research Paper

(14) and "How did [God] make heaven and earth" (226). Through questions, Augustine wrestles with issues including the nature of God and man, the origin of sin in man, and the relationship

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

Aurelius Augustinius, St. Augustine, was born in 354 A.D. in Tagaste, a town in North Africa. Born just over a century before the fall of Rome, Augustine would live his entire life within the Roman empire. Augustine was a great Christian thinker and wrote numerous works which survive today, and offer us a vivid glimpse into the period. His works and thoughts on Christ, the nature of God, the role of the Church, and myriad other topics, shaped much of medieval thought. He would remain a major influence for 1000 years after he died. Two of his works stand out as possibly the most important of his writings: City of God, and Confessions. Augustine's Confessions is the first ever

Augustine’s contention that man cannot possibly come into truth by reason in his temporal life constitutes his initial departure from the ancients, and results in the need for an entirely new structuring of the relationship between man and the good. In differentiating between the nature of God and man, Augustine argues that man’s nature—unlike God’s—is corruptible, and is thus “deprived of the light of eternal truth” (XI, 22) . This stands the thought of Plato on its head, since now no amount of contemplation and argument will be capable of getting man closer to a truth that exists on a plane that “surpasses the reach of the human mind” (XXI, 5). If reason is an instrument as flawed as man himself, how, then,

St Augustine of Hippo created the Augustinian theodicy in which he says that God created a perfect world free of all types of evil. He says that God gave us free will, therefore when Adam and Eve sinned for the first time, they destroyed the state of perfection and created a lack of good within themselves. St Augustine describes God as a loving and just father, and states that by allowing his children to suffer the punishment for sin, God is being just. But God is also loving and through the death of Jesus he grants us all a place in heaven. I have several problems with this theodicy.

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.

A. The Trinitarian aspect of God's image appears in the mature works of Augustine. VII. Under neo-Platonic influence, the cognition of God in Augustine, as the Trinity, appears and develops independently of the faith. VIII.

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.

For Augustine, God is both the source of Supreme good, and the Supreme good itself. The Supreme good is the perfect state of things. In Platonic thought, there is the perfect idea of things, or the form, and the various physical

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.

St. Augustine is a man with a rational mind. As a philosopher, scholar, and teacher of rhetoric, he is trained in and practices the art of logical thought and coherent reasoning. The pursuits of his life guide him to seek concrete answers to specific questions. Religion, the practice of which relies primarily on faith—occasionally blind faith—presents itself as unable to be penetrated by any sort of scientific study or inquiry. Yet, like a true scientist and philosopher, one of the first questions St. Augustine poses in his Confessions is: “What, then, is the God I worship” (23)? For a long time, Augustine searches for knowledge about God as a physical body, a particular entity—almost as if the Lord

Many great classical thinkers had a profound influence on later great thinkers. Plato and Aristotle are just two examples that come to mind out of many. It would be interesting to ponder the possibility as to whether or not the thought of later times would have the same ground that it has if it were not for these great thinkers that came before.

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

572). Diving deep into the notion of who God is, Augustine vividly establishes why “God never created any evil nature” (Loc. 1127). He claims that God is good and purely spirit, and He fills all aspects of His creations. Having created us, we are filled with his goodness. Augustine says, “Our good ever lives with Thee; from which when we turn away, we are turned aside” (Loc. 926).

At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,