Augustine's Irrational Behavior Analysis

Augustine: Why yes I do, for it is a will by which we seek to live a good and upright life and to attain unto perfect wisdom.

He recounted how, “I loved the evil in me - not the thing for which I did the evil, simply the evil'' (p. 177). God easily could have turned His back on Augustine for this love of sinfulness, the very thing that causes humanity to be separated from God. Instead, Augustine stated how, “You [God] were always by me, mercifully hard upon me” (p. 176). God never abandoned Augustine in his state of depravity, and had endless mercy on him by leading him back to

Augustine sates there are three general kinds of sin, those of the flesh, mind, and will. He reaffirms this saying “I sinned because I disobeyed them not in order to choose something more worthwhile, but simply because I loved games. I hankered to win myself glory in out contests, and to have my ears tickled by tall stories, which only made them itch more hotly; and all the while that same curiosity more and more inflamed my eyes with the list for the public shows which are the games of grownups (Augustine, 1,16).” Augustine is saying we commit these forms of sin, not because we are finding something more worthwhile, but because of our human nature. We sin because we love the feeling we get when we do something wrong. Even though we can will ourselves to do good and not sin, it is in our very nature to do wrong every since the fall. In Himes “Ancient Israel’s response to the dilemma is that evil does not come from God; it comes from us when we reject ourselves and refuse to accept the goodness of our own being (Himes, 31)” Himes uses the word evil instead of sin, however both are synonymous, in religion. Ancient Israel relies that sin is part of our nature and something we will have to deal with even though it is wrong.

In this paper I will write about Augustine and his thoughts and ideas on sin in the Confessions, where sin originates and whether or not I believe that Augustine’s conception of sin has a place in modern society. From all of this I will conclude that through Augustine's work and findings, Augustine’s conception of the human person and their human actions are somewhat relevant today, due to the fact Augustine set a standard for what human nature is, known as the ability to desire, think and do, yet, people see the human differently today than Augustine did. At the same time his ideas of original sin and how the evil nature of humans is associated with original sin are still very relevant today.

Augustine was an opportunist, who didn’t know his place on earth or which religion to choose. He wasn’t for God and nor was he for Satan, but only for himself. Augustine believes that people can be blind to their reliance on God. “By the time of Augustine’s birth, Christianity had established itself as the official religion of the Roman Empire” (Davis, et al. 64). This did not necessarily mean, however, that a young man of promising abilities would become a Christian. He was blinded by God’s truth and later became baptized. Augustine also would’ve been placed in the second circle of Hell, lust. He was overcome at a young age with sexual desire and pleasures. Augustine would’ve disagreed with Dante’s Inferno because Augustine accepted he was lost in the world. Augustine could not believe in Catholicism, because he visualizes God and Satan as physical bodies. Augustine wouldn’t agree that someone who does not share a belief in God should be sent to Hell. It took Augustine until his old age to find his way into Christianity. Augustine learns later on his life that sins are a result of corruption of the human will. Augustine also understands that if you believe in God there is no evil. In Catholic terms, his work is a confession by nature of its threefold emphasis on admission of sin, declaration of faith, and praise of God.

He believes that everyone has the option to make a decision about something. He says that free will is the ability in human beings to act otherwise and there is a connection between being able to act otherwise and the notion that some acts are never ok to do. Moral absolutes can also be found in Christian tradition with St. Augustine. St. Augustine discussed the topic of lying and lying, as most people know, is considered to be intrinsically evil. However, he believes that there are some instances in which lying is necessary because, sometimes, it brings about good

In Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will he explains that the human soul is predisposed to have a good will and that “it is a will by which we desire to live upright and honorable lives and to attain the highest wisdom” (Augustine 19, 1993). Augustine believes that in order to be free we must live according to our good will. To follow our good will we must live according to the four main virtues in life: prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice. He defines prudence as having “the knowledge of what is to be desired and what is to be avoided” (Augustine 20, 1993). Augustine establishes fortitude as “the disposition of the soul by which we have no fear of misfortune or of the loss of things that are not in our power” (Augustine 20,1993).

In The City of God, Augustine writes about the nature of evil and where he believes it to come from and what the purpose of evil is to the world and humans. He states, “Good thing prevail over bad, however: so much so that, although evil things are permitted to exist in order to demonstrate how the justice and perfect foresight of the Creator can make good use even of them, good things can nonetheless exist without evil…” By this, Augustine is simply saying that without evil in the world, good will not technically exist because it is just the way things are. Evil shows the light on good and gives us proof that the creator is good and can beat evil. In the Chronicles of Narnia book The Magicians Nephew, we get a peek of this very similar ideology

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

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

God is according to Augustine the single sovereign, who rules over everything, even the evil forces in the universe. This sovereignty is grounded in Augustine’s understanding that God created everything. This assumption ultimately solves the question why evil exists. It exists because God created it, just like he created everything else. Augustine suggests that everything God creates in inherently good. However, creatures can become “evil” because they are prone to corruption (Mann 44). Furthermore, rational beings have

     According to Augustine, “Human beings are endowed with a power that he calls the will.” He emphasizes the will to being the center of freedom. Unlike other philosophers, who are determinists, Augustine, who has a libertarian view, sees our will as free choice. So for whatever we may choose to do, we become solely responsible for our actions which are caused by external factors instead of internal ones.

It is obvious from The Confession that Augustine was a man who struggled endlessly to extricate himself from the bondage of sin, but the more he tried, the more he failed and sinks deeper into its abyss. And with every failure, comes a sense of disappointment and despondency, until he had a strange experience. In AD 386, while sitting in his garden, Augustine heard a voice from some children playing not far away urging “him” to pick the book—the Bible, and read. What he read from Apostle Paul’s letter to the Roman Christian in Chapter 13 transformed, not only his understanding of the hopelessness and despair man encounters in trying to solve the problem of sin on his own, but he saw the provision that God has made to remedy the consequences of sin and the grace he has graciously provided to live a life that is acceptable to God. That moment was the turning point in Augustine’s life and how he developed his sotoriological

“For when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist” (Augustine 177). In sum, when evil is controlled it will no longer exist in the good or anywhere else. Augustine relates this to the vices in our soul and how they are nothing but deprivations of natural good. Just like the disease and wounds, when the vices are cured, they cease to exist in the soul and everywhere else. What he is trying to say is that God didn’t create evil for its own purpose. God is supremely good and wouldn’t put evil on this earth if we weren’t able to get some good out of it. So evil is here for the purpose of good.

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).