Proposed Seven Philosophers On The Existence Of God And Their Development Of These Ideas

He then realizes he can only find happiness in God because God is good. He asks when will God stop being angry at him for all the sin he has committed. As he repents, there was a calling from God as he read the bible. He leaves everything behind and starts his spiritual journey to seek happiness in God (Placher 104-105). Then in "The City of God", Augustine sees the goodness of God.

I agree with Augustine on his spiritual principles. It is essential in the Christian faith to study the scriptures to gain wisdom and knowledge on how one is to live life. I refer to scriptures from the Holy Bible; scriptures that encourage us to seek knowledge from God. In the book of James 5:1, we are told to seek wisdom from God, not from the books written by men. “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him,” (Holy Bible) and here we are advised in the book of I Corinthians 3:19-20, “For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (Holy Bible)

It can then be deduced that belief to Augustine is not a choice; the choice arises through man’s action. Acts of choosing to believe God are simply a reaffirmation of one’s belief, while choosing the world and not God in one’s actions is simply denying God, although one can never fully disbelieve: the world is a substitute for God, as previously examined. The choice available restricts free will while allowing men to choose their actions, not their belief. Further, the fall of man, where human weaknesses stem from, presupposes God’s existence, as does Augustine. Consequently, choices to Augustine reflect our denial or acceptance of the truth that God is real. In this theological perspective, Augustine supports God’s existence completely, and his ascetic choice further upholds his belief. God’s creation further explains Augustine’s perspective on belief, Augustine stating that “[t]he only thing that does not come from [God] is what does not exist,” and that combined with “ any movement of the will away from [God who is] and towards that which is in a lesser way” (178). Denying God, moving away from God, who exists, is a movement defined as both a “crime and sin” (178). This freedom, again, does not deny God, but is, in spite of his existence, a means to explain one’s belief or doubt. Augustine’s Confessions clearly describes this path of sin and denial that unquestionably leads to a necessary habit of committing it, resulting in Augustine himself becoming a slave to sin. It is only by God’s power, the power than humanity does not possess, that can help man escape the godless way of life that is living through sin. Belief of God then, is not a choice for Augustine; it is our free will that allows the choice of living for or against God, and why resisting temptation and sin and living for God completely is a main idea throughout the Confessions; by choosing the world, one denies

Augustine was eminent by Platonism and declared that there is one God and that God was and is the wellspring of all Happiness because of His perfect adoration. In this manner, anything that needs to do with our ethics cognizant is at last God and we ought to uninhibitedly need to take after our cognizant as it is divine law Augustine sees awareness as God is letting us know what is correct and what isn't right, he is our witness and the voice of God ought not be addressed, but rather it is our human senses that permit us to second figure our nature and conflict with God's arrangement and this prompts is the reason we encounter a despondent life we see as insufficient. My Argument is that if God is the voice of our awareness and our cognizant

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,

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

St. Augustine couldn’t rap his head around the idea of something that was not made of matter (taking up space) existing. So he tried to see God in a physical sense. He had no conception of spiritual substance. Trying to picture God as “a secret breath of life” when he shouldn’t of been trying to “picture” Him at all. In Chapter 17 of book VII, St Augustine described how he had this “vision” of God. He did not physically see the God, but he saw the “invisible things, understood by the things which are made” He experienced this world of being that Plato talks about without seeing with the physical eye. It was an encounter with God. This encounter took place in the existence that Plato calls the “World of Being.” St. Augustine spoke about the two different worlds and how one was pure

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

Augustine asks us if we are alive, and we must agree because by agreeing, we are proving that we are alive. He then asks us if we understand that these two facts are true. If we understand, then he has proven the last concept. We, as humans, who are alive and exist, have reason. Without reason, we would not understand that we are alive, or even exist.

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

St. Augustine was a theologian and philosopher born in Africa to St. Monica. Although he is now known as a an incredibly influential Christian writer and thinker, his early years were defined by rebellion and discord that did not, in the least, reflect Christianity or the values that he is now known for supporting. His early years were freckled with mindless disobedience, wretched behavior, and characterized godlessness that makes his conversion to the faith incredibly remarkable and one that is worth defining in Saint Augustine 's Confessions. His incredible turnaround from a faithless man to a devout supporter of Christianity is significant and is freckled with many major milestones that truly demonstrate his spiritual and internal growth into one of the biggest spiritual icons of the fifth century. These major milestones include his realization that his boyhood was defined by pointless rebellious behavior, even though he grew up in a Christian home, his new found appreciation for philosophy as well as God and his incredible mercy during his years as a student at Carthage,

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,

Augustine, who lived from A.D. 354 – 430, was a genius in certain aspects of biblical exegesis. He was part of the Western School of interpretation. He developed significant theories of biblical interpretation such as: the interpreter must possess a genuine Christian faith & the literal and historical meaning of Scripture should be held in high regard, to name a few. Unfortunately, Augustine forsook most of his own principles and tended to follow a method of allegorization. His theories, however, became the predominant view of the middle ages.

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.

Descartes and Augustine, in their respective examinations of the mind and God, come to the conclusion that the true understanding of all things derives from the withdrawal of the self from foreign influence and the necessity to look inward. Although each thinker’s journey or course of understanding was different, and at times rather contrasting, their ultimate realizations about knowledge are very coherent.