St. Augustine Religious Experience Essay

With paganism on the decline and Catholic Christianity on the rise, Saint Augustine was one of many to experience a spiritual conversion in the first few centuries following the death of Christ. Although he was oftentimes unaware of God’s presence in his life before he underwent conversion, Augustine was certainly aware of the presence of his earthly companions - his friends. As seen throughout Saint Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine’s spiritual journey towards conversion to Catholicism is paralleled by his friendships. No individual friendship is the sole cause of Augustine’s spiritual progress or lack thereof, but as Augustine grows older the developing complexity of his friendships ultimately culminates in his conversion.

Augustine’s spiritual journey takes place on a serpentine track outfitted with tempting divergent paths and disincentives that are scattered throughout the duration of his expedition. As just one of the many different aspects of his life, friendship plays an essential role in his journey; consequently, it is also one of the many things that Augustine scrutinizes under his theological magnifying glass. For Augustine, friendship is among the most vital facets of human existence and poses as one of the many puzzle pieces in forming the picture of who a person is

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, is a true defender of the Catholic faith with an inspirational conversion story which he shares in his writings titled the Confessions. Published around 400 A.D., St. Augustine Confessions had a major influence on western civilization. This beautifully written and intellectually brilliantly narrative on his conversion, St. Agustin brings to light his personal spiritual journey during his conversion to Catholicism. Completing his book in 400, St. Augustine incorporated praise of God, philosophical and theological inquiries, and the chain of sinful habits he had to break to give his life to Christ.

Augustine was bathed in tears of prayer and teaching from his mother; however, before Augustine’s conversion in his thirties, his teen years were live as a wild man, indulging in momentary pleasures of lust and fame, with lustful attempts to satisfy his empty heart. Augustine’s Confessions are stories of his life, a prayer of sorrow, separated from his heavenly Father, a true healing and reconciliation to God. Augustine may have been carried by the scripture, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” (James 5:16, English Standard

Augustine: A New Biography by James O’Donnell truly challenges readers to view Augustine through a different lens. Augustine, who greatly influenced Christian philosophy and the development of Christianity as a whole within Western Civilization, is known by people around the world. These people will more than likely be dismayed when they read James O’Donnell’s view of Augustine in which they possibly, will call blasphemous. O’ Donnell claims that his biography starts where Augustine’s Confessions ends. It is understandable that an everyday person would not want to include everything in their memoir, but when it comes to St. Augustine and a book called Confessions, we might need to cast out our trust a little. O’ Donnell’s biography challenges readers to reel that trust back in as he challenges the life of St. Augustine. Of course there are people who are already weary of Augustine and his views, in which this book would be very beneficial to them. If anything, this book provides interesting bias about one of histories greatest figures. O’Donnell, who clearly has a gift for not being seduced by Augustine’s writings, provides information that explains that St. Augustine is not the influential being that we all thought. O’Donnell works to provide information about the true Augustine by shedding light on Augustine’s passion for Christianity, by exposing his goal of self-promotion, and telling of Augustine’s god.

Augustine experienced thoroughly in himself, and analyzed with pain and with a sense of real tragedy, what happened to this world of ours, namely, the fall of Adam and the redemption of Christ, sin and the forgiveness of sin. He experienced the wretchedness of fallen human nature and its healing through grace. This inner experience thus defines his approach to all things of this world, both material and spiritual, as well as explains his profound is trust of all that is purely on the natural level and so foreign to the supernatural, yet he shows an unshakable trust in the work of salvation through Christ and his Church. Should this not be our guiding

However, before he will begin talking of his own life there is prayers of invocation and reflections on the mystery of God 's indwelling and being. This serves to situate the writings as a spiritual account of God 's work in Augustine 's life, rather than a removed biography. Seeing himself as one who abandoned the true religion, he wrestles with some fundamental challenges he faces upon reflection - where was God when Augustine was not living a Christian life or does knowledge of God precede or follow from calling upon God? Reading his account of God 's being (Confessions, Book I, Chapter IV) one has the sense that this particularly poetic chapter reflects a converted soul 's struggle to reconcile paradoxical images of God, which Augustine juxtaposes to convey a sense of mystery. Phrases like "my Lord God" carry distinctly biblical tones since the Divine Name is often translated 'Adonai ' (Lord). There are clearly other biblical influences on the chapter. God is "never new, never old, yet making all things new" referring to God 's eternal nature and Revelation 21:25. However, other descriptions seem to draw on other philosophical traditions. An expression of God reflected Platonic forms is seen as God is "most high, best, most powerful" even to the extent of being both the "furthest and nearest". "The idea of the true philosopher seeking the light as if in a darkened cave can

He seeks God and ponders whether God can be sought after if the notion of God is not already known. Augustine’s answer posed to his initial claim is that “knowing you (God) precedes calling upon you (God)” (Book I.i.1). Fundamentally, he means that our knowledge of God before grasping any representation of him lies merely in our memory. If humans have memory of a concept before learning of the concept itself, then it must have been deposited in our minds before we were even born. Augustine credits the infinite profundity and importance of memory to God when he states, “This power is that of my mind and is a natural endowment, but I myself cannot grasp the totality of what I am” (Book X.viii.15). In other words, Augustine is implying that our minds are restricted to compass it, so that we have to ask what the component of itself is that it fails to fathom. Augustine’s goal is not to understand the function of our minds. Augustine is hypothesizing on how God is relative to the human. The Neo-Platonists’ concept regarding the memory of all knowledge provokes him directly to conclude that the truth of God can only be accessed through the mind. He also deduces that these things we don’t succeed at grasping are “only carried by the vast capacity of memory” which, as I mentioned earlier, can only be attributed to God (Book X.viii.15). As Augustine develops his theory of memory, he shamelessly uses God to fulfill the void of us failing to fully understand

Augustine began his religious life as a Manichaeist, joining them when he was only seventeen and staying in that religion for nine years. However he could not find the answers he sought with the Manichaeists, so he moved to Rome and then on the Milan where he became involved with Neoplatonism. However he was still unable to find answers to his questions or freedom from his sins. It was not until he met Bishop Ambrose that his life was changed. He gained a greater understanding of the Bible and the letters of St. Paul made an impact on him. One early hesitation in his desire to convert was that he would have to give up his mistress, which did not consider himself ready to do. However in 384 he had a great mystical experience, he was in his garden when he heard a child’s

     In Saint Augustine’s deeply personal work, Confessions, he shares the story of his life up to his eventual conversion to the Christian faith. His odyssey through life is, at times, one of bitter inner conflict between his intellect and faith. Augustine’s classical education had a profound affect on the way he viewed the world, and eventually had a major affect on the way he approached Christianity. He is definitely an “intellectual” Christian, and viewed many aspects of his faith from this perspective. Augustine’s attitude towards classical literature and thought was at times slightly self-contradictory. It

Although Augustine died as a religious fanatic, according to some critics, obsessed with finding the perfect image of God, and while it is relatively simple to undermine the significance of his confessions purely based on romantic language he adopted in praising God, he was a human, first and foremost. His mortality, his humanness, some would say, exudes from Confession, and even he was quick to reiterate his human vices. His sins, as he labels them, did not reduce his importance, however, as it was his very human nature, his proneness to commit sin without hesitation until he receives guidance from an external source, which bound him to humanity, past and present. If Augustine had been baptized as a child, grown into an adult without ever straying from the “true path,” and died as an ardent Christian, he would have lived an ideal life but would have been disconnected with humanity’s suffering; his confessions would have been obscure and ungraspable, and his mind and heart unappreciative of the blessings he had received. For the reality was that only those who had suffered alongside their human brothers and sisters, committed sins, and had been lost could truly appreciate being found. Therefore, while he lived ages ago in a world much different from today, his confessions and life story resonate with all of humanity, especially the youth who are liable to stray and divulge in confusion, and maintain his position as a relevant figure in the twenty-first century.

Saint Augustine was born on 354 CE in Tagaste, Africa. His given name was Aurelius Augustinus. His father was Patricius, a pagan who was baptized Christian before he died, and his mother was Monica, a baptized Christian with an influential role in the life of her son. Augustine is regarded as one of the most intelligent Christian theologians

In the book Confessions by Saint Augustine, he details his spiritual autobiography, recounting the various instances in his life which shaped him into the person he is today in addition to profuse praise of God and his mercy on Augustine. Throughout the earlier and middle years of his life, St. Augustine comes in contact with numerous people who help him reach his ultimate spiritual destination as a Catholic Saint. Although not all the figures he encounters are Christians, these relationships both purposefully and inadvertently nonetheless encouraged him toward Christianity.

The Confessions, a loose autobiography written by Saint Augustine of Hippo, represents an intermediary between the ancient and Christian worlds. Although the eponymous main character has been indoctrinated as a religious figure, his life events as well as his rhetoric throughout The Confessions suggests a man engaged in a constant internal debate surrounding whether to devote his time toward religious or more earthly endeavors. This paper examines how the first four chapters of the book elucidate the theme of one man's attempt to mediate a sensibility that is at turns ancient and Christian.

The name of the book provides a one word summary of the topic. By naming it Confessions, he tells the perspective audience that it is about the admission or confession of sin. Book 1, begins with a series of rhetorical questions that seem to be directed at God. He then moves on to provide answers to these questions by quoting scripture, "all things find in you their origin, their impulse, the center of their being."(Augustine & Pine-Coffin, 1961). Within the first chapter he shows specific interest in how God exists within the universe, and whether God is contained by the universe or