St. Augustine's Confessions

Augustine’s Confessions is a diverse blend of autobiographical accounts as well as philosophical, theological and critical analysis of the Christian Bible. Augustine treats his autobiography as an opportunity to recount his life and mentions how each event in his life has a religious and philosophical explanation. Augustine had many major events happen in his life but only 3 events would deem of extreme importance to his journey to faith. Theses major events were Book II how he describes that he considered his time of adolescence to be the most lurid and sinful period of his life, Book III how this becomes the lowest point in his relationship with God because his

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

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

It was a short time after his exposure to Classical philosophy that Augustine joined the Manicheans. The Manicheans believed that spiritual salvation and the grace of God could only be achieved through study and interpretation of the Bible and other works to find specialized, secret knowledge. The Manicheans held a certain appeal for Augustine. The belief that only through higher reasoning and study could one achieve grace, fit with Augustine's own perception of the value of reasoning, and classical rationalism. Augustine was a skilled rhetorician and orator, and had a great deal of confidence in his intellectual superiority. The Manicheans also felt themselves intellectually superior, and Augustine was drawn to this sect in part, because of his intellectual snobbery.

In Augustine’s Confessions, he confesses many things of which we are all guilty; the greatest of which is his sadness of not having a relationship with God earlier in his life. He expressed to us that to neglect a relationship with God is far worse than the pity he felt for Dido. In reviewing his life, he had come to examine life and how there are temptations in this world that can keep us distracted. He tells to us how he became aware of this fact; everything is negligible except love for God, and his own guilt at not having found this truth sooner.

This want of something more concrete but metaphysical leads straight into the fifth chapter, “Manichaeism.”  This details the future bishop’s obsession with the mysteries and dualism of the Manichean teaching, as well as Augustine’s work at spreading the Manichee philosophy, as well as his love for what it made him, rather that what it actually taught.  “Friends,” the sixth chapter, details his life with his unnamed concubine among his celibate Manichee comrades.  Next, the seventh chapter, titled “Success,” outlines Augustine’s first taste of fame as a writer and as a public speaker.  Thus, Brown ends part I.

In the Confessions, Augustine writes that the Manichean religion has a duelist view of good and evil. He explains that the Manichees believe there to be two metaphysical forces, God and Satan. Subsequently, there are two kingdoms: the Kingdom of Light, created by the former, and the Kingdom of Darkness created by the latter.3 The Kingdom of Light, he says, is associated with spirit, and the Kingdom of Darkness with matter. The body, thus, is deemed to be evil in Manichean thought because it is matter fighting against the soul, which was understood to be a piece of the divine, broken off from the rest of God. The divine, as a result, is imprisoned in the material world.4 Augustine further comments that the Manichees find that humans beings are not responsible for their own actions since it is darkness, or a desperate evil will in them, rather than their own will that causes them to do evil.5 Because of all this, they believe that good and evil, spirit and matter, are two opposite, independent, and equal forces in constant conflict with each other. They believe evil is as powerful as

However, Augustine has another agenda- his confessions are also meant to show his praise and love for God. He says this in the fifth book with: "Accept the sacrifice of my confessions by the agency of my tongue, which Thou has formed and quickened, that it may confess to Thy name... But let my soul praise Thee, that it may love Thee; and let it confess Thine own mercies to Thee, that it may praise Thee." This is a clear declaration of his praise to God, and ​almost another underlying message of the text to the audience. So as he is writing about his life, he is trying also to set an example to the audience about how his choices were not always the best and use this as a guide to their own lives. And finally through his story, use his conversion and change as a way to praise God to show that even someone who "strayed off" the path was able to redeem themselves and how merciful and good God is to accept someone even as sinful as he was.

In Book VIII.xi (29) the reader finds St. Augustine in a state of despair and anguish because of his ongoing internal struggle between his mind and body. Afterwards, he undergoes a surreal experience that ultimately leads to the climax of Confessions, his conversion to Christianity.

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 is our exemplar to human nature, as well as the guideline to what it means to be human. He demonstrates both the good and bad qualities that humans obtain and show that not everything can always be all-good. In the Confessions Augustine talks about how he knows about his own imperfections. He states “At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures” (Augustine, Confessions, pg. 24). Many of his imperfections have brought a new way of thinking about the human being. In the Confessions, Augustine focuses on his autobiography and how sin comes from inside us humans. From this we have learned about the term introspective conscience and how it depicts when someone is constantly looking at him or herself and looking at the motivation to sin.

Augustine religious experience he finds himself going through acts of self-appropriation and asking himself who he is. In the fifth chapter St. Augustine said, “… yet is there something of man which ‘the spirit of man which is in him’ itself knows not. But You, Lord, who hast made him, know him wholly.” This points out two things to me, one, he believes knowledge of himself is revealed through religious experience and two, that his perception of God is all knowing. From a psychological approach, this allows insight for how his unique religious experience shifted his way of thought and comprehension of himself and the world. By this change, his ability to search for answers, which some would depend solely on their internal selves or look towards the world for answers, he looks to God. Because of this, his whole perspective and thought-process is altered.

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,

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.

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,