Augustine Of Hippo 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

         Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo is a dense, scholarly work outlining the entire life of the Catholic bishop.  The University of California Press in Berkeley, California published the work in 1967.  My version was the 1973 second paperback printing, found in the University library.  Its smallish, scholarly, serifed, typewritten font allows for a instant respect for the subject matter:  the words are at first imposing, but then revealing as their serious tone complements the complexity of the text.  The pages are studded with footnotes, filling out this work with evidence of Brown’s exhaustive research.  There is a three-page preface before the work, and, after the work, a

In the book Augustine’s Confessions, there were multiply themes in the story which made the book great. One theme of Augustine’s Confession is the problem which many Americans face today. That is evil. Evil is everywhere in the world. Augustine lost his mistress, mother and even his own son in the book. He had to also figure out why god is punishing people with these action. So found out the answer to the evil, Augustine ask why is God good and still allows suffering to exist. Augustine found out that evil because of the free will that people have. God lets human pick what to do with their lives and the evil comes from the choices which you have decided. For example, a pregnant mother decides to drink alcohol while carrying her baby around. When the baby is finally born, the baby has problems with earing, talking, or even speaking. This is the evil choice which the mother had made. There are many kinds of evil and one of them are natural evil. Natural evil is a disease which another human has and it spreads around town. For example, people during the winter time have the flu. The flu spreads around town and soon enough, everyone will have it. This is a natural evil because you didn’t cause it. Another example of natural evil is the black plague. The black plague spreads all over Europe and killed about 30 to 60 percent of Europe. The black plague was started in China due to the workers not cleaning up there shop. Soon enough, it was death of 350 million people. It is said to

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.

One of the opening lines of his Confessions may provide a clue: “Man is one of your creatures, Lord, and his instinct is to praise you” (21). This suggests that man possesses an innate instinct to seek God and spiritual enlightenment. It implies that man, as a product of God, will inherently desire knowledge of and a relationship with his creator. Augustine continues by saying: “The thought of [God] stirs [man] so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you” (21). This suggests that though man may struggle on earth, should he decide to turn to God he will experience peace and rest in the Lord. Here Augustine also states that unless man has found God, “he cannot be content,” implying that those who have not found God will feel a constant inner void.

The cause of evil itself, according to Augustine, is the human will, and thus all blame for it rests on our shoulders, not on Gods. We willfully turn our souls away from God when we perform evil deeds. Even the punishment that God imposes on us for our evil is something that we brought on ourselves. Consequently, a first solution that Augustine offers to the problem of evil is that human will is the cause of evil and reason for divine punishment. A second and related solution is that the evil we willfully create within our souls is only a deprivation of goodness. Think of God’s goodness like a bright white light; the evil that we humans create is like an act of dimming that light, or shielding ourselves from it to create an area of darkness. It is not like we’ve created a competing light source of our own, such as a bright red light that we shine around to combat God’s bright white light. Accordingly, the evil that we create through our wills is the absence of good, and not a substantive evil in itself.

St. Augustine is extraordinary and wonderful for what he did and remarkable for what he wrote. St. Augustine of Hippo was born in Tagaste (Now known as Souk-Ahras), Africa on November 13th, 354. His origin Latin name is Aurelius Augustinus. St. Augustine was the son of Patricius and St. Monica. He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, and theologians.

During his life, Augustine was a part of many different religious groups and thus struggled with which one was correct and why. He took all different perspectives into account before forming his own thoughts and ideas on and would alter his opinion based on new information he received. Augustine argued that all humans were influenced by this original sin and would therefore follow in the example set by them. Augustine believed that original sin was evident in everyone and they all needed to fight the urge to sin, yet when Augustine was a boy, he used to steal pears from an orchard that was nearby just for the fun of doing something he should not. He said this experience made him feel how he imagined Adam

I was tossed and spilled, floundering in the broiling sea of my fornication, and you said no word” (Conf. II.1). Augustine acted just as the prodigal son did by straying from God and being taken over by worldly pleasures. As in the story, Augustine does come back to God and devotes himself to Him more than ever. It can be reasonably inferred that God rejoices more in the people who were lost and then found their salvation than to always be faithful towards Him. This suggests that God wants people to try and do it on their own, making mistakes after mistakes, and then hitting rock bottom to perhaps humble one in order to get their full attention to be placed on Him; this is what a responsible self looks like. In this section, the theme

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is among the most influential thinkers in Christianity. He contributed a great number of ideas and notions to Christian theology that would have lasting effect on belief systems in Christian churches. One of his most notable contributions is the notion of “original sin” and his concept of “evil.” These notions evolved over the years. Augustine traces their evolution in his Confessions, a thirteen-volume autobiography he wrote when he was in his forties.

For Augustine, he mentions “fornication” metaphorically where we indulge in the lust of the flesh, leaving God behind from everything (726). He felt trapped with worldly desires and possessions that it made him ashamed of whom he has become. He mentions that when he indulges into the world desires, the world says, “Well done!” (726). In other words, the world applauses him for giving into the sin and darkness he struggled with since he was a boy. This echoes James’ words when he tells the people that being a friend to the world is an enmity to God (James 4:4). Confessing his sins to God made him realize that his heart was corrupted and wicked. He loved his honors, money, and marriage, but God showed him that it gives him disappointments in the end. To my understanding, Augustine realized that he was a sinner who needed to be saved.

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.

In The Second Vatican Council on Human Nature Hampson talks about the creation of human. He stresses “all that he had made, and it was very good” correlates to Augustine of Fallen Human Nature in the sense that Augustine stresses that “human nature was certainly originally created blameless and without any fault”. Both of the readings stress that God created man to be good and know no sin. The original sin of Adam and Eve unleashed evil into the world, but Jesus was crucified and died for our sins. He served as humanity scapegoat to repent for our sins. When he rose from the dead he left mankind with his word. It is our duty to follow his world. However, we will always face temptation. For the reason that God created us with free will, free

Since its inception, various leaders have contributed to the overall development of the Christian Church, thereby effecting change and defining the trajectory of the Church as it stands today. In The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, Justo González points to two apostles—Peter and Paul, or Saul—as exemplars of such leadership, and the evidence suggests that both of these men had a considerable influence on the evolution of the Church. Concerning credentials, both apostles were more than qualified to drive the advancement of the Church. Paul, for instance, writes in Galatians 2:9 that Peter—whom the Roman Catholic Church considers the first pope—was an “acknowledged pillar” in the early Church (González, 28). Likewise, Christian scripture demonstrates the importance of Paul, mainly evidenced by the Epistles that he wrote such as First Thessalonians, Philippians, Philemon, First Corinthians, Galatians, Second Corinthians, and Romans. González, therefore, argues that the Pauline epistles merit the Apostle’s “greatest and most unique contribution to the shaping of early Christianity,” even contending that these letters “have had a decisive and continuing impact on the life and thought of the Christian church” (33). While one could clearly assert that either apostle has had a great impact on the development of the Church, Paul has played an extensive role concerning the beginning of Christian philosophy and the study and practice thereof,

The explanation given by Augustine is that these are clear examples of original sin and the inherent nature of humans since as children begin to age these behaviors slowly dwindle and become almost nonexistent in adults as in normal society such actions would be looked upon harshly. “Yet we look leniently on such things, not because they are not faults, or even small faults, but because they will vanish as the years pass. For, although we allow for such things in an infant, the same things could not be tolerated patiently in an adult.” (Augustine). The reverence in the text is apparent when Augustine states that this is clearly by a divine creation and although sin is a human creation, humans gain wholeness and purity by following the scriptures. Then Augustine continues by begging forgiveness for that portion of his life, but feels the responsibility for this lies with no one, as he had no consciousness of his wrongdoing. This is a belief that holds strong today in the Catholic Church and draws to the original commentary of Augustine. The ideology has developed over time and modern teaching states that it has no discernable trait, for example, temper tantrums, but instead is the lack of holiness gained by those who seek it in baptism. “Although it is proper to each individual, original sin does not have the character of a personal fault in any of Adam 's descendants. It is a