Augustine's Confessions Paper

In The Confessions, Augustine goes on a journey to discover the truth, and purses the ideals of how he should live and what he finds value in. In his pursuit for the truth and his journey through life, Augustine is faced with obstacles that significantly shaped who he is, forming his very thoughts contained in the novel. The obstacles Augustine had to face through his life was the confrontation of sin and why humans perform sinful actions, the passing of his friend, and the passing of his own mother.

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

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)

To successfully navigate the reader towards his conversion, Augustine narrates his story using a certain form of language. He structures his narration in chronological order by the way they happened, from infancy to the time he became bishop. However, he does not give us exact details on these events like Homer those in The Aeneid. For instance, in book one a storm approaches as Aeneas sails towards Italy, “a howling gust From the due north took the sail aback and lifted Wavetops to heaven...”. He goes on to describe this massive storm in detail until Aeoulus quiets the waters. On the contrary, Augustine recounts the events from his past by the way

Augustine’s Confessions is all about his growing as a person spiritually, and realizing he wanted to fully commit his life to God. This writing is also about, hence the title, his confession that he has sinned and given into the indulgences and pleasures of the sensual world. He wants to explain his struggles with eventually accepting Christianity and the development of his spirituality. He reflects over his many sins throughout his childhood and young adult years, as well as his very indecisiveness towards fully committing himself to Christianity because of his inability to not give in to the sinful things in life. At the end of

Throughout the entire book Augustine uses philosophical and theological reasoning; he also includes an exegesis of biblical scripture. In the first nine books are written as an autobiography where he

St. Augustine begins his narrative, remembering his adolescence. Augustine remembers in his prayer to God that when he was younger all he cared for was “simply to love and to be loved”. He found it difficult in his adolescence to loosen the grip sex and lust had on him. Later in Augustine’s prayer he speaks about his dealing with his friends. Augustine explains that he constantly felt pressured by his buddies to do something wrong. Deep down Augustine knew he shouldn’t have stolen the pears.1 Augustine says “alone I would never have done it.”1 Towards the end of the book we finally get Augustine’s conversion to Christianity. Throughout Confessions, Augustine explains the hardships and questions he went through from childhood, all the way to his mid 30’s in

In St. Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine’s worldly experiences throughout his autobiography are crucial to his understanding of Christianity. Augustine reflects on his childhood experience of stealing pears from his neighbors to understand his sinful nature. Augustine struggles to understand his motivation for taking the pears when he knows that the pears are not necessarily better than those at his own home. He finally recognizes that this transgression is of the most wicked nature because he was sinning for the sake of sinning. “Now let my heart tell you what it was seeking there in that I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself”(29). By reflecting on a worldly experience, he is able to reach a

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.

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.

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

Saint Augustine was one of the most important and well-known theologians in the history of the Christian religion. He was born and raised in Thagaste and died in Hippo. He was a brilliant minded person, until later when he sought for truth and virtue. The book, Confessions tells a story in the form of a long translation with God. Throughout the book, Augustine often experiences darkness, blindness, and confusion while attempting to find rest in God, but he knows that when he eventually finds him, his restless heart will be saved. Since Augustine did not believe any of the philosophical tendencies or Biblical Scriptures, he spent most of his life searching for other types of truths that would resolve his doubts. He went through a dark period

Augustine of Hippo’s biography The Confession reveals a transformation of a youthful sinner to a religious adult. Augustine provides multiple events throughout his life that shows his belief in God strengthen as he aged. In Book I Augustine looks back to the point where he is an eleven year old boy who commits the act of stealing a pear. He mentions how he did not steal the pear because he was hungry, however he stole it for the thrill of performing a vice. Augustine purposely chose to tell this story so readers may see that he is a flawed human like everyone else. Readers of The Confession would be able to relate to Augustine story since everyone has committed some sort of a sin. When Augustine becomes an adult he begins to have relations

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

Augustine Confession can be broken into three sections. Section One, Book 1-9 is a chronicle of Augustine life, from infancy to boyhood to adulthood, and from someone who knew of God but still strayed, to someone who both feared and revered him. Books 1-9 act as the central section of Augustine’s life, with these books we see not only the growth of Augustine but his struggles as well. They are the best source of material for learning of who Agustine is and what struggles he faced. Books one and two follows Augustine’s youth , in these books you see the numerous sins of lust Augustine partakes , keeping bad company, stealing, and being sexually promiscuous. Book 10 in the grand since , is not an important book, as it is merely a recount of events and memories. Books 11 – 13, are