Confessions Of St. Augustine
St. Augustine is a renowned first medieval father of Western Christianity. He brought together and conserved the main motif of Latin Christianity and appropriated the heritage of Nicene orthodoxy and unsystematically drew the synthesis and is till today viewed as the best mirror of heart and mind of the Roman Empire Christianity.
Evidently enough, he was a Christian theologian , pastor and a teacher in the Christian community and may have been the best psychologist in the ancient world. Naturally, he was a conservative genius who recast patristic tradition into a new pattern by which European Christianity is greatly shaped. Nevertheless, he only regarded himself a summator and not an inventor but was realistically more of a church reformer than a faith defender.
His major objective was to save Christianity from disruption , heresy naand the pagan calamities and wholly renew and exalt the faithful hearing of the gospel of man’s utter need and God’s abundant grace. Accordingly, the unforeseen product was to furnish the motifs of the church’s piety and doctrine for the next thousand years to come.
His influential, powerful and pervasive nature left external marks of his non-evangelical aspects of thought and life which are still very prevalent to date. Throughout his entire career life , St. Augustine continually experienced lively tensions and massive prejudices which resulted in a tug of war between his mind and heart.
His perception of God held the Plotinian notion of divine unity and remotion in the tension with biblical emphasis upon Sovereignty of God’s active involvement in creation and redemption. His total devotion to Jesus Christ is not however clear and this left a lot of unanswered queries as to his true vision, perception and acceptance of the Christian life.
Surprisingly, he did not invent the doctrines of the original sin but instead matched them with the doctrine of infant baptism which cancelled the birth of sin and hereditary guilt. He also believed that all mankind was wholly condemned to eternal damnation but openly embraced human freedom and could never withstand excuses for human irresponsibility towards God and confessed of God’s irresistible grace. As a result of this , the Catholic church justifiably honored him with the title, Doctor Gratiae.
According to his main themes, St. Augustine widely wrote about God’s sovereign grace and freedom to act without external necessity whatsoever. The following are his illustrative presentation that God was able:-
(i) to act in love beyond human understanding or control
(ii) to act in creation, judgment and redemption
(iii) To give his son freely as mediator or redeemer
(iv) To endue the church with the indwelling guidance of the Holy Spirit
(v) To shape the destinies of all creation and the ends of the two human societies namely, the city of God and the city of the Earth
(vi) Give grace which is unmerited love and favor , preeminent and concurrent and which touches the inner most heart and will , guides and impels the pilgrimage of those called to be faithful , draws and raises the soul to repentance , faith and praise with the capability of transforming the human will into doing good.
(vii) To relieve a man’s religious anxiety by the forgiveness and gift of hope creating ground for Christian humility and abolishing pride.
(viii) incarnate in Jesus Christ and remains imminent in the Holy Spirit in the church.
His observations , descriptions of human motives and emotions , in-depth analysis of will and thought and their eventual interaction , his exploration of the inner nature of man have established one of the main human nature up to this day. He served as a role model for both contemporary depth psychology and existentialist philosophy.
His conception of a community identified and held together by its loyalties and love has an integral part of the general tradition of the Christian social teaching and the vision of Christendom.
His metaphysical explorations of the problems of a human being, the character of evil, the relation of faith and knowledge , will and reason of time and eternity , of creation are cosmic order , have not ceased to be emulated and enrich the various philosophic reflections throughout these succeeding centuries.
St. Augustine referred to his 32nd year of his age as the most memorable of his entire life as by getting instructions from Simplicianus, concerning the conversion of others and the meaning of being himself , after a severe struggle , renewed in his whole mind a conversion unto God.
He further speaks of his design of forsaking the profession of rhetoric , of the death of his friends , Netridius and Varecundus , of having received baptism in his 33rd year and of the virtues and death of his mother , Monica.
Having manifested what he was, he shows the great fruit of his confessions and being about to examine by what method God and the happy life may be found, he totallt encompasses on the nature and power of memory , then examined his own acts , thoughts and affections which he viewed under the three fold division of temptation and eventually commemorated the Lord, the one mediator of God and men.
The design of confessions having been declared, he sought from God the knowledge of the Holy Scriptures and began to expound the words of Genesis 1:1 concerning the creation of the world. The questions of his rash disputers such as ‘what did God do before He created the world’, which were being refuted helped him better to overcome his opponents and added a copious disquisition concerning time.
He continued further with his explanation of the 1st chapter of Genesis according to Septuagint , and by its assistance , he argued especially concerning the double heaven, the formless matter out of which the whole body may have been created , afterwards of the interpretation of others not allowed and set forth at greater length to senses of the Holy Scripture.
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