Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The contribution of Augustine to Christianity
Biblical doctrine of sin essays
Augustine's influence on the western world
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: The contribution of Augustine to Christianity
Augustine and Pelagius were two of the great fourth century theologians, whose work has an effect on the theology of Christianity today, which centers in the areas of original sin and free will. Pelagius did not believe that because of the sin of Adam that this was passed down to all of creation. He believed that this was an isolated event and only Adam had to deal with the consequences of his actions. Adam made the decision himself to sin which caused him to then become sinful. Pelagius believed that everything that God created was good. For some reason he believed that Christians should be able to live up to Christian standards. Pelagius believed that most Christians assumed that God loved them.Therefore; Adam is a creation of God was good. Being a creation of God according to Pelagius means that we are not made to have corruption in us. He believed that we did not come into the world with sin, but with a free will. It is because of the change in our acts and different behaviors that causes us to be sinful, but we still remain true to the nature of God. Mankind had been just like Adam was before the fall.
Augustine believed that it is because of the free will that God has given to each of us, we have the choice to choose not to sin. He believed that man was made to obey God, but when Adam chose to sin man lost his free will. Man had lost the grace of God which allowed him to continue in sin, and according to Augustine the sin of Adam affected the entire human race. Augustines life was about his confessions. For twelve years he had and inappropriate relationship.
The Theology of Moral Rigorism - Pelagius, focuses on free will and sin. Adam and Eve were created with a will that was free and neutral. They had the ability to mak...
... middle of paper ...
...herited sin. Augustine believes that this act is based on a self serving act of pride. Pelagius would say, “I was created with a will that was free and neutral. But like Adam and Eve, I have allowed my personal desires to lead me.” There are several things that we must consider. One is to understand the power of sin. Sin has the power and ability to take control of our lives. Sometimes sin will overtake our free will and change our ways and our desires. We have to always be willing to be able to confess our sins and admit that we are sinner who are in need of grace to make it in this world. We must also remember to thank God for grace and forgiveness. God is infinite and good and there is none better. God is a God of forgiveness, a God of love, a God of grace, and a God of mercy. We must all strive to be more like God. According to Pelagius, this is our obligation.
St. Augustine’s Confessions is written through the Christian perspective of religion. Christianity is founded on the idea that there is one God who oversees all actions. Though all actions are observed by a higher power, God instills in us a free will. As Christians we are free to make our own decisions whether right or wrong. In his Biography St Augustine expresses that he feels like a sinner. He struggles with the fact that he is a thrill seeker. He loves to watch blood sports. He watches gladiators fight to the death and commit murder. Not only does he watch, but he enjoys observing these acts. He is also expressing his sins in his biography when he writes about stealing, which is another sin. He steals pears for fun. St Augustine doesn’t even eat the pears he steals, but throws them to the pigs to eat. Through the story St Augustine struggles interna...
St. Augustine of Hippo, Boethius, and Anselm all address the concept of free will and God’s foreknowledge in their works “The City of God”, “The Consolation of Philosophy”, and “De Concordia”. While each work was written during a different time period, each of their approaches consists of a solution comprised of both unifying and unique points and arguments. While there is no clear contesting between one work and another, it is clear that free will is a complex and critical idea in Christian theology that has long since been debated. '
7-12- Again Augustines thoughts on God reflect that of the religious teachings of his day, namely those of the Neoplatonists. For example he refuses to speculate on how the soul joins the body to become an infant and even follows Plato when he suggests that this life could possibly be some kind of “living death”. He then goes into an examination of his infancy, which he depicts as a quite pitiful state. He described himself as a sinful and thoughtless creature who made demands on everyone, wept unceasingly, and gave everyone a hard time that took care of him. Though very brutal in his self examination, he later states that he does not hold himself accountable for any of these sinful acts because he simply can’t remember them.
The second circle of hell, a realm for those who fell victim of their carnal desires, is another level at which to place Augustine’s soul for he was consumed by lust in his pre-conversion days. He was encouraged by his family to learn the art of persuasion and making of fine speech when he was only sixteen. He used these skills, which he developed very well, along with his good looks to seduce as many women as possible. It was “in that sixteenth year of my life in this world, when the madness of lust. . . took complete control of me, and I surrendered to it” (Confessions, 987). He was in love with being in love. Yet, he was unable to discern between love and lust.
Baptizing a baby at birth was this was a common practice during the time when Augustine was born. And Monica had decided to keep Augustine from being baptized. Monica’s reasoning is really just an unnecessary precaution. Whether or not your sins are wiped away now or later as long as you go to confession you are forgiven of your sins regardless. More importantly this precaution keeps Augustine from strengthening his relationship with God early on because it had kept him from truly being responsible for his actions and had stunted his involvement in the Church. In the first chapter alone he states “I was already a believer, as were my mother and all the household, with the exception of my father.”1 He was already a steady believer in God and was ready to be baptized however he was kept from it and was influenced by the other people as they said “Let him be, let him do as he likes, he is not baptized yet.” Without the proper reinforcement and teaching he progressively strayed away from his beliefs and eventually lost himself in sin. This leads to one the most important incidents in Augustine’s childhood. Augustine spends more time lamenting on the time he had stolen the pears than he does ...
In our reading on Discourse of Free Will, we get a good idea of the opinions both Erasmus and Luther had on the topic of free will and the how it correlates with God’s grace. Once we look beyond the back and forth debate of this text, we will begin to look at their theological opinions on free will separately to find a better understanding and formulate our own opinions on this commonly debated topic.
St. Augustine, probably the most ardent proponent of original sin says, “If Christ did not die in
The power of acting without necessity and acting on one’s own discretions, free will still enamors debates today, as it did in the past with philosophers Nietzsche, Descartes, and Hume. There are two strong opposing views on the topic, one being determinism and the other “free will”. Determinism, or the belief a person lacks free will and all events including human actions are determined by forces outside the will of an individual contrasts the entire premise of free will. Rene Descartes formulates his philosophical work through deductive reasoning and follows his work with his system of reasoning. David Hume analyzes philosophical questions with inductive reasoning and skeptism with a strong systematic order. Neither a systematic philosopher nor a rigid thinker, Nietzsche offers his own nihilistic spin on the topic of free will. The three different approaches of free will by Nietzsche, Hume, and Descartes all obtain their strong suits as well as their pitfalls. Nietzsche insists free will is created by theologians and therefore denies its existence, while Descartes embraces free will, and Hume individualizes the meaning of free will.
...lighted” Augustine’s body (Confessions VIII. 5, p. 148). In this example, regardless of Augustine’s want to will succumbing to God, he found that his habits had rendered him unable to. His will in favor of the lower things held Augustine tighter than his will for God, which caused Augustine to choose the lesser good, which left him “in the midst of that great tumult I had stirred up against my own soul in the chamber of my heart” (Confessions VIII. 7, p.152). His two wills tore at him until he fully abandoned his earthly lust for the spiritual Godly desires; supporting his conclusion that free will in favor of the lesser goods causes evil. Therefore, free will is the ultimate source of evil.
“Please tell me: isn’t God the cause of evil?” (Augustine, 1). With this question to Augustine of Hippo, Evodius begins a philosophical inquiry into nature of evil. Augustine, recently baptized by Saint Ambrose in Milan, began writing his treatise On Free Choice of the Will in 387 C.E. This work laid down the foundation for the Christian doctrine regarding the will’s role in sinning and salvation. In it, Augustine and his interlocutor investigate God’s existence and his role in creating evil. They attempt not only to understand what evil is, and the possibility of doing evil, but also to ascertain why God would let humans cause evil. Central to the premise of this entire dialogue is the concept of God, as relates to Christianity; what is God, and what traits separate Him from humans? According to Christianity, God is the creator of all things, and God is good; he is omnipotent, transcendent, all-knowing, and atemporal- not subject to change over time- a concept important to the understanding of the differences between this world and the higher, spiritual realm He presides over. God’s being is eidos, the essence which forms the basis of humans. With God defined, the core problem being investigated by Augustine and Evodius becomes clear. Augustine states the key issue that must be reconciled in his inquiry; “we believe that everything that exists comes from the one God, and yet we believe that God is not the cause of sins. What is troubling is that if you admit that sins come from… God, pretty soon you’ll be tracing those sins back to God” (Augustine, 3).
Before we dive into what Augustine has to say about free will, we must first understand what the problem is. In The HarperCollins Dictionary of Philosophy, the problem of free will is defined as:
In Meditations on First Philosophy Descartes attempts to explain the cause of errors in human beings. Descartes says that error occurs “since the will extends further than the intellect” (Descartes p.39). That’s because our intellect is something that is finite; it is limited to the perception of only certain things. Whereas our will, ability to choose is not limited; it is has an infinite capacity. Therefore we sometimes attempt to will things which we do not have a complete understanding of. Descartes’ argument, as I will briefly describe, is quite sound, if you agree to all his conditions (being that the intellect is limited and the will infinite). I am not, as of yet, sure if I necessarily agree to the later of his two conditions. I will strive to evaluate different discernments of what will is, and if it is truly free. Then apply it to his argument. But first let me explain Descartes’ argument on the causation of errors.
By following God of their own will, the praise Adam and Eve give to God is real. It is not a dreaded act done out of fear. To take away the freedom Adam and Eve are given would be taking away God's power. This helps to convey the understanding among mankind that part of God's ultimate plan of holding power is to allow people to act on their own free will.
Author Claudia Gray stated, “Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day” (Goodreads). Evil and sin exists in our world today and the temptation they bring bounds many human’s spiritual being. Finding the root of all evil is a hard and torturous concept to understand, but knowing one’s own free will helps bring understanding and deliverance from the evils of the world. Throughout the book Confessions Saint Augustine “ponders the concepts of evil and sin and searches the root of their being” (Augustine 15). The existence of evil is one of the most worrisome challenges a Christian or any individual deals with throughout life. Saint Augustine’s beliefs concerning the root of all evil and sins transforms as he begins to grow and develop in the knowledge of his free will and spiritual being. Early on, he believes “God created all things and evil is a thing, therefore God created evil” (Augustine 73-74). From this he conceives the notion that God cannot be good if he knowingly created evil. As Augustine begins to grow in his spiritual walk, his views begin to evolve as he questions his Manichee’s beliefs and explores the concepts of good and evil. From his inquiring Augustine develops the question, what is evil and what if evil did not need creating? He asks, “Do we have any convincing evidence that a good God exists” (Augustine 136-137)?
First articulated by Augustine (A.D. 354–430), the doctrine of original sin holds that all of Adam’s descendants inherit the guilt of Adam’s sin and thus incur the punishment for Adam’s sin. Inheriting Adam’s guilt at birth, then, presumes one guilty before God at birth and destined for hell. This is the basis for the Catholic need for infant baptism, for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception (that Mary herself was uniquely conceived free of Adam’s guilt), and for the belief that salvation is only available through connection with the Church via baptism. Moreover, the belief that God holds Adam’s descendants personally accountable for Adam’s sin calls into question the importance of our own free will as it relates to our moral accountability to God. That is, if God holds us accountable for the sin Adam committed, then the exercise of our own free will must, in God’s sight, be of little or no consequence. This leads to the Augustinian belief in predestination — that who is saved and who is lost is determined entirely by God’s sovereign election, and...