Caavadini Ideology

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Recommended: The contribution of Augustine to Christianity

In this article, Cavadini delves into Augustine’s idea of ideology and solidarity. He begins by bringing the reader back to book 9 of the Confessions and says that we were invited to reflect on the eternal life of the saints (93). Augustine wants to use imagination to explore what eternity will be like and what one will do there. Cavadini explains how Augustine wants to explore the possibilities of eternity, and he posits a possibility that “The bodily eye might be able to see something immaterial directly,” in other words, we will be able to see God face to face (94). This possibility has no conclusive evidence, but there are many prophetic scripture texts that points to this idea. Augustine analyzes the book of Job and the Gospel of Luke to show passages about man being able to see God. After Cavadini lays out Augustine argument on the imagination, he moves to an objection by the “reasoning of philosophers” (94). This objection claims that there is a distinct separation between mind and body. Intelligible things are only …show more content…

It is in this solidarity that we love properly and in our natural states of sexed beings there will be no sin of lust, but an appreciation of the creative beauty of God (100). Once we are at this point, our hearts will be open to true worship of God, which is a sacrifice of the heart that is shown through external rituals so that we show ourselves and our neighbors the true glory of God (102). It is in this true worship that we turn away from this world to be with God, and we will abandon the glory and pride of the empire to be able to enter into the city of God. Cavadini exposes to the reader that Augustine’s City of God is a pilgrimage that leads us to the ideal state of solidarity, and that the “perfect worship of God is [in] the Eucharistic life” that transforms society into the compassion of Christ, that is the pure love for one another

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