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Augustine's views on the problems of evil
Augustine's views on the problems of evil
The importance of forgiveness
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Under the influence of his mother St. Monica’s strong devotion towards the Catholic faith and inspired by Cicero’s novel the Hortensius, St Augustine was able to become one of the leading philosophers in Catholicism, often known for his contribution towards western philosophy.
St Augustine was born on November 13th, 354 to parents Patricius and Monica. During St. Augustine’s early years, both of his parents held differing views surrounding Christianity. Patricius was a pagan who later converted to Christianity moments before his death and Monica, later became a saint out of her unwavering devotion towards the Catholic faith. St Augustine was known for his notorious living by participating in sinful acts, thus his miraculous conversion in immersing himself within the catholic religion is often seen as a beacon of hope for those who live in sin. St. Monica is said to have influenced St. Augustine by introducing him to the Catholic faith and as a result is
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Augustine indirectly suggests, through various sources of media. All over the world, innocent people die each day at the hands of war, hate and crime. This ultimately leads to a knowledge question: Why would God forgive those who commit such sinful acts? Augustine’s theory on this belief surrounds the concept of Original Sin. St. Augustine believed that all human beings are sinners, due to the original sin created by Adam and Eve. St. Augustine argued that God wanted all of his children to reach salvation and thus was willing to save them with his grace. St. Augustine states that sin is what causes the gap between humanity and God and that God's grace is the only way for God and humanity to form a covenant. In summary, St. Augustine states that God is willing to forgive those who are willing to seek forgiveness themselves. As a contrary argument, Augustine believed that the only saving grace for sinners was to become part of the
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...
One of the most documented and honest journeys to accepting Christ is presented in St. Augustine’s book, Confessions. He embarks on a mission to find truth and explains the many barriers he had to overcome to understand the greatness of God. Throughout the book, St. Augustine lays out different significant milestones that enabled him to overcome certain barriers of thought that he originally believed. These significant milestones included him meeting Ambrose the Bishop of Milan, the learning of Neoplatonism, meeting Simplicianus and Ponticianus which lead him soon after to convert, and finally reaching the end of his journey to Catholicism when he becomes baptized. Each of these milestones presented a realization that played a significant
St. Augustine considers his mother as a crucial factor in his conversion to Catholicism. However through the analysis of his Confessions it leads me to believe that St. Augustine’s mother was not a decisive figure. Monica was in the background keeping him in thought and prayer however Augustine’s watershed moments came as a result of his own examination of readings as well as his conversations with his friends and mentors. Therefore I argue that Monica had delayed Augustine’s baptism and it was his own experiences that allowed him to come to God.
Augustine is fixated upon the idea of evil and its origins in Christian theology. He struggles to come to terms with the doctrine of sin. A popular counterargument to the belief in God is that a good, kind, and loving divine power would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. According to Christian belief, God created everything, and everything He created is good because He Himself is righteous. Augustine claims that God pervades the entirety of the universe and all it contains. So, how can things outside of God, such as evil, even exist? He asks this in various forms of rhetorical questions, such as, “Where then is evil? What is its origin? How did it steal into the world?...Where then does evil come from, if God made all things
From Augustine’s experience we can see that knowledge is critical, and sometimes even more important than correct opinion. Although both of them could lead people to success, knowledge is more reliable and long-standing. God prompted Augustine to transform from a Manichee to a Christian. Such transformation requires Augustine to have deeper understanding from the soul, is not what merely correct opinion could bring about. Augustine once feared that he would not manage to find the truth, but his faith in God enables him to acquire knowledge and approach the truth. Augustine’s reflection made him a person closer to God.
... of sainthood requires an excess of self-restraint that makes it impossible to attain the moral mean. The saint may tell himself that the denial of worldly pleasures will bring him true happiness, but in fact he is pursuing a kind of perverse pleasure in self-restraint. Saint Augustine is looking for happiness from beyond life; but happiness, as Aristotle says, comes from achieving the moral mean in life. If we aspire to the moral mean, we must consider moral martyrdom to be like any other excess. In this view, the denial of worldly pleasures is not a virtue; rather, it is a vice that leads us away from the balance that we seek in our lives.
St. Augustine, probably the most ardent proponent of original sin says, “If Christ did not die in
“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).
In St. Augustine’s book entitled Political Writings, one could see that Christianity plays a very important role in his view of politics. His opinion on the morality or lack of morality in politics, to me makes it more evident that Christianity persuades his views. Although it seems his writings have become quite well known and admired, not everyone fully shared his beliefs. Niccolo Machiavelli, for instance, seemed to believe in a government that was not driven by morality, but more by practicality. In, The Prince, Machiavelli stresses that the moral fibers of government should not be so soft. Like St. Augustine, his work went on to become one of the most famous books ever written about politics. Throughout the two works there are some similarities and differences regarding politics, however it their view of Christianity and morality that many find most intriguing.
... effects of a corrupting entity, what then is Christ’s work? How can a physical sacrifice save the world from sliding into nonexistence? The answer comes from another adjustment; Christ comes to pull creation back towards the eternal God. Salvation through Christ is does not look like Him coming as a warrior to vanquish the evil forces, but Him coming as a loving servant to heal the corrupted beings (i.e. sinners) back to their original state of grace. Thus, the idea of there being a war between forces of God and Evil is not compatible with truth of the Gospel; rather that God designed the world in harmony and wishes it to return to this state. This proves that, in the end, Augustine’s answer to the problem of evil is correct in accordance to Christian Confession.
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
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)?
Saint Augustine of Hippo was born on November 13, 354, in the town of Thagaste, which is now located in Algeria. His father was a pagan who converted on his death bed, and his mother was Saint Monica, whom was a devout Christian. In 370, he went to the University at Carthage to study rhetoric and wanted to become a lawyer. He gave up on law, and later on abandoned his Christian faith. He had a mistress with who he lived with for fifteen years and he had a son out of wedlock as well. He later, returned to his Christian faith, and on the death of his mother he returned to Africa, sold his property, gave all of his income to the poor, and founded a monastery at Tagas...
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...
In conclusion, Saint Augustine’s life is a good example of the concept of reading, conversion and memory, which we can use as a guideline for the quest in finding God. As we saw through out the book, Saint Augustine went through many processes of reading, conversion and memory. He not only went through these conversions in an academic way, but also in a religious way. He went from not believing in God to reading the Bible, reading Platonian books and Cicero’s Hortensius. It was after reading these literatures that he began to believe in God and went through a religious journey to understand God and Jesus Christ. It was during this journey to understand God and Jesus Christ that he used his memory to remember things he read and how they relate to what he was trying to figure out at the time.