Augustine - A Thinking Christian

Ben Wulpi History of Christianity Dr. Webb February 24, 2009 Augustine – A Thinking Christian In these days, Christianity is popularly known and often ridiculed as a religion that doesn’t require much thought. It is seen by skeptics as a religion that people must accept on blind faith, and for many people, this just won’t cut it. Christians are often portrayed in the media as naïve, simple-minded people. While certainly Christianity contains some of these, as would any large group consisting of a wide variety of people, many Christians are in fact great thinkers who can give support by reason to their faith, and can defend against the attacks of the secular world. A great example of a great Christian thinker from history was St. Augustine of Hippo, widely recognized as one of the greatest minds in the history of Western Civilization. In his autobiography, Confessions1, Augustine tells of his journey to Christianity through the deep forests of intellectualism, foraying through the realms of philosophy, literature, and the nature of good and evil. It took Augustine many years to traverse this journey to arrive at Catholic Christianity, but it is a journey that is rich in insight and wisdom, and one that is very enlightening both for the seeker of truth and the mature Christian. Augustine shows how one can use their God-given mind to seek out its Creator. But throughout his journey, there is a tension between how much Augustine can find through 1

Augustine, Confessions (London: Penguin Books, 1961)

the knowledge of the intellect alone, and what needs to be found through the knowledge of the heart. This raises the question: is intellect alone enough to support our spiritual journey? Is faith alone enough to support it? This is what we will explore as it is seen through Augustine’s journey. The journey begins in Augustine’s childhood, into his adolescent years. During these years, Augustine was motivated simply by his own sinful desires and the lustfulness of youth. He delved into a life of sin and selfindulgence. This was a time in his life where he looked to immediate pleasures and the approval of friends for self-fulfillment. There is the famous story of when he robs a pear-tree with friends. As he looks back on that experience and ponders why he did it, he comes to the conclusion that he did it purely for the sake of doing something wrong, because he wanted to. Throughout his adolescent years, he was consumed with lust and got caught up in many sexual activities. This was a stage of Augustine’s life where knowledge of any kind was not foremost on his mind—fulfilling his own pleasures was. When he moved to Carthage, Augustine continued down that path of self-indulgence, abandoning himself to a life of pleasure. But this is also the time when he read Cicero’s Hortensius, and discovered that love of wisdom— philosophy. It was around this time that Augustine joined the Manichees, a branch of Gnostic religion. Augustine was attracted by their pursuit of truth. He was still living in hedonism and sin, but the focus of his life has turned to this study of and experimenting with philosophy. It is at this point in his life

that Augustine begins to really value intellectual knowledge in pursuing faith and truth. He uses his powers of reason and intellect to search his way through the muddle of ideas and theologies he is bombarded with, often getting turned around and captured in the bristles of false teachings, such as that of the Manichees. At this point in his faith, Augustine believed in God, but it was not the God of the Christian faith, which he worked hard to avoid. This left him unsettled and burdened more often than not. “The god I worshipped was my own delusion, and if I tried to find in it a place to rest my burden, there was nothing there to uphold it. It only fell and weighed me down once more, so that I was still my own unhappy prisoner, unable to live in such a state yet powerless to escape from it.”2 The god of his own intellectual choosing was failing him. Augustine’s faith in Manichaean thought faltered after his encounter with Faustus, whom had no substantial knowledge to answer his burning questions. After that, he turned to another intellectual discipline, in the form of neo-platonism. He was still set on pursuing all truth and faith through his intellect. It wasn’t until hearing the sermons of Ambrose that Augustine began to consider Christianity intellectually viable. Ambrose teaches him that Scripture is sometimes to be viewed allegorically rather than literally. This really helped Augustine to understand the meaning of Scripture where previously there had only been confusion. His intellect was much more able to grasp the allegorical forms of Scripture, which helped him to appreciate 2

Ibid, p. 78

and begin to love the words of the Bible. Ambrose also helped him to understand that his previous notions of Christian doctrine that prevented him from accepting the faith were based on faulty foundations. Ambrose was a huge impact in helping Augustine come to the Christian faith from an intellectual standpoint. After a while investigating the intellectual authenticity of Christianity, Augustine was convinced that Christianity was the true faith, that Christ was Truth itself. But still he was trapped by his own desires. His failure to master his own chastity prevented him from fully being converted to a Christian. He had basically arrived intellectually at Christianity, but it was not enough. His heart had remained unchanged. He was softened by reading the words of St. Paul in the epistles, and he was helped by the Platonist ideas of good and evil. Intellectually, he continued to grow in his faith, but even he knew that it was not yet complete. He admits, “I was astonished that although I now loved you and not some phantom in your place, I did not persist in enjoyment of my God…The weight I carried was the habit of my flesh,”3 and in another place, “…I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself up to your love than to surrender to my own lust. But while I wanted to follow the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the pleasures of the second.”4 Augustine continued to struggle with giving his life over to the Lord until one day when a friend told him and his friend Alypius the story of two 3 4

Ibid, p. 151 Ibid, p. 165

men who read the story of Antony, the Egyptian monk. Augustine’s heart was torn at the hearing of this tale, and he broke off and went out into the garden, tormented by the battle in his soul. As he brooded over his own sin and disobedience, his heart was slowly changed. He felt the voice of habit tugging at his heart, but much more faintly than before.5 Then, by inspiration of what he perceived as a divine omen, he opened the Scriptures to be enlightened by the Word of God, and “it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.”6 At this moment, Augustine’s conversion was complete. He finally knew in his heart that Jesus Christ was the Truth, and in such a way that changed everything about him. What can we learn from the spiritual journey of Augustine? From his intellectual journey, we can clearly see that, with the right tools and support, a person can “think” their way to God. He is the logical end to all forms of reason. But in the end, reason wasn’t enough to fully convert Augustine. It was a matter of the heart that prevented him from coming to God for so long, and it was a breaking down of the heart that allowed him to be taken hold of by God. It was the heart knowledge that really sealed the deal for Augustine. The thinking Christian needs to learn from this great story and realize that we should seek God through reason and our intellects, but they also need to realize that reason and intellect alone won’t get them the entire way. A knowledge of the heart is required to truly come to God. It is 5 6

Ibid, p. 176 Ibid, p. 178

something that tells us that God desires to be the God of not only our minds, but our hearts and bodies and souls. In fact, this is the greatest commandment we have been given: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”7 One kind of knowledge is not better than the other, but both are necessary for giving all of ourselves to the Lord.

7

Matthew 22:37, NIV