He later writes, “I had no wish to read further, and no need. All work is written to order. The combination of the readings of Neo-Platonism and the influence of Ambrose caused him to deeply consider committing his life to Christianity, despite the inner battle of sin. He was born November 13, 354 in Tagaste, Numidia and died August 28,430 in Hippo Regius. What we recognize to be evil is, in some crucial sense, good. No plagiarism, guaranteed! His father, Patricius grew up as a pagan and one of the curiales of their city until his wife’s Christianity, coupled with her virtuous ways, pushed him into conversion and baptism into Christianity before he died in North Africa. Chadwick expands on this by stating, “Nothing in man, past, present, or future, can be the moving or meritorious cause of God’s election.”[12] Augustine developed the perspective that the human mind is not technically free and it greatly influences his doctrine on original sin. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO- BISHOP AND THEOLOGIAN ST. AUGUSTINE’SPHILOSOPHY OF LOVE If God does know about evil and can prevent it but does not do so, then He is not omnibenevolent. In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, he teaches a world view with an example of a cave filled with darkness that people inside should get out by finding the truth and seeing the light. St. Augustine Analysis of Augustine’s City of God St. Augustine’s book, City of God, creates a dichotomy of good and evil. While God’s nature is perfect, any nature created ex nihlo, out of nothing, is automatically less than God and open to this possibility of corruption. Lastly, Augustine provided the church with a unified body. Company Registration No: 4964706. A few years later, Augustine published City of God in response to the devastating event of Rome being taken over. These pieces are significant because they shed some light on different thoughts and beliefs of people. [21] Park, Jae-Eun. St. Augustine of Hippo was an influential philosopher during the Late Roman Empire, and gave a very compelling explanation for the existence of evil. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. Augustine For the Neo-Platonic, evil is not a substance, but rather is simply the absence of good. St. Monica, his mother; a devout and faithful Catholic faith from her childhood; her fervent prayers and sacrifices converted her son and husband to Christian faith. On the other hand, in Augustine’s The City of God, a Christian author, perceived this world as a place where the heavens and the earth coexist. Augustine is the end of one era as well as the beginning of another. Saint Augustine's Life St. Augustine of Hippo was a “bishop of Hippo Regius in Northern Africa” (Editors). St. Augustine Saint Augustine of Hippo, also called St. Augustine, original Latin name was Aurelius Augustinus. In the year 393, St. Augustine’s Bishop became sick, and then died in the year 395 from which St. Augustine would later be deemed as the new Bishop of Hippo. (New York: Cosmopolitan science & art service Co, 1943), 376, [12] Chadwick, Henry. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964), [19] Olson, The Story of Christian Theology, 263, [20] Augustine, Of True Religion. However, Augustine questioned the strength of their logic as it did not fare well against the natural science trends of the times which caused him to leave from North Africa for Rome and Milan and validate the dissipation of his belief in Manichaeans. How do we deserve to be born in the blindness of ignorance and the torture of difficulty?’…My response is brief: let them be silent and stop murmuring against God.”[15] For Augustine, God’s reasons for punishing mere infants are simply beyond our human understanding. Pages: 3 (648 words) Published: December 4, 2015. This belief system contrasted Christianity because it was based on logic and reason instead of mere faith which interested Augustine and he quickly became a “hearer” of the cult. “Lacking love or conveying love? In common with Greek ethics, its being eudemonistic in character, as it makes happiness the end-all and the be-all of human living; but Augustine tells us with the Bible that this happiness can be found in GOD alone. In her book, Karla Pollman traces the legacy of Augustine in a unique way attempting to frame it as a success or a failure. This essay will conclude the following: St. Augustine's social, political and spiritual theories. His emphasis on this doctrine of original sin resonated with the church and became official doctrine at the Council of Carthage (418 CE). Therefore, God allows us to live our own lives and evil is just the cause of our free choices. early education of a Roman boy around 365 to 369 in Madauros, a small center in the He became the Bishop of Hippo, a place known as Annaba today in Algeria. being after leaving home to pursue intellectualism. Therefore, God is not responsible for evil, both individual actions and natural evil, because it is a result of our human choices. His early life was full of radical ideas and rebellion, which helped guide Augustine later to his final teachings. Therefore, due to being influential in a time of crossroads, Pollman argues that the influence of Augustine cannot be minimized to a single direction of success or failure. St. Augustine Of Hippo Analysis. Free resources to assist you with your university studies! The third major contribution to the church that Augustine provided was in the realm of ethical life. For many historians, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and Augustine’s The City of God, are historical pieces that point out what had happened during ancient times. While individual actions are caused by bad choices directly, natural evils are caused by bad choices indirectly. LIFE AND VIRTUE While Augustine’s struggle with the problem of evil, he further argues that evil is not something real but its something like real. St. Augustine used the notion of god to resemble his ideas, as well as Plato’s and a mix of Christianity to incorporate his own knowledge. This is non illogical from the councils positive emphasis on the worldwide think to holiness . The second major contribution that is based on a foundation of original sin is the concept of grace. Registered Data Controller No: Z1821391. Therefore, all humans except Jesus Christ are born not only depraved so that sin is inevitable, but also deserving of a just punishment for this sin according to Augustine. In addition to the Pelagius controversy, Augustine also had major theological discussions with the Donatists. Augustine struggled with many ideas, being determined to find the Truth in the World. The Soliloquies of Saint Augustine. Carthage had already taken an influential... ... (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 8, [9] Augustine, Anna S. Benjamin, and L. H. Hackstaff. Augustine answers this question with the words of the scriptures that God is Love;teaches that mortality consists in love, since it is love that makes us like unto Love(God).Thus, the first and the greatest of all the commandments, one that contains by implication all the rest in the Decalogue, becomes the basis and the central point of Augustine’s Christian ethics. Evil is simply “not being in accord with nature.”[17] This is articulated by Augustine when he writes, “Sin is not the striving after an evil nature, but a desertion of a better, and so the deed itself is evil, not the nature which the sinner uses amiss. St. Augustine Saint Augustine of Hippo, also called St. Augustine, original Latin name was Aurelius Augustinus. He studied Latin and eventually become a philosopher and a celebrated theologian from Africa. Intellectually he straddles the gap between the philosophers of ancient Greece and those of medieval Christian Europe; he lived through the decline of the Roman Empire, which led to the Dark Ages. Therefore, the difference in the power of the will in the present is that free choice is no longer capable without outside support. Saint Augustine of Hippo. Augustine argued that if we believe anything different, then we weaken the doctrine of total depravity. For Augustine, Manichaeism offered answers to important questions in life that all people must deal with. However, these streams of thought do not come without criticism or objection. eventually returned to Catholicism in A.D. 387, when he began to re-establish his From the fourth century in regard to Egyptian Bishop Athanasius advocating for a biblical view of the Trinity, causing him to be exiled from Alexandria over five times to the debate of the hypostatic union (deity and humanity) of Christ, how the Church responded in times of crisis still has an effect on the Church today. Monday, October 27, 2014 However, Augustine also presented ideas that were divisive in the Church as well regardless of how clearly, he stated his ideas which were displayed in his books such as Confessions and about 245 penned letters. Roman province of Northern Africa. ...Saint Augustine of Hippo was a very influential theologian in early Church history. PAN AFRICA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY Read this Religion Essay and over 89,000 other research documents. This example Augustine of Hippo Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. He was born on 13 November 354 in North Africa, about 45 miles south of the Mediterranean, in the town of Tagaste (modern Souk-Ahras) in Numidia, in what is now Algeria, but near ancient Carthage (modern Tunis). This perspective on morality and ethics would greatly influence the church until the Enlightenment. He fully mastered Latin; however, he never grasped Greek. Word Count: 1043 We've received widespread press coverage since 2003, Your UKEssays purchase is secure and we're rated 4.4/5 on reviews.co.uk. Augustine was born on November 13, 354 in Tagaste, Algeria. *You can also browse our support articles here >. (Belmont (CA): Wadsworth, 2001), 9-10, [17], Augustine, Anna S. Benjamin, and L. H. Hackstaff. 810 Words4 Pages. Professor Mark McCarthy As he looked back on the incident, he felt himself to be repeating the experience of Adam in Genesis.”[2] This pattern of pleasure in the forbidden came to fruition, especially as a student in Carthage where he walked the line of fulfilling lustful desires with studying religion. Essentially, Neo-Platonics hold that “the discomforts, inconveniences, and even dis-asters of human life are either the consequences of our mistaken choices or providence’s painful way of reminding us that this material earth is not the realm of our ultimate destiny.”[8] This resonated deeply with Augustine because one major objection to Manichaean thought was that crediting evil to Satan removed human responsibility. Augustine was the Son of Patricius, a man of hot temper, His mother, Monnica, was a Christian, and his father for many years a pagan (although he became a Christian before his death). Ambrose embodied everything that challenged Augustine’s perspective of Christianity. On free choice of the will. He is also known as Saint Augustine of Hippo and his original Latin name is Aurēlius Augustinus. He records a prayer in Confessions that states, “Grant me chastity Lord, but not yet”[3] in which the inner struggle of his lustful temptations was recorded. University of Carthage. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UKEssays.com.