I'm so glad that class has moved on from Greek philosophy to Augustine. There were some things about Aristotle that really engaged my mind, but Augustine blesses my soul. (I catch myself neglecting my notes from time to time because I'm so caught up in the reading.)
God reigns gloriously supreme in Augustine's reckoning. Running away in denial is futile, as the saint writes: "…where does he go or where does he flee save from Thee to Thee—from God well-pleased to God angered?" (58) We seek to fill our appetites with the pleasures of sin, but the appetite is misdirected. It is in reality a hunger for God: "Seek what you seek, but it is not where you seek it. You seek happiness in the land of death, and it is not there. For how shall there be happiness of life where there is no life?" (60)
Despite all the talk of grace, we Christians often want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, don't we? (That is supposing we even have bootstraps…) I identified with Augustine's reliance on himself for self-control. I think of how long I struggled with different sins in my life for so long thinking I could overcome by my own sheer force of will. I, like the saint, "… did not think of [God's] mercy as a healing medicine for that weakness, because I had not tried it. I thought that continency was a matter of my own strength" (101)…
The readings put me in mind of the wonderful testimonies of our learning community. Such desires to cut through it all just to know and be known by God in an ever-deepening love affair...
WORK CITED
Augustine, F.J. Sheed (trans.). The Confessions of Saint Augustine. Kansas City, MO: Sheed & Ward, 1970.
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