Augustine: Confessions

1. How does Augustine suggest we seek God? Must we know him, blindly try to find him without knowing what we are looking for, or do we find him in some other way?

� By having faith, even if we do not know God, if we seek God at all, he will reveal himself to us
� God is everywhere, God is all around us, God is within us, as long as we even try to attempt to seek God, he will come to us

2. Why is learning in school often corrupted? Are we learning for the "right" or moral reasons?

� Augustine says that the way we learn language and how it is taught to us in school simply teaches us how to speak and write for corrupt purposes
� That is, we are taught how to persuade, write, and talk like a sophist so that we can gain future honor an

3. How does Augustine's obsession with play relate to Aristotle's view of vice? Could play be considered the art of pleasure and pain?

� They are related because a lot of Augustine's play is sin because it was in excess
� Augustine says he fell so far into vanity, and following into vanity he fell so far away from God
? Too much pleasure
� For Aristotle, too much vice will prevent someon

According to Augustine, how does fiction corrupt us? What does it prevent us from seeing? What does too much focus on grammar prevent us from seeing?

� Because fiction is misleading, it is therefore a waste of time
� It is sinful, because it tells us so much about other peoples' sins, and prevents us from analyzing our own sins

1. What did Augustine steal? Who was with him? Why did they steal?

� He stole pears
� He stole them merely for nothing else but the desire to do wrong
� With a group of young blackguards

2. What are the various goods? What are the higher goods and what are the lower goods? How does this relate to Plato's theory of the forms and his idea of the "Good"? With Plato and Augustine which good should we strive for?

� Lower goods are sins
� Higher goods are the goods sins seek to be like but pursue in a perverse way

3. How is sinning attempting to be like God? Which sins aim to be an attribute of God?

� Sinning is attempting to be like God by trying to attempt to have the qualities that God possesses to the highest degree
� Many sins actually are attempting to pursue the good qualities
� Pride seeks loftiness (and God is the highest)
� Perverse curiosi

4. What is the second reason behind Augustine's thieving? Did he really commit his crime out of pure desire to sin or was he driven by something else?

� He committed out of the thrill of acting against God, at least in appearance
� Like the delight a prisoner might have in making some small gesture of liberty - getting a deceptive sense of omnipotence from doing something forbidden without immediate pun

How can friendship be dangerous?

� I assume he is referring to peer pressure
� Like love, it must be subjected to reason if it is to be truly good
� The thrill in his crime was put there by the companionship of others sinning with him

1. What was the book that caught Augustine's attention? What did he love about it? What was it lacking?

� Hortensius
? which he was drawn to for its argument that the pursuit of truth through philosophy is the way to live a happy life
? It altered his life completely
? Changed him from instead of wanting to be an orator to someone who is in the pursuit of k

2. What is Manichaeism? What is evil according to the Manicheans? What is evil as Augustine understands it at the time he writes?

� Manichees, who believed that God was limited and not everywhere because of the existence of evil. Thus, they believed the world is a constant struggle between good and what is by nature evil while trying to define God in corporeal and limited terms.
� E

1. What does Augustine do for a living at this time?

� He is a sophist
? He taught the art of rhetoric
? He offered to teach people how to use words to overcome others in exchanging for money

2. Why does Augustine reject the certainty of victory provided by the magicians? Why does he accept the astrologers?

� Because the magician would slay certain living creatures for his rites, and by such favor the devil for Augustine to win
? Augustine wanted no part in this, even if it meant his victory
� The astrologers made no sacrifices and directed no prayers to any

3. What is Augustine's reaction to his friend's baptism? What is his reaction to his death? What fear does his friend's death instill in him? Where did he find peace?

� His friend was unconscious with a fever and was baptized
? Augustine mocks the baptism with his friend when he awakes, thinking his friend will join him and likely would have done before he got sick
? But had changed, and warned Augustine that if he wan

1. How does Augustine view scientific knowledge?

� He was impressed, he was impressed with astronomy's reliability in accounting for heavenly movements

2. How does Faustus disappoint Augustine?

� He has no real knowledge behind what he is saying
� All that he says sounds good and he sounds smart and sounds modest, but he doesn't talk about things he doesn't know in detail
� His disappointment in Faustus is the beginning of his disappointment in

3. How does the Manichean definition of God cause Augustine to have confusion with his own perception of God?

� The Manichees believe in God as a giant body, something Augustine could not get his head around a God that was similar in structure as humans
� Also the notion that there was two nearly equal bodies in God and then something evil, these were sacrilegiou

4. What state of mind is Augustine in by the end of the first book?

� Augustine is very confused, he no longer strongly believes in Manciee beliefs, but he has still not considered himself and converted to Christian (Catechuman)
� He is also unimpressed with Faustus, though he is the best the Manichee have to offer
� He m

1. What ultimately compels Augustine to prove his search for truth?
(Book 6)

-Beggar they passed on the way to an important speech -Augustine was to deliver.
-Augustine was miserably nervous about his upcoming performance,
- but the wretched, filthy beggar appeared to be immensely happy in his drunken stupor.
-This disturbed Augus

1. How does Augustine perceive God?

� He no longer views God as an image
� God is pure and light, he is the pinnacle of the scale of beings
� God is the source of existence of being for all other life forms
� Neo-Platonic idea, God as a light and supreme being
� All creations are connected

2. What are some descriptions Augustine uses to describe and create an image of God?

� God is peace and eternal life
? Peace: the calm that comes from order
? Beatitude: stable in God
? Our minds are always connected to God
? Must have faith in Christ, the mediator between man and God

3. How does Augustine introduce evil?

� Evil is turning your back on God, it is the absence of God
� There is no actual evil force, there is only "evil" when God is not present, or only a small sliver of God
� Evil is a diminishing of being, Confessions is the example of someone who was a sin

4. What is the significance of sin?

� Sin pulls us away from God and away from gazing solely in God
- turns our back towards God

1. Who does Augustine contrast himself with and why does he not want chastity yet?

� Contrasts himself with the two officials converted by the Life of St. Antony
? The two men are presented with a book that vastly changes their life and way of thinking
� They almost instantly give up their worldly lives to become monks
? Ever since he r

How many wills does Augustine say he has? Identify them.

� Two wills
? One carnal
? One spiritual
� They were in conflict, one knew that he should turn himself to God, but the other wanted to keep with the bodily pleasures that came from the earthly city
� Augustine remained attached to the beauty of material t

3. What does Augustine do that helps him immediately convert?

� While he is so stricken trying to will himself, he hears a child say pick up in read over and over
� Augustine picks up the bible and reads an excerpt from indecencies, a command to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh in lus

1. How is the theme of isolation manifest in Book IX?

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2. Why does St. Augustine admire his mother?

� Recalling that she has always been devout, humble and wise over the course of her life
� That she maintained peace with his father and among her friends and with him, even during his turbulent adolescence
? Even though Augustine's father Patrick passed

3. What is the vision that Augustine and Monica share and why is it significant?

� He and his mother start contemplating the world, they try to see the connection of everything with God - they see eternal life
? They try to imagine the paradise that comes when you go to God, through this they discover
� It shows that the Mind can conn