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Augustine’s Father
Non-Christian, converted in Augustine’s teen years, low-level government official, town councilor in Thagaste (birth-place of Augustine)
Augustine’s Mother — Monica
Devout Christian and driving and central force in Augustine’s life
Augustine showed “great promise“ at a young age, education was a way to move up in the world, parent’s were invested in his academic success, scrounged for funds to send him to better schools,
What are his parents’ family ambitions?
Moral maturation, Father: did not care about his chastity or pursuit of virtue. Mother: did not arrange marriage for him bc it might “distract“ him from his academic success
His parent’s were less concerned about his?
Love and lust; he was blinded by lust, clouding his ability to experience and recognize true love
Augustine could not tell the difference between?
He wanted to fit in with the others, and wanted to be just immoral like them
Why was Augustine ashamed of being “less depraved“ than his friends?
World rank, power, and friendship
What is the beauty of material objects?
When desires are out of proportion to their true worth or lead someone away from God’s will, they become "inordinate, stem from placing too much importance on earthly pleasures, such as wealth, power, status, or even sensual pleasures like food and sex
Inordinate desire:
Commonly seen as the driving forces behind wrongdoing; greed and fear
Acceptable motives that criminals may have is?
The pleasure was from the shared experience of committing the crime with others
What did Augustine realize was the pleasure of stealing the pears with his peers?
Represents a moment of self-awareness, he starts to recognize he is caught in a cycle of seeking fulfillment through external sources (like the or worldly pleasures) that would never truly satisfy him
Why was Augustine sad at the theatre?
A major religious and philosophical movement founded by the prophet Mani, a dualistic religion, meaning it believed in the existence of two fundamentally opposed forces: light and darkness, or good and evil
What is Manichaeism?
Augustine is acknowledging that God is not confined to material reality
What does Augustine mean when he says, “you are not those material objects“
A branch of philosophy that explores the fundamental nature of reality and existence
What is Metaphysics?
Good, evil does not have its own independent existence, but is the absence or diminishment of good
Evil is the absence of what?
A physical being and does not possess a human-like body, God is spirit—an immaterial, infinite, and transcendent entity
Augustine realizes that God is not?
It is inherent, he expresses that he doesn’t understand that true justice is rooted in the very nature of God, it is an essential quality of God that embodies the perfect harmony and order of the universe
To Augustine, justice is an attribute of God, and it is God’s justice that forms the foundation for all human concepts of right and wrong, and…
Seduced: He acknowledges that he was led astray by false desires or misguided passions. He was entrapped by the allure of things that ultimately did not lead to true happiness or fulfillment. These "seductions" could be material pleasures, false ideologies, or sinful behaviors
Seducers: He and others also seduced others—whether intentionally or unintentionally—into following these same destructive paths. Through example, influence, or encouragement, he and others became agents who led others into error or sinful behavior
What does Augustine mean when he says, “I and others like me were seduced and seducers; deceived ourselves and deceivers of others amid a welter of desires?”
The death of this friend causes him profound grief, and he expresses that he felt as though he had lost part of himself, almost as if his friend was a half of his own soul
When Augustine lost his friend, it felt like?
