final review AUGUSTINE

problems in augustines youth

• lust

• stealing

• his father glorified these aspects

• love of the forbidden

augustines mother

god spoke through his mother to get to Augustine

psychology of sin

• “evil for evils sake”

• free will

• fitting in with peers

• lying

stealing pears

Augustine would steal pears with his friends because of his love for the forbidden and because it made him feel like god

evil

misdirected good, lack of goodness

evil is privation of the good

evil doesn’t exist on its own, it comes from the absence of good

sin

misdirected imitation of god

free will defense

• god gives everyone free will

• we must choose how we want to use it

• offers possibility of great good and great evil

greater goods defense

god has a reason for everything that happens 

disordered desires

• desires aren’t necessarily bad

• when they aren’t prioritized correctly they become harmful

• god should be at the top

intellectual christianity

augustine believes in christianity intellectually

formation of habits

Bad choice → habit → inevitable

Concupiscience

strong desire for lust despite reason and due to the transference of our love of God to objects

sick man analogy

augustine compares himself to a sick man longing for healing but fearing the cure 

life of st Anthony book

augustine is inspired by a story of two men who read this book and dedicated themselves to being monks 

conversion

• walks into a garden in a state of crisis

• torn between unclean desires and god 

• hears a divine command to read the Bible 

• devouts himself to god and simplicity 

mind and body

• mind controls body easily but cannot command itself easily

• the mind is made up of habits over time that are difficult to undo