Exam 2 Flashcards
What are Augustine’s opening pages about? What are the Theological takeaways from
these first few pages?
In Augustine’s “Confessions,” the opening pages are a direct address to God, praising His greatness and acknowledging the human desire to seek and know Him, while expressing the inherent restlessness of the human heart until it finds rest in God; the theological takeaway is that humans are created with a deep longing for God, and true fulfillment can only be found in a relationship with Him, highlighting the concept of God as the ultimate source of peace and satisfaction.
Why did Augustine write the Confessions?
To tell his story for the people that may need to hear it, the encourage those to convert if the feel gods calling, he wants to show the path to god even if it not from a good place like what happened to him and he is responding to those who do not believe he should be bishop at the time
1) to give glory to God
2)Instruct souls toward God and give them hope
3)Prove his conversion was authentic
(PTD: praise, teach, & defend)
What was Augustine’s childhood like?
He was a disobedient kid and he did not want to do well in school
His father was non christian and his mother was catholic who became st. monica
His father encourages evil
His mother drank too much in a point of her life
His friends were bad influences (stealing from a pear tree)
He was sinful and got beatings
He had a miserable childhood and was prideful
He hated greek loved latin
He cheated at games
What were Augustine’s motivations for his sinfulness? (why did he pursue evil things?)
What is his analysis of motivations for doing evil?
-He belives it to be based on the original sin which causes people to follow their desires even if they are wrong
-He was seeking love in the wrong places:
Pleasure
Nobility
And truth in worldly things but GOD
-His motivations:
Desire to gain lowly things
Fear of losing lowly things
-He did not know why he wanted to sin but felt like peer pressure or it was self indulged
How did God “mercifully punish” Augustine during his youth, which he called a time of Upheaval?
He sprinkled some bitterness within augustines pleasure to bring him to the holy pleasures that contain no bitterness
None of his passions or desires made him feel good
Made him feel sad and regretful afterwards
What does Augustine mean by a “scale of goods”?
Some things are better than others
Highest goods= spiritual, true love, and knowledge
Some things are with the sacrfice while others are not
Why did Augustine steal the pears with his peers?
Just to do it
He didnt even want the pears but claims he would have done it anyways but he did it with his friends
After analyzing his theft of the pears, what does Augustine say about friendship?
Collect examples of Augustine’s theology:
Friends should lead you to good not to bad; true friendships are rare
How does he describe God ?
How does he describe God’s GRACE?
How does Augustine describe SIN?
God:
Perfection
The light of life
Pure good
Grace:
Providence
Light
Close to your face
Within me
Sin:
Darkness and sickness
Living death
Disobedience
Seeking fullment in lesser things in unordered ways
Sin obscures sight
Far from the face of GOD
What kind of vinegar did Augustine experience with the sweetness of unrestrained lust?
He became more bitter and had Jealousy, suspicion, fear, anger, and coraly
He felt empy and punished by god
Why did Augustine enjoy the theater?
Because of the emotions that it brought upon him
It brought him a feeling of grief and he became infatuated with it
He was able to focus on someone else’s pain that wasnt his own
What did Augustine think true human freedom was at this time?
He had the ability to do what he pleases without any interference
Whose book started Augustine on a search for true wisdom? What was it about the book
that started Augustine on the road to conversion?
Cicero’s Hortensis
It influenced his petitions and desires to be altered and made his hopes seem worthless
It told him to pursue a particular school of wisdom called philosophy
The pursuit of truth through philosophy is the route to a happy life
He did not know the words of the apostles yet
What are some responses to the Manichees that Augustine did not yet know (but
mentions while writing this part)?
God is a spirit with no indefinite body
True inward righteousness is the most righteous law of almighty god
Gods law have reminaed unchanging and always
God us being in itself and is the more and supreme form of existence
Everything else is gods creation and fits into a descendnign scale of being
God is spirit and man is capable of finding him within them at any times
Why did Augustine turn away from the Bible?
He did feel prepared and was unworthy
He was swollen with pride
His soul failed to penetrate its true meaning
He was arrogant
What were some of the “splendid hallucinations” of the Manichees?
The medea flying which allowed him to learn without believing the things really happened
The privileged the fruits of the earth, the stars, and his sensualitity
When Monica talked to different priests about Augustine, what kinds of answers did she
Receive?
He was not open to learning and that her tears would not be in vain and that god would listen to them and convert augustine but monica is worried about his salvation
What was Monica’s dream?
She is standing on a rule and meets someone whom she tells that she is distraught over augustines refusal to become a good christian
He tells her where you are there he will be als, she then turns and sees augustine on the rule standing beside her
What are some ways that Augustine addresses God in this chapter?
He acknowledges that god punished him for his faults by making him feel bitter
He affirms gods goodness
He acknowledges the distance he felt with god
He discuss gods nature
How does Augustine describe himself during these 9 years as a Manichee?
He was unfulfilled but free of guilt because they believed that the darkness inside of you makes you do things which isnt his fault
He says hes stuck in the mud and evertime he tried to lift himself up he fell deeper
Sophist
Arrogant
vain
What subject was Augustine teaching during this time?
Publicly: rhetoric
Privately: a false religion
How did Augustine react to the death of his (unnamed) best friend?
He was devastated and filled with grief
Half of him dies
Does not have gods support
What did Augustine think of Aristotle’s treatise called Ten Categories?
He understands it but he thinks God should ifit into one of the categories
He questioned was he profited from them
Mistakens god as a substance
When Augustine was 29 years old, he had read much philosophy and started to think that
they made more sense than the Manichees. When he asked Faustus about this, what
Happened?
Faustus was unable to provide satisfactory answers, further fueling Augustine’s disillusionment with Manicheism and pushing him towards a different intellectual path; essentially, Faustus’s responses were seen as evasive and lacking in logical depth, leaving Augustine unsatisfied and ultimately contributing to his eventual conversion to Christianity.
Then Augustine moved to Rome. Why?
He wanted to find better behaved students
When Monica wanted to go with him to Rome, what did he do?
He lied to her and said he was waiting to leave until the whether was better and left without her
