Moral Implications of Augustine's Philosophical and Spiritual Journey in his Confessiones

Michal Valco,Roman Kralik,Lee Barrett

doi:10.26552/com.c.2015.2.103-108

Michal Valco, Roman Kralik + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.26552/com.c.2015.2.103-108

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Abstract

Aurelius Augustinus, though born to a Christian mother, had undergone a long and tedious spiritual journey in his search for truth and meaning. Youthful hedonism gave way to Skepticism, Manichaeism, and later on to Neo-Platonism as he searched for answers to some of the most pressing existential questions of mankind. Platonism, above all, proved to be (in its renewed, mystical form of Neo-Platonism) the most influential factor in his spiritual and intellectual journey. What we see in Augustine, in his personal struggle with philosophical ideas and religious cults that allowed him to become one of the most influential Christian philosopher of all times, is an interesting combination of a 'MacIntyrean' focus on the socially embodied reality of historical traditions and a 'Kierkegaardian' emphasis on the individual inner processing of the transcendental, the 'inwardness' of the human self, and the individual's responsibility before God.

Highlights

Saint Augustine was a man of exceptional intellect who came to be known as the most influential Christian philosopher in the ancient West and whose relevance in the areas of religion, philosophy, and ethics remains strong even to this day [1]
That his was a journey full of doubts and intellectual struggles and that he became “the” philosopher of the West not by any one person or experience, but from a lifetime of religious evolution and philosophical questioning. In his search for truth, goodness, and meaning in the world, he learned by experience of many different religious sects and schools of philosophy before coming back to the comprehensive outlook on life represented by the so-called “Western Catholicism.”. Though he was brought up in a Christian environment as a child, it was the years of experimenting with philosophical ideas and religious cults that allowed him to become a true, informed believer and a Christian philosopher
To answer the questions of how can philosophy and ethics benefit today from his ideas, one must take a look at the three main strands of thought in Augustine’s life before his crossing over from philosophical paganism to Christian philosophy and theology: Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, and Paulinism

Summary

Introduction

Saint Augustine was a man of exceptional intellect who came to be known as the most influential Christian philosopher in the ancient West and whose relevance in the areas of religion, philosophy, and ethics remains strong even to this day [1] His ideas, e.g. his view that people are naturally social, his thoughts on the Trinity, and his conception of the agency of human will, belong to his lasting contributions to Western Civilization [2]. That his was a journey full of doubts and intellectual struggles and that he became “the” philosopher of the West not by any one person or experience, but from a lifetime of religious evolution and philosophical questioning In his search for truth, goodness, and meaning in the world, he learned by experience of many different religious sects and schools of philosophy before coming back to the comprehensive outlook on life represented by the so-called “Western Catholicism.”. The primary source of scrutiny will be his own autobiography - the Confessions (Confessiones)

Early Influences

The ‘Manichean’ Stage

The ‘Pauline-Ambrosian’ Influence

Almost a Christian