Born in 354, Saint Augustine of Hippo was a saint of the Catholic Church whose writing influenced much of Western philosophy. His works have been quite controversial even among Christians, and rejected by several scholars of the Orthodox church. In his book Confessions, he tells the story of his life, and how he went from sinner to saint. While his tale is most likely to resonate with Christians or those leaning towards Christianity, I feel like there’s wisdom in it that anyone can identify with.
1. Depravity and sin
For I heard them bragging of their depravity, and the greater the sin the more they gloried in it, so that I took pleasure in the same vices not only for the enjoyment of what I did, but also for the applause I won.
Much of the moral decay in society starts like this. Not everyone feels the need to do wrong on their own, but with a little social push, they bite. University campuses are a perfect example for this quote. Even kids who were raised in very traditional families are subjected to all sorts of peer pressure in college.
They’re pushed into substance abuse and experiment with their own sex and social justice not just out of their own interest, but from pressure to conform. They’re validated when they rebel against ”outdated” values and scorned when they don’t. When depravity becomes the norm, we shouldn’t feel surprised to see people embrace it.
2. Nothing lasts forever
I lived in misery, like every man whose soul is tethered by the love of things that cannot last and then is agonized to lose them.
Everything in this world is transient and cannot last forever, yet we hold on tightly to the things around us, whether they’re loved ones, fame, or wealth. They start feeling like permanent or unchanging parts of our reality. Then when we lose them, the pain can feel unbearable.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t love the people in our lives or strive to achieve success. But we must remember they’re not eternal, and that we could lose them at anytime. Even our own lives are simply borrowed time. If we are to cling to something, it must transcend the limitations of our own time. Otherwise, we’ll only be miserable as we watch our world crumble.
3. The essence of truth
I had learned that wisdom and folly are like different kinds of food. Some are wholesome and others are not, but both can be served equally well on the finest china dish or the meanest earthenware. In just the same way, wisdom and folly can be clothed alike in plain words or the finest flowers of speech.
Look at politics in the West any given day and you’ll see this in spades. Leftist politicians promoting lies with flowery rhetoric. They hide the ridiculousness of their policies and intentions behind pretty words, but a monkey in silk is a monkey no less. Truth, on the other hand, can be expressed in the simplest of terms and will still be truth.
We might do well to remember this in our own speech. Some of the wisest people I’ve known used very simple speech, not caring for excessive formalities. As important as delivery is, the meaning of your words should still take priority. A few authentic words can have more weight than an entire speech full of garbage. If all truth is lost no amount of rhetoric can make up for it’s absence.
4. Everyone has an opinion
They speak as they do, not because they are men of God, or because they have seen in the heart of Moses, your servant, that their explanation is the right one, but simply because they are proud. They have no knowledge of the thoughts in his mind, but they are in love with their own opinions, not because they are true, but because they are their own.
Everyone has an opinion on everything, even the things they know nothing about. And when our views are challenged, we hold on to them simply because they’re our views. We feel attached to them and defend them out of habit. Truth works independently from opinion though, it doesn’t care how you feel about it.
I’m sure that this has happened to most who take the red pill in one form or another. There’s a period of hanging on to what you believed before. You don’t want to change your views, even in the face of new information because then you’d be wrong and nobody wants to feel like they’re wrong. We simply can’t help but be biased towards our own opinions.
Divisive as it may be, Saint Augustine’s work contains timeless truth. It rings as true now as it did more than 1600 years ago. As society slips further away from truth, it steps deeper into all manner of sins. It was precisely Saint Augustine’s reflection on society’s ills and his own faults that led him to realize this and find truth in turn. Let’s hope the current state of the West will lead us to do the same.
Read More: 59 Powerful Quotes That Reveal The True Nature Of Women
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I have never come across any information about some scholars of Orthodox Church rejecting Saint Augustine.
Bruno, do you have a source?
Thanks
Actually St. Augustine is a saint in the orthodox Church, what i think the authors means is Augustine’s older works when he was a Manichean, or a bogomil in the orthodox view when Augustine believed the the spirit was good and the material world evil. However St. Augustine left that heretical group. Today he is important to both churches, especially in the orthodox Church on the trinity.
The doctrine of “Original Sin” is generally traced back to St. Augustine. The Eastern Orthodox do not accept it, the way that Roman Catholics and Protestants do.
That is why the Roman Catholics have the doctrine of “Immaculate Conception” as a “loophole” to make St. Mary sinless. After all, if we are all born as sinners, then there would be no way for St. Mary to be sinless unless she got out of it somehow.
The Eastern Orthodox have a slightly different doctrine called “Ancestral Sin,” by which we inherit the consequences of Adam’s sin (a fallen world) without inheriting the guilt and automatic sinfulness. That is why the Orthodox do not need “Immaculate Conception” for St. Mary; we simply say she was the most pious and holy woman who ever lived and who chose to live virtuously instead of sinning.
Protestants should technically have “Immaculate Conception” as well since most of its branches seem to come from the “Original Sin” tree, but many Protestant “churches” barely make an effort to define their own theology and–by and large–never talk about St. Mary at all.
@ Witcoff
I gotta disagree with you on Mary’s immaculate conception being a ‘loophole’ created by Augustine via original sin. Her immaculate conception is biblical, not created.
1. Mary is revealed to be “full of grace” in Luke 1:28.
2. Mary is revealed to be the fulfillment of the prophetic “Daughter of Zion” of Zech. 2:10; Zeph. 3:14-16; Isaiah 12:1-6, etc.
3. Mary is revealed to be “the beginning of the new creation” in fufillment of the prophecy of Jer. 31:22.
4. Mary is revealed to possess a “blessed state” parallel with Christ’s in Luke 1:42.
5. Mary is not just called “blessed” among women, but “more blessed than all women” (including Eve) in Luke 1:42.
6. Mary is revealed to be the spotless “Ark of the Covenant” in Luke 1.
7. Mary is revealed to be the “New Eve” in Luke 1:37-38; John 2:4; 19:26-27; Rev. 12, and elsewhere.
8. Mary is revealed to be free from the pangs of labor in fulfillment of Isaiah 66:7-8.
Original sin is not something we do; it is something we’ve inherited. Romans chapter three deals with personal sin because it speaks of sins committed by the sinner. With this in mind, consider this: Has a baby in the womb or a child of two ever committed a personal sin? No, they haven’t (see Romans 9:11)! Or, how about the mentally challenged who do not have the use of their intellects and wills? These cannot sin because in order to sin a person has to know the act he is about to perform is sinful while freely engaging his will in carrying it out. Without the proper faculties to enable them to sin, children before the age of accountability and anyone who does not have the use of his intellect and will cannot sin. Right there you have millions of exceptions to Romans 3:23 and I John 1:8.
The question remains: how do we know Mary is an exception to the norm of “all have sinned?” And more specifically, is there biblical support for this claim? Yes, there is. Indeed, there is much biblical support, but in this brief post I shall cite just three examples, among the eight, as I said before, that give us biblical support for this ancient doctrine of the Faith.
1. LUKE 1:28:
And [the angel Gabriel] came to [Mary] and said, “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”
Many Protestants will insist this text to be little more than a common greeting of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary. “What would this have to do with Mary being without sin?” Yet, the truth is, according to Mary herself, this was no common greeting. The text reveals Mary to have been “greatly troubled at the saying and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be” (Luke 1:29, emphasis added). What was it about this greeting that was so uncommon for Mary to react this way? There are at least two key reasons:
First, according to many biblical scholars as well as Pope St. John Paul II, the angel did more than simply greet Mary. The angel actually communicated a new name or title to her. In Greek, the greeting was kaire, kekaritomene, or “Hail, full of grace.” Generally speaking, when one greeted another with kaire, a name or title would almost be expected to be found in the immediate context. “Hail, king of the Jews” in John 19:3 and “Claudias Lysias, to his Excellency the governor Felix, greeting” (Acts 23:26) are two biblical examples of this. The fact that the angel replaces Mary’s name in the greeting with “full of grace” was anything but common.
2. An Ancient Prophecy—Genesis 3:15:
Genesis 3:15 is often referred to by biblical scholars as the Protoevangelium. It is a sort of “gospel” before “the gospel.” This little text contains in very few words God’s plan of salvation which would be both revealed and realized in the person of Jesus Christ. Yet, when one reads the text, one cannot help but note that this prophetic woman seems to have what could be termed almost a disturbing prominence and importance in God’s providential plan:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Not only do we have the Virgin Birth here implied because the text says the Messiah would be born of “the seed of the woman” (the “seed” is normally of the man), but notice “the woman” is not included as “the seed” of the devil. It seems that both the woman and her seed are in opposition to and therefore not under the dominion of the devil and “his seed,” i.e., all who have original sin and are “by nature children of wrath” as St. Paul puts it in Eph. 2:3. Here, we have in seed form (pun intended), the fact that the woman—Mary—would be without sin, especially original sin, just as her Son—the Messiah—would be. The emphasis on Mary is truly remarkable in that the future Messiah was only mentioned in relation to her. There can be little doubt that a parallel is being drawn between Jesus and Mary and their absolute opposition to the devil.
3. Mary, Ark of the Covenant:
The Old Testament ark of the Covenant was a true icon of the sacred. It was a picture of the purity and holiness God fittingly demands of those objects and/or persons most closely associated with himself and the plan of salvation. Because it would contain the very presence of God symbolized by three types of the coming Messiah—the manna, the Ten Commandments, and Aaron’s staff—it had to be most pure and untouched by sinful man (see II Sam. 6:1-9; Exodus 25:10ff; Numbers 4:15; Heb. 9:4).
In the New Testament, the new and true Ark would not be an inanimate object, but a person—the Blessed Mother. How much more pure would the new and true Ark be when we consider the old ark was a mere “shadow” in relation to it (see Heb. 10:1)? This image of Mary as the Ark of the Covenant is an indicator that Mary would fittingly be free from all contagion of sin in order for her to be a worthy vessel to bear God in her womb. And most importantly, just as the Old Covenant ark was pristine from the moment it was constructed with explicit divine instructions in Exodus 25, so would Mary be most pure from the moment of her conception. God, in a sense, prepared his own dwelling place in both the Old and New Testaments.
–So in conclusion really no ‘loophole’ was created, its taken from biblical prophesy.
-Godspeed, and Cheers*
The Immaculate Conception of Mary is very much in line with the Orthodox title of theotokos. It makes sense for the theotokos, who is the source of Christ’s sinless human nature, to itself have a human nature free from any sin. So the theotokos (I use that term repeatedly intentionally) had to be free from sin, not merely “the most pious and holy woman who ever lived”.
Blessings to you, and thanks for these articles.
@ GW
Right, but the confusion was simply Witcoff’s assumption of Augustine using the original sin doctrine as a means for explaining the immaculate conception. As stated above, the immaculate conception is derived from biblical prophesy. As far as Augustine’s relationship to the context of the immaculate conception, like everything else that Augustine did; he simply elaborated on the biblical prophesy. Thus, Augustine didn’t conjure a ‘loophole’ for the immaculate conception via original sin. Actually to even say Augustine was trying to find a ‘loophole’ is more like the opposite of what Augustine was doing with the original sin doctrine. As read in Augustine’s Confessions he did not quickly jump into the Christian pond, but struggled deeply with the Church for many years trying to fully understand and comprehend the religion.
To say the man was looking for ‘loopholes’ to prove a point is the opposite I believe of who he was. Augustine was literally one of the world’s greatest thinkers and rhetoricians and philosophers. His Confessions is a profound read and I think many will discover that he did everything he could to understand life and reality and his quest led him to Christianity. I would presuppose many people end up rationalizing their religious beliefs and I would also presuppose and suspect that many also end up coming to false conclusions about one thing or another in order to make themselves feel better about themselves or to justify themselves. I do not believe Augustine was a man who rationalized anything. Quite the opposite as a matter of fact. Few men throughout history have labored as much as he did in order to truly understand their thoughts and reality and their own motivations.
The claim that the man was using a ‘loophole’ to justify his dogma would be considered a rationalization and I believe Augustine was not one to rationalize anything. The man literally struggled with copious amounts of personal angst and was very conscious and aware of his actions. Anyways, the point was simply that I do not believe Augustine was one to rationalize an argument or to find a ‘loophole’ in the sake of simply justifying or defending his belief. The man would not accept something until he had the logical reason for it, this is why it took so long for him to fully embrace Christianity and also why the Church regards him as one of its greatest saints. The man had, no, the man needed to understand totally and completely, if he could not do that than he would not have been a Christian. The Church regards him so highly because he proved so many points in the process of his own self examination.
Essentially you had a very brilliant polemist and rhetorician who would not come to acceptance unless he totally and completely understood and could actually logically explain it. This is roughly why I believe him simply finding a ‘loophole’ is not only contrary to his nature, but would be contrary to his whole pursuit of truth. Point in case is he would’ve never been satisfied with finding some ‘easy’ ‘loophole’ to ‘explain away’ or to rationalize or justify another doctrine of his; i.e. the original sin doctrine. Read anything by Augustine and you will quickly see a man who was obsessed with knowing exactly what the true purpose of things and arguments were. I dare say, the man is such an underrated (especially nowadays) genius whose works will last the test of time. What Augustine realized (and I hope many more men do as well) is that reality and life and ‘truth’ actually starts to make sense once you apply it to Christianity.
Augustine essentially applied Christianity onto Plato’s philosophical ideas, and from there he was able to extrapolate so much more than even Plato could do. How brilliant is that. Think about that for a moment. Plato could be argued to be the greatest thinker in human history – argued for mind you – I’m not saying he is, but there could definitely be an argument made for his genius. Regardless, the point is simply that to ‘add onto’ Plato’s work and actually make logical sense from it and to extrapolate it to its fullest and truest meaning is by no means an easy undertaking, but this is exactly what Augustine did. It’s easy to ridicule and point the finger and to say, “These ideas don’t work, or that idea doesn’t work” – but Plato, like Augustine was very much not satisfied until he understand to the best of his ability. What Augustine realized was when Christianity is applied to reality, reality actually makes sense, huh – how about that. Such brilliant minds.
Augustine devoted his entire life to explaining life and reality, its sad to see much of his brilliant work never even discussed in secular colleges. I took philosophy in college and no mention whatsoever of the man. Sad indeed. I can almost guarantee, that if any man actually sits down and tries to understand Augustine and actually reads and understands what he is saying and learns the reasons for it, he will come closer to the truth. Augustine struggled with nearly every vice everyman has dealt with, he jumped form one religious group to another, and respected certain traits from other philosophy’s and some from others. A good example was his early respect for stoicism. Can you imagine the early stoics, these men were indeed true men, and true testaments to nature and what masculinity means. Augustine early on had great respect for the stoics, but he eventually concluded that “no man can live without joy” – i.e. for joy is natural and good, not in excess mind you, but because humans experience joy and it is a natural expression, and nothing natural is evil or to be shunned. Augustine was an advocate of moderation. The point I’m trying to allude to is Augustine examined a great amount of philosophy’s; i.e. like stoicism, and he learned form them and grew from them, but was never satisfied, not until he accepted Christianity, but not even then. For ‘no man is satisfied until he see’s God’. – “Our Hearts are Restless Until They Rest in You” – The greater point is simply that Augustine was never satisfied, and he believed this was an extension of the human condition and longing for God, we are never truly complete until we see God, until our hearts rest in Him. I’m sure many men out there can agree to such a sentiment. Seeking answers in every which way, feeling empty even though they have ‘everything’. It should come as no surprise that religion and philosophy and Christianity in particular are the very tools men must use to be complete.
Anyways, Godspeed
Depends on the man reading this.
Everyone has an opinion on everything, even the things they know nothing about. And when our views are challenged, we hold on to them simply because they’re our views. We feel attached to them and defend them out of habit. Truth works independently from opinion though, it doesn’t care how you feel about it.”
And just after that you write that the key to the truth is to swallow Red Pill. Just as if you weren’t engulfed with vulgar prejudices, gross overgeneralizations or misjudgments.
And here is where an opinion differs from an argument: the former is a belief/conviction which CANNOT be disproven due to its subjective nature; the latter is something which can be checked and evaluated, so it CAN be proven or disproven.
Language does matter.
Very good.
That was an excellent article. Thank you, because you made some great points and commentary of Augustine, who lived in a decadent and declining Rome.
Reminds me of the kinds of things Aurelius Moner used to write here. We’ve needed some more spiritual articles for a long time. Good job.
“Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet” -Augustine
Great article. St. Augustine should be a role model for every young man lost in the darkness of this fallen world.
Outstanding article. Would love to hear more about great theological thinkers throughout the ages.
But isn’t it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all? 😉
The problem with people having opinions is that too often they’ll express their opinions as facts (with an excessive amount of generalizing thrown in for good measure!) Which can be dangerous when the listener/reader believes them. No wonder there’s so much misinformation floating out there. It’s hard to know who to believe anymore. My advice is to keep an open mind when we hear something, especially if it’s negative, about someone else.