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I have heard Augustine's name often mentioned as an influencial philosopher to many other philosophers. Not just in the realm of Christianity.
Can this be? He seems like someone that would be low on my list. I have only read small pieces of his writing but I don't like what I know about him. I can hardly stand to even think about him. His ideas about Original Sin. Or the literal fires of hell.
I just don't understand how he could be taken seriously as a scholar. Even a religious one.
People are always wondering why bad things happen. Augustine offered one collection of "answers", and they touched on people's deepest insecurities and on their distrust of people - so his ideas hit hard and deep. They didn't necessarily have to make logical sense in order to have impact. They also cemented the persecution complex Christianity has always relied on in order to keep followers (ironic, since the bulk of Christian history has it being the persecutors and the dominating faction). This has always been attractive to Christians - it is a romantic notion, adds drama and creates bonding ("We are fighting the big fight!").
Original Sin also touched on people's deep insecurities and told them that, yes, they WERE bad after all...just as they always suspected. (Many people grow up thinking this way, often due to rough handling by adults as children, whether physically or emotionally. We turn it around on ourselves: "I must be really bad in order for such bad things to have happened to me.") Though logically it would seem that that should have been a deterrent, it a. created a deep fear of not following Christianity, as doom could be the only result and b. created a classic abuser/abused scenario where the abused thinks the abuser knows deep things about him and therefore, if the abused would only try harder, eventually, everything should get better. Victim-blaming, basically.
The answer why Christians stay with Christianity is the same as why abused individuals stay with the abuser even when they could physically stay...IMO. "You're bad from the inside out and only I can save you, so you'd better stay with me."
This man was probably a better psychological manipulator than theologian, again, just IMO.
A man of his time, and a Christian, which means that, even though he was a sweet little thinker, it was all inside the box of faith. In our time, he might have thought outside it and been on our bench, like Newton might now drop his superstitions today, having access to better information and the founding fathers would neither see the need to be deist rather than atheist or see value in the Bible as a moral code, whether or not they believed the miracles.
A man of his time, and a Christian, which means that, even though he was a sweet little thinker, it was all inside the box of faith. In our time, he might have thought outside it and been on our bench, like Newton might now drop his superstitions today, having access to better information and the founding fathers would neither see the need to be deist rather than atheist or see value in the Bible as a moral code, whether or not they believed the miracles.
I have often thought this too, that many seemingly conflicted "great men" would not need to hedge their bets or put on appearances today. Jefferson was the one among the founding fathers who was most overtly unbelieving, and even he had to pay homage to Christian sensibilities and find at least some core truths within the scriptures, so he scissored them up rather than simply ignoring them. Newton in particular would, I think, not waste a minute of his time on alchemy if he lived today and knew what we know about reality. He would not, in other words, be dabbling in mysticism, perhaps Scientology or something. Of course, I don't know that, it is only my intuition.
I see humanity clawing its way slowly out of a very deep hole of ignorance and superstition, and the real miracle is that many of these great thinkers rose above their peers to think any great thoughts at all. Imagine what they could have accomplished today ... or in our future. I am put in mind of Darwin admitting that going public with his theory "felt like confessing to a murder". He had to go against society and his own theological training and background ... it took tremendous courage and exacted a price from him.
To me he almost seems like a person who had some issues. Then he somehow became influential on Christianity due to his time and circumstance. I'm not saying that having psychological issues discounts a person from being a great philosopher, but it seems that his unique position must have had more to do with his influence than his actual abilities.
Maybe he didn't have a lot of information, and that could have affected his views. It just seems strange the way that one person's opinions can have such a heavy influence over many centuries, for people of faith.
To me he almost seems like a person who had some issues. Then he somehow became influential on Christianity due to his time and circumstance. I'm not saying that having psychological issues discounts a person from being a great philosopher, but it seems that his unique position must have had more to do with his influence than his actual abilities.
Maybe he didn't have a lot of information, and that could have affected his views. It just seems strange the way that one person's opinions can have such a heavy influence over many centuries, for people of faith.
Yes. I haven't made a great study of Augustine, nor indeed any Church father, because my concern has been the truth of the Bible and Christianity. Not what later religious figures thought or said about it. But I gather than he was the first philosophical- logical thinker about religion. Though of course, Paul through to Tertullian did their share of arguing and thinking, Augustine made theology a science. I believe those Ontological arguments originated with him, didn't they?
Well I say a science, and perhaps then it was - right up to Darwin (I really can see why he is such a hate -figure for religion ) the way the physical world worked was for Galileo, Newton and Franklin and Jefferson, all the workings of God (even if they doubted that organized religion was). They were just building on what Augustine had made a science.
I'd figure if he saw an ancient psychiatrist he'd be noted as say 'neurotic'...like most human beings classified by Freudian analysis today...;-)...
Augustine no doubt lives on because the Church pushed him into the succeeding centuries. Pretty intelligent fellow I must say. The intriguing thing about him from my perspective is that
Augustine was that he was one who say studied the self in terms of how he related to the world especially through his and wrote it down. We peruse it to this day. Quite an achievement.
On Wiki..Quite an interesting read. I noted the suggestion that his prominence might partly be because the council of Nikea too a liking to his views and doctrines. His views now must seem outlandish - except I suppose to Genesis literalist fundamentalist creationists. The only point where they might disagree is his theory that the creation didn't take 6 days - it was all done in one go.
"Look Augie." says the North African Inquisition as they hang him up and stir the coals with the sharpened pokers...all done with love and compassion, of course... "God could have done it all in one go, but if he decided to do it six days...it was six days. Or do you claim to know better than God?"
But, in view of his splendid justification of necessary war, the Authorities in Byzantium were probably willing to overlook the odd minor heresy.
Augustine was a follower of Plato and because of this Augustine brought many platoinian beliefs into Christianity that are now accepted to be the truth by the majority of Christianity.
For example Augustine says concerning evil that because God does evil, and uses evil for good that evil then does not really exist.
So in other words Augustine is the first one that basically said let's blame God for all the crap in the world.
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) the way the physical world worked was for Galileo, Newton and Franklin and Jefferson, all the workings of God (even if they doubted that organized religion was). They were just building on what Augustine had made a science.
