The Confessions of Saint Augustine Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Confessions of Saint Augustine - Essay Example Saint Augustine’s memories of his indulgence in carnal pleasures and the adolescent pranks of stealing some pears, prompts him to probe the motives behind these sinful acts. In his search for truth, Saint Augustine relates that it was the Manichean explanation of a dualistic universe where good battled evil and their denial of the existence of a single all-powerful God that first attracted him towards their philosophy. His reasoning is that if God is good and He is all powerful, then how can He allow evil to exist? However, when even the Manichean doctrine could not quell his doubts, he turned to the Neo-Platonist philosophy where evil was explained not as a positive reality but as a lack of goodness. The Platonist philosophy taught him to think of spiritual reality and so conceive of God in non-dualistic terms. He finds in Platonism a way to reconcile his pursuit of philosophy with his faith in the Catholic Church. Their theory that God remains eternal and is the creator of a ll things, and all creation finally return to God strikes a chord. However, he was still unhappy because the Platonists liberated him from his erroneous thinking but even they could not help his lack of self-control which was to him very worrisome. He also complains that Platonism does not give praise to God. He was however inspired to turn inwards as the Platonists advised, to have a powerful vision of God. He tried to visualize God but failed to understand how something could exist without occupying space. He also did not find a solution to his question about evil. For a while, he suspected that evil could be the result of human will, but again wondered if God was all-powerful, how humans could choose evil over Him. It was when he read certain books of the Platonists that were translated from Greek to Latin, that he was inspired to have a powerful vision of God.