Augustine Confessions Stoicism Analysis
Vida Ugochukwu
Introduction To European Civilization- Midterm-Essay
In his book Confessions Saint Augustine uses the theme of stoicism and Platonism throughout the different chapters (or in these case books) in throughout the entire book. He shows us his struggle with evil and the nature of God and how he overcame and found a solution for both issues.
Saint Augustine uses stoicism in abundance throughout Confessions. Stoicism is when you show no strong emotion toward something that would usually cause someone else to be very emotional. An example of what stoicism is, is in the passage from The Enchiridion (Epictetus 1997, 18), “…if you embrace your child or wife, that you embrace a mortal - and thus, if either of them dies, you can bear …show more content…
An example of Platonism is form the book The Republic (Plato 2000, 181), he goes to say “…and they have been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like laden weights, were attached to them at their birth, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness”?
Augustine uses Platonism a lot in Confessions. He uses it to explain a lot of things about himself and about what he believes in. “…and when I asked myself what wickedness was, I saw that it was not a substance but perversion of the will when it turns aside from you, O God, who are the supreme substance and veered towards things of the lowest order, being bowelled alive and becoming inflated with desire for things outside itself”. [ (Augustine 1961, 150) ]
Augustine had two issues that he did not resolve until he read a book about Platonism. His first issue was his battle with evil and his second issue was his look on the nature of God. They are both related and/or connected in that he had to understand one in order to understand the other. Platonism helped him realize that evil is not made by God, but that it is made by man and that in turn helped him figure out the true nature of …show more content…
The solution to all of his issues with evil were that he realized that all things created by God are good and evil is obviously not good, and that God created all things, and since he could not have created evil it is not a thing. He basically came to realize that evil was manmade and that it was manmade because God gave us the power of free choice when he created us.
Augustine also had issues with the nature of God. He comes to realize that God is perfect and that all of God’s creation is all good and that the nature of God is perfect and can never be anything otherwise.
Stoicism played a big role in Augustine resolving the issues he had with evil and the issues he had with the nature of God. Augustine showed stoicism with both of these by basically saying that even though he has done all of these bad things—sins on the body (which is what he says evil basically is)—anything and everything that is evil in the world is all manmade and that God could not have anything to do with evil.
Introduction To European Civilization- Midterm-Essay
In his book Confessions Saint Augustine uses the theme of stoicism and Platonism throughout the different chapters (or in these case books) in throughout the entire book. He shows us his struggle with evil and the nature of God and how he overcame and found a solution for both issues.
Saint Augustine uses stoicism in abundance throughout Confessions. Stoicism is when you show no strong emotion toward something that would usually cause someone else to be very emotional. An example of what stoicism is, is in the passage from The Enchiridion (Epictetus 1997, 18), “…if you embrace your child or wife, that you embrace a mortal - and thus, if either of them dies, you can bear …show more content…
An example of Platonism is form the book The Republic (Plato 2000, 181), he goes to say “…and they have been severed from those sensual pleasures, such as eating and drinking, which, like laden weights, were attached to them at their birth, but his keen eye-sight is forced into the service of evil, and he is mischievous in proportion to his cleverness”?
Augustine uses Platonism a lot in Confessions. He uses it to explain a lot of things about himself and about what he believes in. “…and when I asked myself what wickedness was, I saw that it was not a substance but perversion of the will when it turns aside from you, O God, who are the supreme substance and veered towards things of the lowest order, being bowelled alive and becoming inflated with desire for things outside itself”. [ (Augustine 1961, 150) ]
Augustine had two issues that he did not resolve until he read a book about Platonism. His first issue was his battle with evil and his second issue was his look on the nature of God. They are both related and/or connected in that he had to understand one in order to understand the other. Platonism helped him realize that evil is not made by God, but that it is made by man and that in turn helped him figure out the true nature of …show more content…
The solution to all of his issues with evil were that he realized that all things created by God are good and evil is obviously not good, and that God created all things, and since he could not have created evil it is not a thing. He basically came to realize that evil was manmade and that it was manmade because God gave us the power of free choice when he created us.
Augustine also had issues with the nature of God. He comes to realize that God is perfect and that all of God’s creation is all good and that the nature of God is perfect and can never be anything otherwise.
Stoicism played a big role in Augustine resolving the issues he had with evil and the issues he had with the nature of God. Augustine showed stoicism with both of these by basically saying that even though he has done all of these bad things—sins on the body (which is what he says evil basically is)—anything and everything that is evil in the world is all manmade and that God could not have anything to do with evil.