A Guinness and A'Kempis

I have sought out my own self importance, having been made to believe that I was not important at all, nor was I wanted by those who were supposed to have me. Not only was I not wanted but I was the source of their grief. So now, Father, what I seek is my own importance, and the words of your servant, Kempis, concerning this quest, though difficult to listen to, are true. The praises of man are empty, they are shallow and deceitful. When I receive the praise from those whom I longed for it to come it is meaningless. It does not answer the question nor does it alleviate the stinging of the wound. 

So I confess, to you my God, that I am nothing. In my proclamation of nothingness I feel liberated from the quest of establishing myself as something. I am nothing, and that which I am I am only so because of you.

For in my dreams I see the fruit of my labor. I see the fruit of the work of my hands and the sweat of my brow. What I see in these visions is the alienation that has ensued from every friendship and relationship in every chapter of my life. I see discord and dissonance of those whom I love being pushed away before they could confirm my nothingness, or whose encouragements did not do what I had hoped they would. I use people, Father. In this moment I understand the meaning of this “mortification of the flesh.” The flesh seeks itself. I am a slave unto me. 

“Whatever a man be worth in the sight of God, says the humble St. Francis, so much is he and no more, no matter how holy and how virtuous he is taken to be in the sight of people (145).”

So then Father, what am I to you? I will be vulnerable with you Father, and place the contents of my soul in your lap, and will trust you with the question that haunts me the most, whether or not I am, will be, or can be satisfied with your answer.

Confessions: Part 5 - Final Installment; personal confession

V.                   The personal lessons learned from Augustine’s vulnerabilities

It has been said that confession is good for the soul but bad for the reputation. Below are some thoughts that have stirred my soul and caused me to, whether significant or not, change or reflect on some important things at a deeper level.

As I have read Augustine, I came to believe that the intentions of my earliest endeavors were much nobler than my current ones. That is, when I sought after an education, my intention was to come to know more of the Lord, which I believed to be worth any price (and still do). Where I arrived in that endeavor was the life that Augustine went on to live before coming to faith. I desire to be learned, well read, a great orator, in order that I might cripple my intellectual opponents and be revered by my peers and instructors. My education was/is not in vain, that is until it becomes vain when my ambitions are more about me and my status and less about God and what He would have for me.

Two other portions of the book, in his vulnerability, articulated in words what only my spirit in groans could communicate. Augustine spoke on the death of his friend and the death of his Mother. In both testimonies, the circumstances spoke what I could not have the strength to compose or speak of without emotional exhaustion. I lost my friend to cancer just a little over a year ago, and before that I lost my beloved Grandmother, who, like Monica, was a humble servant of the Lord. Married to a difficult man, her gentle disposition and commitment were more powerful than the condescension of an unappreciative husband. She ministered with deep love to all who knew her.

As I have already stated, Augustine’s understanding of sin (not on all levels) is helpful in that in some way I had felt that God was responsible for my actions. I was created with a genetic predisposition, I was nurtured in a fashion of difficulty, and therefore my sin was in some way not my own. It was only the outward manifestation of that which I could not contain within me. Couple this with Augustine’s conformity of the will to the purposes of God, and I realize that I am not bound by circumstance nor by heritage or legacy. The chains have been loosened enough that I am able to, by my own volition, yet only with the help of God, move from that which has ensnared me.

Confessions: Part 4

IV.            Augustine’s Epistemology: The Way in which Augustine came to conclusions and theologized – Modern / Post Modern debate – East v. West – The use of foundationalism and propositional truths

It was a generic presupposition of mine that Augustine set the trajectory for the Cataphatic way in which Western theology developed.  This I still believe to be true. There were a few things however that took me by surprise. In the Modern/Post-Modern debate concerning epistemology, much of what I assumed to be the basic definitive tenants of Modernism were clearly articulated in Augustine’s words. What is equally as shocking is that at times I thought Augustine to sound like an ancient Post-Modern. It is safe to assume that Augustine was not thinking in these terms, but once again the wisdom of this ancient theologian answers the squabble of the modern (or post-modern) dilemma. 

So for example, concerning the nature of truth, I find Augustine’s sympathies for the “Academics” to be eerily Post Modern:

“They taught that everything is a matter of doubt, and that an understanding of the truth lies beyond human capacity (84).”

In the final chapters, concerning interpretation of truth, Augustine says:

“ In this diversity of true views, may truth itself engender concord, and may our God have mercy upon us that we may ‘use the law lawfully’, for the ‘end of the precept, pure love’ (1 Tim. 1:8,5)… And if anyone sees a third or fourth and a further truth in these words, why not believe that Moses discerned all these things? For through him the one God has tempered the sacred books to the interpretation of many who could come to see a diversity of truths (270-71).”

It was difficult for me to distinguish at this point whether or not it was Augustine or John Franke who wrote these words. In this same regard, while vying for diversity in interpretation and a plurality of truth, Augustine seems to make a statement whereby he does not want to make a definitive propositional truth when it comes to these same varying interpretations, stating that if he were the one composing sacred writings he would:

“…choose to write so that my words would sound out with whatever diverse truth in these matters each reader was able to grasp, rather than to give a quite explicit statement of a single true view of this question in such a way as to exclude other views – provided there was no false doctrine to offend me (271).”

At the same time, Augustine, in his definitive quest for truth, very much utilizes propositional truths and foundational thinking to arrive at indisputable conclusions. For example, truth in many ways can be acquired through a process or by the utilization of rationalistic thought:

“It is rather that the created order speaks to all, but is understood by those who hear its outward voice and compare it with the truth within themselves (184).”

Concerning memory and the power of the mind it is said:

“Who has plumbed its bottom? This power is that of my mind and is a natural endowment, but I myself cannot grasp the totality of what I am. Is the mind, then, too restricted to compass itself, so that we have to ask what is that element of itself which it fails to grasp? Surely that cannot be external to itself, it must be within the mind (187).”

The passages and entire chapters which speak about the quest for and arrival at truth go on and on throughout the entire book. What is most compelling about Augustine’s use of foundationalism in order to draw a definitive conclusion is when in one paragraph, Augustine begins each of the ten sentences with “It is true (260).” Having laid down these foundations, Augustine makes his conclusions:

“All these true propositions are no matters of doubt to those to whom you have granted insight to see them with their inward eye, and who unmoveably believe that your servant Moses spoke ‘in the spirit of truth’ (John 14:17). On the basis of all these axioms, a view may be urged to this effect… on the basis of all those true propositions, a view may be urged to this effect (260,61 italics added).” 

It would seem then, that much of what I thought unhelpful to have come out of a modern era was in fact in existence more than a millennium before its conception. Also, the dichotomy which renders the two eras incompatible does not seem to plague Augustine, which I find to be a great relief and a beautiful harmony.  

Confessions: Part 3

III.             Augustine’s Soteriology: Issues of (original) sin, human responsibility, the will, and salvation.

Having been exposed in class to the discrepancy between original sin and ancestral sin, I read intently seeking to grasp how Augustine understood this concept. Beginning with his understanding of sin, Augustine had at one time:

“thought it is not we who sin, but some alien nature which sins in us. It flatters my pride to be free of blame and, when I had done something wrong, not to make myself confess to you that you might heal my soul, for it was sinning against you (Ps. 40:5). I like to excuse myself and to accuse some unidentifiable power which was with me and yet not I (p. 84).”

This was a common misconception that Augustine returned to address often. He seemed to express that sin was not an external faculty, but rather something which we are. He addresses this, among other places, concerning astrologers who:

 “make a man not in the least responsible for his faults, but mere flesh and blood and putrid pride, so that the blame lies with the Creator and orderer of the heaven and stars (p. 54).”

The claim in Augustine’s day (one which I personally needed to hear and be challenged on) was that that which humanity did was a result of either external factors or the way in which they were simply created to be. This is much the same idiom of today, as Lady Gaga proclaims in her song that we are “Born this way.” If I am born a certain way, than I cannot argue with God for who I now am, and am simply responding to the circumstances that have been placed before me. Therefore, can I be held accountable for that which I did not create in myself? For Augustine, this is not an option.

On the origin of this sin, Augustine, in narrative of departing from his mother deceitfully for Rome and arriving there ill says:

“… I was on the way to the underworld, bearing all the evils I had committed against you, against myself, and against others – sins both numerous and serious, in addition to the chain of original sin by which ‘in Adam we die’ (1 Cor. 15:22). You had not yet forgave me in Christ for any of them, nor had he by his cross delivered me from the hostile disposition towards you which I had contracted by my sins (82).”

This understanding of sin also corresponds with Augustine’s understanding of atonement, for Christ “endured our death and slew it by the abundance of his life (64),” he “’abolished the account of debts which was reckoned against us’ (Col. 2:14). He triumphed over the enemy who counts up our sins, and searches for grounds of accusation, but who found no fault in him in whom we are conquerors (John 14:30; Rom. 8:37). Who will restore to him his innocent blood? Who will restore to him the price which he paid to buy us, so as to take us out of our adversary’s hands (178)?”  He “made void the death of justified sinners,” and God, having loved us, “did not ‘spare your only Son but delivered him up for us sinners (219).”

A very important part of Augustine’s soteriology comes out in his narrative, in that in every aspect of Augustine’s life, it is God who has orchestrated the events in order to bring about the final outcome. This is seen in such events as Augustine’s choice to study the liberal arts or his choice to leave for Rome against his Mother’s wishes, the circumstances of which God used mightily. Every event that Augustine recalls has been orchestrated in some way by God:

“You applied the pricks which made me tear myself away from Carthage, and you put before me the attractions of Rome to draw me there, using people who love a life of death, committing insane actions in this world, promising vain rewards to the next. To correct my ‘steps’ (Ps. 36:23; Prov. 20:20) you secretly made use of their and my perversity. For those who disturbed my serenity were blinded with a disgraceful frenzy (81).”

And concerning what led to a meeting with Ambrose, the bishop who brought about Augustine’s salvation:

“I was led to him by you, unaware that through him, in full awareness, I might be led to you (87,88).”