History of Christianity
Dr. Webb
that people must accept on blind faith, and for many people, this just won’t
cut it. Christians are often portrayed in the media as naïve, simple-minded
large group consisting of a wide variety of people, many Christians are in fact
great thinkers who can give support by reason to their faith, and can defend
against the attacks of the secular world. A great example of a great Christian
thinker from history was St. Augustine of Hippo, widely recognized as one of
philosophy, literature, and the nature of good and evil. It took Augustine
a journey that is rich in insight and wisdom, and one that is very enlightening
both for the seeker of truth and the mature Christian. Augustine shows how
one can use their God-given mind to seek out its Creator. But throughout his
journey, there is a tension between how much Augustine can find through
1
Augustine, Confessions (London: Penguin Books, 1961)
the knowledge of the intellect alone, and what needs to be found through the
knowledge of the heart. This raises the question: is intellect alone enough to
During these years, Augustine was motivated simply by his own sinful
desires and the lustfulness of youth. He delved into a life of sin and self-
pleasures and the approval of friends for self-fulfillment. There is the famous
experience and ponders why he did it, he comes to the conclusion that he
did it purely for the sake of doing something wrong, because he wanted to.
Throughout his adolescent years, he was consumed with lust and got caught
knowledge of any kind was not foremost on his mind—fulfilling his own
pleasures was.
time when he read Cicero’s Hortensius, and discovered that love of wisdom—
philosophy. It was around this time that Augustine joined the Manichees, a
He was still living in hedonism and sin, but the focus of his life has turned to
this study of and experimenting with philosophy. It is at this point in his life
that Augustine begins to really value intellectual knowledge in pursuing faith
and truth. He uses his powers of reason and intellect to search his way
getting turned around and captured in the bristles of false teachings, such as
At this point in his faith, Augustine believed in God, but it was not the
God of the Christian faith, which he worked hard to avoid. This left him
unsettled and burdened more often than not. “The god I worshipped was my
own delusion, and if I tried to find in it a place to rest my burden, there was
nothing there to uphold it. It only fell and weighed me down once more, so
that I was still my own unhappy prisoner, unable to live in such a state yet
powerless to escape from it.”2 The god of his own intellectual choosing was
failing him.
of neo-platonism. He was still set on pursuing all truth and faith through his
previously there had only been confusion. His intellect was much more able
understand that his previous notions of Christian doctrine that prevented him
from accepting the faith were based on faulty foundations. Ambrose was a
intellectual standpoint.
Augustine was convinced that Christianity was the true faith, that Christ was
Truth itself. But still he was trapped by his own desires. His failure to master
his own chastity prevented him from fully being converted to a Christian. He
had basically arrived intellectually at Christianity, but it was not enough. His
heart had remained unchanged. He was softened by reading the words of St.
Paul in the epistles, and he was helped by the Platonist ideas of good and
evil. Intellectually, he continued to grow in his faith, but even he knew that it
was not yet complete. He admits, “I was astonished that although I now
loved you and not some phantom in your place, I did not persist in
in another place, “…I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself
up to your love than to surrender to my own lust. But while I wanted to follow
the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the
Augustine continued to struggle with giving his life over to the Lord
until one day when a friend told him and his friend Alypius the story of two
3
Ibid, p. 151
4
Ibid, p. 165
men who read the story of Antony, the Egyptian monk. Augustine’s heart
was torn at the hearing of this tale, and he broke off and went out into the
garden, tormented by the battle in his soul. As he brooded over his own sin
and disobedience, his heart was slowly changed. He felt the voice of habit
tugging at his heart, but much more faintly than before.5 Then, by inspiration
enlightened by the Word of God, and “it was as though the light of
confidence flooded into my heart and all the darkness of doubt was
knew in his heart that Jesus Christ was the Truth, and in such a way that
What can we learn from the spiritual journey of Augustine? From his
intellectual journey, we can clearly see that, with the right tools and support,
a person can “think” their way to God. He is the logical end to all forms of
reason. But in the end, reason wasn’t enough to fully convert Augustine. It
was a matter of the heart that prevented him from coming to God for so
long, and it was a breaking down of the heart that allowed him to be taken
hold of by God. It was the heart knowledge that really sealed the deal for
Augustine. The thinking Christian needs to learn from this great story and
realize that we should seek God through reason and our intellects, but they
also need to realize that reason and intellect alone won’t get them the entire
5
Ibid, p. 176
6
Ibid, p. 178
something that tells us that God desires to be the God of not only our minds,
but our hearts and bodies and souls. In fact, this is the greatest
commandment we have been given: “Love the Lord your God with all your
heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”7 One kind of knowledge
is not better than the other, but both are necessary for giving all of ourselves
to the Lord.
7
Matthew 22:37, NIV