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Ben WulpiHistory of ChristianityDr. WebbFebruary 24, 2009Augustine – A Thinking ChristianIn these days, Christianity is popularly known and often ridiculed as areligion that doesn’t require much thought. It is seen by skeptics as a religionthat people must accept on blind faith, and for many people, this just won’tcut it. Christians are often portrayed in the media as naïve, simple-mindedpeople. While certainly Christianity contains some of these, as would anylarge group consisting of a wide variety of people, many Christians are in factgreat thinkers who can give support by reason to their faith, and can defendagainst the attacks of the secular world. A great example of a great Christianthinker from history was St. Augustine of Hippo, widely recognized as one of the greatest minds in the history of Western Civilization. In hisautobiography,
Confessions
1
, Augustine tells of his journey to Christianitythrough the deep forests of intellectualism, foraying through the realms of philosophy, literature, and the nature of good and evil. It took Augustinemany years to traverse this journey to arrive at Catholic Christianity, but it isa journey that is rich in insight and wisdom, and one that is very enlighteningboth for the seeker of truth and the mature Christian. Augustine shows howone 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 theknowledge of the heart. This raises the question: is intellect alone enough tosupport our spiritual journey? Is faith alone enough to support it? This is what we will explore as it is seen through Augustine’s journey. The journey begins in Augustine’s childhood, into his adolescent years.During these years, Augustine was motivated simply by his own sinfuldesires and the lustfulness of youth. He delved into a life of sin and self-indulgence. This was a time in his life where he looked to immediatepleasures and the approval of friends for self-fulfillment. There is the famousstory of when he robs a pear-tree with friends. As he looks back on thatexperience and ponders why he did it, he comes to the conclusion that hedid it purely for the sake of doing something wrong, because he wanted to. Throughout his adolescent years, he was consumed with lust and got caughtup in many sexual activities. This was a stage of Augustine’s life whereknowledge of any kind was not foremost on his mind—fulfilling his ownpleasures was.When he moved to Carthage, Augustine continued down that path of self-indulgence, abandoning himself to a life of pleasure. But this is also thetime when he read Cicero’s
Hortensius
, and discovered that love of wisdom—philosophy. It was around this time that Augustine joined the Manichees, abranch of Gnostic religion. Augustine was attracted by their pursuit of truth.He was still living in hedonism and sin, but the focus of his life has turned tothis study of and experimenting with philosophy. It is at this point in his life
 
that Augustine begins to really value intellectual knowledge in pursuing faithand truth. He uses his powers of reason and intellect to search his waythrough the muddle of ideas and theologies he is bombarded with, oftengetting turned around and captured in the bristles of false teachings, such asthat of the Manichees.At this point in his faith, Augustine believed in God, but it was not theGod of the Christian faith, which he worked hard to avoid. This left himunsettled and burdened more often than not. “The god I worshipped was myown delusion, and if I tried to find in it a place to rest my burden, there wasnothing there to uphold it. It only fell and weighed me down once more, sothat I was still my own unhappy prisoner, unable to live in such a state yetpowerless to escape from it.”
2
The god of his own intellectual choosing wasfailing him.Augustine’s faith in Manichaean thought faltered after his encounterwith Faustus, whom had no substantial knowledge to answer his burningquestions. After that, he turned to another intellectual discipline, in the formof neo-platonism. He was still set on pursuing all truth and faith through hisintellect. It wasn’t until hearing the sermons of Ambrose that Augustinebegan to consider Christianity intellectually viable. Ambrose teaches himthat Scripture is sometimes to be viewed allegorically rather than literally. This really helped Augustine to understand the meaning of Scripture wherepreviously there had only been confusion. His intellect was much more ableto grasp the allegorical forms of Scripture, which helped him to appreciate
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Ibid, p. 78
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