Saint Augustines The City of God Critique - Book Report/Review Example

Order 296802 Topic: Saint Augustine The of God Introduction: Every argument has a counter-argument. Arguments generally lead to unending conflicts, misunderstandings, and they will never be able to go to the roots of the problem and solve it once for all. The nature of the mind is not to come to agreement, but to argue. With mind-level arguments, one will not enter the portals of spirituality. You will remain at the threshold of thought-barriers knocking, knocking and knocking! Only when one transcends the borders of the mind, one will be able to reach the conflict-less land of spirituality where bliss alone reigns. All misunderstandings cease. These are some of the profound issues in the book “The City of God,” by Saint Augustine. The pages of human history, daubed in bloodshed on account of wars, conflicts related to religious beliefs, race and color etc. ask the crying question. How to make this Planet Earth heaven-like? The answer is simple and straightforward. Eyes full of understanding, hearts full of love and the life that refuses conflicts-enough, these alone are enough! One such serious conflict changed the course of entire Roman history, and set the churning process within Christianity. The city of God, Rome was engulfed in a war in 410 a.d. Alaric, the King of Vandals captured it. Hitherto, the Romans thought that this Eternal City was unconquerable, and this defeat ultimately led to the collapse of the Roman Empire. This calamitous event shocked the people, and shook the foundation of faith. Why God had abandoned Rome—was it because many Romans had forsaken Christianity to take to new faith? The Romans accused that Christians were not patriotic; they asked the people to serve God, forsaking their secular duties to serve the State. Forgiving the enemies is nothing but weakness and cowardice! Why Christian God had failed to protect Rome? Constantine had declared him to be the one true God, all powerful. Why then the calamity befell on Rome? In this angry and confusing situation between the two communities, Augustine intervened and wrote The City of God in 413. It is not an easy task to link the secular with the divine though they are alternative beats of the same heart. Having said this, one should know the process of transcending from the secular to the divine stage. The former relates to the domain of mind, and at the latter stage, mind ceases to exist. Divinity takes charge of the soul and guides it to its real destination. When Augustine wrote The City of God, that was his continuation effort. He had earlier created a theology of the self in The Confessions. In City of God, he explains the progress of the self toward completion and fulfillment in God. Augustine explains how Christian philosophy of society has to move towards the universality of divine revelation. Ethics, politics etc. are but the stepping stones towards the final spiritual goal. The goal of history too, is to come to terms with the divine law. Earlier, the philosophers like Plato, had concluded that an individual does not owe full and total loyalty to any earthly society. Augustine rejects such concepts in the light of Christian doctrine. Scriptures are revelations of the divine and as such they are unfailing and not subject to any corrections by human agency. Without the guidance of the scriptures, which knows the ultimate good for the humanity, all human endeavors become directionless and destination less? Divine blessings are absolutely necessary for fulfillment of all human aspirations. Augustine tenders the four essential elements of his philosophy in The City of God. The Church, the State, the City of Heaven, and the City of the World! Assuming that this division is perfect, Augustine soon runs into difficulties to prove the merits of these divisions. The Church is divinely established according to him and leads humankind to eternal goodness, which is God. Here the assumption that all those who govern the affairs of the Church are perfect and they are capable of leading the Christians to God. The ground realities are different. The assumption that the state adheres to the virtues of politics and will formulate an ideal community is also not correct. Political squabbles and the ambitions of the Kings, Roman Kings included, have led to wars and many such wars were due to religious intolerance. The remaining two, City of Heaven meant for those who are eligible for salvation, and the City of the World for those who are condemned for eternal damnation, do not stand to the scientific tests relied upon by the right thinking people. Such arrangements may appeal to those who are totally faith-based. On the basis of these four divisions, Augustine elaborates his theory of justice. When all the four divisions work in perfect order and operate in tandem, peace becomes an attainable reality according to Augustine. He avers, every historical incident, minor or major, is the unfolding of God’s plan. The human beings have the option to choose between the four options. This is the purpose of God’s creation. The fall of Rome is one such insignificant incident in the grand designs of God, according to Augustine. Augustine began writing The City of God at the age of 59 and it took 14years for him to give the final shape to the book. It was written under severe compulsions. The accusations of Pagans that Christianity was responsible for the demise of the Roman Empire, stirred him to go deeper into the secular and spiritual issues. His point by point rebuttal of the claims of the Pagans about the weakness of Christianity is scholarly and he highlights the ethical, moral and logical failings of Paganism. He explains how the pairs of opposites influence and fulfill the divine designs. According to him, there are two “Cities”, two loves, two ways to understand the big questions of existence, two destinations. Augustine says, “The one City began with the love of God; the other had its beginnings in the love of self." (XIV: 13.) "The city of man seeks the praise of men, whereas the height of glory for the other is to hear God in the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own boasting; the other says to God: Thou art my glory, thou liftest up my head. (Psalm 3.4) In the city of the world both the rulers themselves and the people they dominate are dominated by the lust for domination; whereas in the City of God all citizens serve one another in charity. . ." (XIV: 28.) Augustine is one of the most influential human voices of the Christian faith. Interpretations of religious texts and revelations of the masters, is an ongoing process in any religion and Christianity is no exception to this rule. Even after the relentless debate of several hundreds of centuries many important issues remain unresolved till today. They are (1) Interpretation of the Genesis creation account, (2) the balancing of determinism or ‘predestination’ with freedom of the will and (3) the doctrine of ‘hell’. Augustine clearly states that the physical and temporal facts of creation are a mystery known only to God. What he means is that the mind-level thinkers will never be able to satisfactorily explain these issues, because they are beyond the domain of the mind, and can not be explained through oral presentations or though written documents. They can only be comprehended by directly experiencing divinity. Augustine does not deny the freedom of the human will or the omni-benevolence of God. Destiny, the domain of God has to be understood as for its proper functioning. Destiny, under the command of God has two types of movements. Forward movement and the lateral movement! Forward movement is that movement over which the human being has control the lateral movement is that movement over which the human being has no control. This can be illustrated through an example. The energy (gas, petrol etc.) in a car, is part of the lateral movement. Without it, the car has no motion and when its stock is exhausted, the car comes to a dead halt. The driver (human being) sitting at the steering, controls the forward movements of the car. He can drive it on the royal road, drive fast or slow, and he is responsible when accident happens due to reckless driving! Augustine understands working and designs of the omniscient God from this perspective, the merits and limitations of the human efforts! As for his depiction of the Hell, one finds it difficult to agree with the doctrine of Augustine. According to him it is, “pounded by perceptual pain.” He is not convinced with the view of St. Paul as Hell being “eternal destruction.” Augustine must fail on this count, for Christ himself calls "hell" the ultimate destruction of the soul (Matt. 10:28). One important question in the mind of Augustine which often bothered him is the existence of evil in this world. Apart from the secular considerations, he has personal reasons to find solutions for this issue. The fall of the Roman Empire was an important secular issue. On the personal count, he lost his mistress, then his mother and finally his son. If God is good, why he allows the suffering to exist? Augustine found the answer himself. He states that evil exists because we have free will. Human beings have choice of action. He provides the theological explanations as well. From the level of our mind, we can not understand God. What appears to be evil to us may not be evil at all. Human beings can not pass judgment over God’s judgment. Conclusion: Evil exists, and therefore it should not go unchallenged. Efforts for individual perfection and fight for justice to seek emancipation from the evil tendencies must go on together. Universe is the battlefield of two opposite forces—the pairs of opposites as one calls them! The soul is made of light; human body is made of matter. Practice of asceticism and meditation, makes the soul free from mortal bindings of the body. Because the physical world is imperfect from all counts and from all ends, it is not possible for an individual to know or comprehend it. True knowledge can be attained by transcending the mind and reaching the eternal. ============= Works Cited: St. Augustine, (Author), David Knowles (Editor), Henry Bettenson (Author)- Book: The City of God Paperback: 1152 pages Publisher: Penguin Classics (May 1, 1984) Language: English ISBN-10: 0140444262 ISBN-13: 978-0140444261 Read More