(posted by MVR for Grace Hicks)
It seems to me like Saint Augustine is quite similar to many Christians. I may not have a perfectly parallel situation with Augustine, but I have quite a similar mindset at many times. Augustine is a faithful follower - at least he wants to be - but he has many questions about his faith, as do I.
Augustine was a philosopher, theologian, and bishop, leading him to understand more than many about religion. His occupations show that he studied and thought about his own religion for hours upon hours. Of course, through his studies he made some major personal breakthroughs, but they did not come easily. Although I am no philosopher or theologian, I believe that Augustine are similar.
With Augustine’s hobbies of reading, writing, and studying about religion also comes discomfort, questions, and doubts. This is where I find myself feeling for Augustine as I read his Confessions.
It is difficult to understand something so large and mysterious. Almost all of the questions asked by Augustine, I have already asked myself multiple times, and most likely we are not the only ones. One of the most troubling questions I ask myself is this: Why is there a Hell? And why would our good God allow such a horribly place to exist, whether it is inside our outside of our physical realm? I begin to second guess humanity as if God can’t handle us and tell myself that maybe it doesn’t exist at all - maybe humans have only dreamt Hell up in order to see justice for the ones they hate. Yes, it is a silly and rash solution to this huge problem, but the question must be asked. Augustine understands this questioning and asks, “How did [the Devil] come to possess the wicked will which made him a devil, when the Creator, who is entirely good, made him a good angel and nothing else” (Augustine, 137)? He continues and asks why evil exists at all. The only reason why I don’t ask that question before the question of Hell is because I am constantly trying to make my questions more specific - for maybe by making these topics more focused, my incredibly insufficient brain can grasp more than usual. What an issue, what a problem, when as humans, we must go on with our daily lives after sitting for hours trying to figure out why there is evil in the first place.
Because of this overwhelming gap in the knowledge we have and the omnipotent God we worship, Augustine and I also share the same kind of frustration that results from this intense confusion. He proclaims, “What agony I suffered, my God! How I cried out in grief, while my heart was in labour” (143)! I can feel what Augustine is describing. Not understanding God, something so incredibly important, is a low and frustrating feeling. It is not a problem that I can fully overcome, for we will not know for sure the answers to our questions until discussed with God himself, when we have more than earthly knowledge.
Our similarities may seem quite negative, while full of discomfort and questions, but i believe that both are necessary. As humans, straying away from God - mentally, physically, or emotionally - is inevitable, but what is important is this: we try our best to get back on track, with a gentle, humble, loving, and faithful heart.
These ideas get right to the heart of the division among many different denominations in my opinion. It is the questions, such as the one about the existence of evil, that do not have an obvious answer that cause people to move in different directions with their religious beliefs. This can even be seen through Augustine's experimentation with different religious thoughts. I also agree many of the questions asked by Augustine are the same that many ask throughout life. I feel like this attribute of his writing is what makes it relevant even today. The answers to such ambiguous questions can certainly take many different forms.
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