Skip to main content

Fancy Talk and Big Thoughts - Hailey Morgan

Seeing Augustine move from merely being annoyed by Faustus' fancy words to trying to process the mind-numbing relationship between free-will and evil was one heck of an evolution!

In Book V, Augustine talks about how, initially, he admired Faustus' humility in not speaking about the things which he did not understand. However, the philosopher later becomes all together unimpressed with most everything the Manichee has to say! Finally realizing the importance of quality over quantity, Augustine begins to question everything that he has ever been taught by Faustus and his many followers. Reading about Augustine's initial conviction greatly reminded me of my high school biology teacher. When we moved into the human anatomy section of our textbook, our teacher explained to us how she came to doubt evolution through her college anatomy and physiology course. She explained to us how she found it less and less believable that our entire existence was simply one big coincidence when the human body is so incredibly complex! In her mind, the lectures on evolution began to appear less and less impressive as she was finally beginning to see the carefully crafted intent behind everything living in this world!

Once he came to the conclusion that God created the world, Augustine was faced with the dilema of evil. It does seem quite impossible that a holy God would even allow sin to exist within His creation. Using an analogy of a sponge and the sea, the philosopher wonders how evil was ever able to seep into the world if it was crafted by an innately good Craftsman? He loosely concludes that human free-will is what caused chaos to enter and, Biblically speaking, he's not entirely wrong! Adam and Eve were faced with a choice in the garden; to eat or not to eat? Sadly, their faulty decision is what lead to our inevitable demise.

Edit - Replied to Leanne White and Rachael Gregson.    

   

Comments

  1. Leanne ElizabethFebruary 1, 2021 at 9:04 AM

    It is interesting to see how perspectives change as the person focuses more and more on God, like your teacher and like Augustine. The things of evil become less and less impressive because God is transforming the mind (Romans12:2) and we receive the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:5-16).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Braylan StringfellowFebruary 1, 2021 at 4:46 PM

    Your teacher is a great example of how God shows himself through his creation. Hopefully she comes to the same conclusion that Augustine came to that God created the world.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aristotle Might Not Like Me...Or Jesus//Haylee Lynd

      Aristotle says that the man who does not get angry at the things he should be angry at "is thought unlikely to defend himself; and to endure being insulted and put up with insult to one's friends is slavish" (Aristotle 41). While he states that passivity is preferred to excessive anger, he still gives great criticism to it.  In contrast to Aristotle, the man who Christians believe to be the most just is Jesus who states in Matthew 5:39-40, "...do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well." Essentially, arguing that one is not to respond in anger when insulted or hurt, to not defend one's self. Most individual's are unable to achieve this. Our natural instinct is to defend ourselves, especially in physical cases. However, Christians strive to be like Jesus in this way. I would also argue that it is a very admirable wa...
2 comments
Read more