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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).

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  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.

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