In part 33 of book X in St. Augustine’s Confessions, Augustine expresses his idea of the greediness of his senses. “But I ought not to allow my mind to be paralyzed by the gratification of my senses, which often leads it astray.” (Book X. 33) My take of his words translate them to Augustine having an inward battle of which side of himself to satisfy (or which side should be priority).
I like to liken this passage with the story of the Allegory of the Cave written by Plato. Evidentially, Plato draws a great line which divides ethereal from mortal. That same line divides us as humans, and we have a constant battle between which side of the line we inhabit. Of course, Christians will say that the priority should be put on the ethereal side of the line; however, it is easier said than done. I believe that since we are in a material (mortal) world, the mortal side of our line has a stronger pull. Therefore, we will need to want the ethereal side in order to crave the satisfaction that comes with it.
I might have lost you in the last paragraph, but let me show you from a different standpoint. Think about completing a task whether it be baking, hiking, reading, etc. People can get satisfaction from completing a task by eating the baked good one just made or basking in sweat and glory while looking out onto the view that the mountain you just hiked has to offer. We get satisfaction from practically everything; however, when a task is harder to complete, a person can experience a greater satisfaction. It may take more will-power to get the task done, but the reward is greater nonetheless.
You may be wondering why I brought up that scenario. When a Christian chooses to follow their ethereal desires, the reward can be seen as greater or a more permanent reward. With many things, instant gratification is not as permanent as a gratification you work harder for. Even though our mortal senses want instant gratification, we as Christians, must work harder to gratify our ethereal side with following the words of God.
I commented on Micah and Brooke’s posts.
It is important to remember that a lot what Augustine called the soul, is now known as hormones, psychology, biology, etc. (crying, happiness, fear, thinking, …). So much of his ethereal side was actually his mortal side. People do receive greater pleasure after a hard task, but is it because the task is hard, or because the suffering makes the pleasure better in comparison? Happiness in humans seems to stabilize after periods of time due to automatic tolerances to things. There is an analogy for this called the "hedonic treadmill".
ReplyDeleteMadalyn, I really liked how you compared hiking a mountain to following the 'right' impulses in our lives rather than the 'natural' impulses. Whenever I visited Tennessee, my favorite part of hiking was getting to the top and surveying the bigger picture of what was around me. Going against the flesh/senses and following the spirit is hard as heck sometimes, but once God shows us how far we've come and how hard we fought, the battle becomes all the more special.
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