Saint Augustine Term Paper

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430) was born in Tagaste, North Africa, to a pagan father and Christian mother. The philosophical treatise ‘Hortensius’ conceived by the Roman orator and statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero inspired him. He studied and practiced several systems like Manichaeism and Skepticism before finally adopting the Christian faith in 387 AD. In 391 he went back to North Africa and become bishop of Hippo in 395 and remained till his death.

Being a thinker, philosopher and reformer, his teachings had exerted an unlimited influence over the western thoughts that developed during and after his time. His works addressed the problems of the then existing Christian faith and formulated the themes of the western traditions. His influences are much deeper than any one else of his time. He wrote a number of classical writings about different aspects of religion, human relations, spirituality, mysticism and other relating issues. Most famous of his works are his semiautobiographical ‘Confessions’, which contains elements of Mysticism, and ‘City of God’, a Christian vision of history. In the 5th century, the barbarian attack posed a major threat to Christianity and Augustine can be termed as one of the most important figure of the times who served to keep Christianity unified and a later on emerge as a majority religion of medieval Europe. Being a bishop at Hippo, he worked hard to bring the philosophic and popular Christianity in unison. As a result of this union, a theology emerged that served as the basis of Christianity of both the Roman Catholic and Protestant sects.
 

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites

Skepticism
Skepticism can simply be defined as the belief that all beliefs can be proved false and thus, to avoid the frustration of being wrong, it is best to believe nothing. Skepticism began with Pyrrho of Elis, who believed and taught that man does not have any access to reality accept for those things that are admitted and registered by his natural senses. This only through what he see, hear, smell or feel, a man can assess the nature of things existing around him or phenomenon taking place in his surrounding universe. Skeptics are of the opinion that it is almost impossible for a human being to acquire exact knowledge of reality or judge it exactly and to explore a way to live in reality. According to their prevailing opinion, a human mind unnecessarily distorts the events of information that it imagines or visualizes. They agree to the Platonic version that admits the need of a supernatural means of cognition that can derive or discover a perfect view or perception of anything existing in the world. However, they believe that such supernatural mind cannot at all be found among the human beings. They hold the Behaviorist ways of thinking and consider that learning can only be done through observation and the process involves external or visible factors. They oppose the existence of mind or mental powers of humans. Skeptics strictly oppose the existence of any spiritual guidance.

At the same time, however, the skeptics also believe that the senses and reason possessed by person of different races, color, class, gender, religion, traditions and cultures and belonging to different geographical locations are different from their counterparts. Every one has his point of view and way of thinking about a certain reality and those various cannot be judged as right or wrong and superior or inferior in comparison with each other. It means that nature of every existing thing or thought is relative in nature i.e., it is shaped and changes with surroundings or environment. Nothing in the universe can thus be referred to as universal truth. Some skeptics go further in their analysis and holds that this relativity in itself is relative and thus every group or individual has his own concept of reality. It can be made simpler by saying that every individual or group conceives reality as the one that suits its requirement or is of benefit to him or her. This analysis makes them believe that there is no such thing as reality exists and all beliefs or ideologies possessed by human beings around the world are in fact false. To avoid any confusion in this regard, the skeptics advocate the idea to ‘believe nothing’.

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites

The Greek Sophists were the initial believers of the skeptic faith but the Pyrrhonists, followers of Pyrrho of Elis, were the first to introduce skepticism. Different group has followed the belief in all the ages of history. Apart from the above-mentioned belief regarding the evaluation of reality, the skeptics also maintain their views about other phenomenon relating to human life. For instance, they share the idea of sacrifice with the Platonists. The idea advocates that individuals are required to sacrifice their own comfort for the convenience of his fellows. A person should always think of a collective benefit rather than personal gains. On the other hand, they also believe in self-fulfillment, i.e., a person must follow a legitimate path to achieve his desired goal or object and if required, he can forcibly sacrifice others for his sake. It means that skeptics maintain ethical and moral approaches and believe in the sanctity of human relations but simultaneously, they think of that process as reciprocal. The act of sacrifice is both self-imposed and can be forced on others as well. The skeptics also share Platonists views on politics. “Politically, because of their pro- sacrifice ethical positions, both camps tend toward collectivism: the view that society should have primacy over the individual, and that the individual exists to serve society.

St. Augustine on Skeptics
The skeptic school that emerged before the advent of Christianity continued even afterwards. St. Augustine, who also followed and supported the same belief for sometime, emerged as a strong opponent of the ideology after his conversion to Christianity. Based on his past experience and study of different philosophical and ideological system, Augustine presented his theology that served as a basis of Christianity in medieval Europe. His thoughts and criticism of skepticism was based on logical and factual reasons and statements. He rejected the basic theme of skepticism that says that nothing is true in the world. To this he argued that if one supposes that everything is false or not true, he at least can never deny the fact of his own existence.
 

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites

He presented his arguments in religious perspectives and opposed the basic ideas of skepticism. He criticized the skeptic belief of uncertainty of knowledge. He supported his arguments and explanations stoic and Christian teachings and said that human knowledge is based on a firm foundation and is certain in nature. He also presented his argument to establish the existence of God, although, these arguments were based upon the philosophy of Plato. In his written works, he presented an assessment and analysis of the effects and acknowledgement of divine control and foreknowledge. He distinguished politics from religion and mortality. He also opposed the skeptic view of sacrificing others interests for their own. In this regards he was guided by the teachings of Jesus who advocated a policy of self-sacrifice without any reward. “He used an analysis of the nature of time to defend human freedom in De Gratia ET Libero Aribitrio (On Grace and Free Will). In De Civitate Dei (The City of God) (413-427) Augustine distinguished religion and morality from politics and tried to establish the proper relations among them, arguing for the church's strict independence from (if not its outright superiority to) the civil state. In the Contra Academicos, as elsewhere, Augustine attacks skepticism as an obstacle on the road to a eudaimonistically- construed happiness.

He absolutely discarded the anti-Christian beliefs of skeptics and presented his arguments in favor of his ideas. His opposition to the skeptic conviction about the nature of human knowledge was based on reasons that were part of the teaching of Jesus Christ. He rejected the Platonic and skeptic views about knowledge that were based on behaviorist notion, which reduce human beings to a status of animals. The skeptic view calls for a person to follow his self and make other sacrifice in order to attain his goals. This attitude is not human according to the Christian doctrine and thus was not supported by Augustine. Human being is the centre of all social system and he possesses all spiritual, mental and moral values and cannot be termed as a mere machine or animal that can be taught according to their master’s will. Again there is a question that if human beings are conditioned in such a way, then who is the one who guide them? Surely the answer is ‘another human being’. Thus if one human being can possess the extraordinary quality of guidance, why can’t others? Secondly, the skeptics are wrong in their idea according to their own definition. Their belief that no faith is real and the only option is to believe nothing is also wrong. If no ideology is real, then the skeptic ideology is also unreal.

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites

Augustine being a staunch believer in spirituality criticized the skeptic’s rejection of spirituality. He draws a line between the approach of human eye and the power of intuition that lies in the heart of a human. For him an ordinary human eye can only see the reality as long as there is light and cease to work in darkness. The intellectuals on the other hand, possess the light of God that enables them to see in darkness and watch the things that are not visible through human eye. That is what he called the spirituality or guidance from God. The knowledge thus acquired was of divine in nature and thus an ultimate truth.

These were all the teachings and arguments of St. Augustine that he presented in favor of religion and against skeptic beliefs. Augustine was well aware of all the skeptic themes as he has been a believer of the theory and through his experience he could distinguish and differentiate between the then existing theologies. It was not until the age of thirty-three that he converted to the Christian faith. All over the years he searched for the reality and in the process studied and followed different ideologies and philosophies. After finally converting to Christianity he was practically well aware of many existing faiths. This experience of his led him to draw a clear line between the Christianity, which was a divine religion and other human beliefs. His analysis and criticism of skepticism has been proved true through many theories presented from time to time by different philosophers, theologians and psychologists. The skeptic views were very much similar to those who in the later years presented the theory of ‘Behaviorism’. The critiques of behaviorism say that the theory is more applicable to animals than it is to human beings, since it does not admit the presence of mind and conscious in human beings.

The most currently acceptable and viable psychological theory of learning and knowledge is the constructive theory that accepts man as a superior and spiritual being as compared to animals. The fact has been proved by a number of psychological and scientific theories and also by divine religious dogmas like the Bible and the Koran. Thus Augustine’s analysis and criticism of the skeptics made in the 4th century can be termed as true in the presence of all existing theories and ideologies. The human mind coupled by a gifted sense of spirituality is the main judge of reality and that reality is accepted universally. All ideologies and philosophies presented by human beings are not necessarily true but that could not be termed as unreal at all. The ideas that had finally evolved to the status of laws are the achievement of human mind and their authenticity has been proved universally.

 

Click Here To View Top Term Papers Sites