Speech
The telos of the human person in Augustine's words.
What is praising God?
True or False: Augustine loved stories from Scripture as a young child.
False
True or False: Augustine spent several years as an atheist.
False
Augustine's most famous sin
What is stealing pears?
Augustine is living in _______________ (what city) when he converts to Manichaeism, and in __________________ (what city) when he converts to Christianity.
What is Carthage; Milan?
The encounter that moved Augustine to go out into the garden where he received the grace of conversion.
What is Ponticianus's story?
The person who taught Augustine to read Scripture in a spiritual sense, not only a literal one.
Who is Ambrose?
It was encountering this school of thought that resolved Augustine's misunderstanding of the Nature of God
What is Neo-Platonism?
The Manichaean solution to the problem of evil.
What are two gods: one good and one evil?
True or False: Intellectual argument alone will move a person to convert.
False. Augustine's intellectual problems with Christianity are fully resolved at the end of Book VII, but it is his will that must decide.
Compare and contrast Ambrose and Faustus and explain Augustine's understanding of speech through this comparison.
Answers may vary (and should be lengthy).
Augustine turned to Scripture for the first time after reading this book.
What is Cicero's Hortensius?
True or False: Augustine always believed that God was pure spirit.
False - He has a material understanding of God for many, many years.
The reason Augustine found the Manichaean answer to the problem of evil so convincing.
What is Augustine's unwillingness to admit his personal responsibility for his sins?
The pattern of conversion in the Confessions
1) habitual sin
2) mundane comment/incident
3)immediate reform
4) attributed to grace
True or False: Augustine sees speech as a neutral tool that can be used for good or for evil.
False: While Augustine understood that it was through conversation that he was drawn into both good and evil things, because speech is an expression of our humanity and its telos is to praise God, one who uses speech for evil is not really talking (evil is the absence of good - they are missing something essential to speech).
Augustine relentlessly quotes Scripture throughout the Confessions. There are hundreds of verses cited throughout. Why?
Augustine believed that more of God was present in larger objects and less of God in smaller objects. Explain the understanding of God's nature which led him to conceive of God in this way.
Answers will vary, but must include the fact that Augustine did not realize a purely spiritual substance could exist.
Augustine briefly considered the possibility that evil is not real, but the experience of ___________ convinced him that it was.
Fear
Name at least 5 conversions which take place in the Confessions and explain the pattern of conversion through them.
- Alypius (gladiators), Monica (drunkenness), Augustine to philosophy, Augustine to Manichaeism, Augustine to Christianity, Victorinus to Christianity, the two officials at Trier to Christianity, etc.