Confessions by Saint Augustine

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The Confessions is written by Augustine and it is has a psychological and spiritual insight, and therefore it can be read as either a devotional tract or philosophical essay. The first book through nine, are Augustine’s life story from a Christian conversion. He tends to reflect on his life about both his sinfulness and his separation from God’s grace. Augustine explains that his conversion was like the two wills from good vs. evil were fighting for his soul. “And so the two wills fought it out-the old and the new, the one carnal, the other spiritual-and their struggle tore my soul apart (Augustine 5,10).” In a way, Augustine felt that his body was going into a transition. His soul was to obey its own command in carrying out this major volition in which it to be accomplished within the will alone (Augustine 20). So, how did this happen? He explains that the mind commands itself to will something. It would not be giving the order if it did not want this thing; yet it does not do what it commands. This partial willing and partial non-willing is not crazy as what it seems, but a sickness of the mind, that can not rise with its whole self on the wings of truth because it is heavily burdened by habit. There are two wills, then, and neither is whole: what one has the other lacks (Augustine 9, 21). There are some people who try to perceive two wills as engaging in deliberation, causing two natures; one good, the other evil, each with a mind of its own. The trouble with this he explains is that they want to be a light not in the Lord but in themselves, with their notion that the soul is by nature divine, still allows darkness to enter in because by their awful arrogance they have moved further away from you, the true light that enlighten everyone who comes into the world. For Augustine, he felt this was happening without his consent. What it had indicated was not the

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