The pursuit of happiness is not just a fundamental right and theme found in the United States’ Declaration of Independence. It is an inward aspiration and impulse that has rooted itself as a fundamental need and craving for humanity. In Confessions by Saint Augustine, the pursuit of happiness, or simply desire, is an evident theme found within the juxtaposition of Augustine’s crimpling longings and struggle for earthly and spiritual desires. However, Augustine’s earthly and fruitless desires for lust, philosophical recognition, and theological knowledge, leads to the birth of his spiritual desire for fulfillment and ultimate conversion to Christianity.
The most apparent earthly desire that Augustine describes within his autobiography is his …show more content…
Augustine’s pursuit of this knowledge as well as his question of how to reconcile evil with a good God led him to a resolution of such an intellectual issue through a new understanding of evil. With further study of the Gospel and the knowledge and example of Saint Ambrose in Milan, no longer did Augustine see evil as having a substance as professed in Manichean thought and practice, but understood that evil is not, in fact, a substantial being. In Book VII, therefore, it is evident that Augustine begins to pursue a new desire: a spiritual desire for goodness and truth rooted in the love of Christ. Although Augustine begins to formulate this new desire to “be more stable” in Christ, he was unable to release the grip of his material desires as he states, “I was still firmly tied by woman.” However, after the mental anguish that Augustine experiences in the garden in Book VIII and reading the words of the Apostle Paul, Augustine realizes that he cannot live a godly life while keeping his arrogance and must give up his earthly desires of arrogance and surrender his rank through baptism and humility to God. Augustine comes to realize that he was “a slave of wicked lust” and did not realize the source of his longings. By the end of Book VIII, Augustine understands the fruitlessness and discontentment of his earthly desires and surrenders them God through his understandings of Christ’s love as seen in the quote, “it was much better for me to give myself up to thy love than to go on yielding myself to my own lust…thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust pleased and fettered me.”
The most apparent earthly desire that Augustine describes within his autobiography is his …show more content…
Augustine’s pursuit of this knowledge as well as his question of how to reconcile evil with a good God led him to a resolution of such an intellectual issue through a new understanding of evil. With further study of the Gospel and the knowledge and example of Saint Ambrose in Milan, no longer did Augustine see evil as having a substance as professed in Manichean thought and practice, but understood that evil is not, in fact, a substantial being. In Book VII, therefore, it is evident that Augustine begins to pursue a new desire: a spiritual desire for goodness and truth rooted in the love of Christ. Although Augustine begins to formulate this new desire to “be more stable” in Christ, he was unable to release the grip of his material desires as he states, “I was still firmly tied by woman.” However, after the mental anguish that Augustine experiences in the garden in Book VIII and reading the words of the Apostle Paul, Augustine realizes that he cannot live a godly life while keeping his arrogance and must give up his earthly desires of arrogance and surrender his rank through baptism and humility to God. Augustine comes to realize that he was “a slave of wicked lust” and did not realize the source of his longings. By the end of Book VIII, Augustine understands the fruitlessness and discontentment of his earthly desires and surrenders them God through his understandings of Christ’s love as seen in the quote, “it was much better for me to give myself up to thy love than to go on yielding myself to my own lust…thy love satisfied and vanquished me; my lust pleased and fettered me.”