The Minority Report: St. Augustine

Augustine, also better known as St. Augustine or even Aurelius Augustinus, was born in North Africa around 354, in the town of Tagaste. He was a fourth century philosopher, with Christian doctrine based on Neoplatonism, a theologian and a bishop. Raised by his Christian mother, he initially took a mild interest towards Christ, but surprisingly more towards the “attractions of sex, fame and pride in his own cleverness.” However, the fact that he was raised as Christian immensely affected him when he was young, and later on his adult life too. Few years later, he became a student at Carthage and with his academic curiosity, he learned Greek. Later, he left Africa and went to Rome. For the longest of times, he was intrigued by Manicheeism, a religion …show more content…
This lead me to come to the realization that Dick and Augustine held complete opposite beliefs, where one believed that predetermined events were unescapable and a necessity, the other was certain that choice was always present. In the story, Dick makes it very clear that he believes that the fate seen by precogs is impossible to escape, because Anderton’s opinion regarding his system is that his system is credited and accurate, because when Ed states, “Then, the minority report is incorrect?”, Anderton is quick to reply, “No, it’s absolutely …show more content…
In my opinion, Dick was basically Evodius, because he was a firm believer that if God foreknew everything and it was already predicted then there was no way around it, and it would have to happen, the character of Ed was the perfect example of this. During the very beginning when Anderton and Ed are getting acquainted with each other, and Anderton is giving him a summary on Precrime, Anderton says, “We’re taking in individuals who have broken no law” Ed very quickly and confidently answers, “But they surely will.” This dialogue represents the fact that people believed in the precogs’ predictions, that they would not dare question it. I believe this because Dick allowed Anderton to have many choices from the three different reports from Donna, Jerry and Mike. I believe that Augustine would comment on the fact that Jerry “prophesied” that Anderton finds about the cards and escapes from the city. This is one of the choices he could have made, but he decided not to. This is one of the choices on the Garden of Forking Paths, which would involve Anderton not killing Kaplan, so basically allowing him to prove “divine foreknowledge” wrong, and hence making a point that, foreknowledge does not predict everything and make the choices for human beings. However, Dick did not want it to seem that way in his story so he made