Augustine of Hippo

Saint Augustine had a profound influence on Western thought and culture. He wrote the City of God, showed that Christianity was not to blame in the downfall of the Roman Empire and promotes Christian teachings over pagan religion. The City of God influenced Christian spiritual devotion through extreme practices such as martyrdom, renunciation of wealth and status and finally the idea that God is transcendent. During the rise of monasticism, Saint Augustine’s City of God was interpreted as…

Anna J. Cooper Introduction Anna Julia Haywood Cooper (August 10, 1858 - February 27, 1964) was an American writer, educator, sociologist, Black Liberation activist and one of the most prominent African-American academics in US history. After receiving her doctorate in history from the University of Paris-Sorbonne in 1924, Cooper became the fourth African American woman to obtain a doctorate. He was also a prominent member of Washington, the Afro-American community of DC and a member of the…

Have humans evolved throughout time, changing their thoughts, beliefs and writing? Has it come to a point where we no longer have the same feelings and entertainment as our ancestors? Has our views on human ethics changed throughout time that now we believe that our ancestors did horrible things? In the early 1600’s there were groups of Europeans came to the North America’s looking for a new blank slate. A group called the Puritans came to America from England because they felt religious…

Augustine wrote confessions as a bishop. He wrote about many situations from his earlier life. When reading Confessions you must keep in mind that these are the words of an older man talking about his past self. If young Augustine had written Confessions it would have been a much different book. Love is an interesting topic. We all love or are loved in one capacity or another. Romantic love is a different beast altogether. Often times we are obsessed with the idea of love and we will do…

This means God foreknows everything including our future acts. The question then is how can we have free will when God knows everything. Augustine, in a form of a dialog, argues that free will and God’s foreknowledge are compatible. He refute the idea that God’s activity puts freedom at risk and that our free choices are free from God’s activity. Human beings can choose one particular action…

Teacher 1, Clement: He was born Titus Flavius Clemens in about 150 in Athens which is also where he grew up. As an adult, he sought out truths from a number of teachers in Greece, Italy, Syria, Palestine, and finally Alexandria. While there he learned under Pantaenus, who taught Christianity in light of the scientific teachings of that time. In about 190 A.D., Clement opened his own “school” of teachings and philosophies. He taught a "new philosophy" that addressed the cultural and philosophical…

Petrarch imagines one side of his personality to be self-disciplined and judgmental similar to St Augustine, and his alter ego Franciscus, who he recognized as much more mortal and imperfect, much more humanistic. Through his inner struggle he brings up his most inner battles, how he knows he has done wrong but he must devoutly desire to no longer do wrong…

many theories, most thinkers manage to agree on one thing; there is some superior being responsible for Creation. I will explore the philosophies presented by St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Augustine and St. Anselm in an attempt to discover which, if any, has uncovered the unquestionable truth. Anselm, Aquinas and Augustine each exhibited a love of knowledge and shared strong ties to religion, namely Christianity. Apart from of their personal religious beliefs they also agree on several basic…

Augustine’s conversion played a very significant role in his life. It shaped him and his thoughts, especially towards doing God’s work. When he was not conversed yet, his sins and guilt made him feel uncomfortable. As he said in the beginning of Book (VIII) thus before he was conversed, (Thus I was sick at heart and in torment, accusing myself with a new intensity of bitterness, twisting and turning in my chain in the hope that it might be utterly broken! For what held me was small thing, but it…

Augustine lived right before the medieval period and sought happiness and to gain more wisdom. Augustine lived his life following Christianity, even though he was skeptic for a short period in his life. He became skeptic over the problem of evil, which states that God is all knowing, all good, and all-powerful but it raises the issue of why evil exists. Augustine was distraught over this issue, he found comfort in the Manichaeism solution to evil, which mentions the soul is all-good and seeks to…