Augustine’s conversion set him on a path of Christian contemplation, careful study, and religious dialogue. He wanted to be left alone for a life of leisurely learning, but once the gospel took root, it moved outward. As Justo González writes, “It was not only now a matter of studying for the love of truth, or as an act of devotion, but also of studying as preparation to teach others.”19 Augustine saw the needs around him and was compelled (and somewhat forced) into the priesthood and, eventually, to being a bishop.
After the garden scene, Augustine got to writing and didn’t stop. Today, Augustine’s collected writings take up forty-four volumes. He wrote more than many of us will ever read, and he did it in a day without computers, typewriters, or a printing press. It’s astonishing to think about. The impressiveness does not come merely from the amount he wrote, either. Those within and outside the Christian faith consider him one of the greatest philosophical minds. While his writing is quantitatively impressive, it is because of the quality of his work that he is still shaping conversation today.
Like many church fathers, Augustine was an apologist: he defended the faith from false doctrine, guarding the deposit entrusted to him (see 1 Tim. 6:20). He gave himself away to the truth that found him. His first writings refuted his former sect, the Manicheans, rebutting key tenets and arguing with key leaders. He then moved from the Manicheans to the Donatists, who had emerged after persecution in the early church. The church had to figure out what to do with those who had reneged on their faith during a time of persecution and then wanted to come back to the church once the persecution was over. Having denied Christ, would they be allowed back when it was easier to be a Christian? The Donatists were against that. Those who avoided persecution or martyrdom should not be considered Christians. Donatists were seeking a pure church, one uncorrupted by sin and error.
Augustine’s tone changed significantly when he addressed the Donatists. Earlier in his life he had wanted to win arguments, but here he dealt respectfully with this group, “for his purpose was not to defeat his readers but to convince them.”20 Augustine realized that people argue from their heart more than their mind. “Their love for truth takes the form that they love something else and want this object of their love to be the truth; and because they do not wish to be deceived, they do not wish to be persuaded that they are mistaken,” writes Augustine. “And so they hate the truth for the sake of the object they love instead of the truth. They love the truth for the light it sheds, but hate it when it shows them up as being wrong.”21 He came to these insights because he had studied his own heart. He had also wanted to be seen as being “in the know.” There’s a certain type of academic I call the “Well, Actuallys,” who are always out to correct people because they know everything. When someone says, “We got there around 3:00,” the “Well, Actually” chimes in, “Well, actually, it was more like 3:15.” I don’t know Augustine’s personality, but I imagine him being one of those people in his preconversion days.
But in his postconversion days Augustine tried to convince by caring. He was concerned less with being right and more with caring for people with the truth. He ceased to weaponize truth. Philippe de Champaigne painted a fitting portrait of Augustine in 1650. Veritas (truth) is symbolized by a sun in the top-left corner. The rays of truth proceed from the sun, through Augustine’s head, to his heart, which he holds in his hand on the right side of the painting. This image is an apt illustration of Augustine’s thought. Truth doesn’t end in the head but makes its way to the control center, which is the heart. He understood the heart as being central to our living. What someone loves is more important than what they can consciously know or express. Truth is foundational but insufficient. As David Brooks writes, “Knowledge is not enough for tranquillity and goodness, because it doesn’t contain the motivation to be good. Only love impels action. We don’t become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. We don’t become what we know. Education is a process of love formation.”22 Augustine was conquered by love, and he sought to convince others with love and truth. Knowledge needed to turn to wisdom.
The last major doctrinal controversy Augustine faced started with Pelagius, perhaps Augustine’s most well-known debate partner. Pelagians said that accountability required choice. God couldn’t hold people accountable if they were sinful by nature. If sin wasn’t a choice but was how humans were born, then God would be unjust to hold them accountable. For this reason Pelagians denied original sin, the doctrine that people are born in a state of sin. But Augustine knew the depth of sin in his heart. Pelagius was attacking the gospel itself as well as the glory of God in salvation. Augustine understood that we humans are unable to choose Christ in our sinful state. The will is bound to sin, and without God’s intervention, sin is all we choose. Humans need God to act to save us. He’s the one who gives the gift. All we can do is receive.
Augustine was asked why so much of his writing dealt with Pelagianism. Here’s how he responded: “First and foremost because no subject gives me greater pleasure. For what ought to be more attractive to us sick men, than grace, grace by which we are healed; for us lazy men, than grace, grace by which we are stirred up; for us men longing to act, than grace, by which we are helped?”23 In the Roman Catholic Church, Augustine has come to be known as the doctor of grace. I can’t think of a better theme to mark a life.
At the end of his life, he went back through his work and made some retractions. He was humble enough to detail how his mind had changed throughout the years, what he had overstated or underemphasized, and what he had been just plain wrong about. For Augustine, truth was not something that he held; truth held him. Truth affected him deeply, and it caused a loving overflow to others. He dedicated his life to the truth that gave his soul rest.24
PRACTICES
BIBLE STUDY
Perhaps the most popular form of spiritual formation in the evangelical world, Bible study allows us to know, interpret, and apply Scripture. When studying the Bible, we don’t merely study; we allow the Word to study us. As we saw in chapter 1, the foundation of all spiritual formation is biblical truth. We ought to be devoted to studying the Bible.
SCRIPTURE MEMORIZATION
The Psalms instruct us to meditate on the law day and night. How is that possible if we don’t know it? Memorizing Scripture is a way to meditate on the text when we don’t have the Bible in hand. Jesus quotes the Bible when tempted by the devil, so memorizing the Bible is also a help in fighting sin.
LISTENING TO SERMONS
“Faith comes from hearing” (Rom. 10:17). The Word addresses us, but we need help in understanding it. Listening to the Bible being explained has been a formative habit for me, and it is a means of grace by which God changes us.
SINGING SCRIPTURAL SONGS
One further way to meditate on Scripture or biblical themes is to sing songs. One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen is older Christians with dementia still recalling the songs of their youth even when they have forgotten much else. Music is a great means of remembrance.
RESOURCES
Augustine. On Christian Teaching. Translated by R. P. H. Green. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Charry, Ellen. By the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Lovelace, Richard. Renewal as a Way of Life: A Guidebook for Spiritual Growth. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2002.
Robinson, Marilynne. Gilead. New York: Picador, 2006.
1. Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1 (Chadwick, 3).
2. Augustine, Confessions 10.27.38 (Chadwick, 201). Elsewhere in the Confessions, Augustine writes, “But you were more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me” (3.6.11; Chadwick, 43).
3. Augustine, On Christian Belief 39.72 (quoted in Taylor, Sources of the Self, 129).
4. In proto-Descartes fashion, Augustine wonders how he knows anything.
Reason: You who wish to know yourself, do you know that you exist?
Augustine: I do.
Reason: How so?
Augustine: I do not know.
Reason: Do you know that you think?
Augustine: I do.
Reason: Therefore that it is true that you think.
Augustine: Certainly.
Augustine, Soliloquies 2.1.1 (quoted in González, Mestizo Augustine, 53).
5. Augustine, Confessions 2.4.9 (Chadwick, 29).
6. Augustine, Confessions 3.1.1 (Chadwick, 35).
7. Augustine, Confessions 3.4.7 (Chadwick, 38).
8. Augustine, Confessions 3.4.7 (Chadwick, 39).
