The love for God and your neighbors is a reoccurring theme in book three of St. Augustine’s book. It is interesting because this love for God and our neighbors is something that one needs to develop in order to fully understand the bible according to Augustine. One of the things that happen when you fully love God is that you trust in him and you trust his word. This faith in God and his truth is what allows a person to believe in the bible and all that it says without prejudice.
But, one has to wonder whether or not this love for God and faith in his truth really allows you to understand the bible or whether it blinds you to what is really there. When you have faith in God and his truth you are believing in something that cannot necessarily be proven. It is a blind faith. This might actually hinder a person from asking questions that should be asked. Or it might give you an insight into the true meaning of some bible verses. It may also give a person more faith in the bible because not all things that God does can be explained just like the bible. So it seems that love and trust in God are the keys to fully understanding the bible according to Augustine. But this may not be in the way that a person seeking all truth might want. So it is up to you to take Augustine’s route or the route of a person that wants all the facts.
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3 years ago
I agree, I think that St. Augustine's way of going about things is quite biased and definitely capable of blinding the facts. It is very hard to argue against him, simply because anything you throw at him he can turn into the figurative instead or taking it literally.
ReplyDeleteI agree too. This idea of blind faith seems to be something that is simultaneously one of the most sacred parts of a religion and one of the most disputed ideas by other religions--and like you said it is also one of the most difficult things to debate because religion has that all powerful trump that needs no proof to back it up.
ReplyDelete"But, one has to wonder whether or not this love for God and faith in his truth really allows you to understand the bible or whether it blinds you to what is really there."
ReplyDeleteI ask myself that all the time. I often admire the readings of scripture that come from someone like Augustine, but then it also seems like a screen for what it really says..