The Confesssions of St. Augustine: A 19-week Sunday Morning Seminar

How the Seminar Was Organized

In the fall of 2012, I facilitated a seminar on Augustine’s Confessions on Sunday mornings as one of the adult nurture classes offered at The National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. Fifteen adult church members signed up and all but one stayed with the demands of the study and discussion approach for the 19 class periods. The first two classes were devoted to introductory lectures by Dr. James Goodloe of the Foundation for Reformed Theology in Richmond, VA on the life and times of Augustine. One of Dr. Goodloe’s lectures is available on Vimeo at http://vimeo.com/50793952. The final two sessions included time for class participants to make their own confessions. (The sessions have been reformatted here to still be 19 class periods.)

Our seminar used four resources. The major resource was the version of the Confessions translated and annotated by Maria Boulding [In The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21 Century, vol. 1, New York: New City Press, 1997, 416 pp.] Because of the limitations of the half-year Sunday morning format, we tackled only the first nine chapters (which Augustine calls “books”) comprising his testimony. In addition, we used the Bible and Reformation confessions to consider the source and application of Augustine’s thought.

Because many of the characters and some of the vocabulary were unfamiliar to lay scholars, participants were encouraged to keep a glossary of people and terms for their own reference.

The sets of questions that are included here were used as our framework. My aim was to let Augustine do the teaching. I used one set of questions to help participants grasp the data that Augustine provides in each “book.” I sampled the questions in class to help all get to the same starting place for our discussion. Thus, discussion began with the “data” gathering questions and those identified as “Discussion Questions” became interspersed. Participants’ own questions were readily entertained, and several participants took a Sunday and led the discussion.

The class was called “seminar” to denote the expectation that participants would not hear lectures but instead would study and participate in discussion of the book. Our purpose was to interact with Augustine, as many millions of believers had done before us, to travel his spiritual pilgrim’s progress with him, and let him raise questions for us to consider together and personally.

The Confessions is written in the form of a prayer. Thus, we began each class with the reading of one of Augustine’s prayers selected and prayed by a class member. We ended our time together with an opportunity for each participant voluntarily to make his or her confession, noting any comparisons they found with Augustine’s experience. If time had allowed, I would have added a class session on Prayer, using Augustine’s teaching on Prayer that begins the set of questions below, and prayers contained in the Confessions. Dr. Goodloe provided us with a list of some specific prayers taken from the book. I have used that to outline a proposed class session on Prayer and included it here.

Introduction

Augustine is arguably the most notable of the post-New Testament church fathers. After his conversion to Christianity, which he recounts in these Confessions of his, he became Bishop of Hippo, located in North Africa. He is one of the thinkers following the New Testament writers who continued to influence the direction of the Christian Church in its theology, spirituality, and practices. If you learn about only one ancient church father, he should be the one, and if you learn something about Augustine, your learning should begin with his Confessions.

The opening paragraph of his Confessions contains what probably is his most famous and oft-quoted statement of human yearning for God. The paragraph also gives us immediately the sense of his entire book: its quality of prayer and the way in which Scripture is so woven into its warp and woof that ordinary readers are hard-pressed to know where quotations from Scripture end and Augustine’s own thoughts begin. Here it is:

GREAT art Thou, O Lord, and greatly to be praised; great is Thy power, and of Thy wisdom there is no end. And man, being a part of Thy creation, desires to praise Thee, man, who bears about with him his mortality, the witness of his sin, even the witness that Thou “resistest the proud,” —yet man, this part of Thy creation, desires to praise Thee. Thou movest us to delight in praising Thee; for Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.(Collier edition translation.)

Augustine is widely regarded as the most important Christian writer in the western world and his Confessions as the greatest of his works. The book was an immediate success, hand-copied and circulated widely. English Bishop G. Roger Huddleston wrote in the twentieth century that the Confessions acquired in Augustine’s lifetime “the place it still holds as the most famous of Christian spiritual writings outside the New Testament.” Augustine’s influence did not fade with the Reformation. You cannot read the works of Calvin and Luther without hearing in them the echoes of Augustine and finding references and quotations from his works.

The Confessions is a salvation story much more than an intellectual exercise. The Confessions is autobiographical but only in a limited sense. Augustine wants his readers to know the most important thing that ever happened to him and how difficult it was for him to find what he was searching for. This is a personal and intimate account of his desire both to run from and run to God. He says in his Confessions that traveling is not only by foot or by coach; we also travel by our hearts. The book challenges us to examine our own hearts on the matter of where we are running.

One might ask whether we are to pray by words or deeds, and what need there is for prayer, if God already knows what is needful for us. But it is because the act of prayer clarifies and purges our heart, and makes it more capable of receiving the divine gifts that are poured out for us in the spirit. God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always ready to give us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one:

but we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of a desire for temporal things.

For in prayer there occurs a turning of the heart to he who is always ready to give if we will but take what he gives:

and in that turning is the purification of the inner eye when the things we crave in the temporal world are shut out.

So that the vision of the human heart can bear the pure light that shines divinely without setting or wavering,

and not only bear it, but abide in it; not only without difficulty, but even with unspeakable joy, with which the blessed life is truly and genuinely brought to fulfillment.

(Augustine, “On the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount”)

Session 1, Maria Boulding’s Introduction

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. What do you learn about the period in which Augustine lived?
2. What do you learn about Augustine’s life? Events? Development of the man?
3. What do you learn about the Confessions?
4. What do you learn about Boulding’s translation?

Introduction: Discussion Questions

1. Read the first paragraph on page 36: Augustine’s own words about his book. What reason does Augustine give for writing the Confessions? Why is the book not strictly an autobiography?
2. What are the three meanings of the word “confession” that Augustine uses?
3. What do you learn from the introduction about the place and period in which Augustine lived that especially pertain to him?
4. What do you learn about Augustine’s life from Boulding’s description? How does he describe himself? What are the two journeys? What New Testament writer did he find most helpful?
5. What do you learn about the Confessions?
6. What do you learn about Boulding’s translation and the organization of the book?
7. What themes emerge in your reading of the introduction that give hints of what to anticipate in your reading of the Confessions?

Sessions 2-3, Book I: Infancy and Boyhood

Augustine writes of his two journeys. We actually might see it as three journeys: his physical journey, his intellectual journey, and his journey of the soul or his spiritual journey.

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods. (Paul to the Galatians, Chapt. 4:8.)

You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you. (Confessions, Book I, Chapt. 1, para. 1, p. 39.)

Not with our feet or by traversing great distances do we journey away from you or find our way back. (Confessions, Book I, Chapt. 18, para. 28, p. 58.)

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How does Augustine describe God in this book? (pp. 39-42)
2. How does he relate his own creation to the Creation account? (p. 43)
3. How does Augustine deduce what he was like as a baby? (pp. 43-44)
4. What does Augustine mean when he says, “My infancy has been so long dead now, whereas I am alive”? (p. 44)
5. What is Augustine’s evaluation of a baby’s “innocence”? (p. 46)
6. How does he describe learning to speak? What are his thoughts on time and memory here? (p. 47)
7. What was his early education like? (pp. 48-49)
8. Under what circumstances did Augustine want to be baptized as a Christian? (pp. 50-51) Why did his mother defer his wish?
9. What leads Augustine to characterize himself as “being a great sinner for such a tiny boy”? (p. 52)
10. What did he consider his worst sin? (See pages 60-61)
11. How does Book I express the “Everyman” idea that Boulding raises in her introduction?

Book I: Discussion Questions

Yet these humans, due part of your creation as they are, still do long to praise you. You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you. (I.1.1., page 39)

1. Read Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism and compare to Augustine’s thought here. How does Augustine relate this to memory? (pp 45, 47)
2. “What are you, then, my God?” (p. 41) How does Augustine describe God?
3. How does he understand the distinction between God and created beings?
4. Read Westminster Larger Catechism’s description of God: Q 7. How do they compare?
5. What Scriptures do you think of (or find) that support the distinction that Augustine makes between Creator and creature (consider, for example, Psalm 139:1-18; John 4:24; 1 Kings 8:27; Acts 17:24,25; Psalm 90:2; Malachi 3:6; James 1:17; Romans 11:33; Jeremiah 23:24)?

Infancy and Early Education: pp. 43-60.

6. From what perspective does Augustine describe his infancy?
7. How is his description of infancy and “learning to speak” an expression of “Everyman”?
8. What does he conclude about human nature?
9. Does his conclusion have a basis in Scripture? In Reformed documents? Compare, for examples the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q. 10, 16, 18, 19, and the Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 5 – 8.
10. What do you learn about Augustine’s view of sin in Book I? What is his threefold concept? (p. 50) What does Augustine see as resolution for sin?
11. Consider his comments on “outgrowing” sins; compare the section on infancy with the later section on boyhood. What is his view of “innocence”?
12. How did his early education help or hinder the development of his character and his relationship to God?
13. What conflict did Augustine discover in his search for “the good life”?

Sessions 4-5, Book II: Adolescence

Augustine is awakening to sexual sin. “A weak doctrine of sin permits a weak doctrine of forgiveness.” (Jim Goodloe, on Augustine’s Confessions.)

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine at the time of this book? (p. 64)
2. Where does Augustine travel in this book? What are the main events associated with each location?
3. What does he say was his delight? What ruined his delight? (p. 62)
4. What does he think might have alleviated his youthful distress? (p. 63)
5. Why is he critical of his father’s efforts to provide for a good education for him? (p. 65)
6. How does God speak to him in this book?
7. How significant is his sexual sin in this book?
8. What is the Pear Tree episode? What is its importance? (p. 67)
9. What does Augustine see as the danger in things perceived to be beautiful in God’s creation?
10. What does Augustine mean when he uses the word “fornication”? (p. 71)
11. With whom is he comparing himself on page 71? What is the comparison?
12. What is his view of sin and forgiveness, expressed on page 72?
13. What contribution did friends make to his sin? (pp. 72-73)
14. Where does the story of the Prodigal Son come from and what is the comparison that Augustine makes between that story and himself? (Luke 15:11-32)
15. What biblical passages are especially pertinent to Augustine’s condition in this book?
16. How would you summarize Augustine’s emphasis in this book in two or three sentences?

Book II: Discussion Questions

Pages 62 – 67

1. Augustine primarily uses two of what the Westminster Confession calls “actual” sins in this book to contemplate sin and its effect on the lives of human beings and on their relationship with God. He contemplates—or studies—sin from a variety of angles. What are they? How significant are they? Why do you think there is such disparity between his parents and himself on the matter? Why do you think he feels so strongly about this?

Pages 67 – 74 The Pear Tree Episode

2. How does Augustine use this experience of his youth to understand the nature of sin and its effect on him?
3. Why is it not simply “adolescent rebellion”?
4. What is sin?
5. What causes us to sin?
6. What are the biblical allusions he uses and how apt are they?
7. How does the beautiful become a means to sin?
8. How does Augustine see God at work in our dealing with sin?
9. How does Augustine see friends and family at work in dealing with sin?
10. What is the nature of Augustine’s suffering in this book?
11. How does Augustine’s account avoid lingering in the depths of despair?
12. Why do you think Augustine uses the Prodigal story to conclude this book? How does it contribute to the idea that this chapter is about Everyman’s spiritual journey?
13. Read the definition of sin in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (Q. 14, and following), and Heidelberg Catechism (Q. 2 – Q. 8, and following). How do they compare with Augustine’s understanding of sin?

Sessions 6-7, Book III: Student Years at Carthage

Augustine searches for God in the wrong places. This book describes the contrast between his academic and social success and his misery. He sets a course toward discovery of wisdom (“for the immortality that wisdom seemed to promise”) and for Truth (“O Truth, Truth, how the deepest and innermost marrow of my mind ached for you”).

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. “So I arrived at Carthage….” How old was Augustine? (p. 79) What did he find in Carthage and what was his response to what he found?
2. How does he describe his primary feelings during this time?
3. He writes: “…everyone aspires to be happy” (p. 76) and “I loved feeling sad.” (p. 77). How does he explain this conflict of emotions? What danger does he say lies in “compassion”?
4. What does he mean by “impious curiosity”? (p. 78)
5. How does he describe his relationship to God in this book?
6. Does he do well in school? What was his opinion of the “law”? (p. 78)
7. Who are the “wreckers”? (p. 78) What is Augustine’s relationship to them?
8. How did he come on Cicero’s Hortensius? (p. 79) What was its effect on him? What was he searching for?
9. At what did he want to excel? What was his reservation about the book? (p. 79)
10. Where is his father? (p. 79)
11. He quotes Col. 2:8-9. Is that a positive or negative critique of Cicero? (p. 79)
12. What was the nature of his attitude toward Scripture at this time? (p. 80)
13. What does he say he was “aching for”? (p. 81)
14. Why did Augustine become a Manichean? What was the attraction of their beliefs? What are the three Manichee challenges to Christianity in this book? What were the Manichean criticisms of the Old Testament?
15. What does Augustine mean by “the food we dream…”? (p. 82)
16. Where was God? (p. 82)
17. What does he say led him into hell? (p. 83)
18. In her note on page 83, Boulding says Augustine repeats four times in quick succession that “I did not know.” What does he say he did not know when he became a Manichean? (pp. 83-84)
19. What is the distinction Augustine makes between custom and God’s principles in his discussion of sin? (pp. 84-85)
20. What does he say are the chief kinds of sin? (p. 87) What is the effect of sin on God? On the person?
21. What principle of biblical interpretation does Augustine express here? (p. 85) What is the difference between divine justice and relative justice?
22. What does Augustine say are motives behind crimes against persons? (p. 86) Who is hurt most by our sin? (p. 87)
23. How do we overcome evil? (p. 87)
24. What is Monica’s relationship with Augustine in Carthage? What was her vision? (pp. 89-91)

Book III: Discussion Questions

1. Contrast the outer and inner Augustine during this time. Contrast his behavior and his aspirations. What was he looking for? Where was he looking? What was he finding? What was he missing that he later realized?
2. What was Cicero’s contribution to Augustine’s search?
3. Read 1 Corinthians 2. How does this chapter express who Augustine was in this period of this life and what he became?
4. How is his search like that of Everyman? How do you identify with his search? How close to the mark does Augustine get in Book III?
5. How is he like the Prodigal Son in this book?
6. How does the first paragraph of Book I come to bear on this time of Augustine’s life? (I.1, page 39)
7. What does Augustine say he did not know at this time? What are the contrasts between what he thought then and what he later came to understand?
8. In what ways did the Manichees help or hinder his search?
9. What are your thoughts on what Augustine concludes about biblical interpretation in this book?
10. How would you express a Reformed view of biblical interpretation? (Consider, for example, The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, page 122.)
11. What gives Augustine hope?

Supplementary Reading: Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson.

12. What insight does the poem offer to the notion that Augustine was an expression of “Everyman” in this book?

Sessions 8-9, Book IV: Augustine the Manichee

Augustine’s Early Adulthood: His life as a Manichee

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine in Book IV? (p. 92)
2. What was he doing during this period and what was his objective? (p. 93)
3. What is his relationship to the Manichees? (p. 92) What attracted him to them?
4. How did he hope to help himself? (p. 92)
5. What has developed in his sexual relationships in Book IV? (p. 92) What does he see as a primary difference between marriage for family and marriage to satisfy carnal desire? How would you compare these to motives for marrying in our time and culture?
6. He encounters both sorcery and astrology as a Manichean. What is his response to both? (pp. 93-95)
7. The chronology of this book begins in Thagaste and the account of the death of his friend. (pp. 96-101) What was Augustine’s contribution to this friendship? Was it for good or ill?
8. What was the effect of his friend’s death on Augustine?
9. Why is weeping a relief?
10. How does he relate this to God?
11. Why did he leave Thagaste for Carthage? (p. 100)
12. In the section on “transience of created things” (pp. 101-105) he reflects on the changing and the unchanging realities. What is the significance of the comparison he makes between syllables of speech and other parts of creation? Do you find it a helpful comparison?
13. How does he understand a whole formed from parts and apply it to created beings?
14. What comparison does he make between the beauty of creation and the beauty of God?
15. How does that which is subject to continual change become unchanging?
16. What does he mean when he says, “You are seeking a happy life in the realm of death, and it will not be found there? (p. 104)
17. Compare IV. 19 to the Apostles’ Creed.
18. Why do we love what we would not want to emulate? (p. 106)
19. What is beauty? (pp. 105-109)
20. Augustine asks “What is it that entices and attracts us in the things we love?” He contemplates the reputation of a Roman orator and its effect on him. What error does he come to see?
21. What does he conclude about the mind and Truth?
22. What blocked him in his search for God?
23. What was Augustine’s mistake concerning the Ten Categories? (pp. 109-111) What about the intellect did he fail to understand?

Book IV: Discussion Questions

1. These are the nine years of Augustine living as a Manichean. What are the evidences of Manichaeanism in his behavior and thinking? What leaves him with the restlessness that he describes in I.i.i., p. 36?
2. This book alludes to the Prodigal. How does Augustine see himself as the prodigal in this book? Where do you find evidence of the Father at work in his life in this book?
3. Book IV deals with marriage, sexuality, and friendship. How would you bring together Augustine’s experiences and thinking on these matters?
4. Augustine contemplates his grief for a friend. He will deal with the subject again on the death of Monica. Compare his thoughts on death and grieving with 1 Thess. 4:13-15.
5. Augustine discusses the lure of fame in Book IV. What is his take on it? Are there passages of Scripture that you think apply? How would you apply or contrast his thinking on this to our own time?

Sessions 10-11, Book V: Faustus to Carthage, Augustine to Rome and Milan

Augustine travels from Faustus to Ambrose (physically and intellectually).

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine in Book V? (p. 115)
2. Augustine begins this book with a prayer. (pp. 113-114) What does he say is the creation’s relationship to God? What is the relationship between God and the wicked?
3. Who is Faustus? (p. 115) What was Augustine seeking from Faustus? What did he find? (pp. 119-20)
4. How does Augustine compare the philosophers with Mani? (pp. 117-119) What is Augustine discovering about the relationship between science and faith in this book? Another tree episode occurs in Book V (p. 117). What is the point of Augustine’s example?
5. What are Augustine’s conclusions about science and faith? About teacher and student? (or leader and follower?)
6. What does Augustine conclude about the importance of eloquence? (p. 119)
7. What are the two reasons that prompt Augustine’s move to Rome? (p. 122)
8. What is Monica’s response to Augustine’s decision to go to Rome? How does Augustine explain this event spiritually? (pp. 123-125)
9. What are the main events of Augustine’s time in Rome? (pp. 125-130)
10. Who were the “Skeptics of the New Academy? (p. 127 and footnote). What was their influence on Augustine?
11. Why does he move to Milan? (pp. 129-130)
12. What is the impact of his contact with Ambrose in Milan? (pp. 130-133)
13. What is Augustine’s assessment of and conclusion about Manichaeanism in this book?

Book V: Discussion Questions

1. Augustine’s opening prayer addresses the relationship between creation and Creator. It also deals with “good and evil” in Augustine’s poetic discussion of a right relationship with God and the wicked’s relationship with God. What understanding of God does the prayer express? Compare 2 Chronicles 7:14 with Augustine’s prayer.
2. We in our age, like many others before us, are talking about how Scripture is to be interpreted and applied. Augustine had many of the same concerns we have. Many assert that the Bible is neither a book of science nor history. What is Augustine discovering about the relationship between science, history, and faith in this book? What are his conclusions?
3. What application does he make to teacher and student? (or leader and follower?) How do you respond to his conclusions?
4. What view of good and evil does Augustine develop in this book? Of Scripture? Of the Incarnation of Christ?
5. How did Augustine’s belief in Manichean dualism compromise his acceptance of responsibility for his sins? What would the Christian response be to this? Cf. Romans 3 and 1 John 1:8-9.
6. In discussing his mother’s deep sorrow, Augustine writes, “these cries of pain revealed what there was left of Eve in her.” What does he mean?

Sessions 12-13, Book VI: Milan—Progress, Friends, Perplexities

Augustine’s changed view of Scripture and insights into happiness.

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine in this book? (p. 150)
2. Book VI begins with Monica’s arrival in Milan and her experience there. (pp. 134-137) Describe Monica’s journey. How did she find Augustine when she arrived? How did her faith develop in Milan? What role did Ambrose play?
3. What is Augustine’s relationship with Ambrose? (pp. 137-141) What does Augustine learn from Ambrose that moves his journey forward toward truth?
4. What importance does Augustine ascribe to Scripture? Why does he say we need it? (pp. 141-142)
5. Who is Alypius? (144-150) How does the description of him give insight into Augustine’s teaching career? What is Alypius’s journey of faith? What is his influence on Augustine’s journey of faith?
6. Who is Nebridius? (p. 150) What role does he play in Augustine’s journey?
7. Sum up Augustine’s spiritual state on pp. 150-152.
8. What differences does Augustine have with Alypius on marriage and sexuality? (pp. 152-154)
9. What plan develops for Augustine to marry? What is Monica’s experience in this plan? (p. 154)
10. Why did the “ideal community” not materialize? (p. 155)
11. What becomes of Augustine’s common law wife? (p. 156)
12. What keeps Augustine from sinking deeper into “the whirlpool of carnal lust?” (pp. 156-157)
13. Why did Epicurus lose? (pp. 156-157)

Book VI: Discussion Questions

1. Note Augustine’s use of “mouth of his heart” (p. 137); elsewhere he uses the expression, “ears of my heart.” How do you understand these expressions?
2. How did Augustine’s view of the “image of God” change in this book? How would you explain the “image of God” from a Reformed perspective?
3. What is the breakthrough for Augustine in Book VI? What were the limits of the breakthrough?
4. How did Augustine come to understand Scripture?
5. Compare Hebrews 10 with his developing understanding of Scripture.
6. Compare his developing understanding with the Westminster Confession, Chapter 1.
7. What is the meaning of the episode of the drunken beggar? (pp. 142-144)
8. Consider Augustine’s conclusions about happiness and “rest” in this book. Look at the metaphor on rest that he uses at the end of the book. How is this an Everyman experience?

Sessions 14-15, Book VII: Neo-Platonism Frees Augustine’s Mind

Augustine’s discovery of God and the one mediator between God and humans.

Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an unuprooted small corner of evil. (Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956)

Indeed, Augustine speaks rightly when he declares that pride was the beginning of all evils. For if ambition had not raised man higher than was meet and right, he could have remained in his original state…. [D]isobedience was the beginning of the Fall. This is the inherited corruption, which the church fathers termed ‘original sin,’ meaning by the word ‘sin’ the depravation of a nature previously good and pure. A saying of Chrysostom’s has always pleased me very much, that the foundation of our philosophy is humility. (Calvin’s Institutes, 2.3.14, 2.6.1, 2.7.8)

Not yet was I humble enough to grasp the humble Jesus as my God, nor did I know what his weakness has to teach. (Augustine, Book VII)

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How does Augustine explain his age? (p. 158)
2. Augustine is now struggling with his views on substance in understanding God. (pp. 158-160) How would you explain the nature of the struggle? How does he use the example of the elephant and the sparrow? How does he use the example of his own mind?
3. What was Nebridius’ argument? (pp. 160-161)
4. What was dangerous about the Manichean argument? Why do you think Augustine brings it in here, after he has rejected their thought? (p. 161)
5. Why did his thoughts about good and evil push him down and “nearly choked me”? (pp. 161-162)
6. Where does he say he should have begun his search? (pp. 162-163)
7. What answer to the problem of evil does Augustine entertain on pp. 163-164?
8. How did Firminus help him finally reject astrology? What biblical story was confirmation for him? (pp. 164-167)
9. What is the error in his search that he discovers? (pp. 168-169)
10. How did the writings of the Platonists help him? How were they lacking? (pp. 169-172)
11. Describe his ecstatic experience. (pp. 172-173)
12. What understanding of reality does he come to? (p. 173) How does this understanding affect his view of God?
13. What is Augustine’s discovery about evil? (pp. 174-175) How do you react to Augustine’s explanation?
14. How does Augustine say his duality of thought about substances corrupted his view of God? (pp. 175-176)
15. On page 176 Augustine explains how the inner life of the human affects his view of the creation. Does his explanation help us to understand differences among us? How does he explain villainy?
16. What does Augustine come to see as the relationship between Creator and creation? What is the That Which Is? (pp. 176-178)
17. Why does he need Christ the Mediator? (p. 178)
18. How does he regard Christ now? (pp. 178-180)
19. Augustine takes pride in his developing reputation for wisdom. What was the effect of the Plato books on that view of himself? (pp. 180-181) What does he see as the difference between presumption and assumption?
20. How has his opinion of St. Paul changed? (pp. 181-183)

Book VII: Discussion Questions

1. How does he begin his search for understanding God in this book?
2. What is his misunderstanding of substance? What is the elephant and sparrow example and how does it help?
3. What characteristics of God does he hold as criteria for his thought and how do they help him work through his thinking?
4. How does contemplation of his own mind help him?
5. How does contemplation of the mutable and the immutable help him?
6. Does Augustine’s consideration of substance and God help you think about God?
7. What is his explanation of the problem of evil? How does he finally come to his understanding of evil?
8. How does his developing understanding of God help him?
9. How does his understanding of the will help him?
10. He says on page 162: “Whence, then, did I derive this ability to will evil and refuse good?…If the devil is responsible, where did the devil come from?” How does his view of evil develop? (see pp. 173-174)
11. Compare Augustine’s developing thinking about evil with Romans 7. How do you understand Paul’s thinking about sin?
12. How does Augustine understand Good?
13. There is one narrative in this book on his abandonment of astrology. What does he learn about the nature of human life that is persuasive in his turning away from this philosophy? What about astrology is opposed to Christian faith?
14. In the section on the Platonists, Augustine describes what helps him conceive of immaterial reality. Why does he find Platonist thought falling short of what he— and humankind—needs in order to find truth and happiness?
15. What would you choose as a significant Scripture reference in this book for its effect on Augustine’s thinking and your own?
16. By Book VII has Augustine found what he is looking for? Why, or why not?

Sessions 16-17, Book VIII: Conversion

Augustine’s conversion to Christianity.

…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh or the gratification of your desires. (Rom 13:14)

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine in Book VIII? (p. 198)
2. Who are the principal characters in this book?
3. What is Augustine’s longing now? How is this distinguished from his past? (p. 184)
4. Who is Simplicianus? Why does Augustine seek him out? [See also section 2.3] (pp. 184-186)
5. On page 185 he says “I was in tight bondage to a woman.” How does this play a significant part in this book?
6. What has he learned about wisdom? (pp. 185-186)
7. What does Simplicianus tell Augustine that helps? Why did Simplicianus insist that Victorinus go to church to prove he’s a Christian? (pp. 186-188)
8. When Victorinus makes his profession of faith, where is it and what is it? (pp. 188-189)
9. Augustine reflects on the significance of one coming to faith who has been a notorious skeptic or unbeliever. What does he conclude about this? (pp. 189-190)
10. What role does Augustine find that distress plays in joy? (pp. 190-192)
11. What prevents Augustine from following Victorinus? (p. 192) What does Augustine discover is in control of his will? (p. 193) What are the laws that he describes and how are they in relation to each other? (pp. 193-194)
12. What is he going to tell us he was set free from on page 194?
13. How does Augustine come to hear Ponticianus’ story? (p. 195)
14. Who is Ponticianus? (pp. 195-196)
15. What is the story of the two courtiers and the cottage? How does The Life of Antony figure into the story? (pp. 196-197)
16. What is the effect of Ponticianus’ story on Augustine? What role does conscience play? (pp. 197-199)
17. What is Augustine’s account of his experience in the garden? (pp. 199ff)
18. How does he describe his vacillation? (p. 200)
19. What is the “bizarre” situation that he describes? (p. 201)
20. What is the contrast Augustine draws between our wills and our natures? (pp. 201-204)
21. What is significant about the “frivolity of frivolous aims, the futility of futile pursuits”? (pp. 204-205)
22. What is the significance of his encounter with Continence? (pp. 205-206)
23. What does he “pick up and read”? What is its effect? (pp. 206-207)
24. What is the response of Alypius? (p. 207)
25. What is Monica’s response? (pp. 207-208)

Book VIII: Discussion Questions

1. In this book, what are the instruments that bring Augustine to his decision? What role do they play?
2. What would you describe as the pre-evangelism efforts in the Confessions?
3. What were the direct influences on Augustine’s decision? How would you describe them and their effect?
4. How does Augustine’s struggle reflect Paul’s in Romans 7? Do you see other similarities with Paul’s experience?
5. “Two wills, two natures.” Which is it, and why?
6. What is his “garden” experience? What held Augustine back from a decision and what helped him? What were the effects of his decision?
7. What is the significance you see in Augustine’s accounts of trees?
8. How does your account of coming to faith compare with Augustine’s? Have you knowingly had the experience of helping someone else along the path to faith?

Session 18, Book IX: Death and Rebirth

Augustine finds and describes the “rest” he’s been seeking.

He himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything…that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:25-27)

Questions to Aid Your Reading

1. How old is Augustine in Book IX? (p. 231)
2. What career decision does Augustine make and how does he carry it out? (pp. 210-213)
3. What friend of Augustine’s is associated with the “restful” retreat of the estate in Cassiciacum? What is his story? (pp. 212-213
4. What became of Nebridius? What does Augustine say is the meaning of “Abraham’s bosom”? How does he explore the idea of “rest” in his discussion of Nebridius? (p. 213)
5. How is Augustine affected by his initial retreat to Cassiciacum following his “retirement”? (pp. 213-214)
6. Who was his company in this country house? What is his description of his mother at this time? (pp. 214-215)
7. How does reading the Psalms affect him? (pp. 214-215)
8. How particularly does Psalm 4 affect him? (pp. 215-218)
9. What does he mean when he says “For me, good things were no longer outside….” (pp. 216-217)
10. Describe the effect of the toothache. (p. 218)
11. Who baptized Augustine? Who joined Augustine in baptism? (pp. 218-220)
12. How does Augustine describe his son? (p. 219)
13. What are Augustine’s comments on the use of hymns? How would you compare the singing of hymns to saying the Creed? (p. 220)
14. What was the experience and effect of Ambrose and the two martyrs? Is there anything here that we can relate to in our experience? (p. 221)
15. What does he relate about his mother? What is the experience they share? How does she express her heart’s desire in this present life? (pp. 222-229)
16. How does Augustine experience and express his grief? (pp. 230-236)

Book IX: Discussion Questions

1. Compare paragraph 26 of Book VIII (pp. 204-205) with the second part of the second paragraph of IX.1.1.on pages 209-210. How does he use the comparison to tell us what has happened to him?
2. Where is Augustine on his journey? How does forgiveness figure into Augustine’s journey? Read Matt. 19.
3. How is Augustine’s experience of grief over the death of his mother an expression of his new life in Christ? How would you compare it to his earlier loss of his friend? Compare Augustine’s prayer for his mother on page 234 with Job 1:1-5. How would you compare or contrast it with Reformed Faith?
4. Augustine says in paragraph 12.30 (p. 231-232) that “any sort of habit is bondage.” He made a close association between habit and the bondage of sin in Book VIII, but he expands on the idea here. What does he mean?
5. How would you summarize Augustine’s journey of the soul in a paragraph or two? What are some key words or ideas that convey his confession? What particular Scripture passages come to mind when you think of his journey?
6. Why do you think Augustine has told us his age in each book?
7. What does the word “confession” mean to you now at the end of your study?

Session 19, Concluding Class on Prayer

Read Augustine’s teaching on prayer and review the particular prayers in the Confessions that have particular meaning for you.

Discussion Questions

1. What do you learn about prayer from Augustine’s teaching and from contemplating his life of prayer in the Confessions?
2. How do the prayers reveal Augustine’s relationship to God? God’s relationship to Augustine, to all persons, and to you?
3. Is there a prayer in the Confessions that has particular meaning to you? Which is it, and why?

Some of Augustine’s Prayers*

• I.1.1 (p. 39)
• I.5.5 (pp. 41-42)
• I.20.31 (pp. 60-61)
• II.7.15 (pp. 71-72)
• X.1.1 (p.237)
• X.6.8-9 (pp. 241-243)
• X.17.26 (pp. 254-256)
• X.27.28 (p. 262)
• X.29.40 (p. 263)
• XI.2.3 (pp.285-286)
• XIII.35.50 (p. 379)
• IV. 15-31 (p. 101)
• X.15 (pp. 246-247)
• V.1.1-2.2 (pp. 113-114)
• VI.1.1 (p. 134)

* List of prayers supplied by Dr. Jim Goodloe

This study guide first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Mar/Apr 2014).