St. Augustine's Conversion

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the religious route chosen by St. Augustine. By explaining how Augustine understood God and how he realized this Neoplatonic understanding to be present in Catholicism, the writer shows that Augustine converted to Christianity in order to achieve the salvation he saw possible through Neoplatonism.

From the Paper:

"In his Confessions, Saint Augustine recounts his struggles of finding God throughout his life. He began, unconsciously, his quest for God after reading Cicero's Hortensius. This book changed Augustine's life by making him realize that the materialistic priorities and values he endorsed as a student were vain. From then on he desired only the "immortality of wisdom." Trying to acquire the truths about God, Augustine became a follower of Manicheism. He eventually became disillusioned with the sect's fantastic belief system. After abandoning Manicheism he turned to Neoplatism to elucidate his metaphysical thoughts about God. Having come to an understanding of God through this philosophy, he next struggled with finding a way to get to Him. Turning his attention towards sacred Catholic writings, especially those of the apostle Paul, he observed that "all the truth [he] had read in the Platonists" was also found in these Christian works. He realized that although Neoplatonism gave him the correct understanding of God as an infinite and ethereal being, it did not give him the means to return to God; he believed that Christianity provided the proper way."

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