¶ … CHURCH FATHERS DO YOU FIND THE MOST INSPIRING AND WHY? THE COURSE IS NAVIGATING CHURCH HISTORY. Cairns, Earle. E. (1996). Christianity Through Centuries: A History Christian Church. (Third edition).
Saint Augustine of Hippo
The majority of people have a tendency to perceive a church father as being a person obsessed with religion and dedicated to promoting God's words regardless of the fact that they agree to them or not. However, there are some influential individuals in the history of Christianity who actually went much further than to act in agreement with stereotypes and who challenged most people's understanding of Christian thinking. Augustine of Hippo is one of the most influential characters in the history of Western Christianity and he is largely responsible for thinking in a series of modern-day Christians, taking into account that he made it possible for people to employ rational thinking when coming across Christian ideas.
Background
Aurelius Augustinus was born in the Roman Empire and lived there from 354 to 430, his main influences being Roman thinking and the Roman society as a whole. While he was attracted to religious ideas throughout his life, it was not until 386 that he converted to Christianity. He focused on Macheanan religious thoughts until that time, but the fact that this was a pagan religion influenced him to express interest in other ideologies. He became the Bishop of the City of Hippo as a result of his extensive work in interpreting and producing Christian ideas and thus came to be known as Augustine of Hippo (Augustine).
In addition to being a passionate Christian, Augustine was also concerned about other domains and his writings reflect the complex nature of his thinking. "Augustine's work in metaphysics, ethics, and politics remain important today. Key among these accomplishments are his metaphysical analysis of time, his ethical analysis of the evil, and his examination of the conditions for justified war" (Augustine). This makes it possible for people to understand that this person is not only important because of his contribution to Christianity, as he also played an important role in assisting humanity experience progress by introducing a series of ideas that motivated the masses to become active members of the social order.
The fact that Augustine had a complex background in analyzing moral and rational theories meant that he would be especially proficient in interpreting Christian thinking. This was something very important, given that Christianity was a young religion in the fourth century and that society had a limited understanding of what it was meant to represent exactly. "Augustine produced a sophisticated interpretation of Christian thinking by merging it with the philosophy of Plato and Neoplatonism" (Augustine).
While Christianity had already gathered a significant number of followers until that time, very little of them were actually capable to produce complex thinking with regard to this religious ideology. Augustine virtually managed to take Christianity to a whole new level by introducing ideas that reinforced most of its theories and that enabled people to gain a better understanding of the concepts that the religion was meant to put across (Augustine). Considering this, it only seems natural for someone to consider that this person is one of the most inspirational characters in all of history and that he is largely responsible for changing society's tendency to discriminate Christians. The fact that the social order came to acknowledge the positive ideas present in Christian thinking practically fueled the masses in expressing more and more interest in the religion.
In spite of the fact that he was named a Bishop in the African town of Hippo, Augustine did not think of himself as of a person who knew all there was to know about Christianity. He actually considered that one should never stop learning and that it was essential for him to dedicate a significant amount of time to studying the Bible. This was not something surprising when coming from him, as he was accustomed to portion his time with the purpose of having a lot of time for learning (Green vii).
III. Three of his principal theories
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