Augustine: His Life and His Philosophy

By Sarah Mae Faith Zamora

There are surprisingly only quite a few number of brilliant philosophers who still

had faith in Christianity – among them is Augustine, or known to many as Saint Augustine

of Hippo. His original Latin name is Aurelius Augustinus and he lived in the 4th and 5th

century A.D. on the North African town of Hippo. He served as bishop for more than 30

years, considered to be popular and inspirational to his large congregation. He was a

remarkable Christian philosopher and praised for his sharp and strong written works.

Among them is Confessions and City of God. He proposed that all humans were crooked

because all of us are unwitting heirs to the sins of Adam. He believed that men in general

have an innate desire to dominate evidently in a brutal and merciless way we treat others

around us, and that we cannot really properly love for we are constantly undermined by

our egoism and pride. These are some of his ideas that caught my attention while reading

about his life as a philosopher, and mainly the reason why I chose to write about him.

Augustine was not just popular to Christians but also to non-Christians because of

his critique of Rome’s values and outlook. He believed that ancient Rome has a lot in

common with the modern West, especially United States. The Romans, according to him,

chased after earthly happiness, had faith in technology by building Pont du Gard and the

Colosseum in their desire to take control of nature and be their own master. He disagreed

that human life can eminently be perfected or that society can be just. This belief is still

relevant to us even today. Man’s feeble attempts at trying to make sense of everything

and trying to find answers to every question only leads to disappointing results. In his

words, he wrote that people “have wished, with amazing folly, to be happy here on earth

and to achieve bliss by their own efforts.” Our relationships, careers and countries are not
necessarily as we’d want them to be, not entirely because of what we’ve done but simply

because the odds are stacked up against us even from the start. In philosophy this is

called Augustinian pessimism. It is coming to the realization of our imperfect nature in

pretty much everything that we are and everything that we do. He also wrote that there

never was and never could be justice in Rome or anywhere else on earth, and that God

didn’t give good people wealth and power nor did he condemn those who lacked them.

In his writing The City of God, he distinguished two cities, city of men and city of god. He

wrote further that we can never achieve the latter here on earth, because we were never

meant to. This belief reminds me of the message found in the song Blessings. The bridge

of the song goes like this, “pain reminds this heart that this is not our home.” Augustine

believed the same thing, at least that’s how I see it. His belief is somewhat a reassuring

thought that it’s okay to not get it perfect or to be truly satisfied with this life nor with the

kind of society we live in. Despite other philosopher’s claims that it’s mere weakness and

cowardice that prevents man to develop his full potential and to achieve greatness,

Augustine’s philosophy is generous towards failure, poverty, disappointment and defeat.

One need not be a Christian to be comforted with this philosophy, because we are all

humans and we therefore need to be reminded of the cruelties and dangers in believing

that life could be made perfect.

It is because of these thoughts of Augustine that made me admire his philosophy.

It isn’t at all pretentious. It isn’t another lame attempt to try and make sense of everything

in life, but a proposal to accept things and imperfections as they are. His philosophy

speaks to me in an honest and thoughtful way, which is why I chose to write about him

out of all the other brilliant philosophers.