Augustine Confessions Analysis

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Confessions, which is written by Saint Augustine, constitute an noteworthy book. Reading this book it is logical to lead to many questions not only philosophical but also questions about religion. The purpose of Augustine is to make people understand who God is and separate him from the evil. The author discuss about how he thinks he was sinner as he lived following Hedonism. Hedonism is a way of not only thinking, but life as well, believing that people should do whatever pleases them, without thinking about the consequences. In other words pleasure is the highest good. As a result Augustine, throughout Confessions talks about how he was struggling with faith as he was looking for his personal pleasure. However he ends up after doing a lot …show more content…
These two thoughts differ a lot as they are based on different ideas and purposes. Worldly hedonism is based in the physical pleasure as sex or money. The Christian hedonism is based on the spiritual growth. The meaning of this thought is people can find the highest pleasure through God. Comparing these two pleasures, Augustine says that he did not finally know what pleasure is until he accepted God. These words explain how the spiritual pleasure is greater than the physical. Subsequently hedonism can be described as a stomach that as much as you going to feed it will never get full, the pleasures are going to be more and more every time. In contrast with that Christian Hedonism can bring the spiritual maturity to a person as God is the highest pleasure and desire comparing to everything else. However there is still a common factor between those two ideas. Both of them support that people’s desire should be to be happy and to seek for the pleasure. The best answer to this is what Piper says by the following sentences, “By Christian Hedonism, I do not mean that our happiness is the highest good. I mean that pursuing the highest good will always results in our greatest happiness in the end.” This is his attempt to explain why he used the
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