Garrett Farrell’s Reviews > City of God > Status Update

In book XIV, Augustine, perhaps Catholicism’s most notoriously recovered lothario, gives a good discussion on why and how actions that were created good can be corrupted. Some Aristotelian virtue theory crept into this chapter, and with the right direction of the will at the center of this book it’s easy to see why. I’m a notorious fan of the big A, so I of course loved to see it.

Halfway done. I believe I just read the first defense of the doctrine of the baptism of desire, but I’m not quite sure if it is the first. If it is, I didn’t know it was another Augustine banger. And even if it isn’t, I didn’t know it was developed as early as Augustine’s time.

Senior year of high school I had to read the handbook of catholic apologetics, and my favorite proof of God was “the music of beethoven, you either get it or you don’t.” Augustine has a similar one:

“We have the evidence of the world itself in all its ordered change and movement… its maker could have been none other than God, the ineffably and invisibly great, the ineffably and invisibly beautiful” -XI.4

Through part 1. Came to my first point of disagreement w/ St. A— he seems to accept the premise that we are embodied souls, which isn’t surprising considering his known Neo-platonic sympathies. I prefer Aristotle’s hylomorphicity in my conception of the relationship of body and soul. Still enjoying the book, but man was book 10 a beast. Looking forward to part 2.

“There is in the demons knowledge without charity, and so they are inflated … against this arrogance of the demons, to which mankind was enslaved as a deserved punishment, is set the humility of God, revealed in Christ.” -IX.20

Onto book VIII. Caught a peek of the P word on the next page (Plato). Your boy is jazzed to see Augustine’s uncensored thoughts on the Mack daddy of ‘em all.

In all seriousness, Augustine has been refuting different flavors of roman polytheism for 3 books now, and while it’s certainly fascinating, it’ll be interesting to see how he tackles a non-Christian “monotheist.”