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Augustine 354-430 C.E. Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 in Tagaste, North Africa. In 387, at the age of 33, he was baptized as a Christian. In 395 he was ordained as Bishop of Hippo, North Africa. His influence is enormous, especially in the church of the west.
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Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 in Tagaste, North Africa. In 387, at the age of 33, he was baptized as a Christian. In 395 he was ordained as Bishop of Hippo, North Africa. His influence is enormous, especially in the church of the west. Augustine is one of the pivotal figures in constructing church doctrine and policy. Augustine Background
Augustine did not convert to Christianity until middle life. Converting late and the regret for his wasted youth, drove him to assume the intellectual leadership of the church. He did this by: Combating heresy Laying new ideological foundations for Christianity. They exist to this day. Augustine’s Conversion
Major Contributions • The merging of the intellectual tradition of the ancient world with the • Religious faith and feeling of the Middle Ages. • His account of his conversion in the garden at Milan is the true moment of transition from the ancient to the medieval world.
Major Contributions Continued • Though Christianity has produced many prominent thinkers during the past two millennia, Augustine may be the most influential Christian thinker of all time outside of the New Testament. His significant influence, especially on Western Christianity, is directly tied to his profound work as a theologian, philosopher, apologist, and church bishop.
His theological and philosophical views significantly influenced great Roman Catholic thinkers such as St. Anselm, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Blaise Pascal, as well as the great Protestant reformers Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer, and John Calvin.
Augustine's struggles with sex and a domineering mother, followed by his spiritual crisis and conversion to Christianity - detailed in his Confessions - ultimately led him to his major contribution to philosophy: the fusion of the two doctrines of Christianity and Neoplatonism.
Neoplatonism • Neoplatonism is a form of idealistic monism. Plotinus taught the existence of an ineffable and transcendent One, from which emanated the rest of the universe as a sequence of lesser beings.
The Power of Augustine • Original sin • Predestination • Worthlessness of this world • Metaphorical interpretation of the Bible • God as working in history to fulfill His purposes