Augustine, Finally

“St. Augustine” – Joos van Wasserhove – Public Domain

All apologies. Because of a sort of perfect storm of professional and personal activity, t’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I still want to write a sort of recap of my Aquinas/acedia posts (that aspect of acedia alone deserves its own summary) and a thing on Ockham and his take on acedia – so all of that is coming soon. In the meantime, I’ve finally finally finally gotten around to reading Augustine’s Confessions. I’m currently only about a third of the way through, and of course it’s all beautiful and challenging, but this paragraph specifically spoke to me:

Why are they not happy? Because they are much more concerned over things which are more

powerful to make them happy, for they remember truth so slightly. There is but a dim light in

men; let them walk, let them walk, lest darkness overtake them. . . . Truth is loved in such a

way that those who love some other thing want it to be the truth, and, precisely because they

do not wish to be deceived, are unwilling to be convinced that they are deceived. Thus they

hate the truth for the sake of that other thing which they love because they take it for truth.

They love truth when it enlightens them, they hate truth when it accuses them.

Following your desire, not letting it be satisfied with triviality but really plunging into it’s depths and sensing that nothing in this world is able to sate it – that’s a sensation that I understand completely. I know there’s a whole universe of literature out there devoted to exploring Augustine and desire, and I can’t wait to get to it someday.

More soon.