Augustine's The Confessions - Book Report/Review Example

Since he was an adolescent, he constantly struggled with lust, and this has inspired him to address the issue of love and lust deeply. It is by through formal education and being exposed to a group of rowdy youth that led him to the temptation of experimenting on his carnal feelings1. This article discusses Augustine views on love and why he thinks that it can be ordered or disordered. According to Augustine, love which is based purely on lust is disorder love and love based on deep caring for a person is the orderly love which Christians need to practice.

He even quotes his mother who had taught him that sleeping with another man wife and having sex out of wedlock is wrong. Such acts of adultery and fornication can be classified as disorderly. Orderly love, on the other hand, is practiced within the confines of marriage and the societal standard of sexual purity. In chapter 2 Augustine gives his confession of his actions as a teenager. He says that if someone had taught him the difference between love and lust, he would not have sinned as greatly as he did when he was an adolescent.

Augustine says that lust which is present in human beings is an illustration of the desire for beauty. He asserts that having sex for pleasure and with different people outside the confines of marriage is wrong. . Eros or love has been reduced to mere sex. This is completely wrong because love entails more than just getting physical. It is more of caring for the other person and looking out for their welfare. It is about starting a life together and planning a future which may include or exclude sex.

Man has used sex as his own object that he can manipulate and use it in whichever way that pleases him2. In this way, man has failed to integrate sex with the whole body and treats it as a sphere of its own. This causes a lack of balance between the body and soul and thus man cannot develop into full stature or self actualize. One scene that this love is demonstrated is in the scene where Augustine lives with a concubine. This was way before he was married. He used the concubine as a way of satisfying his lustful desires with no intention of having a future with this woman.

This can be explained as disorderly love that is prohibited. This can be contrasted with the love between Augustine and his wife Monica3. He was deeply in love with his wife such that he abandoned his concubine the moment he married. They were very close as a couple and could travel together and do other things together. They are this close to the extent that their spirits were integrated. This is evidenced by the fact that Monica got a vision about the safety of her husband, and they would work together in spreading the gospel.

It is evident that this kind of love was not merely based on sex and that it was pure and orderly. It is through a perfect union of the body and soul that one can be able to overcome the lustful temptations. This means that if man was focused on attaining a pure spirit and neglected the needs of the flesh, then the body and soul would lose their