Augustine's Decisions

Augustine points to the fact that it is in our freedom that we choose to either be enslaved to the uses or be liberated by the enjoyment and he posits five points that are unavoidable in our freedom. These five points are, (1) we must will and we must love, (2) our will is directed to our happiness, (3) we become bound to external objects when we seek happiness, (4) by binding ourselves to lower things we abandon our freedom for a slavery to the lower things, and (5) if we bind ourselves to the truly good and beautiful we will then obtain freedom. These point of Augustine bring us out of our comfort zone to realize that it is true that one cannot go through life without making decisions that will affect us, and these decisions will be
It was Adam and Eve’s “prideful fascination with the thought that they would became like God” that causes sin to enter the world and infects humanity with a concupiscence for self-indulgent pleasures. But we must not give up because of despair, we now understand that we were created in a supreme act of love and we were created for the purpose of eternal communion with God, the saints, and angels in the common state of divine love, which will bring us complete happiness in eternal life. Augustine is not a stranger to the self-love, self-indulgence, pride, and slavery to all finite things. He struggled through the first half of his life and when he was enlightened to the truth it was a process to break out of the the habits of his base desires that had become imbedded in his life. As Augustine began to turn back to God, he remained in a constant struggle with his sins and had to fight and be in a state of constantly conversion. This allowed Augustine not to lose sight of the truth. Augustine had realized that by Man putting his faith, love, and ends in finite goods he redirects himself from the eternal good to the things of the world that will pass away, returning Man to the
Next, God’s creation was a supreme act of love that is solely for our benefit and has absolutely no benefit for God. It was in His love that He created non-divine beings to live in a communion with Himself, sharing divine love and experiencing true freedom and happiness. But because we are non-divine beings that are inferior to God, we have a view of creation that is limited to our prospective, and we have an ability to be corrupted and changed. This makes humanity susceptible to the pride to be like God and to turn inwardly, focusing on own pleasures and desires. This causes us to reject that good and removes our love for the good in exchange for inordinate love of self. It is in these finite and decaying goods that we put in place of enjoyment, replacing God with things that will pass back into the nothing from which they came. We should now be able to see Augustine’s argument that humanity, a part of creation, came from nothing and because humanity is in a state of becoming it has the ability to change. In addition, this ability to change can be for the highest good or for lower goods and this is determined by our freedom to