How Did Augustine Influence The Atholic Church

This religious study will define the influence of St. Augustine on the institutionalization of confession/baptism in the Roman Catholic Church. Augustine’s role in the development of confession is founded on his adaptation of Platonic philosophy into Church doctrine. Plato’s Forms represent the highest “good” in the human soul. Augustine’s perception of the Forms is then integrated into the concept of forgiveness in the teachings of Christ. This new doctrine formed a more tolerant and forgiving perspective on Original Sin, which allowed for the Church to hear confessions and lift the burden of sin from Christian followers. These teachings are influential because of Augustine’s powerful role as an institutional leader in the Church. In contrast
Augustine’s philosophical biography reveals a great deal about his education in the teachings of Plato. Before Converting to Christianity, Augustine had learned of the Forms, which was Plato’s description of the highest and purist good in the universe. This interpretation of the “highest good” was imposed onto the doctrine of Original Sin in the story of Adam and Eve. Traditionally, the fall of Adam and Eve had doomed humanity to eternal sin and impurity, yet it was Augustine that interpreted the self-sacrifice of Christ as a gateway to forgiveness. In Augustine’s own writings in the City of God, he describes the impact of Socrates’ positive view on redemption from human
Augustine was powerful agent of the new institutional policies that would be brought forth, yet they challenged the traditional perceptions of 0riginal Sin. The universal foundation of Plato’s Forms would invariably be linked to Augustine’s own spiritual transformation after he had converted to the Christian faith: “I entered, and with the eye of my soul, such as it was, I saw the Light that never changes casting its rays over the same eye of my soul, over my mind” (Saint Augustine “Confessions” 146). The premise of baptism became another facet of his belief system, which cleansed the soul of the infant to countermand the damnation of original Sin: “Augustine was “letting down the side” when he wrote that a baptized Christian cannot observe his commitments without some special grace. Baptism was itself the special grace” (Willis 130). In this way, the Church could cleanse Original Sin, but it would also take a full confession (as an adult) to maintain this process in the quest to gain entry into Heaven. In this new perception of sin, Augustine was able to transform traditional views of original Sin, which had refused any type of forgiveness for the sins of Adam and Eve. For example, the Christian philosopher Pelagius (a peer of Augustine) retained a strict view of