Omnipotence In St. Augustine's Neo-Platonism

We all sin at least once in our lifetimes. After committing the sin, we look for forgiveness from God and a way to correct it. Then we move on from that sin and usually forget that it ever even happened. However, Saint Augustine did not accept this. He spent his entire life trying to understand where sin came from and how God played a role in it. He examined multiple philosophical and theological schools of thought to find the true source of sin. Saint Augustine was a very spiritual man whose views differed from other popular beliefs such as the Greeks and Romans. What he learned from Neo-Platonism, Christian belief, and all his experiences in his early life allowed him to truly grasp what grace meant and how God’s omnipotence affected human
sin. After Augustine’s time studying in Carthage, he learned about the ways of Neo-Platonism. This is the belief that God is the spiritual top of the pyramid, and everything else existing in the world falls underneath him, but leads up to him. A person’s life starts in a materialistic way, but gradually moves up to a spiritual manor. However, he did not support this belief one hundred percent. He criticized the fact that Christ was not reference much and does not focus on God as a singular being. But, there was one view involved in Neo-Platonism that really resonated with the young Augustine. Neo-Platonism states that a part of God’s omnipotence is the fact that he radiated a certain mystical power that becomes a part of everything in the world.
The way humans perceive this mystical power is known as “the light”. This light is very different from regular light because regular light is seen by the eyes and is simply just imagery. On the other hand, the spiritual light is emanated by God, but interpreted by the mind. It guides us to the way of living that is spiritual and free of sin. When we do not let that light into our minds, we ultimately close off God from our lives and become more materialistic. Thus, we begin to sin. The reason this resonated so well with Augustine is because this is what he devoted his life to. His objective was to find a source of sin and figure out a way to prevent it. Furthermore, when he achieved his objectives, he integrated them with his lifestyle in order to stay connected with God and all the good he stands for. However, the light’s purpose was not only used by Augustine to secure his future with God, but also to reflect on all he experienced as an
adolescent. Augustine was a devout Catholic from early middle age to death. But before, he committed multiple sins throughout his adolescence. He did not commit mortal sins such as murder or adultery, but minor mistakes such as losing himself to lust and stealing rotten pears from an orchard with his peers. Nonetheless, they were still sins that he criticized himself on tremendously.
“At one time in adolescence I was burning to find satisfaction in hellish pleasures. I ran wild in the shadowy jungle of erotic adventures. ‘My beauty wasted away and in your sight I became putrid’, by pleasing myself and by being ambitious to win human approval” (Augustine 24).

These experiences were the kick-starter of his journey to find enlightenment on God. His philosophy on sin was created by these events in his life because he was so ashamed that he looked for a way to make sure they did not happen again. Without these mistakes, he wouldn’t have wanted to find a new outlook on life and correct his past evil ways. These experiences ultimately helped him understand how the body and mind must be spiritually sound with God. Through God’s light and salvation delivering Augustine away from sin, he found himself enchanted with God’s “grace”. In fact Augustine was so enamored by grace that he earned the nickname, “Doctor of Grace”. This is the term used to describe a guide for human’s free will to achieve the goodness of God and save us from sin. Without grace, humans have no anchor to keep them on the righteous path of goodness. Grace coincided with his beliefs on light and how they protect him from falling into the clutches of evil, which was his ultimate objective to find. Thus, his faith in Christianity and God’s will was strengthened and became a crucial part of his faith. Augustine had a clear distinction of the soul and the physicality’s of the body.
His distinction differed completely from what the Greeks and Romans had previously believed in. Augustine had a much more morbid view on the nature of the human body. Augustine believed that the body was the gateway to sin. It is made up of evil, while the soul is made up of the light. This stemmed from the idea of Manichean Dualism that Augustine practiced, which is that a person has both good and bad as a part of them. On the other hand, there are the views of the Greeks and Romans. The Greeks believed the body acted as the cage for the soul. After death, that cage would be opened and the soul would change form into something we humans do not know of. Also, the Romans believed that both the body and the soul transformed into heavenly glory. Augustine’s view and the Greeks and Roman’s views ultimately clashed in how they viewed the good and the bad within the body and
soul. Saint Augustine helped shape our modern views on Christianity. He spent his entire life seeking out the true source of sin and how God play’s a role in it. Augustine questioned how sin could even exist if God was as powerful as he believed. Thus, he set sail on the course of his life to answer this question. Through studying Neo-Platonism, he found “the light” and used that to guide him away from sin. Through strengthening his knowledge on Christianity he learned more about the extent of God’s power and why grace was so important to enlightenment. Finally, through experiencing all life had to offer, he discovered where sin came from and how the world around him influenced it. To Augustine, the body is innately evil, but the light and grace keep the soul pure; to the Greeks and Romans, the body and soul are both good at their core. He truly earned the nickname, the “Doctor of Grace”.