Beauty and Love in Confessions - Essay Example

Augustine lived from 354-430; he was indisputably the most significant theologian in the first millennium of the western church. He shapes the thinking of his congregation on the aspect of love and beauty. For one to confess during this times, one had to give an account of ones fault to God. According to him, this action depended so much on love and beauty. Confessions is an autobiography that creates a framework for various life contexts including; philosophical, theological, moral and religious context through which Augustine is able to explore and expound his understanding of God and sin in the life of a Christian. Confessions by Augustine is amongst the most influential books especially in the Catholic Church by providing a personal subjective and discursive critic of behavior and belief.

Augustine once wrote all persons want to be happy. From this point, Augustine is clear in what makes a person happy; a person is only happy when they have achieved whatever they had longed for. One of the factors that have significantly contributed to individuals happiness is the concept of love. In love, according to Augustine, there are usually two descending factors which need to be put into consideration. One of the factors is the object pursued. This could be the object of material love which in most case is brought about by the existence of beauty. And also the actual object of external love. As put by Augustine, the eternal love which is provided by God has nothing to do with beauty.

In book x of the Augustine confession, Augustine emerges as a rather earnest and slightly lost young man who is desperately looking for something that he cant even name. During his youthful years, Augustine confesses that he looked for love which was primarily based on beauty. This kind of beauty was not, however, substantiated. He did not know how long the beauty which he was pursuing could last. In light of this, he confesses to the life of lust and sinfulness as a young man. Beauty in this phase can only be said to have led the young man into a sinful act. Beauty made him fall in love, which could be as well explained as lust according to his confessions by a woman of a lower class. The overall result for this relationship is that the woman was made a concubine.

Beauty and love have consequences as put by Augustine, of every girl or woman that he entered into a relationship with based on the beauty, the results were diverse. For instance, one of the women ended up losing both her love (Augustine) and her son. This girl is later taken back to Africa as Augustine takes a girl of his class. As brought by the confession, chastity has brought by beauty has affected human sexuality. Augustine remembers his encounters with defending women who did not lead him anywhere near to GOD. To bring out the importance of eternal truth, Augustine brought out the fact that in most cases, individuals usually love objects that lack the higher truth in them. At this point, he stops and reinvests his thinking on how to find God. According to him, it is clear that he cannot find God when he is going to depend on his emotions and mind alone. From this point, it is clear that beauty is only a substance objects and cannot guarantee one's happiness.

The overall satisfaction that Augustine ended up with was when he had known God.in his view; this is all he had been missing. Beauty is a creation of God. Something that Augustine confess that over the time, he was busy seeking pleasures, truth, and sublimities in God's creation and not of God himself. In light of this, Augustine ended up in pains, errors and every kind of disorder. People could be the loving beauty of creation, the only problem with this kind of love is that it is so much replaceable. According to Augustine, it is either you love someone, or the love remains to be that of God because everything else can be replaced.

Symposium by Plato creates a picture of beauty as well as varying perspectives of love in which he rejects the romanticization of love and instead upholds more value on asexual and more passion for wisdom and beauty. Diotima in the symposium by Plato provides a greater perspective of love in which she suggests that despite the fact that all desires can be considered as love it is important to restrict the term to a particular type of desire which exists between two people (Sheffield, Frisbee 117). Apart from Augustine, the other scholar who strongly talks about love is Plato. Plato is also seen to be discussing the aspect of love and friendship in the symposium. In this context, beauty tends to be playing a significant role in love. From the story, beauty has been seen as an instrumental value. It is a value that tends to be driving and changing love. It is something that one kicks away once they decide to step a ladder. This is one instance that both Augustine and Plato uses beauty and love as a stepping stone. Augustine once disowned his mistress on the basis that they were not in the same class. In Plato symposium, what everyone loves is all good. This s means that everyone wants what is good to be theirs forever. However, as human beings, we are so mortal and according to Plato, the closest one can come to this reality is an endless circle of reproduction.

Also, as brought out by Plato, there is, however, another concept of love which he described as the madness of man. This is the confusion brought by seeking beauty here on earth and being reminded of the real beauty. As explained by Plato, when this happens, one is likely to be winged and will force one to look upwards like a bird. Through this point, Plato has been able to describe all the rites of love which he described as the ladder of love. According to him, first, a person is supposed to love one body after which an individual is supposed to find beauty in all the bodies. The next step is to appreciate the beauty of the souls of the bodies. This inmost case has led to the love of certain types of activities and knowledge and has led to the pursuit of wisdom. From this point, one will be able to see beauty in a more pure form (Sheffield, Frisbee 134).

Augustine first book on beauty brings a lot of concept into the light. One can look at the types of beauty that exits. From this text, one can realize the influence of beauty on love. According to Augustine, beauty can be described as an object which has been created by God and, therefore, its love should not supersede the love of God. Book one has also been influential in bringing in the practical cognitive dimension of growth and love. According to Augustine our confine to love and beauty sometimes could be so strong, and as a human being, we take this challenge and amethyst confession of love to the Almighty. It is also from this point that Augustine admits that his current state does not bemoan the loss of personality in the previous book. Looked carefully, one can conclude that his last nature or character are among the things that have made him so high in Christ.

Augustine books of confession have extensively used the concept of beauty. According to Augustine beauty play an essential role in confession. Disclosure needs a lot of sacrifices, when one can sacrifice the natural attraction to something that he or she cannot see, to the love that they believe is eternal, and then that is the truth in beauty.

Works cited

Augustin and Richard Sydney Pine-Coffin. Saint Augustine Confessions. Penguin Books, 1983.

Sheffield, Frisbee. "The Symposium and Platonic Ethics: Plato, Vlastos, and a Misguided Debate." Phronesis 57.2 (2012): 117-141.