Tag: Confessions review

But, then, in Chapter 10, the book takes a rather stunning turn for those reading it for the first time. Chapter 10 is all about memory. Chapter 11 is about time. Chapter 12 is about Creation. Chapter 13 is an interpretation of Genesis 1. Then Confessions abruptly ends.

It isn’t hard to see why the first nine chapters are the popular part. Much faster pace and it is easy to figure out where it is all going. What is with chapters 10-13, though? Why are they there?

My reading group discussing this book was puzzled by exactly this question.

Consider “Time.” Really. Actually consider the nature of time. What is time? Does time exist? Does the present exist? Does the past exist? If the past exists, where is it existing? If the past no longer exists, then how can we remember it and ask about it? The same sort of thing applies to the future. The longer you think about it, the weirder time is.

Is time a created thing? Did God create time or did time predate God? Seems clear that time must be a created thing. So what happened before time was created? That question is, when you think about it, nonsensical. There can’t be a “before time was created.” Before implies time. So if something is before time is created then time is before time is created. The mind reels.

So, if God is outside time, then is God in the present only? Obviously not. God sees all time simultaneously. For God there is no past or future. We can’t describe “God’s time” because time is that thing God created and observes. (I am not sure what observes means either because it implies a location different than the location in which God exists, but space was also created by God, so God is not in a location.)

So, if God is outside time, when I pray for the future, then God knows the future when I am praying for the future. But, God knows the past equally well. For God, there is no difference between future and past. So, can I pray for the past? Can I pray that God will help George Washington make wise decisions? Is that weird? When George Washington was alive, God knew about my prayer for Washington. Why is this weirder than praying for the future? From God’s perspective, praying for the past and praying for the future must be identical.

The longer I puzzle over Augustine’s discussion of time, the more bewildering it gets. T.S. Eliot captured the same thing—this poem (Bunt Norton) could be called the Spark Notes version of Confessions

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

All time is eternally present. That is the key.

Think about the idea of Augustine confessing his past sins. Those sins are not really past in God’s view. They are eternally present to God. So, Augustine repenting of stealing pears 30 years earlier is not repenting of something that happened 30 years ago for God. It is something that always is existing for God.

In this world, we cannot say, “I sinned in the past.” We can say, “I am a sinner.” And it makes no difference which sins you contemplate; your past sins, present sins, and future sins are all the same from the perspective of God.

And suddenly, chapters 10 and 11 of Confessions seems inseparable from chapters 1-9. When time and memory collapse into the realization that thinking about the idea of memory of his past life leads to the thinking about the idea of time and the realization that “past” time is not really past, then our impression of the autobiographical portion changes. Augustine is not confessing his past sins at all. The sins he committed when he was an infant or teenager or last month are not just things in the past. Augustine is not saying “I used to be a sinner.” He is saying “I am a sinner.”

All time is eternally present. All time in unredeemable. If Augustine is a sinner, not was a sinner, but is, then what hope does he have? That is where God walks in. Augustine is spending the whole book noting that it is not exactly true that God has forgiven him for his past sins. Instead, God is forgiving him for his very nature as a sinner.

What then is going on with the last two books of Confessions? Augustine seems to go off track again, by spending many pages thinking about how to interpret the creation account in Genesis. He notes there are obviously many different interpretations of Genesis, and people spend a lot of time arguing about the right way to interpret it.

But, Augustine argues, God is very clever. What if He intended it to be written in a way that there are multiple true interpretations of the text? If so, then if your interpretation of the text leads to a conclusion which is true, and my different interpretation of the text leads to a different conclusion which is also true, we do not need to argue about whose true interpretation is correct. All interpretations which bring glory to God are true.

Thus you may want to read Genesis as a factual account of the mechanism of Creation. If that is how things were created, then Augustine has no problem with that reading. But, Augustine is more interested in the allegorical readings, the readings in which the structure of the first verse and the first chapter of Genesis reveal an extraordinary number of things about God.

At one level, these last two chapters of Confessions are a very useful description of the modern debate about seven day creationism.

But, what is this discussion of how to read Genesis 1 doing in Confessions?

How do we read Confessions? Our temptation is to read it as an autobiography. Augustine has no objection to us reading it in that way because it is, in fact, a true autobiography. But, then Augustine slyly notes in the final two chapters, this is just one way to read the book. After demonstrating that Genesis 1 can be read for the figurative lesson it offers, Augustine implicitly is inviting us to ask another question: is there a figurative reading of the book you just read?

Of course there is. This is not just the story of Augustine and his life. Indeed, for Augustine, that reading may be the least interesting reading of it. It is also a book about the majesty of God, the nature of sin, the work of Christ, the eternal design of God’s plan, and on and on and on.

The last four chapters of Confessions are extraordinarily clever. You thought you were reading an autobiography. But, oh, it is so much more than that. Once you realize it is a deep book, a very deep book, it makes you want to reread it. Again. And again.

Related Posts
Augustine Confessions “Cheap Repentance”
McDonough, Sean Creation and New Creation “What is Creation?”

Consider the word “repent.”  As I have heard in numberless sermons, it means turning away from your past sins, expressing sorrow for those past sins, asking for forgiveness for those sins you committed in the past, vowing never again to do those sins, and so on.  So far, so good.

Then, there is the three step process: Repent, accept forgiveness, move on.  Periodically, you need to repeat the process (after all, you will sin again).  Every now and then you pause, think about how bad you have been, and then be glad you are forgiven, and move on.

Enter Augustine:

Such was my heart, O God, such was my heart. You had pity on it when it was at the bottom of the abyss. Now let my heart tell you what it was seeking there in that I became evil for no reason. I had no motive for my wickedness except wickedness itself. It was foul, and I loved it. I loved the self-destruction, I loved my fall, not the object for which I had fallen but my fall itself. My depraved soul leaped down from your firmament to ruin. I was seeking not to gain anything by shameful means, but shame for its own sake. 

Now that is repentance. 

Here is what fascinates me.  I have read that paragraph from Augustine many times over the years.  I’ve read it aloud many time in classes discussing the book.  Last week, I read it in a reading group when we were talking about repentance.  Everyone agrees that Augustine is really repenting here.

But, is that a good model for repentance?  Because, as one student put it, it is a bit over the top. 

Now add in the fact that the great sin for which he was repenting was stealing some pears off a tree.  Does that ridiculously trivial sin require that much repentance? 

Then add in the fact that this passage was not written the day after he stole the pears, or a week later or a month later—it was written 30 years later.  Does he still need to repent for a three decade old event in his life, an episode of youthful indiscretion?

Suddenly the word “repent” becomes rather difficult to define.  If what Augustine is doing is an example of true repentance, then that thing I and everyone else I know has been doing for years barely qualifies.  We could even call what we have all been doing “Cheap Repentance.”  Sure, many times I have thought “I wish I had not done that. Sorry, God!” And then I moved on as if nothing had happened.  Augustine and I are playing in different ballparks here.

But, wait, there is more.  Augustine is not only repenting of the pear stealing episode.  There is also this:

---

Yet, for an infant of that age, could it be reckoned good to use tears in trying to obtain what it would have been harmful to get, to be vehemently indignant at the refusals of free and older people and of parents or many other people of good sense who would not yield to my whims, and to attempt to strike them and to do as much injury as possible? There is never an obligation to be obedient to orders which it would be pernicious to obey. So the feebleness of infant limbs is innocent, not the infant’s mind.

Yep. Augustine repents of the sin of being selfish when he was an infant. Do I need to do that too? (Suffice it to say, the students in the discussion had a hard time believing that they needed to repent of the sins of being a selfish toddler.)

The first instinct is to simply dismiss all this as Augustine using his autobiography to foolishly wallow in his own guilt. Indeed, he tipped us off in the title: the book is Confessions.  He is, therefore, confessing his sins.

But, the focus of the book is not his sin; the focus of the book isn’t even Augustine.  He doesn’t want you thinking about him at all; he wants you to be thinking about God.  The entire book points toward God, not Augustine.

The direction the book points is the key.  Augustine is confessing all these sins to point our attention to the God who forgives all these sins.  Augustine wants to convince you that he is not good, that he is really wicked.  “Don’t admire me,” Augustine says. “Admire God.”

So that makes sense of the tone of the book.  But, what do I do about repentance?  If what Augustine is doing is a model of repentance, then why don’t I repent like that?  Why do we in the church talk about repentance like it is a simple thing; you do it and then you accept the forgiveness of God?  You confess your sin, say a few quick prayers, and then we are all done here. 

Do I really have to examine the depths of the depravity of my heart all the time, thinking about the sins I committed not just in the last week, but over my whole lifetime, and repenting of them even today?

Reading Augustine, it is hard to believe in the lazy cheap repentance we find so appealing, that it is easy to repent and get the nice thrill of forgiveness.  On the other hand, though, continually repenting of the sins of my infancy seems so tiresome.  When do I get to stop repenting? 

Augustine says, “Never.” 

Augustine’s answer is surely right.  We cheapen repentance when we make it easy.

This is undoubtedly why, sitting in a room of thoughtful students, constantly probing to come up with a definition of repentance, repentance comes off as such a trivial thing. Everyone knows it isn’t a trivial thing.  But, the rhetoric surrounding repentance in the modern age sure makes it sound like a trivial thing.  Every person in the room had a definition of repentance they learned at some point; every definition collapsed under scrutiny; the notions of repentance could not stand the weight of sin.

We need a stronger definition of what it means to repent.  Why?  Because until I really come to grips with how much I need to repent and how little I actually feel compelled to repent, I can never really understand the depth of God’s love and forgiveness.  When we cheapen repentance, we cheapen grace.