"Enlightened by Raw Examination"

I want to touch on a subject that Augustine addresses simply because this particular subject is finally summed up/nailed down and all-around “worded perfectly” by Augustine and I applaud him for his finality and tact in doing so! It reads:

*“Why then should I be concerned for human readers to hear my confessions? It is not they who are going to ‘heal my sicknesses.’ *The human race is inquisitive about other people’s lives, but negligent to correct their own. Why do they demand to hear from me what I am when they refuse to hear from you what they are? And when they hear me talking about myself, how can they know if I am telling the truth, when no one ‘knows what is going on in a human spirit which his within’? *To hear you speaking about oneself is to know oneself.”

There are 3 main points I want to focus on from this quote. Augustine asks why he should even be writing these confessions for others to read. Not that I could ever do justice in answering his elite questionings, but I do have an idea whirling about that would come from a Christian standpoint that I am almost positive Augustine would most assuredly agree with. Take the passage from James 5:16 which reads: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” This verse obviously applies to fellow believers and not to a general audience. It is meant in encouraging and teaching Christians to hold one another up in confession, intercessory prayer, and accountability. In meshing this with Augustine’s wonderings, one can see that this would be a perfect reason for writing out “confessions” for others to read. However, it would only be within the context that these “others” are devout, faithful, and non-judgmental fellow believers! Which is not the case in the reality of Augustine’s time, neither will it ever be the case concerning the writings of any author being published for the world to see. Therefore, to answer his question, one must ask another question: “Is the number of believers that read his work and benefit from it, worth the humiliation or critiquing of those who are hypocritical heretics?” Hopefully Augustine’s answer would be an affirmative “YES!”

Coinciding with my second point of focus, Augustine has already accepted the concept of those “hypocritical heretics” when he talks of those who want to read about other people’s mistakes, but when it comes to their own, they want no conviction! No one wants to know their true self from the perspective of another, especially when that someone is seemingly more “righteous” in living. Yet still, we have to ask ourselves, “Will we not meet the Judge and Seer of all, our very Maker, and have to yield to His most perfect and rightful judgment one day regardless?”

Thirdly, the last statement in the above quote that Augustine writes is this: “To hear you speaking about oneself is to know oneself.” I absolutely love this quote! It is humorous in a way, but the root of that humor springs only from the fact that this observation of the human nature is so very true! Ask yourself, how many times-when you talk to a friend, a colleague, a parent, a teacher, a mentor, a shrink, whoever (!)-do you find yourself resting more assured in a conviction, an idea, or a reflection of self simply by talking about it out loud to another human? How many times do you come to a personal revelation about yourself when you’ve written it out to someone or even just for your own eyes to see? How many times do you find the answer to a great mystery or problem or situation in life, when you simply talk it out of your system, verbally, audibly? I find it fascinating that Augustine so easily ties all these forms of doing so, of “knowing oneself” together into one statement. He simplifies and yet still magnifies just one facet of the human nature which we all are aware and guilty of in one way or another.

The very rawness of Augustine’s sin nature, combined with the sheer genius of his intellect which he constantly gives credit to God for, is what attracts all types of people, believers or not. Those who want to justify their own sins by reading of others and/or those who want to be encouraged in reviving their own spirituality, still others who could have read of his confessions and prayed over him at the time. Augustine did no wrong in writing out his thoughts, almost had no choice, because it was human instinct to do so and I am grateful for his honesty and thought-provoking questions which all point to the Divine, the Judge of All, the Forgiver of all sins, the hearer of Confessions.