This does not deny, however, that there were some seeds of the Christian religion always within him from his childhood.
"You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you." (
Confessions 1:1) His very first lines in his
Confessions announce his world view and
his anthropology to all who read his words.
Restlessness (spiritual unease) is a motion or dynamism towards God which characterises human life.
During his adolescence and early adulthood in Carthage and
in Rome, Augustine looked for philosophical Truth, but was uncertain about the precise presence and role of God.
God was not yet a great factor in his thought.
By the time he was in Milan a dozen years later as a
professor of rhetoric and a
potential convert to the Christian Faith, however, Augustine was becoming greatly attracted to the philosophy of the classical Roman philosopher, Plotinus (205 - 270).
For Plotinus and his disciples who in the time of Augustine were the
Neo-Platonists, not only was God the cause of all creation, but also everything existed only to the extent to which it participated in God.
This meant that the fulfilment of the Will of God, and not the full development of human potential, became the central concern of life.
(Continued on the next page.)
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