Confessions by Augustine — BOOK VII: A Neoplatonic Quest

1. 1. Augustine could not conceive of God as anything other than a physical substance occupying space, despite believing God to be incorruptible and immutable.
2. 2. Nebridius' argument against the Manichees was that if the race of darkness could harm God, God would be violable; if not, there was no need for combat, refuting their entire cosmology.
3. 3. Augustine recognized that the cause of sin lies in the free choice of the will, and that acting against one's will is a punishment, not a sin.
4. 4. Augustine concluded that evil is not a substance but a privation of good; all things that exist are good because they come from God.
5. 5. Through the story of Firminus and a slave born at the same moment with identical horoscopes but vastly different fates, Augustine disproved astrology as a science.
6. 6. Augustine read the books of the Platonists and found there the concept of the Word (Logos) and the immutable light, but not the incarnation of Christ or His humility.
7. 7. Augustine experienced a Neoplatonic vision of the immutable light above his mind, which he identified as God, the eternal truth and true love.
8. 8. Augustine recognized that all created things are good because they come from God, and evil is a perversion of the will turning away from God toward inferior things.
9. 9. Augustine's ascent to God involved moving from bodies to the soul, then to its inward force, then to reasoning, and finally to the unchangeable truth itself.
10. 10. Augustine realized that the Platonists knew the goal (the Father) but not the way (the humble Christ), whereas Christianity provides both the vision and the path.
11. 11. Augustine found in the Apostle Paul the solution to the problem of sin: the law of the mind is captive to the law of sin, and only grace through Jesus Christ delivers.
12. 12. Augustine initially thought of Christ only as a man of exceptional wisdom, but later understood the full mystery of the Word made flesh, including a human soul and mind.