Augustine Explores the "Double Knowledge"

“Lord, let me know myself; let me know you.”
-Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

In his Confessions Augustine not only tells about the events of his life but he also explores his hidden motives and secret thoughts. His honesty and insight are remarkable! Nothing of its kind had been written before in all of literature, exposing the negatives of one’s inner life and then the transformation process after coming into relationship with the Triune God. In fact, nothing written ever since has matched Augustine’s openness and profundity.

Double Knowledge
Augustine prays, “Lord, let me know myself; let me know you.” This is referred to as the “double knowledge”—knowing the Lord and knowing ourselves. All of Christian growth is based on this double knowledge. John Calvin picks up on this theme in his Institutes and emphasizes it throughout his teaching.

Augustine realizes that he needed to know honestly—not in the superficial way of knowing ourselves that we speak of today that focuses on our abilities and ambitions. Rather, this church father realizes that he needs to understand himself honestly—with all his disordered desires, addictions and driven-ness.

In this brief prayer, Augustine implies: Lord, let me know myself in order that I might know you. The more we really face ourselves—our dark side, our selfishness, our twisted cravings—the more we come to know how much we need a deliverer. We not only need to “get saved” but we need redemption in the here and now. We desperately need to be transformed from the inside out, changing all of those distorted desires into pure, clean ones.

Self-Knowledge
Likewise, the more we come to know the Lord on a personal basis, the more we come to know ourselves. The closer we get to him, the more light shines on us. In the light of God’s truth we see on the one hand that there is more darkness and hidden sin inside us than we had ever imagined possible. Thus knowledge of us leads to knowledge of him leads back to knowledge of us.

On the other hand, we come to know just how valuable and precious we are in God’s sight! Despite all our darkness, God loves us with an everlasting love! If you and I truly understand the depths of our depravity, the thought of his loving us will blow our minds!

Moreover, we are created in his image. As the Triune God exists in three Persons, so we reflect that “threeness.” In particular, Augustine highlights the three main functions of the human soul: memory, understanding and desire. By “memory” he means not only our ability to remember but our consciousness, our personal history and even our personality. “Understanding” refers to our ability to think and reason. “Desire/will/love” is the driving force of our lives. What we desire—what we love and will to have—determines the direction of each day. How fearfully and wonderfully we are made!

Us Today
If you have never read the Confessions, you are missing one of the greatest writings in all of Christian literature. It is really worth your while! Although someone can describe it to you, that is not the same as seeing it for yourself. Reading the Confessions is a great way to grow in the double knowledge—getting to honestly know yourself and God. The process of such self-knowledge is more “caught” than “taught.”

No matter where each of us is in our knowledge of self and God, there is more to learn. God is unsearchable—we will get to know more and more of him throughout eternity and never scratch the surface! Created in God’s image, we also possess and unfathomable depth. There is more to learn of our need for redemption and more to learn of our value and preciousness in his sight.

“Lord, let me know myself; let me know you.” This is our prayer as we press on to grow in the Lord!

Further Reading
There are a great many translations of the Confessions available. Some of the free versions online are in older English and rather difficult for most modern readers to follow. One newer version that I would suggest is Saint Augustine, Confessions. Translated by Henry Chadwick. World Classics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.

2011 © Glenn E. Myers

Augustine’s Confessions Invite Us on a Spiritual Journey

Life is a journey. In particular, spiritual growth is an ever-moving, ever-challenging adventure. Just as men and women of Scripture are said to have “walked with God,” our pilgrimage is one of wandering with the Lord through the thick and thin of life, all the while getting to know him in a deeper and more real way.

Many great works of Christian literature have focused on the theme of journey. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the best known. But the book that set the pattern for Bunyan and all others is Confessions by Augustine of Hippo (354-430).

Augustine’s Conversion
In his Confessions, Augustine described his own spiritual journey. Raised in north Africa, his mother, Monica, was a Christian, and his father, Patricius, was a Pagan. Augustine offered tremendous insight into his own thoughts, attitudes and motivations. He detailed the pleasure he felt in stealing some pears with friends as a youth. It wasn’t the pears that he enjoyed—it was the thrill of taking something that was not his own.

When Augustine went off to school, he began to pursue lustful desires. Ultimately he lived for thirteen years with a woman, whom he never named, and they had a son together.

As well as pursuing a hedonistic lifestyle, Augustine dabbled in several philosophies of the time. First he experimented with Manichaean religion that saw the universe as an ongoing battle between good and evil forces. Then he pursued Neo-Platonic thought. Although incomplete in itself, Neo-Platonism proved to be the bridge that would help lead him to Christ.

Augustine’s teaching career eventually took him to Rome and then Milan. Because he taught rhetoric (public speaking or communication), Augustine began to attend the cathedral in order to listen to the great preacher, Ambrose. Bit by bit the gospel message began to reach him.

One day Augustine was in his back yard, wrestling with life, with his constant compromise with lust and his sensual lifestyle. The Lord supernaturally broke into his world. As Augustine was sitting under a tree he heard a child’s voice repeated singing, “Take up and read, take up and read.” When he looked over the fence, however, no one was there. Then Augustine looked down at the Bible he had next to him. He picked it up and read the spot where the Bible fell open: “Not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” (Rom 13:13-14, NASB). Augustine was convicted to the core. This led to his repentance and conversion, being baptized on Easter day by Bishop Ambrose.

Continued Venture
Augustine’s venture did not end with his conversion. This is only about half way through Confessions. His pilgrimage carried on as he grew in his relationship with the Lord.

Another profound encounter he had with the Lord took place at the Italian port city of Ostia. Monica had been with him for some years in Italy, and she aging. One day Augustine and his mother were looking out over the garden and talking about heaven. As they did so, both were caught up into a glimpse of heaven. Soon after, Monica died.

Throughout the remainder of Confessions, Augustine continues to tell his journey as he grew into an ever-deeper knowledge of God.

Our Spiritual Pilgrimage
Augustine presents the believer as the homo viator—the person on a journey. Let us not settle for where we are with the Lord at the moment. Rather, let us continually push forward, as Paul states in Phil 3:12-14,

“Not that I have already . . . been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. . . . But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

2011 © Glenn E. Myers

Meet the Mystics: Augustine Calls Us to Desire

“Thou hast made us for thyself, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
-Augustine of Hippo, Confessions

Augustine
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is a figure who looms larger than life in the history of the church. Many know him as a great theologian who emphasized God’s grace, taught on the Trinity, and refuted Pelagianism. He helped to lay the foundation for the whole Western church, both Protestant and Catholic.

But Augustine was also a mystic—one who had a truly personal relationship with God. Although Augustine lived a worldly life for many years, the Lord supernaturally crashed into his life at one point leading him to a verse in Scripture that led to his conversion. From then on, Augustine cultivated an intimate walk with the Lord. Augustine and his mother, Monica, also had a phenomenal encounter before she passed away in which they were both experienced a taste of heavenly glory.

Desire
In his writings Augustine has much to say on spiritual growth. One of his key themes is that “desire.” Desire (longing, craving) is the starting point—it is what draws us to the Lord gets us out the front door to go on a journey with God.

Created in God’s image we are born to desire. That capacity to desire is good. Desire is meant to be directed toward loving others—both God and other people. However, because of the fall our desire became twisted inward (concupiscence, lust) and we focus on ourselves and our pleasures.

In his autobiography, Confessions, Augustine describes the many earthly pleasures he pursued before coming to Christ. Our hearts run after many false pleasures and empty pursuits that will never satisfy us.

Augustine sees desire as the driving force of our lives. Salvation is not a matter of killing all desire in our lives, as it is sometimes preached. Rather, repentance means redirecting our desire.

Only in a genuine relationship with God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—will our restlessness be stilled. Spiritual growth, therefore, is all about stirring up our desire for the Lord, directing our steps toward him and continually cultivating our personal relationship with him.

Life-Long Pursuit
When many contemporary Christians read Augustine’s statement, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee,” their thought is “been there, done that.”

This is the wrong response. Far too many people today can describe when they “prayed the sinner’s prayer” but they have grown little since then. Although they claim to be saved, they have little interest in the Lord. Rather, their desire is directed toward material possessions, physical pleasure, success, and even recognition in ministry. It has been years since they genuinely pursued the Lord.

What we desire—what we pursue—tells the truth about us. If we pursue carnal comforts, then our lives are carnal. The spiritual path we are on is headed in the opposite direction from the Lord. As Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt 6:21).

Desire is all about where our treasure is. It is the foundation of our spiritual growth. Desire is good so long as we turn from all the self-directed gratifications that seem so innocent.

Instead of ignoring the restlessness in our hearts or being led astray into self-absorption, let us direct our desires toward others and, above all, toward God.

2011 © Glenn E. Myers