Boaz, please. If you are going to hang a story on a hook - in this case, the fact that Paul Davies is or is not an atheist is actually germane to your point - it would be a good idea to check first, not act surprised afterwards.

And the stuff about Augustine's strict views on hell are everywhere. Here's the Catholic Encyclopaedia, for example:

"..even before the outbreak of the Pelagian controversy St. Augustine had already abandoned the lenient traditional view, and in the course of the controversy he himself condemned, and persuaded the Council of Carthage (418) to condemn, the substantially identical Pelagian teaching affirming the existence of "an intermediate place, or of any place anywhere at all (ullus alicubi locus), in which children who pass out of this life unbaptized live in happiness" (Denzinger 102). This means that St. Augustine and the African Fathers believed that unbaptized infants share in the common positive misery of the damned"

A touch harsh, I think. Almost Sellsian in its dry scholarship and complete absence of humanity. This is "philosophy"? Sounds more like a control freak with Aspergers.

But what surprised me most was your admission that:

>>he expressed considerable struggles in the sex area, which stayed with him for a long time..... it comes out in his 'confessions' I believe.. I've not read them completely<<

In short, you present no evidence to back up your sensationalist headline. Just the off-chance that he might have had "considerable struggles in the sex area..." - a far cry indeed from "sex-maniac".

Yet another example of how you undermine your own credibility with half-remembered half-truths.

Pericles...

Augustines issues with lust are well known...

His views on Hell, and children... are probably better viewed in the bigger context of his overall theological position, regarding predestination, foreknowledge and Grace.

His thinking.. perhaps not every aspect of it, but much nevertheless, has shaped the Western mind, via the historical Church.
I find him valuable as he opposed or rejected some ideas which the Catholic church went into error on later.

His dialogues and teaching over heresies are instructive. Pelagianism also being 'proto Islam' theologically, and Manicheism having a different approach altogether.

MANICHAEISM: The universe is the temporary result of an attack from the realm of darkness on the realm of light, and was created by the Living Spirit, an emanation of the light realm, out of the mixture of light and darkness.

PELAGIANISM: It is the belief that original sin did not taint human nature (which, being created from God, was divine), and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without Divine aid.

DONATISM: The treatment of those who had recanted their faith during persecution. Also an important chunk of history.

Rather than pick at my knowledge of Augustine or Davies.. its worth while to examine Augustine as one of the major philosophical tributaries to modern thought. "Its not about me" ...

I've focused on one aspect of Augustines life, as a hook which I hope other enquring minds will use to direct their gaze to an important historic figure, and gain a deeper appreciation of the 'then', so as to better understand the 'now'.

His struggle at Carthage.

"There seethed all around me a cauldron of lawless loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not. I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and I hated safety... To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved. I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness"

SPECIAL FOR BUSHBRED...

"Augustine remains a central figure, both within Christianity and in the history of Western thought, and is considered by modern historian Thomas Cahill to be the first medieval man and the last classical man.[9] In both his philosophical and theological reasoning, he was greatly influenced by Stoicism, Platonism and Neo-platonism, particularly by the work of Plotinus, author of the Enneads, probably through the mediation of Porphyry and Victorinus (as Pierre Hadot has argued). His generally favorable view of Neoplatonic thought contributed to the "baptism" of Greek thought and its entrance into the Christian and subsequently the European intellectual tradition."

MORE

His early and influential writing on the human will, a central topic in ethics, would become a focus for later philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. In addition, Augustine was influenced by the works of Virgil (known for his teaching on language), Cicero (known for his teaching on argument), and Aristotle (particularly his Rhetoric and Poetics).

Bushy.. did we really need to wait for Peter Abelard to visit Moorish Spain to be connected to the Greek Philosophers ?

You are kidding, right?

>>Augustines issues with lust are well known...<<

But Boaz, these are not the words or thoughts of a "sex maniac".

"There seethed all around me a cauldron of lawless loves. I loved not yet, yet I loved to love, and out of a deep-seated want, I hated myself for wanting not."

Everyone around him was enjoying "lawless loves". Augustine appears to be concerned, not that he was "missing out", but that it didn't matter to him that he was. All his mates were happily bonking away, but he hated the fact that he wasn't motivated to do the same.

"I sought what I might love, in love with loving, and I hated safety... To love then, and to be beloved, was sweet to me; but more, when I obtained to enjoy the person I loved."

So he was a little more selective, "in love with loving" rather than in love with lust, it would appear. But when he did find someone, he enjoyed the physical side of it too.

So far, so normal.

"I defiled, therefore, the spring of friendship with the filth of concupiscence, and I beclouded its brightness with the hell of lustfulness"

Unfortunately, after he had done so he berated himself that by having sex, love automatically turns into lust.

It sounds familiar. The "sex is dirty" attitude is a not unfamiliar one amongst christian evangelists, many of whom seem to regard it as something degrading or degenerate.

But the confessions of a sex maniac? Not in this lifetime.

>>His views on Hell, and children... are probably better viewed in the bigger context of his overall theological position, regarding predestination, foreknowledge and Grace<<

That would be convenient, wouldn't it?

Are you - once again - being just the teensiest bit selective in what you would have us believe about this guy?

He considered the "problem" for many years before pronouncing that yes, little kiddies who hadn't done a single thing wrong in their short lives, would still go to hell.

Such humanity.

Dear dear Pericles :)

THANK GOD I am not one of your children :) I can imagine them coming home from school...and it begins..the 'interrogation'...then..the analysis....then the scrutiny..and the revised analysis :)

Finally.. with heads bowed, spirits dulled.. wills crushed they slink off to bed, totally cowered by the big giant "head" on Daddys shoulders.

Picking at them.. for the slightest fault ..... aah..
well..I'll come back when I have more time.. I need to zip off to Church this morning....and carry out some responsibilities.

Back to you soon mate.
BD

Pericles... back to you.

"Sex maniac"..... is a bit of artistic licence to create a 'tag' easily recognizable and grab some attention... the definition of a SM is quite subjective.

The problem with your "That would be convenient" bit is that I am not putting Augustine forward as the epitomy of pure Christianity. If I was..then by all means picky picky at whatever stranges of doctrinal or behavioral idiosyncracy you like.

I'm putting him forward as a great thinker who has influenced Western thought, in general and the Church in particular, I'm hoping that it will tweak with Bushy that awareness of Greek thought was well and truly a part of 'Christendom' in the 4th century, and showing also, that he was very human in his own struggles.

That's about as deep as this gets.

I did a little mini survey this morning at Church.. hardly anyone knows about the Nicene creed...but one chap who had an Anglican background knew it well "We used to recite it every week" he said.. well done Anglicans! I hereby begin my campaign for the Bretho's to also pay it some serious attention..

OH..if ur in Melbourne next Thursday evening, drop along to hear Alistair McGrath giving a talk.

cheers