To the ancients who lived in a warrior culture, Stoic philosophy is very appealing. The Stoics don’t ask the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Instead, they admit that good and bad things happen to everyone, that the rain falls on both the bad and the good. Bad things happen to good people, that is part of life. The real question is: How can God help us endure and prevail over our suffering? […]
The Confessions are both a testimonial and a prayer. St Augustine tells us how he embraced Christianity after he was active in the Manichean sect, a New Age dualistic system where good and evil competed more or less evenly, and where Jesus was totally divine without a trace of mortality. St Augustine had many of the same questions that we hear atheists and agnostics raise today, such as: How can intelligent and sophisticated men believe in superstitions about an Almighty God? How can God be Almighty when sin has such a hold in the world? What is the nature of evil? […]
How can the light shine in our lives? St Augustine prays, “since your Spirit moved over the waters, your mercy did not abandon us in our misery. You said, ‘Let there be light.’ You also said, ‘Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ You told us to repent. You commanded light to be made.” So, to St Augustine, repentance is light. […]
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