Astrology and Friendship By Joshua Evers
First, I must say that I have always found it hilarious that Augustine was so interested in astrology and horoscopes!
"From my remarks, he discovered that I was addicted to the books of those who cast horoscopes"
-Book IV iii(5)
Was this Augustine's weird phase, the regretful and awkward period that everyone goes through? I suppose I have no room to speak considering I attempted to invent my own language in the 5th grade. No matter how pointless this may seem, it is another example of the countless wrong turns Augustine took in his life. In his own mind, this was worth the effort of studying. He was obsessed and with his knowledge, experience, and reasoning, he thought learning astrology was the best course of action. This is such a contrast from where God drove him. Apart from God, we will all go routes that are questionable and unreasonable, and (myself included) many of us are embarrassed at how stupid we have acted in our past. Praise be to God that we are not reading about an old man who was proud of his life because he could look at the night sky and predict a man's future.
Adding to the insanity, I was speechless to read about Augustine and his unnamed friend. They grew up together and their familiarity became a sort of friendship bonded by the common interest in astrology. I feel the need to point out that Augustine mentioned it was a sweet experience. This is the kid that he influenced to the point of throwing away the beliefs of his Catholic family and learn with Augustine, because Augustine knows best, of course. Augustine describes his friend's attitude when he attempts to make jokes about the baptism.
"He was horrified at me as if I was an enemy, and with amazing and immediate frankness advised me that, if I wished to be his friend, I must stop saying this kind of thing to him." Book IV iv(9)
Wow. His friend put his foot down instantly. Is this really comparable to an unbeliever when their friend comes to Christ? Augustine was skeptical about his friend's change in tune, but sadly he passed away too soon to see true integrity in his words. Judging by Augustine's memory, this shallow friendship was severed and Augustine was baffled. A true conversion to Christ should be reflected in a believer's entire life, and that includes their friendships, of which this segment is an amazing example. Augustine foreshadows my conclusion by referring to Romans 5:5 in how only true friendships form due to love being poured out by the Holy Spirit. These two segments really stuck out to me and were so conveniently close to each other that I decided to save his lack of zeal in secular literature (Book III.iv{8}) and his love for others based upon judgement (Book IV xiv{21}) for a rainy day.
I commented on Zelda and Moriah's Posts.
"From my remarks, he discovered that I was addicted to the books of those who cast horoscopes"
-Book IV iii(5)
Was this Augustine's weird phase, the regretful and awkward period that everyone goes through? I suppose I have no room to speak considering I attempted to invent my own language in the 5th grade. No matter how pointless this may seem, it is another example of the countless wrong turns Augustine took in his life. In his own mind, this was worth the effort of studying. He was obsessed and with his knowledge, experience, and reasoning, he thought learning astrology was the best course of action. This is such a contrast from where God drove him. Apart from God, we will all go routes that are questionable and unreasonable, and (myself included) many of us are embarrassed at how stupid we have acted in our past. Praise be to God that we are not reading about an old man who was proud of his life because he could look at the night sky and predict a man's future.
Adding to the insanity, I was speechless to read about Augustine and his unnamed friend. They grew up together and their familiarity became a sort of friendship bonded by the common interest in astrology. I feel the need to point out that Augustine mentioned it was a sweet experience. This is the kid that he influenced to the point of throwing away the beliefs of his Catholic family and learn with Augustine, because Augustine knows best, of course. Augustine describes his friend's attitude when he attempts to make jokes about the baptism.
"He was horrified at me as if I was an enemy, and with amazing and immediate frankness advised me that, if I wished to be his friend, I must stop saying this kind of thing to him." Book IV iv(9)
Wow. His friend put his foot down instantly. Is this really comparable to an unbeliever when their friend comes to Christ? Augustine was skeptical about his friend's change in tune, but sadly he passed away too soon to see true integrity in his words. Judging by Augustine's memory, this shallow friendship was severed and Augustine was baffled. A true conversion to Christ should be reflected in a believer's entire life, and that includes their friendships, of which this segment is an amazing example. Augustine foreshadows my conclusion by referring to Romans 5:5 in how only true friendships form due to love being poured out by the Holy Spirit. These two segments really stuck out to me and were so conveniently close to each other that I decided to save his lack of zeal in secular literature (Book III.iv{8}) and his love for others based upon judgement (Book IV xiv{21}) for a rainy day.
I commented on Zelda and Moriah's Posts.
Augustine was evidently a sharp guy, so it's a bit of a shock to read that he found plausible something like astrology, which to us seems eminently implausible. Astrology is not an a priori discipline nor, to my knowledge, are there any religious writings that support it and that most are willing to accept. Therefore, the only method of justifying astrology is through observation. As Hume taught, there is no necessary connection between temporarily successive events. All inductive reasoning is based on past experience, and, thus, our beliefs about astrology largely depend on it's predictive success, imagined or not. Cleary, this experience depends on the circumstances of a person's epoch. Therefore, we are reminded that, no matter how silly the idea of stars determining human events seems to us, we are not in a position to claim some sort of enlightened epistemology, just more experience and a better justified view of the underlying causes of events.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if an experienced person makes an astrological prediction, then there might be more to that prediction than mere astrology. I wouldn't be surprised if that buffed the success of prediction in ancient times, giving people back then a better reason to believe than we do now.
On a different note, Augustine points out that explaining, as opposed to predicting, human behavior with reference to planets is not helpful. An idea that, if not obvious even in those days, Augustine may have inherited from the Neoplatonist Plotinus, according to a footnote in the book.