Confessions

Addressing God directly, Augustine begins by praising him, emphasizing the fundamental need humans have to worship him despite their sinfulness and pride, for “our heart is unquiet until it rests in you” (14).

Augustine then introduces and engages in a series of conundrums related to God’s essence. Meditating on these and other contradictions but leaving them largely unresolved, Augustine emphasizes that God merits deep considerations despite the sublime confusion they create—that salvation requires acknowledgment and praise of God despite personal uncertainty and the possibility of redundancy due to God’s omniscience, for “woe betide those who fail to speak” (16).

Augustine again invokes God’s grace, emphasizing his need for salvation and stating his intention to confess the reasons behind that need.

Augustine again asks permission to tell his story, confident God will grant it since he has loved and cared for Augustine—via his parents—from birth. Augustine relates his infancy, emphasizing the tension and tantrums that arose from the impossibility of conveying his needs. He celebrates the divine and inscrutable miracle of life, reveling in its unresolvable mysteries, certain they provide proof of and a pathway towards God. Praising God’s forgiveness, Augustine asserts that even newborns need it, sinful as they are from greed for milk and wrath when made to wait for it.