The City of God stands as Augustine's masterwork of theological defense and construction, written over thirteen years in response to accusations that Christianity brought ruin upon Rome. This first volume contains the first ten books of sustained refutation—demolishing pagan claims that traditional worship secured either temporal prosperity or eternal happiness—followed by the beginning of his positive vision in Books Eleven through Thirteen, where he traces the origin of two societal orders to the primordial division among the angels. What emerges is not merely an apology for Christianity but a philosophy of history that subordinate the fate of empires to the hidden providence of the one true God, whose sovereignty extends from creation through the fall to the final judgment.
The Love of Existence and Knowledge
All beings naturally love their own existence. This is evident even in irrational animals and plants. Man uniquely loves knowledge and truth, preferring sane grief to deluded joy. This love of truth indicates a higher vocation, pointing beyond the material to the spiritual.
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