On Christian Doctrine

A month or so ago I read Augustine's "On Christian Doctrine". Here are some things that impacted me or I found interesting.

1. Interpretation of the Bible
-Augustine said that since the greatest commandments are (1) love of God and (2) love of men, all Biblical interpretations that lead people in those directions are valid interpretations. This leads to some radical interpretations (like 'burning coals are their heads" actually refers to the purifying fire of penance), but I appreciate his Jesus-centeredness. If love means moving closer to God, as he thought it did, maybe this method of interpretation could help me be a peacemaker in theological discussion and protect me from an overly-academic oriented study of Scripture.

2. Dividing science and superstition
-Augustine spends a lot of time clarifying which resources outside of the Bible are legitimate for the Christian to use in learning and teaching. For example: astronomy is ok, but astrology is not; geology is helpful for the Christian, but geomancy (Fung Shue) is not out of bounds; Christian teachers can use numerology for Biblical interpretation but avoid divination at all costs. At first these distinctions seemed obvious. Then I realized that Augustine, as part of the Christian tradition, is separating science from spirituality in a new way for his time (at least among the public). This in itself is fascinating and it also shows me again how indebted Western society is to the Christian tradition. contemporary Christianity AND any kind of 'secular' thought are indebted this Christian labor.

3. Symbols for our life
-Spending time in Taiwan has reinforced my belief that symbols and rituals are important to strengthen communities and ideas-even when people don't always understand why they do them. I was encouraged to hear Augustine say the same thing. He went so far as to argue that while it is better for people to know what communion or confession are than do them in ignorance, it is better for people to do them in ignorance than not at all. He sees that these symbols and rituals point use to the true God even if we aren't conscious of this directing. I think I agree a lot of this and it renews my desire to build a lot of symbols and traditions into my family as well as support historical Christian symbols in the church.