This quotation is from Augustine’s Confessions and specifically from chapter 11, pp. 229. Augustine’s idea is that time is an illusion because past and future do not ever really exist. They are nothing tangible and we can do nothing with them. There is only the never-ending present through which we flow, although that is slightly incorrect as well as it seems to imply that that present is coming from somewhere on its way to somewhere else, which it is not, as it only exists for a moment before it becomes what we call the past, which, according to Augustine, does not exist. Continue reading →

The author of this quotation is Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and this was taken from his Oration on the Dignity of Man. Pico’s work surrounded the idea that man is God’s greatest creation and should rightly be celebrated. His ideas seem very radical because they are so different from what Augustine and others believed. The whole feeling of Pico’s work is much more optimistic about the state of the individual man, especially in relation with that man’s trek toward God. Continue reading →

The author of this quotation is Thomas Aquinas and this is from his answer to objections one and two of the third article from The Existence of God from Summa Theologica. This pertains to the desire to prove that God … Continue reading →

The existence of God can be rationally proven, and Thomas Aquinas does a better job of this than Anselm. Aquinas uses strictly logical reasoning while Anselm starts off with a biased attitude; his opinion is clearly shown by his quotation … Continue reading →

The accounts of Antony’s and Augustine’s lives were both written with a focus on religious aspects. Beyond this, there is little similarity between the two. The life of one was led very differently from the life of the other, starting … Continue reading →