[Natural Law]

"And your problem with Augustine is??"

I have no problem with St. Augustine. He has been a major influence in my life.

Although St. Augustine contributed greatly to development of the Catholic Church and its dogma, there has never been a claim of infallibility. Although there is much to admire in his writings too often his early life and study of Manichaeism and Neoplatonism bleeds through and confuses or clouds his thoughts. I much prefer the derivations of his works by Thomas Aquinas.

As long as you want to claim his works as your inspiration are you also endorsing his teachings on the priesthood and celibacy? Perhaps you would care to ridicule his conversion Key to this conversion to the childlike voice he heard telling him in a sing-song voice, tolle, lege ("take up and read").

[MarkBsnr]

And let us not forget that St. Augustine penned some of the greatest defenses of the Catholic Church. He wrote my tagline. Do you agree with him?

[Cronos]

Although there is much to admire in his writings too often his early life and study of Manichaeism and Neoplatonism bleeds through and confuses or clouds his thoughts

+Augustine was a Doctor of the Church, but like all of us, he was human and his writings show his strong reaction against the earlier heresies he followed. Just like Nestorius reacted strongly against Arius. However, Nestorius went too strongly to the other extreme. +Augustine danced with the other extreme, but only the ones who misread and quote out of context his works, only those folks cross the line to the other heretical extreme

[Jvette]

St. Augustine, like many church fathers and doctors was never the pope.

Like Origen and Tertullian and others not quite as famous, the pope, speaking ex cathedra, has the final word on what is truth and what is not.

This is one of the things I love most about the church, and that is that I can trust that once all the theology has been studied and sifted through, the church will infallibly state what is truth and what is not.

How else could Jesus have fulfilled His promise that the Spirit would lead us to all truth and that the gates of Hell would not prevail against His church?

It is impossible for everyone to be right when thousands of interpretations contradict each other and the Word is used as a weapon against others rather than as the testament it is meant to be.