I Burned for Your Peace: Augustine's Confessions Unpacked

by Peter Kreeft

Overview

Popular author and philosopher Peter Kreeft delves into one of the most beloved Christian classics of all time—Augustine's Confessions. He collects key passages and offers incisive commentary, making Confessions accessible to any reader who is both intellectually curious and spiritually hungry.

The Confessions is a dramatic personal narrative of a soul choosing between eternal life and death, an exploration of the timeless questions great minds have been asking for millennia, and a prayer of praise and thanksgiving to God. I Burned for Your Peace is not a scholarly work but an unpacking of the riches found in Augustine's text. It is existential, personal, and devotional, as well as warm, witty, and thought-provoking. With Kreeft to guide them, readers of the Confessions can overhear and understand the intimate conversation between a towering intellect and the God whose peace he at last humbly accepts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781621640400
Publisher:	Ignatius Press
Publication date:	08/23/2016
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	542,643
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Peter Kreeft, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, is one of the most respected Christian authors of our time. His many bestselling books cover a vast array of topics in spirituality, theology, and philosophy. They include How to Be Holy, Practical Theology, Back to Virtue, Because God Is Real, You Can Understand the Bible, Angels and Demons, Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, and A Summa of the Summa.

Table of Contents

Introduction to This Book 7

Introduction to Augustine 9

Introduction to the Confessions 13

Introduction to Reading the Confessions 17

The "Inside Address": "Dear God," 19

Beginnings: Infancy 39

Education 47

Childhood 57

Adolescence: Lust and Pears 61

Young Adulthood: Carthage 73

Critique of the Theater 77

The Conversion to Philosophy 81

The Bible versus Manicheeism 85

The Three Big Problems 91

Monica's Tears 97

Astrology 101

A Traumatic Death 103

Beauty and Logic 111

Escape from Carthage-and Monica-to Rome 119

Skeptical Doubts 127

Saint Ambrose versus Manicheeism 131

Wisdom from a Drunken Beggar 137

Folly in the Arena 139

Time and Procrastination 141

The Problem of Evil 147

What Plato Had and What Plato Lacked 151

The Problem of Evil Solved 155

A Mystical Experience 159

Christianity versus Platonism 167

The Romans 7 Experience 175

The Conversion in the Garden 197

Mysticism with Monica 205

Why Augustine Wrote This Book 215

Theological Conclusions: What Was This God That Augustine Found? 219

Editorial Reviews

"Two teachers we all know and trust enter into a dialogue to bring forth a Confessions for our day."
 — Fr. David Meconi, S.J., Editor, The Confessions of St. Augustine

nt, and in this book he is even more astonishing than ever. If I were allowed only one book on the Confessions, this would be it."
— Joseph Pearce, Author, Catholic Literary Giants

"Whether you have read the Confessions many times or are new to its pleasures, Kreeft's lucid commentary has the effect of bright lights shining onto a great forest by which you can see not only the scope, but the trees, the bark, and the leaves."
— Patrick Coffin, Host, Catholic Answers Live

"For those intimidated by Augustine's prose, Kreeft illuminates it with pithy distinctions and images drawn from our own times. This book is further evidence in favor of Kreeft's insistence that the greatest thinkers—far too often imprisoned by the very scholars who study them—in fact belong to us all."
— Matthew Levering, Chair of Theology, Mundelein Seminary

"Kreeft illustrates the truth of Augustine's comment that God is more intimate to us than we are even to ourselves. Only when we realize that we are loved into being by the Triune God, will we experience the profound peace that sustains the pilgrimage to eternal life."
— Fr. Matthew Lamb, Professor of Theology, Ave Maria University

"A marvelous meditation on the heart, mind, and life of this great saint, who is himself a window on the heart, mind, and life of God."
— Michael Augros, Ph.D., Author, Who Designed the Designer?

From the Publisher