Confessions for me was a challenge, but in a helpful way. It made me look at my life to see if there were any idols or things that I am placing in a higher position than God, not necessarily just graven images, but anything that I love more than God. After reading Confessions, I want to have that same mindset that Augustine had and radically follow after Christ.
Likewise, Petrarch had an influence while I was reading. The Italian poet and philosopher Petrarch is often called the “father of humanism.” Living from 1304 to 1374, his writings explored human emotions, driven by his muse, the ever-intangible Laura. Petrarch often carried around a copy of Augustine’s Confessions. Petrarch at one point imagines a conversation between himself and Augustine as he pondered deep in his soul the allure of humanist love and Augustine’s insistence that only the spiritual mattered. When Petrarch defends interest in the material side of life—why would we be in a material world if God did not mean for us to partake of it—he imagines the response from Augustine that says that earthly delights and material goods cannot bring happiness. Humans delude themselves in pursuit of them, addicted to a desire for more pleasure, more power and more wealth. Petrarch, however, cannot simply embrace Augustine’s rejection of earthly matters. There is something profound in the human experience, even if one agrees that materialism alone can be dangerous and addictive.
Seeing Petrarch’s view on life was also helpful, even though it was wrong, because it made me ask myself what I was living for, the material things or the only thing that matters most—Jesus Christ. Petrarch suggests a solution: appreciation of true beauty, such as poetry, literature, art, or the highest of human emotions. Those are more real than collection material possessions, but our lives are still just a tiny speck in the expanse of time. If we rely on the material world for our joy or for our meaning, we will be disappointed because by nature the material world is transitory.
