Learning How to Love Again:
Augustine’s Cure for the Modern Soul
By Jonathan A. Powers
In the long history of the Christian Church, few figures stand as tall as Saint Augustine of Hippo. Throughout his ministry Augustine proved himself to be a brilliant thinker, a prolific writer, a persistent polemicist, and a devoted pastor. Trained in philosophy and rhetoric and living in a time of cultural collapse and ecclesial crisis, Augustine managed to articulate a vision of God, humanity, and the Church that still shapes Christian thought today. He was more than a philosopher or rhetorician, though. Augustine was at heart a pastor-theologian committed to shepherding people toward the love of God, helping them navigate the complex terrain of their own hearts.
From Sinner to Saint
Born on November 13, 354 in the North African town of Thagaste (modern-day Algeria), Augustine grew up in a home marked by both tension and grace. His mother Monica, a devout Christian, prayed ceaselessly for his salvation while his father Patricius, a pagan, encouraged his worldly ambition. Augustine’s intellect was evident from an early age. He pursued rhetorical training in Carthage and later taught in Rome and Milan, gaining a reputation as a gifted speaker and philosopher.
Yet even as his public success grew, Augustine’s soul remained restless. He dabbled in various belief systems, including the dualistic faith of the Manichees and the metaphysical musings of Neoplatonism, all the while struggling with inner conflict. His passions, especially his sexual appetites, clashed with his moral instincts. For years he resisted the Christian faith, fearing it might demand the death of internal desires he could not imagine living without.
Everything changed during his time in Milan. Influenced by the preaching of Bishop Ambrose and the quiet witness of his mother, Augustine came under conviction. As famously captured in his work Confessions, while sitting in a garden he heard a childlike voice say, “Take and read.” Opening the Scriptures to Romans 13:13–14, he found himself pierced by Paul’s call to leave behind the deeds of darkness and put on Christ. He surrendered his life to God in that moment, marking the beginning of the great conversion that would transform him from a restless seeker into one of the Church’s most profound pastor‑theologians.
Augustine was baptized the following year. After returning to North Africa, he was ordained a priest and then appointed bishop of Hippo in 395. He served in that role until his death in 430 during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals, ministering faithfully as the Roman Empire crumbled around him. His final days were spent in prayer, immersed in the Psalms he had loved and preached, embodying to the end the pastoral heart that shaped his life and legacy.
The Bishop at Work
It can be easy to think of Augustine primarily as a scholar behind a desk, but to do so is to miss the heart of his vocation. As a bishop, he oversaw a bustling and burdened church. It was bustling in the sense that the Church in Hippo was a center of spiritual, social, and civic life. People came to the Church not only for worship but for teaching, counseling, charity, and even legal arbitration. Daily preaching drew crowds. Catechumens were trained and baptized in large numbers. The poor and the sick sought help and healing. Clergy under Augustine’s leadership needed continual formation and guidance. The church was teemed with life and activity, a place where theological ideas met human need.
But it was also burdened. The pressures on the North African Church were immense. Political instability and the looming threat of invasion from Germanic tribes created an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. Heresies like Donatism and Pelagianism fractured communities and required ongoing theological and pastoral responses. Poverty, famine, and illness plagued the people. As bishop, Augustine bore the weight of these burdens as he interceded in civil disputes, provided relief for the destitute, disciplined errant clergy, and defended orthodox doctrine with clarity and conviction. His theological brilliance was not just good teaching but also a tool for tending to the wounds of a weary and often divided flock.
For Augustine, theology was never abstract. It was a tool for formation, healing, and communion with God. His sermons and letters often address the concerns of everyday believers: How should we respond to suffering? What does forgiveness look like in a fractured community? Why does God seem silent at times?
He was deeply aware of human frailty, not just because he saw it in others, but because he had wrestled with it in himself. As bishop, he both a guardian of doctrine and a physician of the soul. His writings pulse with the heart of a pastor who believed that the health of the soul depended on the direction of the heart. To be healed, God’s grace must transform us to love rightly.
Rightly Ordered Love
At the heart of Augustine’s theology lies a profoundly simple insight: we are what we love. For Augustine, the spiritual life is not primarily about following rules or gaining knowledge; rather, it is about the transformation of our desires.
In Augustine’s view, sin is not loving bad things but loving good things in the wrong order. He called this ordo amoris, i.e., the proper ordering of love. Food, family, work, pleasure, even the Church are all good things, but when we elevate them above the love of God, we become disordered. Our souls lose their orientation.
The Christian life, then, is about the reordering of our loves. “You have made us for yourself, O Lord,” Augustine wrote in the Confessions, “and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” The goal is not to extinguish desire, but to direct it rightfully. God is the highest good, the summum bonum, and only when He is loved above all else can we enjoy other goods rightly.
This vision of love flows through all of Augustine’s theology. In his doctrine of grace, we find a God who heals our broken wills so that we can love rightly. In his sermons, we hear a call not simply to believe in God but to delight in Him. In his pastoral practice, we see a bishop guiding people not to mere behavior modification but to the kind of complete inner transformation that comes only from an encounter with divine love.
Augustine’s Greatest Hits
Augustine’s literary output is nothing short of astounding. He wrote more than a hundred books, hundreds of sermons, and numerous volumes of letters. Among these, three works rise to prominence.
Arguably Augustine’s most famous work is his Confessions, which is a spiritual autobiography, a prayer, a theological treatise, and a philosophical meditation all rolled into one book. Although the work stands as the first Western autobiography, it is deeply theological. Augustine uses his own life to explore memory, time, desire, and God’s beneficial work. In it, Augustine recounts his journey from youthful rebellion to Christian faith, but he does not merely tell his story as a reflective narrative. Instead, the book is written as a prayerful confession to God, meant to direct readers to reflect on the status of their own hearts and to God’s grace in their lives. Centuries later, it remains one of the most widely read and beloved Christian texts because of its raw honesty and spiritual depth.
Another noteworthy work in Augustine’s corpus is On the Trinity. In this complex and theologically demanding work Augustine explores the mystery of the triune God, which certainly is no easy task. Drawing on Scripture, reason, and experience, Augustine offers analogies to help explain how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be distinct yet one. His famous analogy of the human mind—memory, understanding, and will—illustrates his attempt to ground the Trinity in relational love. His vision of the Trinity as a communion of love profoundly shaped later theological thought. The book remains a cornerstone of Western Trinitarian theology to this day.
If Confessions helps open a window into Augustine’s inner life and On the Trinity reveals the depth of his theological imagination, then The City of God displays the breadth of his public vision. In essence, The City of God is Augustine’s sweeping response to a collapsing empire offering blueprint for how Christians should live as pilgrims on a journey between two worlds. Written after the sack of Rome in 410, The City of God is Augustine’s response to those who blamed Christians for the fall of the empire. In it, he draws a contrast between the “City of Man,” marked by pride and self-love, and the “City of God,” founded on humility and the love of God. This massive and sweeping work provides a theology of history, politics, and God’s providential work (which he shows to be more complicated than mere determinism). Throughout the work Augustine insists that the Church must not place its hope in earthly power. Instead, Christians are citizens of a heavenly city, and their allegiance is to a kingdom not of this world.
Together, these three works—Confessions, On the Trinity, and The City of God—represent the breadth and depth of Augustine’s theological legacy. Through personal reflection, doctrinal clarity, and public vision, they reveal a mind captivated by God and a heart devoted to shepherding the Church in truth and love.
Enduring Legacy
In addition to his own writings, Augustine’s influence extends through centuries and across traditions. Both Catholic and Protestant theologians claim him as a significant father in the faith. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin drew heavily on Augustine’s teachings about grace, sin, and salvation. Luther, himself an Augustinian monk, found in Augustine a kindred spirit who understood the depth of human need and the radical nature of divine grace.
Augustine also profoundly shaped Roman Catholic theology. Thomas Aquinas cited him extensively, and the Council of Trent drew on his thought in defining doctrine. More recently, Vatican II reaffirmed his importance, particularly in articulating the Church’s mission in the modern world.
Contemporary philosophers and theologians continue to draw upon Augustine’s insights. For example, in A Secular Age, Charles Taylor uses Augustine’s understanding of inwardness and identity to explain the modern self. Many of James K.A. Smith’s books have been written to reintroduce Augustine as a guide for navigating the desires and dealing with disillusionments of modern life.
Of course, Augustine is not without flaws. As a bishop, he could be combative in theological disputes. His teachings on predestination and sexuality have sparked many debates, sometimes reflecting the influence of his earlier philosophical and cultural context more than clear biblical exposition. His willingness to align the Church with imperial authority in suppressing heresies has also drawn critique. Despite these shortcomings, what makes him enduringly compelling is the unity of his heart and mind, his pastoral concern, and his relentless pursuit of God. He was not a scholar detached from the life of the Church but a bishop who cried, preached, labored, and loved. His theology was written from the pulpit, the altar, and the bedside of the dying. In all of this, Augustine reminds us that theology is not merely about getting ideas right but also about love rightly ordered, lived out in the messy and beautiful reality of the Church.
In our age of disordered desires, cultural fragmentation, and spiritual longing, Augustine’s voice still calls: Come back to the One who made you. Come back to the God who is your true rest. Learn again how to love, not just broadly or sentimentally, but rightly.
A Final Word
Augustine of Hippo remains one of the most influential voices in Christian history, not simply because of what he wrote, but because of the kind of Christian he was. He was a lover of truth, a shepherd of souls, and a man whose restless heart found its home in God. Through his writings, his sermons, and his legacy he invites us to make that same journey—to reorder our loves, to rest in grace, and to be formed by the beauty of the God who fist loved us.
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