Experience of Grace in Augustine’s Confessions of Sin

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Confessions is a collection of Augustine’s personal confessions of praise, sins, and faith sustained in a vivid prayer form. Among numerous reasons for studying this renowned text, this paper focuses on Augustine’s Confessions of sins. For the text contains Augustine’s rigorous and revealing confessions of sins, which are figured against the backdrop of Scripture. The thesis of this paper is that Augustine’s Confessions is especially productive for reflecting theologically the experience of confessing sin, for it is rendered in the generous atmosphere of God’s intimate presence. The Confessions show how Augustine’s experience of confessing sin is vitally integral to confessing praise to God and that these functions are a process of experiencing God’s super-abundant grace of pardon, restoration, and transformation. Therefore, this paper analyzes representative Confessions of sins in order to show how Augustine’s textual act of confessing sins becomes a sheer exercise of unfolding grace precisely because they are aimed toward praising God. Specifically, the first section of this paper examines selected Confessions of sin and denotes that they are constructed and structured within a theological framework of rendering praises of God for his gracious works in Augustine’s life. Augustine’s choice to textualize his Confessions of sins in a prayer mode that appropriates from Scripture heightens the text’s capacity to communicate grace. Taking from the results of the first section, the second half of this paper delineates how Augustine’s experience of confessing sin unfolds itself as an exercise of faith, ultimately consummating in praising God for his grace and underscores the dynamics of grace occurring in the movement of confessing sin to confessing praise by way of confessing faith.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• ABSTRACT
• Introduction
• The Nature and Purpose of Augustine’s Confessions of Sin
• Teaching the Dynamics of Grace in Augustine’s Confessions of Sin
• REFERENCES