This work considers the fundamentally “oppositional” structure of reality, viewing Augustine as a “Christian Heraclitus” and focusing on his conception of dialectic. Matthew W. Knotts situates Augustine's anthropology within a classical Roman philosophical context, while characterizing his intellect by continuous questioning. In this way, the book grounds a constructive philosophical-theological enquiry in an historical-critical study of the sources and their context.
Matthew W. Knotts teaches Theology at Loyola Academy, USA.
AcknowledgmentsList of AbbreviationsGeneral Introduction1. Ephesian Resonances2. Building a Bridge: Heraclitus to Augustine3. Augustine and the Theo-log-ical Constitution of the Human Person4. The Methods of Augustinian Self-Constituion5. The Dialectical Self and the AbyssConcluding ThoughtsBibliographyIndex
Matthew Knotts alerts the reader to challenging aspects of being human in Augustine's dialectical approach to the pursuit of self-knowledge within God. He engages in a dialogue between Augustine, himself, and Heraclitus' openness for contradicting phenomena within the universe. In discussion with ‘the complete Augustinian overdetermined portrait of the self’, he explores in imaginative prose the bishop’s efforts to examine the abyss of the self and being human.