Religions and society in West

According to Augustine, the spirit is capable of keeping a body alive forever. The first man on earth was created out of a soul that was living and not a hastening spirit (Chapter, 1). Augustine argued that human beings were created as a reward for obedience. The body was never meant to be hungry but out of disobedience, God was provoked. “And therefore his body, which required meat and drink to satisfy hunger and thirst, and which had no absolute and indestructible immortality, but by means of the tree of life warded off the necessity of dying, and was thus maintained in the flower of youth,—this body, I say, was doubtless not spiritual, but animal; and yet it would not have died but that it provoked God’s threatened vengeance by offending” (Chapter, 23). This implies that the spirit in human was enough to sustain him forever but as a result of eating the forbidden fruit hunger was brought to man and hence the manifest of death.

The spirit is able to keep the body alive because the spirit that raised Jesus from the dead can be able to give life to a soul “But if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you” (Chapter, 13).  The spirit replaced psyche that could have kept the body alive. This means that if the spirit is well maintained without committing any sins the body can be able to live comfortably with spirit alone as there are no external powers destroying it. The spirit has trinity power that is God “Ye shall be as gods”. This portrays a man as an obedient being that adheres to their supreme and they are true to themselves.

 

 

 

Reference

St. Augustine . City of God and Christian Doctrine. Chapter 1. Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XI.1.html

St. Augustine . City of God and Christian Doctrine. Chapter 13.  Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XIV.13.html

St. Augustine . City of God and Christian Doctrine. Chapter 23.  Retrieved from http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf102.iv.XIII.23.html