Believe What One Wills: An essay questioning the motives for St. Augustine's conversion.

As a general rule, human beings want their lives to have harmony and little conflict. In order to accomplish this, many attempt to align their personal philosophy with a widely accepted philosophy. For many years of his life, Saint Augustine tried to do just that. He knew what he felt and thought, but was not quite sure how to express it until his conversion to Christianity. In the first part of the autobiographical book, Confessions, …

…ability to overcome his problems controlling his will because it gave him the stability and reason to abandon his habits. His conversion was not based on a change of heart or new discovery of his spiritual, belief system, but that he found the discipline he needed and subconsciously craved in Christianity. He followed Jesus Christ, but his reason for following was selfish; it offered him what he lacked. Bibliography: Augustine. Confessions. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.