When I ask myself what is at the basis of Augustine’s inspiration, I see this in his exploitation of the human desire. He describes himself not merely as someone who is thinking , but especially as one who is desiring. That is what I understand of him and what appeals to me. There is an emotional element in his approach of man and of his religious destiny. It centers in the longing of the human heart.
Yet you cannot say that Augustine was not a thinker. But in his view thinking and trying to know have always an affective element. You are supposed to think with the heart. In that case knowing is also loving. And in this loving desire plays a central part. The purely intellectual speculation, like it is practiced today in philosophy and theology, is not the way he did.
His thinking is characterized by desire, passion, love.
What is my subject?
I can choose different starting points, but I realize that I really want to talk about one topic. Everything else will circle around this, because I find it difficult and perhaps it is impossible to capture my main subject in precise terms.
Yet it is something simple, something that not has to be complicated and needs not a lot of literature to find out.
It is not very original, because it is about something one always has been looking for. Something that not has changed in the course of time, or it must be that many has dropped the subject.
It is before the distinction between religion and philosophy. It is about the real fulfillment of our desire. It is not a physical but a spiritual question, and it lies both in the domain of philosophy and religion.
In fact I am back to the question of my youth, when I read Plato and Augustine. It is the Platonic influence on Augustine. It is also about Plotinus, because Augustine was deeply influenced by him.
So I want to go back to the source, the original experience I had while reading Plato: to be able to ascend to a spiritual truth and beauty.
It's not quite a way back or a kind of nostalgia for the ideals of the past, for I have noticed in the meantime that the search should also go down into your consciousness to experience the true depth of this desire.
It's also about Christianity and church, but rather to break free from the dogmatic and ready-made answers which on this subject have been formulated. So I would avoid theological reflections. It may be about Christ, but as a personification of the Logos, who is working at the basis of all creation.