Augustine of Hippo and Metz Essay

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People often say that the end of world is coming. Although this may be true to some extent, this is merely a way of people interacting with society that has happened multiple times in history. A kind of death and rebirth that categorizes a shift in mentality and spirituality. Political idolatry and the weakness of the contemporary subject have become growing problems in today's modern society. A good example of this is Sharia law and the introduction of fundamentalist Islamic beliefs into government. While most of the world is modernizing, some countries have adopted a more dedicated religious perspective that has been corrupted and altered to suit the needs of those who want power.

Secularization theory in essence is the belief that as a society progresses, specifically through rationalization and modernization, so will the authority of religion be lost in evolution. However, there exist various grounds for the revision of secularization theory. "-inconclusive empirical evidence, signs of a resurgent sacred and the peculiar mix of the analytical and the normative in interpretative frameworks. The weight given to one or other leads theory in different directions, re-enacting polarization between those who see inevitability of decline and others who spot resurgence" (Hoelzl and Ward, 2008, p. 16). This is because reality has a way of removing credibility of theory. Theory tends to explain things in an abstract and circumstantial way. When society is examined through historical events, things happen cyclically, especially the power of religion through progression of society.

Just like nature exists in cycles, so does societies. They reflect the way people feel and think at the time. As history repeats itself and events occur similarly, so does the rise and fall of religion. People at one point or another do not feel they need religion. Then something catastrophic happens, and then people feel they need religion again. Modernization and rationalization has nothing to do with the loss of religious authority. It eventually comes back as people begin to search outside of themselves for life's questions.

Augustine of Hippo see the saeculum for example, as a bad thing. "For Augustine, the saeculum is a sinister thing. It is a penal existence, marked by the extremes of misery and suffering, by suicide, madness, by more diseases than any book of medicine can include'" (Augustine and Dyson, 1998, p. 1098). But what is the saeculum? The saeculum represents a temporal kind of co-existence of two cities; giving an eschatological point-of-view that shows individuals should resist any kind of attempt to see in society the decidedly final eschatological conflict revealed too soon in a visible and identifiable form. Blindness to what is happening is refusal to acknowledge the decay of things. Most people wish to live ignorant lives, afraid to acknowledge the truth of events.

Metz saw things differently from other people. Case in point Rahner's transcendental method and how he saw it could not deal with historical realities (Riggs, 2013, p. 306). Karl Rahner was an influential and active figure within the Vatican II. "Rahner's official involvement with Schema XIII began with his contributions to the Malines text in September 1963. Although he was not formally included as part of the commission for the next draft, he received invitations to meetings where Schema XIII was being developed" (Peterson, 2014, pp. It is during the development of Schema XIII that Rahner's work took on a meaning that became increasingly different for Metz.

From 1970s onwards the sense of weariness in being a subject grew for Metz. The danger then lay not in the Christian message and it being cancelled out by any rival messianic message, rather it comes from the numbness of "evolutionary time." He describes hope as a struggle for reclaiming forgotten time. Enrst Bloch, for example, shares apocalyptic wisdom through his work. "In what many consider his greatest work, The Principle of Hope (written between 1938 and 1947), he provided, in three volumes, an encyclopedic account of the many manifestations of hope in history and contemporary life, from simple daydreams to complex visions of perfection" (Geoghegan, 2013, p. 1).

As mentioned by Metz, hope is a struggle, a continual struggle. In Murdoch's article, hope is, more specifically Christian hope, is a kind of salvation, not just for one's own soul, but for the world. One of the more meaningful lines of the article is one that shares that hope requires a change of life. Christian life asks a person to change his or her life from a life of sin and feeling lost to a life of spiritual richness and order.

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This is how it brings forth hope from the change of mentality and the change of ways.

Although hope fuels people to alter their course from that of a destructive journey to an enlightened one, there still exists forces that weaken the character of individuals. Corruption slides into the minds of many as people feel they have no option but to do the things they ordinarily would not. Such forces come from the need to seize and control power, fueled by status and money. Cavanaugh discusses in an article the way product tie-ins can persuade or coerce parents to buy things for their children because their children feel compelled to desire such toys (Cavanaugh, 1999, p. 283). As people are led astray through material attachments and wishful thinking, they drag the people that love them with them into an abyss of destructive actions.

This is seen often in modern day consumerism. Teenagers and children want the latest gadgets so they can belong in social circles and groups. They identify certain brand names with having money and being normal. So they beg their parents, or do things they ordinarily would not, like shop lift, in order to get the things, they covet. However, when they finally the coveted things, they end up more miserable then before because they realize what little meaning those things have.

In this age of consumerism, money and things dictate everything. Such a culture creates desperation, greed, and more importantly, a loss of identity and self. When people learn to lean on material possession to identify themselves, they eventually discover the emptiness that comes with it. This is what Augustine of Hippo was trying to understand, that voyage of self to the darker recesses of the human mind. "Augustine's struggle to make sense of our all-too-human attempts to forge humane polities by showing us repeatedly how his efforts to understand these matters can enrich our own" (Burrell, 1997, p. 165).

Augustine's book, The City of God is about the struggle between the Earthly City and the City of God and how people try to forget such earthly delights to open themselves up to the eternal truths of God. It was seen before during the Roman times when people would bask in hedonism and slavery. People like Paul the Apostle had to counteract the "earthly delights" that infected people, by showing them the beauty of eternal wisdom and grace from God.

It is now that time again to connect back with God and forgo sensual and earthly pleasures to help the world remember what it is like to truly be aware of life and self. The law of humans and the law of heaven are different. Although sometimes they cross paths, it is important to grow in wisdom through the study of the law of heaven in order to gain that hope that Christian faith is all about.

It is not about absolute power when it comes to spiritual wisdom. In my personal reflection, I believe spiritual wisdom is about balance. So many people, including myself, are out of balance. There is place for the law of humans, just like there is a place for the law of God. While it is important to acknowledge both, they have their own separate places. Sharia law melds the two laws together, creating confusion and unjust punishment.

While the Islamic faith, like any major religion, has it wisdom, it also has changed drastically from what it once was. Modernization has not killed religion. It seems to have enhanced it, especially in the Middle East. Perhaps it is because they have not experienced in certain countries true modernization and access to resources. I do believe that the Islamic faith will bring about a world war. Not because Muslims are a bad people, but because those that believe in the fundamentalist perspective of the Islamic faith desire nothing but destruction and power.

These are the signs of change that can and will affect the world. Although it may be carried out in a way I cannot see, I believe things will get worse before better. It is because people are so imbalanced that these things happen. As the cycles progress and destruction leads to creation, death to rebirth, so soon this society will face its end. I just hope that people find their way and are able to weather the storms that will come. For these storms, like those before, are great......

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