A classmate inquired about my major. "What is it?" she wanted to know. I responded truthfully, "Biology," as I had for other inquirers. She paused for some seconds and looked puzzled, as if she were trying place the subject into a specific field of work; I'd seen this before. There was always this puzzled pause. She asked me what I intended to do with a degree in biology. Normally I do not address that question or address it in a way not indicative of my true intent, because I do not consider it a legitimate question.

What will I do with it? Could it be that after earning it, I will possess a wealth of astounding knowledge? Is that not a worthy enough mission for these people? Why do I have to plan to "do" anything with it? Must every scrap of knowledge be subject to an immediate monetary application, such as nursing or dentistry, in order to have merit? Doesn't the degree have merit in and of itself?

I could hear the "M" forming on her lips; the next words were going to be "medical school?" Her suspicion being that I had designs on being a doctor or a nurse. To halt any blasphemous pronunciation from her, as I really am quite tired of seeing either of these two professions speculatively superimposed over my goals, I for the first time blurted out an honest and direct answer as to my intent. I intended as much to quiet her as I did to test for a reaction, as I really had no idea how someone might react to my ambitions. I articulated loudly, but allowed for some hesitation as to invite her critique.

I answered, "I want a PhD in Genetics. I want to contribute to research. I want to be a geneticist."

Now this was odd. What was her response? Was it surprise, encouragement, disdain, curiosity, or indifference!? It was none. She responded in utter silence. She abandoned eye contact and did not utter another word on the topic. How ought I to gauge this as a reaction? Did she detect how weary I was of the topic, and did that quiet her? Did she quiet herself just to privately scoff at such an achievement? Was she so surprised by this unusual answer that she was at a loss and withdrew? Perhaps she had no thoughts whatsoever, and would have responded similarly to any answer I gave. Perhaps I am futile and analyze too much.

I finished reading St.Augustine's Confessions some days ago and feel that I've gained some small extra insight into the Christian faith that I did not have before, specifically regarding the human condition as it pertains to sin and dependency upon God. I do wonder if even very many Christians have a similarly clear understanding of these two fundamental notions.

I've compiled a very short essay that extracts the central observations that Augustine makes about humanity in his Confessions, and therein are contained my new found insights. The writing that follows is a minor assignment for a class, and I have removed the citations for neatness. Writing it as served the dual purpose of saving my thoughts here and earning credit for the class.


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Augustine’s view of the human condition is comparable to the states and transitions in his own life. He regards the thirty-three years prior to his baptism as a state that was aligned with his base nature and was laden with misery, confusion and wrong doing, and it was only by his conscious decision to turn to God that he was relieved of that state. Likewise, he believes that man is innately wicked in the eyes of the Christian god, that as such man is inept and miserable in all areas of importance and that it is only by a conscious decision to submit to the will of that god that man may find fulfillment. To Augustine, sin is an indelible characteristic of humanity, which entraps us with a perverse love of things that are otherwise beautiful, and man, who is incapable of purging himself of sin without God, is tormented and ineffectual.

Augustine observes in himself and in others that disobedience to the Christian notion of divine law is inherent in human behavior. Augustine accepts on the basis of testimony that he displayed inclinations toward selfish wrath and vengeance in his infancy, and he observes this as common behavior among infants. Though he doesn’t pretend that such behavior is universal among infants, it is evidence that the sinful tendencies that he observes of himself later in life were present upon his birth. It is as he says of his later years, “So small a boy and so great a sinner." We see in Augustine’s recollective observations not only the presence of sin in infancy and childhood (ages contemporarily regarded as innocent) but the nature of sin as the prevailing feature of human behavior unless intervened upon by an outside agency, whether by the discipline of academic instructors or God. In Augustine’s depiction it seems that if man is left to his own whims and devices, he will inevitably turn to sin, so it can be said that Augustine views humanity as inherently sinful.

It is impossible to consider Augustine’s view of humanity if not in relation to sin, and to that end Augustine’s analysis of the human condition also concludes why humans sin. Augustine observes that men do not commit offenses against God’s law simply for the sake of doing so but will do so out of love for some other thing that they hope to attain, whether that thing is a person, an object, or a status among men. When the object of attraction is not obvious, Augustine deduces that it must be the love of liberty and self sufficiency, such as from God’s law, which prompts one to make the offense. Though the thing that attracts man may indeed be beautiful and possess virtuous qualities, it is a misplacement of one’s love and energy to pursue it above God, for God is what sustains it and possesses every virtue and reward that prompts man’s admiration of it. Augustine expresses this in his own words, “The soul is guilty of fornication when she turns from You and seeks from any other source what she will nowhere find pure and without taint unless she returns to You.” When man hungers for any virtue or quality, he ought to turn to God who possesses what man seeks in overabundance. When he fails to do this, he has misdirected his love, committed an affront to the virtues of God, and denied himself the only thing that could sate his hunger, and a sin has therefore been committed. Humans sin because they perversely misplace their love.

Given Augustine’s belief that all humans are sinners, and given that sinning refers to a departure from the one thing that sustains man and fulfills his longings, it follows that humanity must have a natural tendency toward despair and inability. Man cannot fulfill his needs and cannot achieve his longings except through the remission of sin and that cannot be done, by definition, except by loving God before everything. This establishes humans as inherently dependent upon the higher power of God for their happiness. Augustine echoes this in thanking God for having forced Augustine’s attentions upon God, the one cure for his ailments, “At that time my soul was in misery, and You pricked the soreness of its wound, that leaving all things it might turn to You, who are over all and without whom all would return to nothing, that it might turn to You and be healed." Humans, in Augustine’s view are ineffectual and self-defeating except when they act through a love of God. Theologian Alister McGrath, who holds a Doctor of Divinity degree, observes that “Augustine’s view of human nature is that it is frail, weak, and lost, and needs divine assistance and care if it is to be restored and renewed."

Augustine regards man as a creature marked at birth by sin, a creature that wants to possess the treasures of God without submitting to God, a creature too foolish to know where its love ought to be spent, and a creature that will inevitably ruin itself because of that fact. This perspective on humanity bears similarities with such ancient characters as Oedipus, who was destined upon his birth to commit a great folly. He was warned by the Gods that he would commit this folly, but he considered his own virtues to be sufficient enough in escaping it. In his mind, no submission to divine counsel was necessary. As long as he had his wit he thought he could avoid his fall, but he was too ignorant of his nature to have avoided it, and that ignorance transported him to it all the faster. According to Augustine, humans are as ignorant of their dependency on divine mandate as Oedipus, and that is their undoing.

It is such a ruinous and painful circumstance to have all of my ambitions, values, and one of my center most pillars of self-esteem hinge on a grade that I cannot seem to make in a class that is unconquerable for me.

I failed a math quiz yesterday; it is not the first. Each time it happens, I cannot help but feel my life's passions slipping further away.

I can hardly feign the self-esteem to hold my head up. I am embarrassed to my core. My chest aches, and my fists clench in spontaneous bouts of rageful frustration.

I am being defeated, and what is my life worth if I cannot muster the competence to fulfill my own objectives?

How much more of my own ineptitude will I be able to sustain before I renounce my values and give up? What will become of me if I do?

I can't live that way. I will not go through another five years of nihilism and self loathing. I'd end myself before that, my pride intact.

2/22/10 UPDATE: I have projected my grade over the rest of the semester and shown that moderate adjustments in my approach to the class should allow me to recover from this academic slump. This is the second time that I have attempted the class and I reason that several more attempts would be in order before my goals seemed implausible. The prospect, however, of having my goals delayed further, when they already promise to be so delayed, frightened me. I panicked before fully assessing the danger that my goals were in. That fact shames me to some extent.

I must rediscover an outlook that would alleviate my anxiety over such stressful occasions. I had such an outlook before. I don't know whats become of it.

Today was the first day of spring classes. I dislike the logistics of preparing for a new semester, ensuring transportation, securing funds, procuring books and materials, planning ahead for difficult classes, performing initial classwork, integrating my priorities into a new daily schedule, meanwhile my attentions are also diverted toward acquiring employment and troubleshooting an unstable BIOS and an uncooperative printer. I find it all very taxing, the abundance of imperative tasks that have no clear order or method by which to be performed.

Yet, I enjoy the strain in an almost masochistic way. It's like a muscle that is being strained in exercise. It's miserably unpleasant; the very intent is to cause damage up to the point of failure. The drive arises from knowing that the strain is the only way to obtain a new strength.

My classes are of a much greater cultural focus this semester. I hope that my time out of science classrooms does not leave my biochemistry rusty. I shall have to double my recreational reading of biology and chemistry related texts as to avoid this.