Augustine

• Purgatory- An immediate state after death in which those who are destined for heaven are purified to make them worthy
• St Augustine of Hippo was alive from 354-430
• Augustine was born in what is now, Algeria
• Augustine has a wayward youth after losing his father at a young age
• Augustine became a priest, and then a bishop
• Augustine's books

  • confessions, an account of his own conversion
  • City of God
• Saints are recognised as connecting with God and having miracle performed in relation to them
• Augustine believed sin was caused by The Fall
• augustine believed original sin affects every human being born, spiritually and physically
• Spiritual affect of sin

  • The soul is stained by sin
• Physical affect of sin

  • Bodies have senses and desires that are tainted by sin
• Augustine believed that the resurrection of Christ offered hope for the resurrection of humans
• Augustine believed in a bodily resurrection where spiritual and physical affects of sin were removed
• Incorporeal substance

  • Something that has no material form or physical substance
  • E.g. Holy spirit, religious experiences, God
• Corporeal bodies

  • Have tangible qualitites
  • E.g. shape, size, resistance to force
• Augustine argues that if our souls were only spirits in heaven, we would not recognise humans on earth. There must be an element of bodily resurrection
• "yet the earth is full of living spirits, to which terrestrial bodies are bound" - Augustine

  • There will be a bodily resurrection
  • The body and soul are needed to make up a person
• "What's to hinder the earthly body from being raised to a heavenly body" - Augustine
• "Even a heavenly body, has been an earthly body" - Augustine
• HOWEVER

  • Bodies stay on earth until they decompose- how can they be resurrected?
• "only very few either of the educated or uneducated are still staggered by (Jesus's resurrection)" - Augustine
• Augustine believes that a physical resurrection is possible for all as it happened to Jesus
• The Roman Catholic Church believes that anything with a soul can be resurrected