The Burden of Sin: Confessions of Saint Augustine Reflection

After reading Saint Augustine’s Confessions, I would find many parts sticking with me, as they would with most, since his writing is an honest expression of the human soul. Thoughts that had previously crossed my mind I found were written here in perfect poetry. Profound insights into the self and man were stated truly and clearly. Never in the whole book does one once doubt a word Augustine is saying, because the entire thing is just an honest confession, and the confessions of his own nature are perfectly coherent with the confessions of the faith. When reading, one feels that his confessions could very well be one’s own. Any intellectual claims he makes are always backed by this perfect dialectic. This is all to say, the Confessions is art. It is poetic and very rhetorical, it is true to the human soul, and it is passionate yet rational. I was moved.

In Book VIII, there was a section which struck me, and stayed with me, more than any others. Augustine speaks about the burden of sin, and likens it to the burden of a deep sleep. He is confessing the part of his life where he realized two things: the intellectual truth of Christianity, and the truth of sin; that the impulses of the flesh and the spirit are at odds. Having been living a base life and engaging in many pleasures of the body, he was not willing to give this up, though he knew rationally that the truth was better. He says:

Instead of fearing, as I ought, to be held back by all that encumbered me, I was frightened to be free of it. In fact I bore the heavy burden of the world as contentedly as one sometimes bears a heavy load of sleep. My thoughts, as I meditated upon you, were like the efforts of a man who tries to wake but cannot and sinks back into the depths of slumber. No one wants to sleep forever, for everyone rightly agrees that it is better to be awake. Yet a man often staves off the effort to rouse himself when his body is leaden with inertia. He is glad to settle down once more, although it is against his better judgement and it is already time he were up and about. In the same way I was quite sure that it was better for me to give myself up to your love than to surrender my own lust. But while I wanted to follow the first course and was convinced that it was right, I was still a slave to the pleasures of the second.

This is true; it is certainly difficult to surrender the pleasures of the body, especially since indulging in them is enjoyable. Satisfying any appetite is always at least temporarily enjoyable. Not only is there pleasure in this indulgence, but pain in leaving it unquenched; the pain of longing. Naturally, we are slaves to these desires, our first inclination being to serve them. We therefore are hesitant to give them up, even in spite of knowing better.

It does not stop here, though. This deep sleep which Augustine speaks of does not stop at the pleasures of the body; it is not mere will power against the impulses. Man can often be found afflicted with fear and anxiety, rage and anger, delusion, and things of the like. All of these things come with pain and anguish, constant discontentment, and clearly cause one pain. So why, then, does man hold onto these things with the same stubbornness with which he holds onto the pleasures? What a burden it is to feel frightened of the world in anticipation for the bad, especially if the object of your fear is not anything terrifying! What a burden it is to carry the load of revenge on your back, even knowing that vengeance will reap no benefits. What sorrow in delusion, a feigned happiness! Why indulge in false happiness if true happiness and joy is there? Why be full of worry and fear if you could be calm and content? Why be consumed in the rage of vengeance if you can rather forgive? Why be a slave if freedom has offered her hand to you? These things are destructive to the soul; they turn one’s eyes from the good and force them upon the earthly and the irrational, with great intensity and passion. Man’s conscience speaks in opposition, and then starts the war inside of him, which is the crux of human suffering. Yet, man will hold onto these sins. Even if knows his soul is being consumed, and that his spirit is dying, he does not allow the burden to be lifted. These burdens are similar to the pleasures of the body, for they are passions, and man often feels that he doesn’t even have any control over them. But they differ in the sense that they are not pleasures, and are in fact torturous to bear. The truth is, whether the master is giving or cruel, the slave will always be a slave.

A man seeking revenge can be told to let it go, for it will leave him empty and full of sorrow. He can know this but still not give it up, and he will grant you with one simple reason: “I cannot.” One who is afraid will answer likewise to being told to face his fears. “I cannot, for my impulses won’t allow it.” This is the slavery of sin. Even as we know in our minds what is good, we feel that we have no choice but to remain with our current disposition. For one, we feel that we have no control over it, and for another, we almost don’t want to be freed. There is a small part that is afraid to have the burden lifted, as if we will be lacking a part of ourselves after. One could compare it to having been bound by chains for a long time; one cannot really move freely after their body has been worn away by the weight of the chains. Feeling light is euphoric, feeling empty is disconcerting. When your burden has been part of you, emptiness may follow after it is lifted. This is the rationalization of what one may think when refusing to surrender their passions to the will; the second part of this slavery, which causes even greater strife between the flesh and spirit.

What is this vicious entrapment? What is it in us which causes us to cling to sin as if we need it, while all it does for us is cause pain and kill the spirit? What is it which causes one to say “I cannot,” as if he has no control over his own will? A man will not give up his burden for two reasons: cowardice and pride. A man may be afraid to surrender his sin, in fear of losing it or a part of himself, in facing reality, or in the pain of the process. This is the weak “I cannot,” that comes from a child who is afraid to jump off of the diving board. On the other hand, a man may refuse to surrender his sin because it is simply too difficult to give up, and because of that it is not worth it. This is the “I cannot” which comes from someone who is livid and being told to calm himself. This pride lies in the contentedness with the self while in a state of vice, the pride so rooted in our nature that it feels out of our control. Pride is not just conceit, it is rather any notion of independence from God, and it has plagued man since the Fall. All sin springs from pride. So, this is what causes man to cling to his burden. Though there is pain, clear destruction of the soul, and the alternative is beautiful, there is pride in it. Augustine writes of bearing his sin “with contentedness.” We bear our sins with enough contentedness that even if the pain is crippling we still hold on to them. And this is the nature with which we were born.

In one beautiful passage, Augustine talks about sin:

But how can sins of vice be against you, since you cannot be marred by perversion? How can sins of violence be against you, since nothing can injure you? Your punishments are for the sins which men commit against themselves, because although they sin against you, they do wrong to their own souls and their malice is self-betrayed. They corrupt and pervert their own nature, which you made and for which you shaped the rules, either by making wrong use of the things which you allow, or by becoming inflamed with passion to make unnatural use of things which you do not allow.

It is too often that I find myself contemplating my own vice, wallowing in guilt and feeling as if I am self-destructing, and then the next moment I turn around losing my temper and repeating these bad habits. How is it that we can know that our sin destroys our soul, feel the pain of it, and know living the Christian life is the highly preferable option, yet still fall back yet again? It is because we love our sin, and it is our natural disposition to do so.

A problem that I see in many modern teachings is that this whole idea of the flesh versus the spirit is taught in a very crude fashion. Often in the Evangelical church, you will hear things like “but with the strength of God, you can say no to weakness and say no to sin!” They will stress this notion concerning sexual immorality. The way it is said, it seems as if it’s reduced to triviality of avoiding the temptation of that second slice of cake. They make it seem like one must just have willpower in order to avoid sin. What does this lead to? I am inclined to say it leads to a sort of facade. It leads to an idea that one can be a good person simply by not feasting upon their sinful appetites. The problem is that sin is not this ‘thing’ floating around the aether making people do bad things. It is an inclination rooted deep in our nature, which one cannot simply “fend off”. For your entire life, your impulses will be at war with one another. Augustine understood this and writes of it:

In this warfare I was on both sides, but I took the part of that which I approved in myself rather than the part of that which I disapproved. For my true self was no longer on the side of which I disapproved, since to a great extent I was now its reluctant victim rather than its willing tool. Yet it was by my own will that I had reached the state in which I no longer wished to stay.

This is the burden that we ultimately bear, and it is an ongoing battle. Fortunately, though our sin lingers with us and we cling to it, our repentance is never in vain. The pride which drove Lucifer from Heaven and drove man to the Fall will always be in us, but it does not have to have reign over us. The burden of sin is great, but it shall not stay with us.