SAINT AUGUSTINE IN SEARCH OF GOD

Saint Augustine (354-430), an African theologian and Christian philosopher, in his work Confessions, said that he sought happiness and the meaning of life in human passions. But this only brought him anguish and affliction to the point of considering himself "a place of unhappiness, where he could not remain... but from which he could not depart" [1]. After much searching and inner struggle, he found himself with God and was able to declare: "You created us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in You" [2].

His experience is that of all of us, for man is a being turned to God. Archaeology and History attest that religious expression is a characteristic trait of humanity, observed even in the most ancient cultures and peoples. Even in today's scientific and technological society, this phenomenon is noticeable. There is religion everywhere, wherever you go and sometimes countless in the same geographical area [3].

But this exorbitant number of religions does not mean that man walks with God. On the contrary, it is evidence that he is lost and separated from the Creator. The multiple divine visions, outlined in religious beliefs, show that he does not know Him, but that he carries within him something that reminds him of his Creator. It is as if man misses God and wants to meet Him again. Something, deep inside the human being, attracts him to Divinity.

However accomplished and full he feels, the human being realizes that something is still missing. And that this something is God. The absence of God in man drives him to desire Him so that it becomes complete. He cannot be happy far from the love and presence of his Creator. Holy Scripture says: "God is love" (1John 4:16). In Jeremiah He said to the Jews: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness" (31:3). It was this love that led him to enter mankind, through the Son, and to give himself on the cross for man.

For this reason, religiosity is one of the strongest marks of man, after original sin. As man originates in God, the being of God attracts him. Thus, even in the midst of activism and materialism, man feels hunger for God and desires him so much to the point of to create religions. Others, however, because of incredulity, wish to be like gods by means of wealth, fame and power. But these things, deep down, only bring him restlessness and anguish, because his heart, as Augustine said, only reaches peace when it rests in the Creator. And this happens through faith in the Son of God.

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