Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Road to Character, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Self-Renunciation vs. Self-Love
Inner Life, External Life, and Character
Vice, Virtue, and Self-Confrontation
Vocation and Sacrifice
Love, Transformation, and Service
Happiness vs. Moral Joy
Summary
Analysis
Augustine was born near the end of the Roman Empire in the year 354 in a town called Thagaste in what is present-day Algeria. Society at the time of his birth was a chaotic mix of Roman paganism and African Christianity. His father was an upper-middle-class town counselor with no spiritual drive who hoped his son would be successful. His mother, Monica, was both a devout religious follower and a strong-willed individual. She managed the household, her husband, and her son’s material and spiritual life.
Augustine grew up torn between spirituality and external success. His father was unfaithful and was concerned with public and political reputation, while his mother, Monica, was intensely Christian. Also, the Roman Empire at the time of his birth was divided between religion and paganism. This made it so that, from the outset, Augustine had no clear direction.
Themes
Monica’s control over Augustine was domineering and possessive. When Augustine was 28, he tried to escape her grasp by sneaking to Europe on a boat with his mistress and son. His mother followed him, “stalk[ing] his soul.” Although she stifled him, he couldn’t make himself dismiss her. He was proud of her fierce love, and they shared profound moments of spiritual communion.
As Augustine grew up, he pursued earthly things. However, he kept his mother’s presence in his life, showing that he still felt the pressure of spirituality. He allowed her to “stalk” him with her spiritual persuasions, which suggests that he felt torn between spirituality and a life of external success and pleasure.
Themes
Augustine was a sickly child but a brilliant student. Growing up, he was caught between the tension of two classical ideals: Hellenism and Hebraism. The Hellenistic mindset wants to see everything as it really is, exploring the world’s excellence with a playful spirit. Hebraism, on the other hand, focuses on a higher truth and immortal order and is uneasy in a world believed to be full of sin. Augustine lived under the rule of semidivine emperors and studied in the greatest schools. He grew up desiring posterity.
The tension between Hellenism and Hebraism was a tension between earthly pleasure and divine order. The tension raised the question of whether life should be lived among earthly things, or whether one should reject earthly things for a higher order. Augustine was ruled by “semidivine emperors,” which suggests that his public life was also caught somewhere between faith and atheism.
Themes
Augustine went to study at Carthage when he was 17. While there, he found himself assaulted by temptation and lust. He had never loved a person but was constantly in love with the prospect of being loved. His soul was divided: he desired shallow pleasures, but also disapproved of these desires. Despite his turmoil, he was an excellent student and eventually got a job in Milan, the center of power. He got married and was committed to his wife.
Augustine’s soul was divided in the same way that Brooks suggests a person becomes divided when they only focus on the Adam I side of their nature. In both cases, a gap opens between one’s desired self and one’s actual self. Augustine’s desired self was one that resisted shallow pleasures. His actual self was one that pursued shallow pleasures anyway.
Themes
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While he was young, Augustine followed the Manichees’ philosophy. The Manichaeans believed the world is divided into a Kingdom of Light and a Kingdom of Darkness. In their worldview, good constantly battles with evil, and, in the process, light gets mixed up with darkness. In other words, a pure soul is trapped inside a corrupted mortal body. Therefore, human beings aren’t responsible for sin. Instead, the Kingdom of Darkness is to blame for the evil in the world.
Earlier in the book, Brooks explained how “sin” is a necessary word for describing the process of character-building that improves life. He explained that sin should be seen as a fundamental part of human nature. This differs from the Manichaean philosophy because in Brooks’s philosophy, humans are responsible for their sins. In the Manichaean philosophy in which good is trapped inside evil, human beings don’t have to take the blame for their sins.
Themes
Outwardly, Augustine had a perfect life, but internally he was unhappy and fragmented. He felt his words were “empty lies.” His feeling was similar to the fear of “missing out.” People with this fear are hungry to seize every experience and feel every feeling. This causes them to make partial commitments and spread themselves thin. When one organizes their life around their desires, everything becomes an object to them. Lust, for instance, is a void that a person hopes to fill with sex. But they never succeed in filling it because they refuse to commit themselves fully to the other person.
Augustine was living a wholly Adam I life, which left him feeling empty inside. He followed Adam I’s utilitarian logic in which everything became an object to advance him in life. He attempted to fill his voids with things from the outside because he didn’t understand that surrendering to something would give shape to his sense of self. He felt that his words were “empty lies” because there wasn’t the harmony between his inner values and his outer behavior that comes with a deep commitment to something.
Themes
Augustine eventually felt his marriage was based on lust. However, when his mother convinced him to leave his wife for a higher-class woman, he was devastated. He’d sacrificed a commitment for the sake of social status. Then, he observed a smiling beggar on the streets one day and realized that this man, who had nothing, was happier than he was. Augustine now felt utterly alienated, wondering why he still followed desires that clearly weren’t leading to happiness.
Augustine knew why he was unhappy but didn’t do anything about it, which shows that a person’s will is not always enough to change their life. Augustine’s knowledge of the cause of his unhappiness was not enough to change his behavior, showing that he was going to need a force more powerful than knowledge to get him on the right track.
Themes
In response to this realization, Augustine looked inward. He started an almost scientific examination of his psyche. What he found was a vast and complex landscape full of light and darkness that constantly revealed new depths to itself. He realized that although people are born with great qualities, sin has corrupted and twisted their desires. Augustine himself desired fame and status, but these weren’t making him happy. He wondered what kind of “creature” a human being was, unable to follow their own will. He realized people are problems to themselves.
Although Augustine still felt powerless when it came to controlling himself, the knowledge of his unhappiness did cause him to examine his own nature. Brooks explains later that this process of plunging into his own mind was the first step in Augustine’s transformation into self-control. It showed him how vast and complex the human mind is and proved to him that human nature contains both good and evil.
Themes
In his memoir, The Confessions, Augustine uses a prank he pulled as a teenager to illustrate the fact that man is a problem to himself. One night, he and his friends stole some pears from an orchard. They weren’t hungry, and the pears were nothing special; the boys simply lusted to steal. The mundane purposelessness of this crime now struck Augustine. A tendency toward the wrong things is central to human nature, and people commit such small perversities daily.
The stealing of the pears proves that human beings do bad things even when they have absolutely no need to. Since Augustine and his friends stole the pears without being hungry, or tempted by beauty, or revengeful, he knew that they stole them simply to steal them. This proved to him that at the base of human nature is a perversity that makes them sin for no reason.
Themes
When Augustine examined himself, he noticed that the human mind is infinite. He found both sinfulness and sensations of perfection within his mind. Augustine saw that a human life couldn’t be understood through the individual, but only with reference to the universal things beyond them: the sin in them that comes from the past, and their longing for holiness that comes from above. A person can conceive of perfection but can’t obtain it themselves.
Augustine’s examination of his own mind showed him the true nature of human beings. He could see that the good and evil in his nature came from sources that had existed long before he had. He saw himself as a creature who had infinite streams of good and evil passing through him. These universal forces in him made him realize that he was not a unique, self-mastered individual but was part of a larger order.
Themes
Augustine set out to reform his life. First, he abandoned the Manichaean philosophy. Instead of viewing the good and evil in the world as black and white, he started to see that each virtue came with its own vice. For instance, self-confidence comes with pride. He could see that the Manicheans were prideful because they thought they’d figured everything out. Augustine wanted to live a truthful life, but he wasn’t ready to give up his desires. He still thought that he was the master of his own life, and that he could undertake self-reform like a homework assignment.
Augustine refuted the Manichean philosophy of good trapped inside evil by noticing that virtue and vice always accompany each other. At this point, Augustine was weeding out true philosophies from false ones, but he was still far from being changed. What Augustine needed was not the truth and a solution, but rather a transformation. His own efforts were still not getting him there.
Themes
Over time, Augustine realized he couldn’t reform himself. His biggest flaw was that he thought he was in control of his own life. His own mind and the world around him were too vast for him to understand. He realized that by thinking he could reform himself, he was exaggerating his biggest sin: believing he was his life’s captain was committing the sin of pride.
Augustine had decided that virtue and vice always accompany each other. This led him to notice that his conviction that he could master himself was accompanied by the sin of pride. He realized that pride is the biggest sin because it keeps a person from recognizing their helplessness.
Themes
Often pride is a positive attribute found in someone who builds happiness around their accomplishments. Negatively, it is found in a boastful person. However, pride is also present in people with low self-esteem. The proud person tries to establish self-worth through success, which makes them dependent on other people. Therefore, they are always hurt and lonely. Augustine realized that one must give up the idea that they can solve their unhappiness through their own successes.
Augustine realized that the sin of pride is at the root of most unhappy people. Pride is the belief that happiness and self-worth come from success; therefore, pride is the driving factor of a person’s Adam I nature. Trying to satisfy themselves through external success, they leave their inner self feeling utterly empty.
Themes
Augustine was plagued by the sensation that there was a better way to live. Through a sense of divine absence, he knew there must be a divine presence. In order to become less fragmented, he needed to eliminate some possibilities. However, he didn’t want to give up his options and wants. So, he hung between a spiritual life he knew was true and a material life he wasn’t willing to give up. He wouldn’t obey himself.
Augustine knew that he was unhappy, and the lack of spirituality he felt is what told him that there must be the possibility of spirituality. However, he did not abandon his unspiritual life. This again shows that knowledge wasn’t enough to transform Augustine into the spiritual state he had proof of.
Themes
One day, Augustine was in a garden with a friend, Alypius. Alypius was telling him stories about Egyptian monks who sacrificed everything to serve God. The story struck Augustine, and he started to reproach himself for believing in God but still stubbornly refusing to renounce his earthly desires and serve Him. He paced the garden as God’s presence tempted him. However, his desires still tempted him, too.
This scene illustrates a battle in Augustine between the temptation of God and the temptation of his desires. All Augustine had to do was make a sacrifice of the desiring part of his nature in order to join God. This scene also reveals the distinction between believing in God and serving God: Augustine believed in God’s existence but was still unmoved to sacrifice his own desires in order to serve Him.
Themes
Then, Augustine envisioned the ideal of self-control as a woman called Lady Continence. This woman offered him the pleasures of faith to replace the pleasures of the world. Augustine still wavered. He cast himself under a tree, weeping. Then he heard a voice outside himself urge him to open the Bible and read a certain passage. He opened it and read, “put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh.”
Augustine tried to replace his desire for earthly pleasures with a desire for spiritual pleasures. In other words, he tried to “reorder his loves,” prioritizing higher loves (like the love of God) above lower loves (like the love of material things). However, he still could not manage this himself. When he was called by a voice, he went to the Bible, moved by something other than his own will. There was a complete absence of his self-mastery in this moment.
Themes
Suddenly, Augustine felt light flooding into his heart. He felt his will turn away from worldly desires, renouncing them happily and turning to Christ. He ran to Monica to tell her of his transformation, and she was overjoyed. What happened to Augustine in the garden was not a conversion. Rather, it was an elevation in which he rose above his earthly pleasures to higher ones.
This lack of self-mastery and going to the Bible outside of his own was transformative. Augustine didn’t realize some new truth or make a conscious sacrifice; rather, he was suddenly filled with light and elevated. He did not need to learn something; he only needed to rise up to what he knew.
Themes
Augustine’s elevation was a renunciation of the idea of self-cultivation. He realized that Adam I’s philosophy—that a hard-working person can create their own life—is ineffective; one doesn’t achieve inner joy through agency but through surrendering to God. God has already given a person the rules He wants them to live by and has already justified each person’s existence. Also, Jesus has already stood trial for everyone’s sins.
Adam I is career-oriented and therefore believes that they achieve satisfaction through their own successes. In surrendering to God, Augustine instead followed Adam II’s philosophy that surrendering oneself to something larger than oneself defines a person’s character. This is also similar to the institutional mindset, which holds that a person defines who they are by committing to an institution that transcends their lifetime.
Themes
For most of his young adulthood, Augustine climbed upward, moving into more prestigious circles. He discovered, however, that a sublime life is low and humble rather than high and exalted. One should approach everything from below, serving instead of mastering. A person’s worldly success means little because the Earth is only a stop for the soul on the way to a final destination. Augustine didn’t think lowly of human nature, but he believed that human beings weren’t capable of reorganizing their desires on their own without submitting to God’s will.
Before the garden scene, Augustine followed Adam I’s “journey” up the ladder of success. After surrendering to God’s will in the garden, Augustine subscribed to the humble person’s “journey” of self-sacrifice and service. Augustine realized what little value Adam I’s success has when compared to the infinite “final destination” shown to him by God. In recognizing this higher realm, Augustine was finally able to renounce his earthly desires.
Themes
Augustine believed a person’s life would be terrible if they got what they deserved. God gives a person grace, which is much more than they deserve. Grace is a gift that cannot be earned—in order to receive it, one has to stop believing that they can earn it. People are used to thinking they are loved because they are this or that good thing. However, God’s grace, like passionate love, is unconditionally given.
Brooks emphasizes that God’s grace is unconditional love. If God’s love were conditional, human beings would live believing that they could earn it through worldly success or good conduct. The fact that God’s love can’t be earned reveals to a person that their successes and marks of individuality are of no value.
Themes
As people rise up to receive God’s gift of grace, they transform, and their desires sort themselves out. They achieve self-conquest, but not through a battle of self-discipline. Rather, they achieve it through leaving the self and doing whatever they can to return God’s love. After this process, a person feels realigned, and their old desires cease to excite them.
Augustine’s form of self-mastery was not a self-battle but a self-forgetting. When Augustine rose to receive God’s unconditional love, he transformed into a person of unconditional worth. As a result, he stopped desiring material things and started to return God’s love.
Themes
Augustine offered a new theory of motivation. His process started with self-examination, then acceptance of God’s existence. Next, one is humbled, then they adopt a posture of surrender and empty themselves. This opens them to God’s grace. Then follows gratitude and a desire to return God’s love. Finally, vast energies are awakened in them. As they become dependent on God, they become more motivated.
Augustine’s theory of motivation is founded on dependency, not agency. People often think motivation comes from the idea that a person can achieve anything they want through their own effort. However, Augustine’s story shows that humility gives a person the boundless energy to serve.
Themes
Augustine’s life after his conversion wasn’t easy. After his initial flood of optimism, he had to live with the knowledge of his sin. In all his writings, he reminds readers they are not the centers of their own lives and praises a vastness that surpasses the human world. He finished a term teaching lessons he no longer believed in, then left for the village of Cassiciacum with his mother, his son, and some friends, where they engaged in communal spiritual contemplations.
Although self-control was not what caused his conversion, Augustine had to engage in constant self-control afterwards. He became so aware of worldly sin and the illusion of success that he could not remain in his old life. He left the public sphere to write and engage in spiritual contemplation, showing that he put all his energies toward returning God’s love.
Themes
Augustine’s group went back to Africa. On the way, they stopped in Ostia, where he and Monica had a profound conversation. Together, they experienced a hush taking over them by degrees, silencing the world, their desires, and even their praises of God. It was a moment of elevation in which the world grows silent. They were lost in joy, unified in their outward love of God. Monica expressed that her only desire had been satisfied: her son found Christianity.
Monica and Augustine’s moment of “hush” resembles Augustine’s elevation in the garden, except they were together in the elevation. Everything restless—the world around them, their bodily desires, and even the desire to praise God—was silenced in contemplation of God. This suggests that in devoting oneself to something higher than oneself, a person can escape their earthly desires and experience inner peace.
Themes
Augustine’s story shows that the proper course toward healing is outward. For instance, one can only achieve inner peace if they forget themselves by focusing on something larger than they are. Also, knowledge isn’t enough to motivate one to be good. Only love of God impelled Augustine to active faith.
Augustine’s first attempt to heal himself by plunging into his own mind and sorting out its complexities did not heal him. He had to forget himself completely and act under God’s will in order for him to “quiet the self.”
Themes
A few days after her profound conversation with Augustine, Monica died. Augustine was overcome with grief. But the next day, he found solace in weeping for her in God’s sight. In his writing, Augustine uses Monica as an example of ardent faith set against worldly ambition and rational thought. He spent the rest of his life preaching and writing. His life took an “advance-retreat-advance” arc in which he descended to submission in order to rise to great height.
Even Augustine’s grief found solace in God. Like the person with an institutional mindset, the faithful person is never alone, even when they have no friends of family. This is because they have committed themselves to something that transcends them—either an institution’s customs or God’s will—and this makes up for the sacrifices they made to join with that larger thing.
Themes
