Why We Need Augustine

“If we need Aristotle, I think, we need Augustine more. Augustine was human enough, brilliant enough to realize that Plato’s search for a true public order, which corresponded to our inner order and to the good, was not an unworthy one. Augustine freed us, moreover, by insisting that this search that, if we be human, we discover in our restless hearts, after we have met both Ramiro de Lorqua and the pursuit of happiness in this world, has its proper and final answer as a gift from God, after the completion of our very lives among the existing cities. Augustine remains someone to whom we can turn. We are probably lucky if, in our studies, in our workings, we learned not to reject prayer and fasting, let alone Augustine.”

-James V. Schall, Another Sort of Learning