Ron Rombs - The Grace of Creation and Perfection as Key to Augustine's Confessions

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The thematic unity of Augustine’s Confessions has long been a source of inquiry and scholarly discussion.  I would like to present an argument that the principle of thematic unity in the Confessions is the dynamic of creation-conversion-perfection, a dynamic taken from Plotinus.  First, I trace this dynamic in Augustine’s Literal Commentary on Genesis as epitomizing Augustine’s thought in this regard. I then illustrate how this dynamic controls both the autobiographical portion of the Confessions as well as the final books.  This dynamic, I show, involves grace—what might be called the grace of creation.  Insofar as it is essential to the very creation of the world, I argue that Augustine sees an analogical dynamic at work in his own conversion as in the creation of the world.  Conceiving of the thematic unity of the Confessions this way takes into account and compliments several other theories of the text’s unity, especially conceiving of the Confessions as Augustine’s first treatise on grace.