The City of God · Chapter
XXIX explained
Augustine explains how the servants of Christ should respond to unbelievers who taunt them for not being rescued from temporal calamities.
What happens
Augustine explains how the servants of Christ should respond to unbelievers who taunt them for not being rescued from temporal calamities. He emphasizes that the family of God has a sure consolation in eternal life, uses earthly goods as pilgrims, and accepts trials as discipline. He contrasts the omnipresent and sovereign God with the powerless idols of the nations.
Themes in this chapter
Divine Providence and History
Augustine asserts that God is everywhere present and uses adversities to prove or correct His servants, showing His providential care in history.
True Worship and the One God
Contrasts the omnipresent, sovereign God of the Christians with the powerless idols of the nations, affirming that only the Lord made the heavens is worthy of worship.
Characters to notice
- Augustine
Author and speaker, providing the Christian reply to unbelievers.
- Jesus Christ
The Lord whose servants are addressed and who provides the consolation of the family of God.
Key passages
“The whole family of God, most high and most true, has therefore a consolation of its own—a consolation which cannot deceive, and which has in it a surer hope than the tottering and falling affairs of earth can afford.”
The entire household of the true and supreme God possesses a unique comfort that is unfailing and offers a more certain hope than the unstable and decaying things of this world.
Augustine emphasizes the secure hope of Christians in contrast to earthly uncertainties.
“As for those who insult over them in their trials, and when ills befall them say, “Where is thy God?” we may ask them where their gods are when they suffer the very calamities for the sake of avoiding which they worship their gods, or maintain they ought to be worshipped;”
To those who mock Christians in their suffering by asking 'Where is your God?', we can reply by asking where their own gods are when the same disasters happen that they worship to avoid.
Augustine turns the taunt back on the pagans, highlighting the impotence of their gods.