Write a thematic essay on the topic of God in Augustine's Confessions (Books I-IX), taking into account the work's autobiographical aspect.

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“Grant Me Lord To Know And Understand”: God In The Confessions Of Saint Augustine

“You stir man to take pleasure in praising you, because you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” Saint Augustine, Confessions (p. 64).

Saint Augustine of Hippo’s Confessions (398 C.E.) is a theological autobiography, what we would call today a conversion story. The book is an apologia, which means it is both a confession of faith as well as an account of a life. It is meant to be a testimony of faith and a defense of Christian doctrine. The book is not a biography in our modern sense of the term. The book is about the birth of faith. This is the heart of the book. Through the telling of his own life story -- the indiscretions of his youth, his experiment with Manichaeism, the birth of a child out of wedlock, his father Patrick who converted to Christianity only at his death bed, the persistent hope of his Christian mother Monica to convert, and so forth -- Augustine maps out one of Christianity’s most enduring testaments of faith....