After a lusty and intellectually inventive young manhood, Augustine withdrew from the world of sense, reality, and intellect. He advised others to do the same. He writes:
“There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity… It is this which drives us on to try to discover the secrets of nature which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which men should not wish to learn… In this immense forest, full of pitfalls and perils, I have drawn myself back, and pulled myself away from these thorns. In the midst of all these things which float unceasingly around me everyday, I am never surprised at any of them… I no longer dream of the stars.”
The time of Augustine’s death, 430 a.d., marks the beginning of cultural stagnation, if not social degradation, - throughout Europe. It lasted for a thousand years. In the meantime, there was, indeed, a time when every single man, woman, and child believed, loved, and venerated God in this world. Historians refer to it as the Dark Ages.
In the Philippines, however, as we Filipinos all love and worship God, specially the God of the bible, we do not live in the Age of Analysis. On the contrary, as the Sick Man of Asia, we only continue to live in an Age of Mental Paralysis. Poch Suzara
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