Why is Saint Augustine so brilliant?

(A couple of weeks ago a wrote a post discussing the source of Malcolm Gladwell's brilliance. This post does the same but for Saint Augustine.)

I picked up Saint Augustine's Confessions just before Christmas for some vacation reading. Augustine is a doctor of the faith, incredibly influential in shaping Christian theology, so I thought that I should read one of his works. The politics major in me wanted to read City of God, but when I saw how long it was, I thought better of it. Confessions seemed more manageable.

I was primed for an intellectual marathon, but what I found in his Confessions was a readable and relevant description of one man's relationship with God. He discussed the Manichees and Platonism a bit (which I didn't really get), but as a whole, the book had a greater impact on my heart than my head.

Augustine knew God well. When I first began reading, I had to put the book down every few pages because I felt humbled in light of his description of Christ and the Father. He understood much about God that I am barely beginning to grasp. He emphasized one point that was especially poignant for me.

He writes, "If physical objects give you pleasure, praise God for them and return love to their Maker lest, in the things that please you, you displease him. If souls please you, they are being loved in God; for they are also mutable and acquire stability by being established in him..." Augustine gives thanks to God for each blessing in his life: nature, friends, family, opportunities, and more. If a contemporary Christian were to talk the way Augustine writes, I would probably label that person "hyper-spiritual" and a little out of touch with reality. But since Augustine is Augustine I am humbled and compelled to take him seriously.

The doctor gives thanks to God for the gift of intellect at length, providing an interesting counterpoint to Malcolm Gladwell's thoughts in Outliers. Augustine was probably a genius. By age twenty he could out-debate the best teachers in North Africa, so he moved to Italy only to find that he was a top intellect there as well. He writes, "You know, Lord my God, that quick thinking and capacity for acute analysis are your gift. But that did not move me to offer them in sacrifice to you. And so these qualities were not helpful but pernicious (deadly)."

Augustine skips over the terrestrial source of his intellectual ability--I get the sense that he doesn't really care if he's intelligent because of nature or because of nurture--and says that regardless of why he's smart, God is the source of his smart-ness.

I'm definitely not as smart or talented as Augustine or Malcolm Gladwell, so what does all this mean for me? More than anything, reading Augustine has inspired me to use the talents and gifts that I have been given to serve God. I think it is easy for me to get bummed because I don't have some of the flashier gifts to offer to God. Augustine is helping me see that what I have is what God wants--he just wants me to be me.