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Title: A balanced view of Augustine's gifts and weaknesses
Review: Wills's book offers balanced and judicious insight into Augustine's gifts to western thought and civilization as well as to his mistakes. One gains a new respect for the man's contributions as well as for his weaknesses as a human being. The book is clearly organized, eloquently written, and rich in references to sources ancient and modern. Augustine's understanding of God's actions in creation and of the nature of the human will in reference to time and memory is clearly distinguished from his Neoplatonic disintegration of human sexuality from the wholeness of human identity and experience. The author makes clear that Augustine's contemporaries and later major theologicans, as well as likely our own generation, have often made hash of his insights and misapplied them to the human condition and our understanding of God.
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