Augustine on Religious Education as Aesthetic Experience

Abstract

Augustine’s thought is deeply embedded in his religious experiences. He reflects on the encounter with the Divine as an encounter with an (extra)sensory reality. He makes use of Aesthetic categories in order to describe his religious experience. This article presents a way of thinking about the intertwinement of religious education and Aesthetic experience in Augustine’s thought. With Augustine’s method of questioning as a point of departure, it will consider how he describes this (extra)sensory reality. Thereafter, I will use music to exemplify the Aesthetic relevance of the religious experience and relate this to distinctions in Augustine’s understanding of religious education.