Imagination and mental images

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Often appears with: the nature and attributes of God · spiritual mother and catholic church · philosophical anthropology · language, naming, and meaning · god as incorruptible and unchangeable · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · development from youth to manhood

Usually: reflection (1) · coming of age (1) · crisis of belief (1) · detachment (1) · skepticism (1)

The Confessions of St. Augustine primary

Augustine, of Hippo, Saint · Composed during Augustine’s episcopate at Hippo, largely 397–400 (Book I opens with prayer typical of the initial composition).
BOOK I > BOOK VII (1/16)

Augustine describes his shift from corrupted youth to early manhood, his struggle to conceive of God as incorruptible and unchangeable, and the way his imagination spatializes God against his intention.

Deceased was now that my evil and abominable youth, and I was passing into early manhood; the more defiled by vain things as I grew in years, who could not imagine any substance, but such as is wont to be seen with these eyes. I thought not of Thee, O God, under the figure of a human body; since I began to hear aught of wisdom, I always avoided this; and rejoiced to have found the same in the faith of our spiritual m…