St. Augustine wrote the book Confessions to tell the story of his conversion to Christianity. Throughout this book, Augustine addresses three major questions. It defines what is real, what it means to be yourself, and how others should respond to your journey. Augustine believes that the material world and the spiritual world are real based on his understanding of the Platonists. The Platonists believed that to be oneself is to detach oneself from the pleasures of the world, which can cause one to move away from God. Responding to Augustine’s call to be yourself is simple. All a person needs to do is find the self-control to resist the beauties of the world. To better understand these three things, Augustine uses his own experiences and the parable of the prodigal son to illustrate that if he can find God, anyone can. Augustine struggles with lust throughout his journey. Through his struggle, he discovers that the material world is a very real thing. Augustine believes that people fall too easily for the beauty of the material world when in reality the material world is only a reflection of the spiritual world. In order to reach this conclusion that the spiritual world spills over into the material world, Augustine uses Platonic hierarchies to unravel Christianity in a way that can be understood. He writes: “Thus, step by step, my thoughts passed from the consideration of material things to the soul, which perceives things through the senses of the body, then to the inner power of the soul, to which the senses corporeal communicate external facts. » (Augustine 151). Augustine begins with oneself and progresses in an almost hierarchical manner. From the self it goes to the soul as a whole which would resemble the Holy Spirit in the Christian...... middle of paper ...... individual further from God in his journey to be with Him. The stumbles of attachment to the material world will occur continually until the two fighting wills unite and become one strong will to serve a loving God. Self-control is a major key to detaching yourself from material things and not basking in their beauty. Most importantly, individuals must understand that because God created everything in the material world, everything is good. Individuals possess God, whether they realize it or not, because each person was created by God. People are called to be responsible by practicing restraint like Augustine. He writes: “It is truly your commandment that I be continent and restrain myself” (Augustine 233). Restraint, introspection, and recognition of the real, material world as existing make us a responsible, God-loving self..