But why? For Augustine faith isn’t really faith until it has wrestled with the fear of death across the life span. That is, a lack of concern about death isn’t a sign of faith. Rather, faith is manifested in the daily wrestling with death, which is what perfects faith over time. As Augustine says, our faith doesn’t mean “that death had turned into a good thing.”83 No, he contends, “the death of the body . . . is not good for anyone.”84 So the goal of the Christian life is not to seek out death or to treat life cheaply. Death is evil and we are to struggle against death and resist all of its
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