Augustine was born in 354 in Thagaste, a provincial town in what is now eastern Algeria. After studying rhetoric in Carthage and sailing to Italy for what turned out to be a seven-year stay, he returned to North Africa where he became Bishop of Hippo Regius and stayed until his death in 430. In Carthage he had been attracted to Manicheanism; he was, in fact a Manichean ‘auditor’ for nine years. But about the time he left Carthage for Rome he had become disillusioned with Manicheanism. While in Italy he came under the influence of Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, who eventually baptized him. The experience of his conversion to Christianity is described in his famous autobiography, Confessions, at the end of book 8.

We have more writings from Augustine than from any other ancient author. His extant 100 books and treatises, 500 sermons and 250 letters are eloquent testimony to his magisterial role in the early formation and development of Christian philosophy and theology. He wrote the great City of God in 410 in response to critics who suggested that Christianization had led to the fall of Rome. He died twenty years later, shortly before Hippo itself was attacked and partly burned.

Augustine made a number of seminal contributions to the philosophy of religion. They can be organized under six headings: (i) faith and reason; (ii) proof for the existence of God; (iii) the divine attributes; (iv) the problem of evil; (v) the problem of God's foreknowledge and human free will; and (vi) prayer and religious ritual.