Due to the fact that the strong majority of the class seems to agree that all three styles were displayed by St. Augustine in the reading, I am going to argue that his style was used for the sole purpose of to simply instruct. Though there may be hints of trying to move the audience, the overall effect was to teach and to instruct as he used the low style. Throughout the entire reading, he would describe and explain specific principles about forgiveness, love, and so forth and then he would continue to back up his teachings with scriptures and biblical references. More than anything, he teaches us to forgive like Christ forgave. I really liked Macey Richardson's post about this principle and how he exploited the kairos to make this point even stronger.
Kelly's blog post brought up legitimate points about how St. Augustine just seemed a little too intense and memorable to just be part of the low style. However, I would absolutely argue that all of the great teachers and instructors of the world are incredible and memorable. They instruct with passion! Teaching can be fun and exciting and I am sure that if love truly is what is motivating St. Augustine, there is a fire within him to motivate and teach passionately.
Lastly, in a way, I think I would very much agree with Austin Pena to a certain extent in the fact that if St. Augustine really desired to make something more of his speech and make it a moving, life-changing ordeal he definitely would have bore a personal testimony to conclude. He could have done it in so many better ways if he really wanted to. However, I think it's clear that he uses a very low tone and simply explains things to the audience as he instructs them on biblical history and examples. Overall, I think that St. Augustine was very much capable of making the speech more "moving" if he really want to yet he made it very distinct that his purpose was to instruct.
Great post! I wonder about the effectiveness of teaching in religious settings. Maybe church teachers teach just to remind us of truths. I think the best teachers teach for action, teach so that people do something about what they learned. If that was the case at church, and we were taught about forgiveness in a way that moved us to do so, we would maybe only have to learn once?
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