More and more young people today suffer from anxiety, depression, or loneliness. But it turns out this isn’t a new problem. Sixteen hundred years ago, a restless university student suffered the same maladies. This young man, who would become one of history’s most famous philosophers, found a solution. It still works today. Owen Anderson, Arizona State professor of philosophy and religious studies, tells the story.

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Transcript:
The Medieval Philosopher Who Solved Anxiety
Presented by Owen Anderson

Recent studies report that almost two-thirds of college students suffer from anxiety, depression, or loneliness. They feel restless, empty, overcome with self-loathing. They try therapy. They try psychiatric drugs. They try political activism. They might even try to radically change their sexual identity.

But the anxiety doesn’t go away. In fact, it often gets worse.

This is not a new problem. Sixteen hundred years ago, a young man, a student of philosophy and law, trying to find his place in the world, felt exactly the same way. He was born on the north coast of Africa in modern-day Algeria.

His name was Augustine.

He felt a gnawing emptiness he couldn’t quite explain. To find fulfillment, he plunged himself into worldly pleasures. He chased after women — he described himself as “a slave to lust…” He even tried petty crime just for the thrill of it. He and his college friends—they called themselves “the wreckers”—spent their days, as he put it, “being seduced and seducing, being deceived and deceiving.”

Augustine’s father, a Roman citizen and a pagan, wanted him to be a lawyer. But his mother, a Christian, worried about his soul. She prayed for him every day, hoping he would see the error of his ways. Our college student knew he was violating the Ten Commandments, but he didn’t care. They meant nothing to him.

As he matured, he tried to straighten himself out. He wanted to do better, to be better, to act morally. He even tried converting to Christianity, inspired by the most famous cleric of his day, Ambrose of Milan. But Augustine couldn’t stop sinning. At one point, he famously prayed, “O Lord, grant me chastity and self-control—but not yet.”

Augustine didn’t mean it as a joke.

He was serious.

He wanted to change. He wanted to improve himself. But he also wanted to continue indulging himself.

This inner conflict tore him apart.

Anxious, divided, trapped by his own passions — he had no one to blame but himself.

Self-improvement doesn’t work when the problem is you.

Who, then, would save Augustine from Augustine?

Then one day, sitting alone in a garden, something changed.

He heard a voice say, “tolle lege,” take and read. He picked up a Bible and opened it, reading the first passage that caught his eye: Romans 13:13. “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts.”

He suddenly realized that even though he had outwardly converted to Christianity as another self-help mechanism, he had not truly put his faith in Christ. Only Christ could save Augustine from Augustine.

“At once, it was as if a light of relief from all anxiety flooded into my heart.”

This anxious, sex-addicted young man went on to become one of the most influential Christian philosophers and theologians in Western history. His ideas still shape how we understand God, freedom, and salvation today.

Augustine later wrote his story down in a book entitled The Confessions. It’s not simply a theology textbook. And it’s not a self-help manual. It’s an honest account of what it feels like to be trapped inside your own desires.

Early in the book, Augustine writes:

“You have made us for Yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

This sentence explains Augustine’s anxiety.

He wasn’t anxious because life was meaningless. He was anxious because he was chasing meaning in the wrong places. Pleasure didn’t satisfy him. Success didn’t satisfy him. Even self-improvement didn’t satisfy him.

Why?

Because, as Augustine wrote in The Confessions, the human heart yearns for union with God. And when we try to replace God with anything else—even good things—we don’t find peace.

Augustine tried to master himself by himself.

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