Interiority as the threshold of the sacred: Augustine, spirituality, and the search for meaning in the contemporary world

Abstract

In a context marked by the fragmentation of the self, the eclipse of truth, and the proliferation of diffuse spiritualities, this article revisits the thought of Saint Augustine through the lens of interiority as a threshold to the sacred. By analyzing key works such as Confessions, De Trinitate, and De Magistro, the study explores how Augustinian interiority articulates a mode of knowing that is simultaneously ontological, ethical, and mystical. Far from any introspective retreat, Augustine proposes a theological and relational interiority, in which memory, illumination, and desire shape the soul as the locus of truth and divine encounter.

This perspective is deepened through dialogue with contemporary authors such as María Zambrano, Karl Rahner, Raimon Panikkar, and Byung-Chul Han, particularly regarding the challenges of spirituality and the search for meaning in late modernity. Within this framework, the article also recovers the pedagogical dimension implicit in Augustine’s thought —a pedagogy of the soul— as a formative path capable of integrating reason, mysticism, and personal transformation. In response to the dominance of technical rationality and the current educational crisis, it defends the relevance of an education in interiority, in which the human being is shaped from within and oriented toward transcendence.