Confessions by Augustine of Hippo is usually comprehended as the precedent of the western autobiographic literature, in which Augustine narrated the becoming of the true self by confessions and then encountered with God in his heart. Therefore, confession is undoubtedly regarded as one of the most theological phenomena. Moreover, through the fashioning of modern intellectual discourse, confession has become one of the main technologies that rightly fabricated the subjectivity truth in western society. In this sense, Michel Foucault explored seriously the relationship between confession and modern subjectivity, in order to reveal the operation of power-discipline-discourse embedded in a complex web of micro-relations and criticized the anonymous social evil, from which the echo of Augustine's discussion about inherited guilt was heard in the postmodern context. Indeed, we certainly cannot ignore the different comprehensive structures which Foucault and Augustine belong to, but it does not mean that the cross-historical dialogue between them is impossible. And if this kind of dialogue is brought and explored into the perspective of the postmodern theology, we may find its particular value and significance: the Augustinian theology provides the precious thought resource for the postmodern scholars when they attempt to seek for the way and method to cure the symptoms of modem thought; on the other hand, Foucault applied the deconstructive method to reveal the construction of the subjectivity and the production of the power discourse, which contributed for the theologian to the rethinking of onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics. Moreover, the historical dialogue between Foucault and Augustine will commonly present the double dimension of confession: taking care of self and forgiving the other.
