Saint Augustine And The Problem of Evil
Nowadays the most frequent question that most people give cry to when they go through a spiritual crisis is: if God is in his essence good, why is there evil in the world he created? Let us see what Augustine had to say concerning this topic.
Saint Augustine was one of the most important philosophers of his time: 354-430 AD. Aurelius Augustinus was born in Thagaste, in Northern Africa (present day Algeria). At the age of 33, after a period of philosophical studies (Plato, Plotinus and Neo-Platonism), he unexpectedly converted. His most important works, which promoted him as a vital figure not only among theologians, but also writers and philosophers, are: Confessions, Retractationes, De Libero Arbitrio and De Civitate Dei. It was said of him that he was a Christian Plato, which is partly true because he did use platonic themes and motives, but he also renewed the Christian spirit with inquiry. He declared that the purpose of his researches was the soul and God.
The problem of evil is analyzed in two of his works: De Libero Arbitrio (On Free Choice of the Will) and De Natura et Gratia (On Nature and Grace). Augustine believed, similar to Plato, that the universe had a hierarchical order. God is the ultimate being, the supreme good. Human souls are inferior to God and they have less being and therefore are less good. The least amount of being and goodness are present in the material things (money, gold, rocks, flowers, the human body and so on). All of these are prohe-nihil (almost nothingness) in comparison to God. How is this evaluation justified? Material things are not stable, they are always changing, they are in a state of becoming, they are made out of parts. God on the other hand is one, simple, unique, the ultimate good. Material things have the least amount of goodness. They are not the supreme evil, because that would mean that we would recognize the existence of a complete opposite of God: non-good. God has attributes like: the ultimate good, unity, being. Therefore, at the other end there would be: non-good, non-unity and non-being. Because of this last attribute, ultimate evil does not exist.
Saint Augustine rejects the Manichean belief that there are two ultimate forces that are in constant battle: good and evil. If there is only the former, then the creatures cannot be evil, because all of God's creation is good. What we name as evil is actually what is less good by comparison to God. This is the difference between the Creator and his creations which have less being and less goodness and therefore are exposed to mistakes (people sin, nature sometime behaves strange both lack or are deprived of goodness). Because they are less good the creations make mistakes. The deprivation of good does not mean the complete absence of good, but a lack of it in some measure. Augustine compares the relationship between good and evil with that between light and darkness: light is a presence, it has a source; the absence of light leads to darkness, which is not a presence, but an absence.
Let us rewind. There is no evil only lack of good. There is also a hierarchy of beings on a scale of goodness: on the inferior levels we have the material things which apparently have no power over the souls, because these are on superior levels. However, if that is the case, how do we explain disorder and injustice? The answer given by Augustine is: men have free will and through their decisions they tip over the hierarchy created by God. He replaces the question "why did not God eliminate evil from the world?" with "why does man, freely and rationally, continues to choose to make mistakes?". Inferior things like gold, cars, sex and so on do not have power over the soul because these things are weak. Other souls cannot convince a soul to fall because they have equal strength. Superior beings, like angels, although they have the power to make a soul fall, they do not do it because it is not their nature.
In conclusion, a human soul falls from his initial place because of his own decision, which is the result of free will. Why did God give man free will? By his very nature man must recover his place as a being in the proximity of God. This recovery takes place through a decision of the fallen one.
This is what Augustine thought, different people have different ideas and philosophies but we all have to find God's truth in the Bible because God revealed Himself in it and knowing God from the real source equals eternal life.
The problem of evil is analyzed in two of his works: De Libero Arbitrio (On Free Choice of the Will) and De Natura et Gratia (On Nature and Grace). Augustine believed, similar to Plato, that the universe had a hierarchical order. God is the ultimate being, the supreme good. Human souls are inferior to God and they have less being and therefore are less good. The least amount of being and goodness are present in the material things (money, gold, rocks, flowers, the human body and so on). All of these are prohe-nihil (almost nothingness) in comparison to God. How is this evaluation justified? Material things are not stable, they are always changing, they are in a state of becoming, they are made out of parts. God on the other hand is one, simple, unique, the ultimate good. Material things have the least amount of goodness. They are not the supreme evil, because that would mean that we would recognize the existence of a complete opposite of God: non-good. God has attributes like: the ultimate good, unity, being. Therefore, at the other end there would be: non-good, non-unity and non-being. Because of this last attribute, ultimate evil does not exist.
Saint Augustine rejects the Manichean belief that there are two ultimate forces that are in constant battle: good and evil. If there is only the former, then the creatures cannot be evil, because all of God's creation is good. What we name as evil is actually what is less good by comparison to God. This is the difference between the Creator and his creations which have less being and less goodness and therefore are exposed to mistakes (people sin, nature sometime behaves strange both lack or are deprived of goodness). Because they are less good the creations make mistakes. The deprivation of good does not mean the complete absence of good, but a lack of it in some measure. Augustine compares the relationship between good and evil with that between light and darkness: light is a presence, it has a source; the absence of light leads to darkness, which is not a presence, but an absence.
Let us rewind. There is no evil only lack of good. There is also a hierarchy of beings on a scale of goodness: on the inferior levels we have the material things which apparently have no power over the souls, because these are on superior levels. However, if that is the case, how do we explain disorder and injustice? The answer given by Augustine is: men have free will and through their decisions they tip over the hierarchy created by God. He replaces the question "why did not God eliminate evil from the world?" with "why does man, freely and rationally, continues to choose to make mistakes?". Inferior things like gold, cars, sex and so on do not have power over the soul because these things are weak. Other souls cannot convince a soul to fall because they have equal strength. Superior beings, like angels, although they have the power to make a soul fall, they do not do it because it is not their nature.
In conclusion, a human soul falls from his initial place because of his own decision, which is the result of free will. Why did God give man free will? By his very nature man must recover his place as a being in the proximity of God. This recovery takes place through a decision of the fallen one.
This is what Augustine thought, different people have different ideas and philosophies but we all have to find God's truth in the Bible because God revealed Himself in it and knowing God from the real source equals eternal life.
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