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St augustines view on problem of evil
St augustines view on problem of evil
Augustine on the problem of evil
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The Problem of Evil
Saint Augustine was one of the first to really address the problem of evil in the Christian sense. After disbanding from the Manicheans due to his dissatisfaction with the way they viewed the problem, he reasoned a sound solution to the problem of evil that could put Christians' minds at ease.
Saint Augustine lived from 354-430. During the era in which he lived, his world was a crockpot of instability and suffering. The Roman Empire, a symbol of strength, was falling. He lost his mother, lover, and son during his lifetime. These circumstances certainly prompted Augustine to question evil. According to his Christian faith, God is all-good and created all things. Evil presented a problem because if God was all-good, it would make sense he would not create evil and allow suffering. Yet, evil is in the world. Saint Augustine spent a good portion of his life addressing the question of where evil came from, the reason and source of its existence.
The first solution to the problem of evil Augustine came across was presented to him by the Manichees. Augustine was “a 'h...
It is perhaps the most difficult intellectual challenge to a Christian how God and evil can both exist. Many of the greatest minds of the Christian church and intellects such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas spent their entire lives trying to solve this problem, and were unsuccessful (Erickson, 2009, p.439). However, this dilemma is not only an intellectual challenge, but it is emotional. Man feels it, lives it. Failing to identify the religious form of the problem of evil will appear insensitive; failure to address the theological form will seem intellectually insulting. This conundrum will never be completely met during our earthly life, but there are many biblical and philosophical resources that help mitigate it.
Augustine is fixated upon the idea of evil and its origins in Christian theology. He struggles to come to terms with the doctrine of sin. A popular counterargument to the belief in God is that a good, kind, and loving divine power would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. According to Christian belief, God created everything, and everything He created is good because He Himself is righteous. Augustine claims that God pervades the entirety of the universe and all it contains. So, how can things outside of God, such as evil, even exist? He asks this in various forms of rhetorical questions, such as, “Where then is evil? What is its origin? How did it steal into the world?...Where then does evil come from, if God made all things
The second circle of hell, a realm for those who fell victim of their carnal desires, is another level at which to place Augustine’s soul for he was consumed by lust in his pre-conversion days. He was encouraged by his family to learn the art of persuasion and making of fine speech when he was only sixteen. He used these skills,...
St. Augustine recognized that the solution to the problem of evil could be found in the definition of "evil." The aforementioned logical premise was rooted in the supposed notion that evil was a thing and what Augustine set out to prove was that evil was not, in fact, a thing and therefore had not been created by God. In order to reach the desired conclusion, Augustine had to show that there was evidence proving the existence of God. This proof was required for yet another premise - if ex...
Augustine had the conviction that man is naturally good, since man was created by God, and that our nature has not been altered completely by the "original sin", but that our nature has simply been distorted or perverted from its original "good" state. He would say that, because of our corrupted nature, we do things selfishly, or, we do things to benefit ourselves instead of God and our neighbors. We tend to be unable of choosing good over evil in every situation. We have an inability to do what is right, while at the same time, we are completely responsible for what we do. This is not to say, however, that we never do what is right, or that we are pure evil, because evil is simply a corruption of the good. Instead, it means that our every action, when analyzed at the root, has the wrong motive, and ultimately we serve ourselves. Saying that human nature is not at least based on something good would imply that God created evil. Everything that is good is created by God, and there is nothing besides that. This ties into Augustine's belief that evil itself is not a thing, but is simply an absence of good.
Why does St. Augustine seek God? Through his Confessions we come to understand that he struggled a great deal with confusion about his faith, before finally and wholeheartedly accepting God into his life. But we never get a complete or explicit sense of what led Augustine to search for God in the first place. Did he feel a void in his life? Was he experiencing particular problems in other relationships that he thought a relationship with God would solve for him? Or perhaps he sought a sense of security from religion? A closer analysis of the text of St. Augustine’s Confessions will provide some insight into these fundamental questions.
In the Confessions, Augustine wrote about his struggle with understanding how evil exists in a world created by God. He questioned how it was possible and why God allows evil in his creations because God is supremely good. After delving into finding a solution, Augustine concluded that evil does not exist, and the things deemed as evil are caused by free will. This paper will argue that Augustine has successfully proven that evil does not exist by explaining his earlier explanation of the origin of evil taught by the Manicheans, explaining Augustine’s teachings, and finally, using the textual descriptions of Augustine’s unwillingness to convert as support for his conclusion.
In Augustine's Confessions, the early church father puts forth a complex theodicy in which he declares evil to be nonexistent. Such a leap may seem to be illogical, but this idea stems from the understanding of what is substance and what is not. According to Augustine, the duality of good and evil is false, because anything that is good is substance and what humans think of as evil is simply the absence of the good (Confessions, 126). Vices for example, are just the display of the absence of the good. Pride is the absence of humility, unrighteous anger the absence of temperance, and so on. This idea is evident as he writes that the ability to be corrupted is what makes something good, not i...
W. Andrew Hoffecker. Building a Christian World View, vol. 1: God, man, and Knowledge. Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., Phillipsburg, New Jersey : 1986. William S. Babcock. The Ethics of St. Augustine: JRE Studies in Religion, no. 3.
“Please tell me: isn’t God the cause of evil?” (Augustine, 1). With this question to Augustine of Hippo, Evodius begins a philosophical inquiry into nature of evil. Augustine, recently baptized by Saint Ambrose in Milan, began writing his treatise On Free Choice of the Will in 387 C.E. This work laid down the foundation for the Christian doctrine regarding the will’s role in sinning and salvation. In it, Augustine and his interlocutor investigate God’s existence and his role in creating evil. They attempt not only to understand what evil is, and the possibility of doing evil, but also to ascertain why God would let humans cause evil. Central to the premise of this entire dialogue is the concept of God, as relates to Christianity; what is God, and what traits separate Him from humans? According to Christianity, God is the creator of all things, and God is good; he is omnipotent, transcendent, all-knowing, and atemporal- not subject to change over time- a concept important to the understanding of the differences between this world and the higher, spiritual realm He presides over. God’s being is eidos, the essence which forms the basis of humans. With God defined, the core problem being investigated by Augustine and Evodius becomes clear. Augustine states the key issue that must be reconciled in his inquiry; “we believe that everything that exists comes from the one God, and yet we believe that God is not the cause of sins. What is troubling is that if you admit that sins come from… God, pretty soon you’ll be tracing those sins back to God” (Augustine, 3).
Augustine’s Confessions is in itself a rather contradictory autobiography. It reveals the inner workings of St. Augustine’s mind, particularly the arduous mental obstacles he faces on his spiritual journey. Readers are exposed to an almost cyclical routine of behaviour in which Augustine descends into a whirlpool of sin, reaches an epiphany and emerges vigorously with newfound motivation. We begin to question whether St. Augustine is aware of how contradictory his own actions play out, and if so, how such contradictions may reveal deeper truths about human nature.
His issue with this belief seems to stem from the idea that, by saying that evil has power over ourselves, we as people don’t have to feel responsibility for our actions, and therefore our sin. He eventually comes to the following conclusion: God is incorruptible, and since God made all things good, God could not have created evil, which is not good. Since God created everything in the existence, and everything that God created is good, then evil must not exist (7.XIII). It is by this argument that Augustine comes to the conclusion that, what the Manichees perceived as “evil,” was defines by Augustine as an “absence of good.” In other words, evil is what is left when people refuse “goodness” and God, and that any evil that we do is our own choice. This forces people to take responsibility for their actions, both good and
Augustine’s actions are something someone may take in for consideration. His moral lessons, good education, and believes in Christianity. Moral lessons are what will improve an individual and make better decisions. A good education would make one feel more complete as an individual and understand better. Staying positive is what will make individuals feel that their life is more valuable. Augustine’s life consisted all of these which is why, today he is very well-known and his works are valued.
In the beginning, God created the world. He created the earth, air, stars, trees and mortal animals, heaven above, the angels, every spiritual being. God looked at these things and said that they were good. However, if all that God created was good, from where does un-good come? How did evil creep into the universal picture? In Book VII of his Confessions, St. Augustine reflects on the existence of evil and the theological problem it poses. For evil to exist, the Creator God must have granted it existence. This fundamentally contradicts the Christian confession that God is Good. Logically, this leads one to conclude evil does not exist in a created sense. Augustine arrives at the conclusion that evil itself is not a formal thing, but the result of corruption away from the Supreme Good. (Augustine, Confessions 7.12.1.) This shift in understanding offers a solution to the problem of evil, but is not fully defended within Augustine’s text. This essay will illustrate how Augustine’s solution might stand up to other arguments within the context of Christian theology.
Author Claudia Gray stated, “Self-knowledge is better than self-control any day” (Goodreads). Evil and sin exists in our world today and the temptation they bring bounds many human’s spiritual being. Finding the root of all evil is a hard and torturous concept to understand, but knowing one’s own free will helps bring understanding and deliverance from the evils of the world. Throughout the book Confessions Saint Augustine “ponders the concepts of evil and sin and searches the root of their being” (Augustine 15). The existence of evil is one of the most worrisome challenges a Christian or any individual deals with throughout life. Saint Augustine’s beliefs concerning the root of all evil and sins transforms as he begins to grow and develop in the knowledge of his free will and spiritual being. Early on, he believes “God created all things and evil is a thing, therefore God created evil” (Augustine 73-74). From this he conceives the notion that God cannot be good if he knowingly created evil. As Augustine begins to grow in his spiritual walk, his views begin to evolve as he questions his Manichee’s beliefs and explores the concepts of good and evil. From his inquiring Augustine develops the question, what is evil and what if evil did not need creating? He asks, “Do we have any convincing evidence that a good God exists” (Augustine 136-137)?