What Does Augustine Say About The Nature Of Evil

982 Words4 Pages

The collapse of Rome shamed on Christianity by many people, including the Romans themselves. These moral concerns were employed to define the justified truth. Therefore, St. Augustine of Hoppo mainly provides the answers through one of his most considerable works, City of God. Written circa A.D. 398 as a spiritual autobiography outlining the author's life and eventual conversion to the Christian faith. Augustine acquired his understanding of human nature from ancient thinking. Augustine's central ideology focuses on the existence of God through the Christian faith. He endeavoured to show the Christian God, far from being blameworthy, to be a source of solace and strength. In the City of God, the author Augustine himself debates the fundamental …show more content…

Such as the Scripture and the creation of the two cities. The City of man and the City of God. Augustine illustrates the definition of Evil while criticizing through his beliefs those who, despite Christianity for its actions.

First, Augustine argues the meaning of Evil through some historical context. Augustine censures the pagans who attributed the calamities of the world. Especially since the recent sack of Rome by the Goths, to the Christian religion and its prohibitions of the worship of the gods. Augustine speaks of the blessings and ills of life, which then, as always, happened to good and bad men alike. Thus, comes Augustine's first argument. He proceeds by claiming his views through two fundamental claims about Sin and Evil. The first one is that Evil is essentially privational. It means it is an irrational swerving from a wholly good creation that deprives that creation of some quality of being. At the beginning of the City of God, …show more content…

Thus, leading the reader to understand better Augustine's views on Evil. As for Augustine himself, Evil is a result of free will, and that sin corrupts humans, requiring God's grace to give moral guidance. To emphasize further, the foreknowledge of Evil can question God's nature in his existence. It believes that Evil is not an attributed existence in its own right but is described as a privation of good and the corruption of God's good creation. A good example is the creation of Adam and Eve. While God is fully aware of its creation, he chooses to take upon the wicked as it pleases. In Paradise, Augustine argued, Adam and Eve's wold have sex without involuntary arousal. The first man, Adam, disobeyed God, and the whole of human nature disobeyed God. Thus the whole of human nature becomes wicked and sinful: "He created man with nature midway between angels and beasts, so that man provided he should remain subject to his true Lord and Creator and dutifully obey." (B.12. Chapter 22) As it is mentioned, God is the "Creator," thus, leading him to control when the desire comes. Just as God created all and called it good, as God is the source to all, there can be nothing that is not in some sense good in God's eyes. That is the first most affirmation, and because the reality of existence itself is fundamentally good, Evil has to be nothing. It has to be an attempt to annihilate the

Open Document