City of God Fernandez 1

Roberto Fernandez"

Geoffrey Rees"

Human Ethics & Nature"

July 26, 2014"

Can we help saying that evil is derived from good?"

Evil exists within the universe, but the origin of this Evil is unclear, due to the fact

that God is supremely good and that everything that he made is also good. This brings

St. Augustine to ask the question: "

For if nature is the cause of the evil will, can we help saying that evil is derived

from good, and that good is the cause of evil? This must be so, if the evil will de-

rives from a nature which is good. But how can this be? How can a nature which

is good, however changeable, before it has an evil will, be the cause of any evil,

the cause, that is, of that evil will itself? (City of God, p. 479)"

Augustine poses this question in order to attempt to solve the problem that is presented

by the presence of Evil and Evil actions in a world that, according to all other of Augus-

tines assumptions about religion and the universe, should be perfectly and uniformly

good. The assertion that Evil exists in a world that should be wholly good presents a fa-

tal problem to Augustines philosophy of the universe and, through this question on the

nature of Evil, he seeks to explain how this Evil will originated."

This question fits in with all of Augustines ideas relating to the origin of the uni-

verse and the assertions that Augustine makes regarding the presence of Good and Evil

in the universe. Augustine refers to the idea of Evil arising from Evil choice itself: The

evil of mutable spirits arises from the evil choice itself, and that evil diminishes and cor-

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rupts the goodness of nature. (City of God, p. 481) Augustines idea of Evil sprouting

from the Evil will itself has a successive question of how the Evil will can arise if the uni-

verse was made by God and everything that God made is perfectly good. Through this

question Augustine is able to clarify how the will to do Evil ever came into existence, es-

pecially when all his other assumptions seem to infer that the existence of Evil and Evil

will is impossible. This also demonstrates how the apprehension of an Evil will does not

necessarily mean it was created by God and how evil can come into existence solely

due to the reason that the universe was built out of nothing. Augustine further expands

on this question by referring to how the inherent nothingness that permeates every-

thing in our universe separates what is part of the Godly World and what is part of the

Earthly World. While the Godly World is God himself and therefore perfectly good,

everything found in the Earthly World was solely made by God, but was made out of

nothing, and as a result has an origin for the Evil will that does not implicate God as the

creator of something that is not good, thus validating Augustines previous assumptions

and conclusions. "

This could also, however, imply that God is not wholly good due to the fact that if

everything God made is good, he would be able to restrain the Evil will inherent in noth-

ingness. Augustine challenges this counterexample, however, by stating how us hu-

mans, in our limited knowledge and perspective, may see as Evil something that God

will ultimately be able to manipulate into a good agent of change for the universe. Au-

gustine, ultimately, seems to be hoping for a concrete answer to the question of Evil

wills origin that doesnt implicate God as the author of it. "

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Augustine, however, also seems to struggle with the idea of God having fore-

knowledge of everything that will occur and yet still allowing the original sin to occur. To

fix this he juxtaposes foreknowledge with determinism and concludes that although God

knows everything that has been, is, and will be, he does not control any of these agents

and instead grants humans free will to do as they please: "

The condition of human beings was such that if they continued in perfect obedi-

ence they would be granted the immortality of the angels and an eternity of bliss,

without the interposition of death, whereas if disobedient they would be justly

condemned to the punishment of death. "

The fact that God had to create guidelines as to what would happen if human beings

were disobedient validates Augustines idea that God has foreknowledge of all and also

verifies that humans have free will and that whether a human sins or not is entirely the

responsibility of the specified human, since foreknowledge is not the same as a nature

which is deterministic."

This question is directed both at the reader and at Augustine, for he is trying to

conceptualize the link between the origin of Evil and God, which seems virtually impos-

sible to do while adhering to all of the other guidelines that Augustine has prompted

about the way the universe works. The idea that evil may be derived from good is also

an interesting way to frame the question since it seems to imply that evil is somehow

linked back to Gods actions, which goes directly against all other of Augustines teach-

ings. This question also draws a distinction between immutable and mutable natures,

with God being immutable and the rest of the universe, having been created by God,

being dependent on change to exist. This mutability, along with the fact that the universe

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was made out of nothing, allows Augustine to form a concrete argument that manages

to explain the origin of the Evil will while not breaking any other rules of the universe. "

Augustine also searches for the answer to the question of how anything perfectly good

could ever result in something Evil, yet remain to still be good in the grand picture. In

order to provide a response Augustine states that: A picture may be beautiful when it

has touches of black in appropriate places; in the same way the whole universe is beau-

tiful, if one could see it as a whole, even with its sinners, though their ugliness is dis-

gusting when they are viewed in themselves. (City of God, pp. 455-456) This question

runs concurrently with the question of whether evil derived from nature since it seems

like it would be wholly possible for God to have created evil, although this evil cannot

really be considered bad since it is only in our limited view and knowledge of the world

that we classify the action as evil, while God, in his omnipresence and knowledge, can

manipulate these actions to lead to the ultimate greater good."

Ultimately, Augustine poses the question of whether Evil evolved from Good in

order to explain how Evil could possible exist in the perfectly good world that he paints

throughout the rest of City of God. Augustine uses various methods to attempt and

prove that Evil is a necessity due to the condition in which the universe was created but

that God is not responsible in any way for Evil and that true Evil does not really even

exist since it all change serves Gods master plan for the universe.