Paradox Of Evil

There is a lot of evil in the world, and much of it happens unexplainably. In the history of life on Earth bad things have happened and evil has caused problems. In relation to some world

“Where then is evil, and what is its source, and how has it crept into the creation? What is its root, what is its seed?”1 These are the first of the many inquiries that Augustine makes in his work entitled the Confessions. In fact, the question of 'what is evil' is the main concern of Augustine, eventually leading the theologian from Manicheanism, a heresy that Augustine spent nine years of his life practicing, back into the arms of the Church. The Manichees are not willing to say that God created evil, and so therefore evil must have existed from the very beginning, possessing its own being. At this time, Augustine has a very Platonist view of things and begins to question this view of the Manichees. As a Platonist, Augustine asserts that all being is fundamentally good because all being comes from a supreme Good, which is God. As it says in

The most influential definition of evil is nicely summarised by Swinburne proclaimed when discussing about evil, context is very important factors to consider when talking about the subject of evil he said evil include physical pain, for

To understand evil we must first understand the concept that good and evil are term or words referring to what one given individuals believes to be the right and wrong thing to do. Good, many times

The cause of evil itself, according to Augustine, is the human will, and thus all blame for it rests on our shoulders, not on Gods. We willfully turn our souls away from God when we perform evil deeds. Even the punishment that God imposes on us for our evil is something that we brought on ourselves. Consequently, a first solution that Augustine offers to the problem of evil is that human will is the cause of evil and reason for divine punishment. A second and related solution is that the evil we willfully create within our souls is only a deprivation of goodness. Think of God’s goodness like a bright white light; the evil that we humans create is like an act of dimming that light, or shielding ourselves from it to create an area of darkness. It is not like we’ve created a competing light source of our own, such as a bright red light that we shine around to combat God’s bright white light. Accordingly, the evil that we create through our wills is the absence of good, and not a substantive evil in itself.

In this paper I will write about Augustine and his thoughts and ideas on sin in the Confessions, where sin originates and whether or not I believe that Augustine’s conception of sin has a place in modern society. From all of this I will conclude that through Augustine's work and findings, Augustine’s conception of the human person and their human actions are somewhat relevant today, due to the fact Augustine set a standard for what human nature is, known as the ability to desire, think and do, yet, people see the human differently today than Augustine did. At the same time his ideas of original sin and how the evil nature of humans is associated with original sin are still very relevant today.

In chapter 7 in The Confessions Augustine ponders the idea of evil. He aims to determine the cause and solution of it. Augustine believes that everyone has freewill or choice to be good. If humans possessed no good within them they would not exist (Augustine, page 174). The definition he was told was this: evil is everyone’s individual choice, however, he was attempting to establish the truth of this description.

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

Evil is not inherent to human nature nor is it caused by environment, evil is what we perceive as morally wrong from our standpoint, for example if in a universe far away domesticating animals is unthinkable, than our planet and it’s people would be considered evil. As mentioned before evil’s definition can change greatly between people, although the general consensus is that it is an act that is considered morally wrong from a majority standpoint. If a person commits actions that from their perspective are for the greater good, they would not be considered evil because there “Moral Compass” is telling them that their actions, no matter how much they go against society's norms are good.

In this essay I will be discussing how St. Augustine ultimately solves the problem of evil, in a way that at times does go hand in hand with his religious views, however, at times contradicts what he is saying. In “ Confessions” Augustine who although does not in any way question the existence of God questions why God, someone who is all powerful, and all good still allowing people to suffer the way in which they are.

What is considered evil depends upon each individual’s view of morality, which constantly changes through the course of that person’s life. Roy Perrett’s “Evil and Human Nature” explains this by elaborating on the customary interpretation of moral evil. This evil, caused by an intentional bad action or harm, opposes another type of evil, natural evil, which occurs without

In order to make sense of St. Augustine’s definition of evil as the absence of good, it is helpful to know how he came up with it. It is true that

What makes people like Jeffrey Dahmer or Jim Jones evil, yet makes being a butcher a typical profession? It can’t be because the meat from a butcher’s kill gets eaten, because so did the meat from Dahmer’s kills. It can’t be because they directly did the killing, because Jim Jones never directly killed anyone; he just led his followers to commit mass suicide. I believe that evil is not only technically nonexistent and subjective, but it is also completely unnecessary. To clarify my opinion, I want to delve into what evil actually is, why it’s subjective, and why things are considered evil.

In St. Augustine’s The Confessions, St. Augustine discusses his interpretation of evil and the ways in which it changed throughout the course of his life. Prior to becoming a Christian, Augustine viewed evil from the Manichean perspective as a substance or mass that opposed good. Later in life, when Augustine converted to Christianity, he discovered that evil was not a substance, but rather the absence of good. I found Augustine’s Christian view of evil helpful in understanding real life evils because it provides optimism in that it shows that everything was made for good.

Whilst, actively amending the view of god from the creator of everything and therefore, both good and evil, to the view of god as the creator of good. Augustine describes evil, as the privation of the good; where the absence of good is solely dependent on the deficiencies present within a man. These deficiencies that are not of the creator but of man himself and are seen through the evil will of man. This starts as soon as a person defects away from God and moves towards a lesser reality (478). Augustine then goes on describing the problem of evil in relation to the prideful nature of man and the evil that bestowed Adam and Eve for disobeying god.