Saint Augustine's Deduction that Free Will is a Good Gift from God

Augustine continues his discussion of what makes a man. The question lies in the discussion between man being of the body only, of the soul only, or both. He talks about this to determine where man’s chief good resides, and from where it is discovered. “Man’s chief good is not the chief good of the body only, but the chief good of the soul” (Augustine 264-267). Augustine states that a person’s chief good is found in the soul and that the soul gives life to the body. The soul provides bodily pleasure, pain, strength, beauty, swiftness, etc. Without the soul, there would be no

It can then be deduced that belief to Augustine is not a choice; the choice arises through man’s action. Acts of choosing to believe God are simply a reaffirmation of one’s belief, while choosing the world and not God in one’s actions is simply denying God, although one can never fully disbelieve: the world is a substitute for God, as previously examined. The choice available restricts free will while allowing men to choose their actions, not their belief. Further, the fall of man, where human weaknesses stem from, presupposes God’s existence, as does Augustine. Consequently, choices to Augustine reflect our denial or acceptance of the truth that God is real. In this theological perspective, Augustine supports God’s existence completely, and his ascetic choice further upholds his belief. God’s creation further explains Augustine’s perspective on belief, Augustine stating that “[t]he only thing that does not come from [God] is what does not exist,” and that combined with “ any movement of the will away from [God who is] and towards that which is in a lesser way” (178). Denying God, moving away from God, who exists, is a movement defined as both a “crime and sin” (178). This freedom, again, does not deny God, but is, in spite of his existence, a means to explain one’s belief or doubt. Augustine’s Confessions clearly describes this path of sin and denial that unquestionably leads to a necessary habit of committing it, resulting in Augustine himself becoming a slave to sin. It is only by God’s power, the power than humanity does not possess, that can help man escape the godless way of life that is living through sin. Belief of God then, is not a choice for Augustine; it is our free will that allows the choice of living for or against God, and why resisting temptation and sin and living for God completely is a main idea throughout the Confessions; by choosing the world, one denies

He explains justice as “ the virtue by which all people are given their due” (August 20,1993). In On Free Choice of the Will Evodius says that, “[he] acknowledges that all four virtues that [Augustine] just described, … are present in those who love their own good will and value it highly” (Augustine 21, 1993). Here Evodius is stating that by living with these four virtues we are able to live a happy life that is in accordance with our good will. Augustine states that “to have a good will is to have something far more valuable than all earthly kingdoms and pleasures…” (Augustine 20, 1993). Here he is saying that to be happy in life you must have more than just temporary possessions such as money or health, Augustine defines these possessions as temporal objects. In order to have a good will we must make a distinction between temporal objects and eternal objects; he explains these differences in the temporal and eternal laws. “The eternal law demands that we purify our love by turning it away from temporal things and toward what is eternal” (Augustine 25,

“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

St. Augustine’s On Free Choice of the Will elaborates on the relationship between God, free will, and evil. During the very beginning of Book One, he asks the question, “isn’t God the cause of evil” (Cahn 357). From this question, it can be ascertained that he searches for a connection between God and evil (sins), which inferred in the writing to be connected though free will. He believes that God does not create evil, but rather that evil is simply the lack of good, since God is completely good and, therefore, cannot create evil. God not being the source of evil is then further elaborated through his explanation of a crime and how it is caused by inordinate desires and human abuse of good things (Cahn 360). By explaining

Augustine was eminent by Platonism and declared that there is one God and that God was and is the wellspring of all Happiness because of His perfect adoration. In this manner, anything that needs to do with our ethics cognizant is at last God and we ought to uninhibitedly need to take after our cognizant as it is divine law Augustine sees awareness as God is letting us know what is correct and what isn't right, he is our witness and the voice of God ought not be addressed, but rather it is our human senses that permit us to second figure our nature and conflict with God's arrangement and this prompts is the reason we encounter a despondent life we see as insufficient. My Argument is that if God is the voice of our awareness and our cognizant

This I believe to be true because even if one is a moral person and has never stolen before, they have at least thought of what they would do with the item that they are looking at. An example given to me about this was in my psychology class where the professor gave an example of someone setting a briefcase full of money on a table while he leaves the room in front of hundreds of people and that everyone would at least contemplate what they would do with the money if they were to take it. This example I believe connects with the idea that people do bad or evil things even though they know it is the wrong thing to do. This can be connected to free will because one is given the free will to be able to think about and to commit evil acts that they know are wrong. This part of Book 2 would imply that we do have free will which helps Augustine’s argument that we are capable of free will, and is what causes the suffering in the world. This part of Book 2 can also be helpful because Augustine thought that evil does exist, and evil is just the absence of good. This is one of Augustine’s reasons for why you need God because God is the highest good. The only real contradiction to this argument that I can think of is that if we have the freedom of the will then how would one explain predestination? Freedom of the will and predestination need to be exclusive of each other because

He believes that everyone has the option to make a decision about something. He says that free will is the ability in human beings to act otherwise and there is a connection between being able to act otherwise and the notion that some acts are never ok to do. Moral absolutes can also be found in Christian tradition with St. Augustine. St. Augustine discussed the topic of lying and lying, as most people know, is considered to be intrinsically evil. However, he believes that there are some instances in which lying is necessary because, sometimes, it brings about good

In the book Augustine’s Confessions, there were multiply themes in the story which made the book great. One theme of Augustine’s Confession is the problem which many Americans face today. That is evil. Evil is everywhere in the world. Augustine lost his mistress, mother and even his own son in the book. He had to also figure out why god is punishing people with these action. So found out the answer to the evil, Augustine ask why is God good and still allows suffering to exist. Augustine found out that evil because of the free will that people have. God lets human pick what to do with their lives and the evil comes from the choices which you have decided. For example, a pregnant mother decides to drink alcohol while carrying her baby around. When the baby is finally born, the baby has problems with earing, talking, or even speaking. This is the evil choice which the mother had made. There are many kinds of evil and one of them are natural evil. Natural evil is a disease which another human has and it spreads around town. For example, people during the winter time have the flu. The flu spreads around town and soon enough, everyone will have it. This is a natural evil because you didn’t cause it. Another example of natural evil is the black plague. The black plague spreads all over Europe and killed about 30 to 60 percent of Europe. The black plague was started in China due to the workers not cleaning up there shop. Soon enough, it was death of 350 million people. It is said to

Yet a third solution to the problem of evil is Augustine’s suggestion that the apparent imperfection of any part of creation disappears in light of the perfection of the whole. To explain, Augustine considers a common objection that God seems to be the source of suffering when our young children die with no clear purpose. His response is this:

St. Augustine is a man with a rational mind. As a philosopher, scholar, and teacher of rhetoric, he is trained in and practices the art of logical thought and coherent reasoning. The pursuits of his life guide him to seek concrete answers to specific questions. Religion, the practice of which relies primarily on faith—occasionally blind faith—presents itself as unable to be penetrated by any sort of scientific study or inquiry. Yet, like a true scientist and philosopher, one of the first questions St. Augustine poses in his Confessions is: “What, then, is the God I worship” (23)? For a long time, Augustine searches for knowledge about God as a physical body, a particular entity—almost as if the Lord

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

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.

At this point in his life, Augustine is recognized for doing many things for the Church as a priest, author, and defender of faith. As an author he wrote Confessions, his spiritual autobiography, and City of God, his great work describing the Christian philosophy throughout history. In this magnificent work,

     According to Augustine, “Human beings are endowed with a power that he calls the will.” He emphasizes the will to being the center of freedom. Unlike other philosophers, who are determinists, Augustine, who has a libertarian view, sees our will as free choice. So for whatever we may choose to do, we become solely responsible for our actions which are caused by external factors instead of internal ones.