The Confessions Of St Augustine Essay

As this man was inspired to learn the truth, he read a book called Hortensius and soon after joined the Manicheans. These people had elements of Christianity and elements of Buddhism but believed that all creations including flesh were evil. They believed all sex; even marriage including the birth of children was evil and sinful. Manicheans felt that the world was evil material full of darkness trying to find the spiritual world of light, as some would say, the power between good and evil. While being associated with the Manicheans, Augustine had the conception that evil was capable of being touched, like a material substance. But as he spoke with others and further looked into what evil means to exist, he abandoned the notion that evil is something tangible. He realized that evil does not exist in the physical world and therefore moved away from the Manichean religion.

This is a significant problem to the revealed religions because they believe in a wholly good and omnipotent God. Why then, would this God allow evil? In this paper, I will provide, explain, and evaluate St. Augustine of Hippo’s

“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

One of Augustine’s first friendships was a set of companionship-based relationships that occurred during his adolescence years. Reflecting on his childhood, Augustine recalls that he joined his mischievous friends in stealing pears from a neighbor’s vineyard. The young boy “had no motive for [his] wickedness except wickedness itself” (Conf. 2.9). Augustine loved stealing not for the beauty or attractiveness of the pears he took, for the stolen fruits were thrown to the pigs. Instead, Augustine found pleasure in the wrongful nature of his sinful act. He enjoyed his own self-destruction and found satisfaction in seeking after shame. Augustine claims that his adolescent friends were to blame for his unruly behavior: “Alone I would not have committed that crime, in which my pleasure lay not in what I was stealing but in the act of theft. But had I been alone, it would have given me absolutely no pleasure, nor would I have committed it” (Conf. 2.17). When Augustine fixes accusation for his actions onto the mere presence of his childhood companions, he appears to be distancing himself from the theft he committed. Augustine does admit to the intentions behind his misbehavior, but the notion of friendship is now to blame: “Friendship can be a dangerous enemy, a seduction of the mind lying beyond the reach of investigation” (Conf. 2.17). Augustine’s interpretation depicts friendship as being corruptible, but the corruptibility of friendship does not imply that it is evil in nature. In a later

Always the philosopher, Augustine spends a considerable amount of time in Book 7 of Confessions trying to figure out where evil comes from and why God allows evil to exist if he truly is all-powerful and could prevent evil from existing in the first place. Halfway through Book 7 in section XII he concludes that all things are good because God created everything. He also realizes that evil does not exist—at least not as a substance. Compared to the Gnostics, and specifically the Gospel of Mary, both seem to agree that sin comes from humans. However, the Gnostics and Augustine differ in that Augustine believes in one supremely good God who created everything, while the Gnostics believed in two Gods—one God who created matter, which is evil, and

humans and angels to enjoy the world the way that he created it to be.

Augustine’s Doctrine of Fall is key to any appreciation of his ideas surrounding human nature and, latterly, of political authority. It says that the fall from grace, the result of Adam exercising his free will and capacity to sin (Augustine, 1467, p.1089), is man’s defining feature. Man was originally all good but human nature has been fundamentally broken by the fall and the inheritance of original sin: as such, no man can be born without sin. This first occurrence of evil – and all future manifestations – can be traced back to what Augustine regards as our key flaw: “could anything but pride have been

If God is good, and everything he created is good, how did evil originate? According to the Manichees, humans and human desires originate as evil, and since God created them, yet he cannot eliminate evil, he is not truly omnipotent. For a portion of his life, Augustine also believed in this ideology, but he soon realized his mistake. He spent much of his youth at Carthage attending theatrical plays, but eventually became aware that this was wrong because it encouraged a love of suffering, (Book III, Section 2). I believe he fell victim to the Manichees because he was in the prime state of life where one is searching for something more than themselves.

This paper examines St. Augustine’s view on evil. St. Augustine believed that God made a perfect world, but that God's creatures turned away from God of their own free will and that is how evil originated in the world. Augustine assumes that evil cannot be properly said to exist at all, he argues that the evil, together with that suffering which is created as punishment for sin, originates in the free nature of the will of all creatures. According to Augustine, God has allowed evil to exist in the world because it does not conflict with his righteousness. He did not create evil but is also not a victim of it. He simply allows it to exist.

Augustine attempted to answer a very large question in his writings, he attempts to define evil. He provides his readers with a couple examples of evils he had committed in his own life and shows great remorse over. One of the most famous examples he provides is the story of the pear tree. When Augustine was a young adolescent he and his friends had hopped a fence into a garden of one of his neighbors. He and his friends ate every piece of fruit off the tree.

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

Be that as it may, as Paul clearly demonstrates in Romans, living faithfully is not an easy task: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out,” (Romans, 7:18). We can see a similar sentiment in Augustine: “the vices do not submit without a struggle” (City of God, 528). While a state that is more attuned to god’s will might have some assistance in the struggle against vice, evil is the easier choice, and therefore the more plentiful in this world. Because of this, Augustine, much like Paul, admits that not only is it possible, but it is extremely likely that the Christian will suffer as a result of their faith.

The philosopher Augustine, as a christianity member, the good was identified as the creator and the evil was the destroyer. Theses are two different aspects that Augustine's argues the ideas that evil was not created it is distinguished as a “ thing.” Augustine's conclusions lead to a situation that if God is good why would he be the less likely to form evil. “In fact, there is no other good which can make any rational or intellectual creature happy except God,”(XII.1). This is where I agree on the argument, its logic and to where as I know I was told god had a brother and since god was more powerful that brother became very angry , which is the evil. Furthermore, Augustine states that if God is good they why would he create evil, because everything

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.

God is according to Augustine the single sovereign, who rules over everything, even the evil forces in the universe. This sovereignty is grounded in Augustine’s understanding that God created everything. This assumption ultimately solves the question why evil exists. It exists because God created it, just like he created everything else. Augustine suggests that everything God creates in inherently good. However, creatures can become “evil” because they are prone to corruption (Mann 44). Furthermore, rational beings have