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The Origin of Evil: Step-by-Step with Augustine
In Augustine’s Confessions we find a powerful work consisting of recollection and the most detailed scrutiny of the aspects of the author’s own life. ... More specifically, the readers are exposed to Augustine’s dilemmas and questions before he can accept Christianity. In the text it is evident that Augustine feels a strong desire to attain faith. ... One of the most crucial questions in his mind is about the origin of evil. In investigating the origin of evil, Augustine realizes that the freedom of the human will is also an element of confusion that he must resolve before he can accept the religion unquestionably. ... ” While God is incorruptible and unchangeable, there can be no room for evil in this world, hence the rise of the dilemma. Riding on his assumption, Augustine reaches the conclusion that beings exist in a spectrum within which “good” is the closest to the Being of God, while “evil” is the farthest. It is clear that assumptions are very central to Augustine’s reasoning. It is by making assumption, under the influence of strong faith, that Augustine succeeds in unraveling the relationship between the origin of evil and the free human will. The eventual solution to the origin of evil, namely the spectrum of “beings”, is a fairly pragmatic solution and essentially depends on one’s subscription to the faith that Augustine holds preset.
Augustine’s operating assumption that led to the primary question, the question of the origin of evil, is that God is “incorruptible and inviolable and immutable. ... They believed that God is indeed the creator of all beings, but He has to maintain His position by keeping a strong control over evil. Augustine started to consider the physical characteristics of God and to question if He had a form: “…I let myself be taken in by fools…And is God bounded by a bodily shape and has He hair and nails?
Approximate Word count = 1517
Approximate Pages = 6.1
(250 words per page double spaced)
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