Augustine had
a preoccupation with evil, as revealed in his books Confessions and City of God.
In chapter upon chapter, he examines it, defines it, and attempts to find its source.
He is filled with questions. What is evil?
How does evil effect humans? How can there even be evil if God created
the world in goodness? Why does man appear to have “unmotivated”
sin, sin for the sake of sinning alone? This paper will examine Augustine’s
assessment of evil and attempt to point out some flaws in his thinking.
According to Augustine, evil is the turning of the will away
from God. It is searching for good solely in the objects of the created world. Augustine states in Book Twelve of City of God, “ I likewise know that
when an evil choice happens in any being, then what happens is dependent on the will of that being; the failure is voluntary,
not necessary, and the punishment that follows is just. For this failure does
not consist in defection to things which are evil in themselves; it is the defection in itself that is evil. That is, it is not a falling away to evil natures; the defection is evil in itself, as a defection from
him who supremely exists to something lower degree of reality; and this is contrary to the order of nature.” (Augustine,
City of God, 480)
This quote summarizes Augustine’s views on the nature of evil. Evil
stems from the will of man. When that will turns away from God, it is defective. The objects of creation, such as gold, the female form, and wine, are not the sources
of evil because they were created by God and, accordingly, must be good, but what they inspire, greed, lust, and drunkenness,
is evil because the will of man seeks to find completion in things other than God.
To hold this view of evil together, Augustine must assert that evil does not originate in God. Without this premise, the punishment for sin, which is death, cannot be just and God cannot justifiably
punish man for a part of creation. In order for death to make sense to Augustine,
evil must not have been included in creation. In other words, evil must come
solely from man without cause from the outside world.
According to Augustine, evil is the absence of, or the turning
away from, good, like darkness is the absence of light. Absence is not created. In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, which he discusses in City of God,
he finds evidence that evil was introduced as soon as man had the desire to break God’s commandment of not eating the
forbidden fruit. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every
tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Genesis 2: 16-17)
In his Confessions, Augustine relates the story of his
experience of the pear tree, which has many parallels to the story of the fall of man. (Augustine, Confessions, 47-53)
The fact that troubles him the most about this episode is that it appears to be completely unmotivated. He was not hungry. He did not want the pears. He threw them away after stealing them. His only discernable
motivation was sin, “only to enjoy the theft itself and the sin.” He
was not turning towards any earthly good, only turning away from the heavenly good and this was pleasurable to him at the
time.
Augustine sees this as similar to the motivation that must
have been compelling Adam to eat the forbidden fruit. Adam had an “unmotivated”
desire to sin simply for the sake of sinning. Adam had no unrealized needs, as
Augustine did not need the pears. Adam did not even want the fruit. Though both were associating with a crowd that pushed them towards the action, Adam with Eve and Augustine
with his friends, this is not a sufficient motivation. Augustine had the excuse
of being born into original sin, but Adam was created pure. What could have caused
this turning away from God? Augustine leaves the question open, since he could
not answer it. He does contend though that evil must have originated within Adam
and not in creation.
However, evil must have existed in the world prior to Adam’s
first turning his will away from God because the tree of the knowledge of good and evil
was created before man. Man’s will could not have turned away from God
and, consequentially, introduced evil into creation prior to man’s own creation.
Darkness is not simply the uncreated absence of light. Darkness is a creation
in its own right, independent of light. The night is still dark regardless of
light of the stars. “I form the light, and create darkness...” (Isaiah
45: 7) The light and darkness analogy is rendered moot. If one continues to read
this verse from Isaiah, the argument that God did not create evil becomes even weaker, “...I make peace, and create
evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
Augustine wanted God to be pure good. At the same time, he wished to avoid
a dualistic interpretation of the world, mainly the Manichaean concept of the two forces of good and evil battling over the
fate of the universe. To Augustine, nothing could rival the power of God, so
an opposing force of pure evil would be quickly defeated. Therefore, it was necessary
to proclaim evil’s source is man’s will. However, while rejecting
the notion of duality, he failed to consider the possibility that God is beyond the human conception of good and evil. It is stated many times in the Bible that God is good, does this rule out the possibility
that God is the source of evil as well?
Perhaps to think of God as purely and solely good is a caricature
of the true nature of reality and, therefore, a failure to recognize that some aspects of the Divine, such as the nature of
evil and death, are completely beyond any human understanding. Imagine a chessboard. If the question is asked, “Is it black?” the answer would have to be “No.” “Then, is it white?” again the answer is “No.” Black and white are considered opposites, but yet they exist in harmony on a chessboard. Without the contrast, the game could not be played.
God may be both good and evil or neither good nor evil, but
to view him as only one or the other is a disservice to eternity’s vast complexity.
To assert one or the other is an exercise in the very pride Augustine loathes, it is claiming one can understand the
Divine on mankind’s terms. Humility would force one to claim to know nothing
of God’s nature and deny the possibility that one could ever grasp it, even if God tells us about it.
William Blake, a 18th century English poet and mystic,
discusses this dual nature of God. In his poem, “The Tyger”, Blake
ponders the question of evil’s existence in the world, symbolized by the tiger.
“When the stars threw down their spears, and water’d heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to
see? Did he who made the Lamb [Jesus] make thee [the tiger]?” (Kazin, 109)
One can come to the conclusion that the same being who gave the tiger its viciousness and cunning is the same being who created
the rest of the universe. Also, Blake claims this dual nature of good and evil
is important to the order of creation. “Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human
existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.”
(Kazin, 250) In other words, for there to be any purpose for human existence these opposites must exist. God had to create the world in this manner. We, as humans,
deem certain actions and results as good and evil. Augustine’s sinful past
led to a life of wanting to help others. Would he have came to the conclusions
found in his writings without the angst, guilt, pain, and knowledge he gained from his sins?
If he had not been drawn to “turn away from God”, would he have ever searched for him?
As for the justice of God, perhaps God does not punish in the
way Augustine claims. Augustine believes that if God had created the world with
evil already in it, it would be unjust for him to punish us as he does. Here
Augustine claims to understand what God’s justice is and what is just in the eyes of God. But he understands it in human terms, the only terms he had. Bad
things sometimes happen to good people, take the book of Job, and it does not appear just.
To punish humanity for committing sins that find their causes in creation does not seem just either. But appearance is just that, an illusion. Perhaps death is
the wage of sin, but it may also be a valuable learning experience necessary to find God.
In conclusion, Augustine views evil as a turning away from
the good, stemming from a part of human nature God did not create. However, Biblical
evidence points to the contrary; God did create what we call evil. This may call
for a reexamination of the religious conception of God, but to ignore the possibility would go against the spirit of Augustine’s
work.
