Catholic Thought discussion

This may be the most philosophical of all the chapters. The chapter amounts to a cognitive process of working out the nature of God and the origins of evil, and the harmonizing of the existence of a good God with the existence of evil in the world. We see how Nebridious refutes the Manichean notion of God being subject to an opposing deity through the notion that God cannot be corrupted. Augustine realizes that the origin of evil is man’s free will, not God’s will. Through a rejection of astrological superstition and an understanding of the Platonists, Augustine arrives at an understanding of the nature of God, and that Christ is the mediator between the immaterial world of the creator with the material world that is corrupted. Intellectually Augustine has arrived at the Truth of Christianity but the Truth has not yet overwhelmed his heart.

I am somewhat puzzled by St, Augustine’s arguments in Chapter XIII of Book VII:

“But in the parts of creation, some things, because they do not harmonize with others, are considered evil. Yet those same things harmonize with others and are good, and in themselves are good. And all these things which
do not harmonize with each other still harmonize with the inferior part of creation which we call the earth, having its own cloudy and windy sky of like nature with itself. Far be it from me, then, to say, ‘These things should not be.’ For if I could see nothing but these, I should indeed desire something better -- but still I ought to praise thee, if only for these created things.” (Outler translation)

That seems like a weak way to account for evil in nature, if that is what he is doing. Unless he is making a general statement that “evil” things such as a worm have their place in nature as he explains later? Free will which he already discussed above was good enough reason for me. He hasn’t recognized free will when he was younger and looked for an evil force in the universe and agreed with the Manicheans in the existence of an evil god. He explains that a little later in this chapter.

The way I read that, Galicius, is that he is trying to account for things like hurricanes and earthquakes that kill people. I'm with you, I don't see natural events as evil, but they do seem to be listed as such in a variety of places. For me evil, is a conscious act to harm another. Nature is without motive or will. It performs to natural forces. I guess some see that as evil, coming from God, perhaps? Why would God allow those natural forces to exist? Augustine I think is saying in order to have a functioning universe, these elements are part of the natural make up.

Personally I have a different theory. Such natural events are God providing means for people to care for each other, and therefore a means to salvation, since love of nature is love of God. I don't know if that holds up theologically, but that's my theory. ;)

Here are my notes, which I didn't quite finish...but we can leave the rest for the discussion. And again, thank you Manny for getting the discussion started :)

Now we are dipping even further into philosophy. Augustine tries to understand the nature of God as a Christian would. As a Manichee he believed in a dualistic world view, and a materialistic one at that. An immaterial order of reality is still something he needs to come to terms with. “(1) I sank ignobly into foolishness, for as unable to grasp the idea of substance except as something we can see with our bodily eyes. … I believed you to be imperishable, inviolable and unchangeable, because although I did not understand why or how this could be, I saw quite plainly and with full conviction that anything perishable is inferior to what is imperishable, and I unhesitatingly reckoned the inviolable higher than anything subject to violation,…”

In all these ponderings the problem of evil surfaces, for if God is indestructible, then where does it fit in? Before evil was explained as being one of two natures, but now this doesn’t suffice anymore. “(11) So it was that you, my helper, had already freed me from those bonds, but I was still trying to trace the cause of evil, and found no way out of my difficulty.”

The way out would be through Neo-Platonism which “gave Augustine the framework to understand all the spiritual and powerful attributes of God: his incorporeity, his self-subsisting life, and his unmatched goodness.” (notes in my edition)

“(18) Everything that exists is good, then; and so evil, the source of which I was seeking, cannot be a substance, because if it were, it would be good. Either it would be an indestructible substance, and that would mean it was very good indeed, or it would be a substance liable to destruction – but then, it would not be destructible unless it were good.”
“(19) For you evil has no being at all, and this is true not of yourself only but of everything you have created, since apart from you there is nothing that could burst in and disrupt the order you have imposed on it.”

Reading the intensity of his questioning and probing leaves a person exhausted!