Nickhil Singh
Title: Man's Evil
When God created earth, God created a world that was good. All of its parts were created this way, including nature and man. However, we do not live in the same world today. Our human existence involves sin and misery. Humans, seemingly good creations, commit evil acts. Moreover, we possess no explanation as to why good people can experience pain and those who are bad experience pleasure. Why would an omniscient and benevolent God willingly choose to hurt good people? In City of God, Augustine finds a way to combine the idea of an omniscient and omnipotent God, who allows evil to exist in the world, by introducing the idea of free will. All human beings possess free will; they can distinguish between good and bad, but choose the latter. By explaining how sin and misery stem from the free will of man, Augustine successfully demonstrates how evil coexists with an omnipotent, omniscient and benevolent God.
Augustine argues that free will causes earth’s sin and misery. When God created earth, he gave Adam and Eve free will. In the Garden of Eden, they were allowed to make any decisions or actions they wanted as long as they did not eat from the tree of life. However, by abusing this privilege they displayed the true nature of their souls. As Augustine says, “Moreover, what but pride can have been the beginning of their evil will?- for pride is the beginning of sin’. And what is pride but an appetite for a perverse kind of elevation” (City of God, 14.13 pg. 608). By eating the fruit, Adam and Eve committed a sin, but the rationale for this insolence is much more important. To do an act of that magnitude, both Adam and Eve had to possess evil inclinations, namely pride. Instead of showing humility towards God and appreciating His gifts, humans became pleased with themselves and thought they could be Gods. They did this despite everything God gave them, and in turn their punishment was severe.
But one crucial problem Augustine must address is why an Omniscient and benign God could allow good creations to turn evil. Augustine argues that man’s evil stems from the earthly world. Augustine writes, “For, although God formed man of the dust of the earth, the earth itself and all earthly matter were derived from nothing at all; and when man was made, God gave to his body a soul which was made out of nothing” (14.11 604). Augustine implies that evil comes from something distant from God, for the earthly matter, removed from God and His heavenly creatures, is what made man’s soul evil. Man’s soul, although created by god, is a defect (14. 11 604). God had to create “defective” humans, for if humans weren’t this way, they would be Gods themselves. But because the soul mixes both God and the dirt, it contains a part of nature that does not possess a complete connection to God. Though created by God, the soul contains no heavenly spirit, but only the earth’s spirit fills it. It serves as man’s evil component. God does not commit any evil acts, but the human soul, an imperfect model of God’s will,, possesses the ability and inclination to make mistakes. Its evil lies in its lack of godliness, for God is good, and without God man can only be evil.
We have seen that God is not the source of evil, but that evil is a lack of God. According to Augustine, God, though not the source of evil, must allow it to exist for a reason. As Augustine explains, “Good things prevail over bad, however: so much so that, although evil things are permitted to exist in order to demonstrate how the justice and perfect foresight of the Creator can make good use even of them, good things can nonetheless exist without the evil, just as the true and supreme God and all heavenly creatures, invisible and visible, exist above this murky air of ours” (14.11 605). Specifically, evil exists for two reasons: One, evil serves as a way of strengthening the moral good in humans. Like in Augustine’s case, misery on earth forces man to seek peace in a higher force. Therefore, God can use evil as a way to make man seek comfort in Christ. Two, although good can exist without evil, good’s virtue becomes more apparent when evil exists. When Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they lost their innocent and carefree lives, but they gained the knowledge of evil and good actions. Though they had free will before, in that they could control their actions, they did not have it the sense that we conceive it; they did not know this good and evil. By eating the apple, they could now understand the value of this goodness in contrast to evil.
Before Original Sin, man had the choice to control his desires. He was given paradise; everything he could possibly want. His only burden was to follow one command: Not to eat from the tree of life. This was God’s test to see Man’s devotion to Him (14.27 631). But man broke this covenant for the simple reason that he could (14.13 608). Because of this, he lost a part of his free will. As Augustine describes, “For, now, the flesh is in such a condition that it simply cannot serve our will” (14.15 613). By that reasoning, man is now a slave to his desires. His body, mentally and physically, must constantly struggle in a myriad of ways: His heart constantly conflicts with his mind. His body goes through the process of aging and death. He experiences grief, pleasure, anger, and other emotions, which govern his decisions and actions. Ironically, though man now knows good and bad, he cannot control his own path; he forsook that ability when he broke the word of God. As the will of man now governs the human psyche, humans are habitually prone to satisfying their every whim, rather than controlling their desires.
Some people, however, do live by the will of God. As Augustine says, “But the Citizens of the earthly city are produced by a nature vitiated by sin, while the citizens of the Heavenly City are produced by grace, which redeems nature from sin” (3.15 637). Augustine argues that all humans do not deserve God’s grace. God does, however, give grace to some people. God has preordained before birth that some will receive his grace while others will not (14.3 637). These Godly citizens display God’s virtue in their actions and words, and most importantly place importance on finding eternal peace in the afterlife, not during their life on earth. Whereas the citizens of the City of God put their faith in an afterlife, citizens of the earthly city follow the will of man and place importance on material goods during their life on earth. Because the earthly citizens care for their circumstances in their present life, they lust for things they don’t need. (Like Adam and Eve wanted the apple on the tree of life). That lust cannot be controlled by their will, and it forces them to commit evil deeds, explaining evil in our world.
To make a distinction between those who live by the will of God and by the will of man, we must also explain why those who do live by the will of God still suffer punishment on earth. Augustine explains the fallacy of this logic, “He has, however, willed that good and evil things of this world should be common to both, so that we may neither grasp too eagerly after those goods which are seen to be possessed by the wicked also, nor dishonourably flee those evils with which even the good are generally afflicted” (1.9 12). According to Augustine, the final end for man is eternal peace in the afterlife. Therefore, the man who lives by the will of God does not perceive misery as a punishment. He sees it as God’s way of showing him how devoted he is to his life. Punishment should make his devotion to God stronger, for God knows both good and evil and wants man to see both of these entities so he can truly choose the good for itself. By knowing the good, man comes closer to God, and therefore, closer to eternal peace. If God never allowed misery to occur to virtuous men, all men would want to be good for the sake of gain or advantage in this world. By receiving this pain, a godly citizen can stay true to God’s way of life. Evil also serves the ungodly citizens. Those who live by the will of man will learn how far they are from the will of God because they will see their faith in God is not strong at all. This entices them to act more virtuously. And though they might be rewarded even when they do bad things, the true reward, God’s grace in the afterlife, will never be attained. Without God’s grace, the earthly citizens will never find true happiness or eternal peace, for they, like the soil, will be distant from God. Thus, their lack of God will lead them to a life of eternal misery.
An argument could be made that if man is not preordained to receive God’s salvation from evil then he possesses no reason to be good, for he will never reach God in the afterlife. Yet there are two main reasons why humans should be good. For one, Augustine argues that earthly peace is desirable in itself (14.5 639). Although predicated on achieving earthly goods, it allows man the time and conditions to seek the higher goods, like finding eternal peace. Secondly, man never does know if he has received God’s grace. We can only believe one has received grace if they act virtuously in deeds and actions. Because we don’t know, it is in the interest of everyone to act virtuously, so that if they have received God’s grace they can know God at the end of their mortal lives. And even if some feign praise of God, they will at least attain that mortal peace of which we spoke, and therefore, prolong their lives on earth instead of going to hell.
One issue still needs to be resolved. For any of what we said to be true, we must explain how the idea of free will itself can coexist with the predestination of God. The predestination of God implies that man has no choice over his actions because God knows and controls everything human beings will do. Free will implies that God cannot foresee or control our actions because we choose our own fate. But as Augustine states, “For our wills are themselves included in the order of causes which is certain to God and contained within His foreknowledge” (5.9 201). Although God knows what we will do, we are free to do whatever we want. If God foresees all our actions, it follows that he knows our motives for them, because he would possess no other way of knowing what we were going to do. That doesn’t prevent us, however, from choosing the path we want. Everything we do comes from our own will. Augustine says, “For if we will, then the will exists and if we do not will, then it does not exist: for we should not will if we were unwilling” (5:10 204). We possess our own ability to make choices; we can say yes or no to any action. Of this matter, God knows what we will do, but does not make our decisions for us. We make those ourselves.
We must also remember that the very definition of free will suggests the ability to make a decision. God possesses ultimate free will and no necessity to make a certain decision. In deciding the nature of free will, God allowed humans to make their own decisions, instead of making them for them. In this way, Augustine successfully shows that God’s omniscience and omnipotence does not contradict with the existence of evil in this world. If humans choose to live by the will of man, they will feel sin and misery. If humans live by the will of God, they will feel no sin and misery, for humans will live for the afterlife: The place where they will find eternal peace.
Want to reach me? E-mail me at nickhil@nickhil.com
