On Free Choice of the will: St. Augustine’s View on Evil
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.
It is impossible to deny the existence of evil in the world as human beings experience pain and suffering every day. It is generally accepted that there are two different types of evil: natural and moral. Moral evil is caused by human beings and occurs when humans inflict suffering on......
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Approximate Word Count: 1742
Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |