Title: 3rd October 2006
Author: Two

3^rd October 2006
Augustine on Evil

Reading for Today:
•	The Problem of Evil, Augustine (C.P.) pp 29-32.

Reading for Next Class:
•	 “Providence:  How Evil is Caused” Aquinas, in CP p43-48
•	“Witches of Stedlingerlaud” Gregory IX, in CP p41

Augustine of Hippo
•	Born in 354 C.E. in Tagaste, Northern Africa.
•	The first black saint in Christendom.
•	Initiated into the Cult of the Manichees during his teen years and followed into his early adulthood.

Manicheeanism:
•	Adherents of the cult followed the teaching of Mani, a Babylonian prophet.
•	Good and evil were seen as motive powers, identified by light and darkness.
•	A war was taking place between the two powers.

Common Story:
•	Manichean belief in polar opposites of good and evil.
•	Platonic division of Being (goodness, completion) and Coming-to-Be (imperfection)
•	Judeo-Christian notions of God and Satan.
•	Adam and Eve’s “Fall from Grace”

Manichean Influence:
•	Augustine’s time with the Cult undoubtedly informed his later theological writing.
•	His philosophy of evil departs from that of the Cult in that he developed a “privation account” of evil.
•	Later Augustine:  A thing is evil insofar as it is not completely good.
•	A very Platonic sounding idea, but now it’s measurable in quantitative terms.

Neo-Platonic Influence:
•	Plato’s work, as dealt with by subsequent philosophers in the Platonic tradition, also influenced Augustine.
•	Fallen human nature is associated with the materiality of the body.
•	Materiality commonly associated with the female, whereas immateriality (soul, spirit) associated with the male.

Augustine’s General Themes:
•	All things are created by God, therefore all things have a portion of good.
•	Nothing in the created world is immutably good.
•	Only God has immutable status.

Universe is a Good Thing:
•	Each created thing is at least partially good, together they are ‘very good’ because they ‘constitute a universe of admirable beauty’. (Aug.p19 – CP.29)
•	Note, again, the Platonic parallel in which the world (to pan, the cosmos) is the best of created things, containing all other living things within it, and the same wording in the Genesis account.

Nature of Evil:
•	Evil, technically, is not created…it occurs.
•	Evil cannot create, but it can occur in and affect created things.
•	Things, and people, can go bad.

Why Do We Have Evil:
•	Humans:  “when it is rightly ordered and kept in place, evil commends the good more eminently since good things yield greater pleasure and praise when compared to bad things”. (Aug.p19 CP.p29)
•	God:  ‘He’ is able to bring forth good out of evil.
–	Redemption for sinners who repent
–	Praise for people who resist temptation
–	Grace for those who seek to aid others
–	Damnation for those who die unrepentant

Example of the Privation Account:
•	Evil is the privation of good.
•	Animal nature is good (health), sickness and wounds are a privation of health.
•	When cured, evils do not retreat, they simply do not exist anymore.
–	Evil is not a substance.

Greater and Lesser Good:
•	The good in a thing can be diminished or augmented.
•	The good in a thing cannot be completely destroyed without the thing ceasing to exist.
•	An incorruptible thing is better than a corruptible thing.
–	-Note, again, the Platonic parallel.

Three Conclusions:
•	There can be good without evil.
•	There can be no evil without some good.
•	When there is no good left, there is no evil either.

A Problem?
•	It would seem that what is evil is good.
•	Can a thing be both a good thing and a bad thing at the same time?
•	Yes:  it is good in its nature, and evil is only an aspect of it.

Ethical Implications:
•	A person is good insofar as he or she is a person, and evil insofar as he or she wicked.
•	Evil agents are defective in some way.
•	Evil intentions are defective in some way.
–	(An evil will does not produce good deeds)
•	Evil acts are defective in some way.

Platonizing Scripture:
•	“Who can understand defect?”[Psalm19:22]
•	We don’t see darkness, we perceive that there is no light.
•	We don’t hear silence, we perceive that there is no sound.
•	We don’t know ignorance, we fail to know anything else.

How We Understand Defect:
•	By comparison to that which is not in any way defective or deficient:
–	The Holy Trinity
•	God cannot be defective, but “natures made of nothing can”(Aug.23, CP.31)
•	The more being they (created things) have, the more good they do.
•	***Being, like goodness, is a quantity.

Will:
•	By nature the will seeks what is best, it’s through acquired defect that we choose the wrong ends.
•	A will becomes evil willingly by failing to seek the Supreme Being and instead seeking that which has less.
•	For this the person is punished.  God does not cause our actions, but does judge them.

Preconditions for Witchcraft:
•	The Devil
•	A Witch
•	Permission of God

Implications for Witchcraft:
•	Humans have a fallen nature.
–	Knowledge of Good and Evil, we can choose.
–	Result of the moral deficiency of our ancestors.
–	Also result of mutability of our material nature
•	Women are more closely associated with the material than are men.
•	Evil corrupts the good, and evil like a sickness, can be cured.

Implications for Witchcraft:
•	Either a corruption is cured (penance) or the body that bears the corruption is destroyed.
•	If it was decided that a person was beyond the aid of redemption, that person was destroyed before the corruption could affect others.
•	Witches were burned at the stake, for everyone’s good, including their own.

That is the power of an Idea.

END.