Criticizing Augustine's Account of Natural and Moral Evil - Essay Example

A number of mortals will be saved by the love and compassion of God, and others will be denounced to endless suffering. Ultimately, the justice and goodness of God are expressed. After reading the City of God, particularly Books XI-XIV, I came to oppose Augustine’s explanation of the roots and of the ultimate nature of moral evil. It is argued that the concept of temporarily faultless entities intentionally giving in to sin is meaningless and paradoxical. A genuinely faultless entity, albeit free to commit transgressions, would ideally or, in truth, never commit even one sin.

To point the root of evil to the intentional wrongdoing of a faultless entity is hence to claim the ultimate irony that evil has shaped itself out of nothing. Moreover, there seems to be a dissonance between this theological account and the canon of predestination of Augustine, which effectively creates the root of moral evil within the liability and intention of God. The canon of Augustine talks about the descending of angels. Augustine introduced the notion of Natural and Moral evil. The former are the occurrences that resemble evil, like war, flood, earthquakes, etc.

They resemble evil because human beings are ruled by selfishness, have an imperfect consciousness and understanding and are not capable of discerning the ‘grand purpose’ of the unraveling play of God. Hence, when seen in the point of view of God’s grand purpose, natural evils cease to appear evil in any way. In contrast, moral evil is the outcome of human action and will. These are the blameworthy outcomes of a resolve that has become tied to mundane or inferior principles and activities, viewing them as though they were greater.

Basically, moral evil is the deviation of the will from God and relating itself to lower principles as though they were greater. My purpose in this paper is to argue against Augustine’s account of the Natural evil and Moral evil or, more particularly, the problem of evil. The Flaws of Augustine’s Natural Evil and Moral Evil I mostly disagree to the notion that God granted good being the liberty to commit sin. If a creature is faultless in its righteousness it would in no way commit any transgression even though it is free to do so.

Evil would therefore have to form itself out of nothing, which is absurd. Nevertheless, it is not logical that moral faultlessness essentially involves indisputability. Moreover, Augustine’s dispute of the Manichean’s notion of the human soul as Light’s divided component would eradicate the vital difference between the maker and the created (Jones 1969). In addition, it would weaken the responsibility of human beings for the perpetration of sin. The argument of Augustine, by eliminating the essence of Satan as a contributory factor, makes all the arguments of the Manicheans illogical (Jones 1969).

Similar to all excellent critiques Augustine prevails by eliminating the core principle that the argument of the Manicheans is rooted in: “God, being supremely real, is supremely good. God’s creatures, being in varying degrees less real than God, are in corresponding degrees less good. Their so-called evil is simply the absence of goodness and reality; it is the inevitable consequence of their status as creature” (Jones 1969, 95). Moreover, Natural evil is the outcome of human weaknesses, more particularly, human beings’