Intro: Part 1 installment
introduces Augustine’s theory of God being an all-present being itself in
relation to continuity of evil and free will, which will be compared to Bruch
Spinoza’s theory of God being everything and also being completely impersonal
and uncaring about anything or anyone, as well as comparison of Spinoza’s
approach to free will to Augustine’s approach which will be discussed late on
in Part 2 instalment.
Augustine added to his solution that free will was the cause of our ill doings as we turn aside from God to a lesser good. God has given us free will, which allows us to act morally, and thus decide whether to be good, as God intended by which can do in following His commandments, or we can choose to turn away from those greater goods. Augustine believed that if God had programmed us to always choose good over evil we wouldn’t do any harm, but we then would not really be free. Augustine argued that it is better that God had given us a choice to decide whether to be of a higher good or of a much less sense of good, that being something evil. Otherwise, we would be God’s puppets, under His control so that we may always behave ourselves and stray from violence and other evils. To Augustine, God is powerful enough to prevent evil, but the fact that evil still exists is not directly due to God in his conclusion. More so that moral evil is a result of our choices made, and to Augustine, was a result of the choices Adam and Eve made in the Garden of Eden. Augustine’s theory of God as an all-present being who could end evil but allows it to happen due to his creation’s (people’s) ability to have free will to remain convinces many believers to believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful, and al-good God since we (people) are the true source of evil through decisions made through free will.
https://www.str.org/articles/augustine-on-evil#.WO-TtG8rLcs & Ch. 6 of L.H.
"everything He brought to be to be all good as well, Augustine came to a solution that one can only turn away from good, from a greater good to a lesser good since all thing are created by God and are thus good" - this is incoherent, if God also "allows evil to take place in the world"...
ReplyDelete"God is powerful enough to prevent evil, but the fact that evil still exists is not directly due to God" - also incoherent, unless "omnipotent," "omniscient," and "all good" mean something very different from their normal human signification.
And, what does free will have to do with earthquakes, diseases, and other natural evils?