Michaela Bunke

Augustine Paper

Questions #2

The problem of evil has long been one of the most challenging questions for Christians to
answer: how could such profound evil and an all-powerful, good God exist simultaneously in the
same universe? This question bothered Augustine just as it bothered many Christians before him
and has many, many since. Disturbed by the dualism of the Manicheans, Augustine searched for
a more satisfactory explanation, eventually finding neo-Platonism to provide the best solution.
Whereas the Manicheans posited good and evil as two opposing forces, neo-Platonism used the
idea of the One to show that evil was merely the absence or a divergence from the One, rather
than its own substance. This, to Augustine, absolved a good God from having created evil, and
showed that there need not be any inconsistency in the coexistence of God and evil.
In Book VII of his Confessions, Augustine describes the thoughts that ran through his
head as he struggled to understand where his own sin could have come from if not from God: If
the devil is to blame, who made the devil himself? And if he was a good angel who by his own
wicked will became the devil, how did there happen to be in him that wicked will by which he
became a devil, since a good Creator made him wholly a good angel? (Book VII, Ch. V).
Augustines dilemma is this: If God created everything that exists, and evil/sin exists, then God
must have created evil, but that would seem to be inconsistent with his goodness. As long as evil
was a substance, this riddle seemed unsolvable.
However, in chapter IX, Augustine states that God didst procure for me, through one
inflated with the most monstrous pride, certain books of the Platonists, going on to describe
what he read and how it gave him another way to view the nature of good and evil. NeoPlatonism put forth the idea of the One, into which all things ultimately diffused and lost their
individuality. Plotinus claimed that all things strive toward this One; the One was the foundation

Michaela Bunke

Augustine Paper

Questions #2

of all that existed1. Integrating this principle with Christian doctrine allowed Augustine to finally
resolve the conflict, by seeing good as a positively existing substance, and evil as the departure
from or absence of the good, not a substance of its own. Therefore, whatsoever is, is good. Evil,
then, the origin of which I had been seeking, has no substance at all; for if it were a substance, it
would be good (Book VII, Ch. XII).
However, Augustine does not agree with the neo-Platonists on everythingto do so
would contradict his Christian beliefs. The discrepancies between Augustines beliefs and neoPlatonism lie mainly in the deeply personal nature of Christianity that is not found in Plato or
Plotinus teachings. The One of the neo-Platonists was impersonal, not a being or anything
of the like that had a will; the God of Augustine was very much a personal Being that did have
a willwhats more, this will was to beget a Son who became human and defeated the evil that
had corrupted the good that God had created (Book VII, Ch. XII). Augustine articulates this
at the end of Book VII by calling out what is missing in the Neo-Platonists ideas: Their pages
do not contain the expression of this kind of godliness--the tears of confession, thy sacrifice, a
troubled spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, the salvation of thy people, the espoused City, the
earnest of the Holy Spirit, the cup of our redemption (Book VII, Chapter XXI).
The philosophy of the Neo-Platonists greatly affected Augustines views, especially in
relation to the nature of good and evil. His long frustration over the problem of evil was finally
relieved with the option the Neo-Platonists provided to view evil as a departure from good rather
than its own substance. Yet though Augustine was deeply influenced by these philosophies and
often fused them with Christian doctrine, he did not fully embrace the teachings of Plato and
Plotinus, as the logical conclusions of their teachings were often in contradiction with the deeply
personal nature of the Christian God.

Plotinus, Fifth Ennead, Fourth Tractate