Augustine
"I loved the happy life but I feared to find it in Your house and so I ran from it even as I sought after it. I thought that I would be miserable if I were kept from a woman's arms. I did not believe that a cure for this disease lay in Your mercy; I had no experience of such a cure. I believed that continence was within a man's own powers, though I was unaware of such a power within me. I was a fool and did not know - as it is written [in Scripture] - that no man can be continent unless You grant it to him. And this You surely would have given to me if, with inward groanings, I had knocked at your ears and with a firm faith had cast my many cares upon You."(from The Confessions, Book 6, Chapter 11, circa 397-400 A.D.) Augustine was born in A.D. 354 in the town of Thagaste in Algeria. His father was a pagan and his mother was a devout Christian. Augustine was educated as a rhetorician in the former North African cities of Tagaste, Madaura, and Carthage. Augustine died in A.D. 430 identifying himself as the supreme "doctor of grace." Augustine is, arguably, the greatest theologian-philosopher of all time. Some elements of Platonism can be seen in Augustine's teaching. His view of the world is Platonic,
Augustine sets up an argument in his Confessions that attempts to define evil, and in doing so, he explains its existence. To follow this argument, it is important to realize that Augustine accepts some basic precepts regarding God and His creation. To begin with, God is the author of everything. Augustine says, "nothing that exists could exist without You" (1.2). God is the creator and source of all things. " . . . When He made the world He did not go away and leave it. By Him it was created and in Him exists" (4.12). Nothing in this world exists apart from God. Also, God is in control of everything in this world. "Everything takes its place according to your law" (1.7). Augustine clearly sets forth that God is the creator and source of everything. Not only is He the source, but he is the Sustainer for its continued existence. The next step Augustine takes regards the nature of God's creation. For Augustine, God is good because everything He made is good. "Therefore, the G-d who made me must be good and all the good in me is His"(1.20). Everything about God is good. There is no aspect of Him that is lacking, false, or not good. These characteristics are in turn transferred to His creation. "You, my God, are the source of all good"(1.6). According to Augustine's studies, God created the world ex nihilo, "out of nothing." By doing this, Augustine seems to violate the maxim Ex nihilo, nihil fit, "Out of nothing, nothing comes." He did not argue that once there was nothing and spontaneously there was something. This comprehension of self-creation would be unconstitutional by the laws of science and irrational. "To Augustine, creation ex nihilo does not mean by nothing, instead, it means that creation did not have a material cause." For something to create itself, it must exist before it was created, a manifest violation of the "law of noncontradiction," as the thing must be and not be at the same time and in the same relationship. "Thus, without any pre-existing matter God willed that things exist and they did exist; and this is precisely what we call creation ex nihilo."f¢ However, Augustine makes an important distinction regarding the creation of good and evil when he says, "O Lord my God, creator and arbiter of all natural things, but arbiter only, not creator, of sin"(1.10). The question of what evil is, and where it came from, still remains. Augustine es
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Approximate Word count = 1622
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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