I found our discussion of the concept of evil according to Augustine and Boethius fascinating. After all, when we retouched on this discussion in class on Tuesday, it again sparked major discussion, so I want to work through some of the thoughts on this one.
If God is good, and God is the creator of all things, how did evil come about? Is evil a living, tangible thing, or is it merely an absence of God, and absence of good, merely a lesser good? Both Augustine and Boethius agree that if God is good, He cannot create evil. So, where does evil come from? These early christian philosophers agree that evil s merely an absence of good, as darkness is the absence of light, and cold is the absence of heat. This got me thinking about what God explicitly calls good and not good, so naturally I turned to the creation story in Genesis 1. God calls everything that He made "good," but calls one thing "not good." What in this perfect world is not good? The lack, or absence of something: The lack of companionship for Adam.
So, is evil actually "not good"; is it the lack of goodness? I'm not sure if I'm totally convinced, but interesting thoughts :)
P.S.: Commented on "The Greater Good."
If so, that makes a powerful case for both the existence of evil and God's separate-ness from it. Evil is not tangible, that we have established; however, evil exists. How, if God is good? Every good thing can become corrupted, and if good becomes completely corrupted then evil is the name it is given. This "evil" is not created by God, rather it is when sinful, human man twists the good gift of God into something other than what it is supposed to be. This distorted form, called evil, is caused by man and so mankind has to reap the consequences. The wicked man is one who try to achieve the highest good "by a variety of concupiscences, and that surely is an unnatural way of seeking the good" (Boethius p.78-79).
ReplyDeleteThis makes sense in some ways. But I must wonder - if this is true, how could something good ever do or allow anything to corrupt goodness? Would not the very idea of doing or allowing something that is not good be not-good in itself? Where would this not-good idea come from? This definition of evil seems to transform humans from creatures born in sin to small versions of the Good. Now I am very confused. Does anyone have any ideas about this?
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