The Problem of Evil: In Defense of Augustine

In every religion where a good and all-powerful god, a problem occurs. How can evil exist if an all powerful God created everything? If God created everything, how could He — a good God — have created evil? After all, a god who orchestrates evil cannot be purely good, and if God were not a good god, the very foundation of Christianity would be shaken.

Many Christians have wrestled with this dilemma throughout their lives. One such Christian was Augustine, who wrestles with this throughout his book, Confessions. Eventually, he comes to the conclusion that evil, as a separate entity, does not exist: “[T]o Your whole creation likewise, evil is not” (Confessions, 7.13).

Is Augustine correct? Because God created everything, and a good God cannot create evil, I would argue he is.

Premise 1: A good God cannot create evil

If something which is good creates evil, this mars the pureness, or goodness, of the thing which creates evil. For something good to create evil would in itself make the good thing evil. If God created evil, He would change from a good being to an evil being. Does God change? Malachi 3:6 says, “[...] I the Lord do not change [...]” (ESV): the Bible is explicit in this. God does not change. If He does not change, is He then evil? Mark 10:18 says, “[...] no one is good except God alone” (ESV). If no one is good but God, it then follows that God must be good. And so, God is good.

If no good thing can create evil, and God is good, God must not have created evil.

Premise 2: God created everything which was created

The beginning of Genesis details the creation story, but in the New Testament, creation is revisited in John (specifically, in the beginning of John). In John 1:1, 3, John says: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made” (ESV). Every created thing was made by the Word (the divine Logos), and the Word was God. This being so, it follows that every created thing was made by God. Augustine himself agrees with this idea: “... You [God] created all things …” (Confessions, 7.18). Because everything which was made was made through Jesus, God must have made everything, and there was nothing which God did not make.

God made everything which was created.

Evil was never created.

Because God could not have created evil, and God created all things, there is only one conclusion that can be drawn: that evil was never created.

However, some Christians unintentionally fall into a heresy at this point. They agree that God could not have created evil, and that God created all things, and that evil, therefore, was never created. However, here is where the trap lies, a split from the path of truth leading to the treacherous waters of heresy: on one side, the path of Biblical doctrine, on the other, the Manichaen heresy. Sometimes, a Christian will assert that if these premises are true, what follows is that evil exists, and is eternal. Augustine himself fell into this heresy as a young man: he explains, “...I supposed that there were two opposing powers, each infinite, yet the evil one lesser and the good one greater” (Confessions, 5.10). This view, although enticing (as it allows a release from the struggle regarding why evil exists) has a fundamental misunderstanding of the world. This view paints history as a cosmic struggle between good and evil, both of which are eternal — both of which are equal. In the Bible, however, God is repeatedly referred to as the first and the last, as the alpha and the omega. Revelation 22:13-15 says, “ I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End” (ESV). An eternal thing can only be both the first and the last if it were to be the only eternal thing. Otherwise, if there were two eternal beings, both would have tied for first place — evil, therefore, cannot be eternal if God is the first.

Evil cannot be eternal, because only God is eternal.

The dilemma remains unsolved, however: if God cannot create evil, and God created everything, and evil is not eternal, how does evil exist? Instead of declaring that evil is eternal, one can simply declare that evil was never created, and therefore does not exist. Here is another trap: it seems as if one could simply say, But evil does exist! and point to every horror which has occurred in human history. The effects of evil are simply too noticeable to deny.

However, this is not what the statement “evil does not exist” means. Instead of declaring that evil simply doesn’t occur, it is instead correct to assert that evil does not exist because it is not its own thing.

Evil, in essence, has no essence, because it is simply the privation of good.

Think of darkness, for example: darkness does not really exist, because darkness is simply the lack of light. And yet, the effects of darkness still are noticeable in the world today.

In the same way, evil does not really exist, because evil is simply the privation, or the marring, of good. As Augustine puts it, “all that is corrupted is thereby deprived of good” (Confessions, 7.12), and again, “...evil has no being of its own but is only an absence of good, so that it simply is not” (Confessions, 3.7). He is correct to assert this, because there is no other conclusion which satisfactorily answers the problem of evil and its existence.

Evil things may happen, but evil as a thing simply does not exist, because it is merely the privation of good. 

Why does this matter?

In Confessions, Augustine argues that evil does not exist on its own, but merely exists as a privation of evil. His argument is sound, because a good God cannot create evil, and created everything, and so evil must not have been created, ever. Because evil was never created, and evil is not eternal, evil simply does not exist on its own, it can only corrupt good things.

As Satan, the usurper, attempts to corrupt the Church and the world, Christians must remember that Satan, however powerful he is, cannot create, but can merely corrupt. His power is infinitely less than the power of the Almighty God.

In the end, because evil is lesser than good, good will conquer. And because God is good, He will conquer.

Christians must have faith in God, and hope in the true end of history, because they know the full story: Satan will not win.

There is a good ending, and in that good ending, God conquers.

Works Cited

Augustine. Confessions. Translated by F.J. Sheed, edited by Michael P. Foley, Hackett Publishing Company, 2006.

Augustine, and Albert Cook Outler. The Confessions of St. Augustine. Dover Publications, 2002.

The Holy Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2011.