St. Augustine spent his entire life in search of the correct philosophy, the True philosophy. After many years of trying out different belief systems, St. Augustine came to have a worldview that is considered theocentric, or God-centered. St. Augustine makes several biblically justified claims on the relationship between the nature of God, the soul and the bodies. He also tackles the nature of evil in a satisfactory manner.
Augustinian Beliefs On God
St. Augustine believes that “all natures are placed on three levels." God is at the top of this vertical line, followed by the human soul and lastly, the bodies are on the lowest level. St. Augustine believes that God is a personal being, a being who created the universe under His own act of free will. God is considered the cause of everything, yet uncaused Himself. St. Augustine shares that, “He (God) can suffer no change, either in time or place." Along with God’s transcendence, he also contains eternal truths and principles that St. Augustine refers to as rationes aeternae. These rationes aeternae are similar to a Platonic form of teaching. Rationes aeternae are like the “platonic forms residing in God’s mind,” This means that God has all perfect concepts of platonic forms such as Beauty, Idea, Justice, Courage, etc. This creates a thick line between God, who is the Creator, and all else which is His creation.
The Human Soul
The human soul is what follows God on this vertical line of which St. Augustine created. Unlike God, souls are “completely mutable: they grow older in time and are buffeted about in place," The human soul is considered reason in time. It links a form of intellect with the natural realm. The soul is able to give order and create things produced by nature by infusing ideas into it. Humans were created by God’s free will in the image of God. Because they were created in God’s image, humanity then obtains the free will to turn away from God. St. Augustine relays to his readers that, “If man turns his attention up to God, this is conversio; but if man turns away from God, it does not matter to what else he turns, this is aversio or perversio.” St. Augustine believes that through conversio, or religious conversion, that it is in humanity’s best interest to look up on this vertical line back towards God.However, human beings are unable to achieve this return to God without God’s help. To return to God, humanity must have “faith seeking understanding.” This was a key phrase of St. Augustine when discussing how humanity could return to God. First they must have faith. Faith is the assent to truths that are not clearly seen. One must believe in God and in who He is to better understand God in His entirety. The soul is also considered an intermediate between the divine and the physical world. By this St. Augustine simply means that the soul is spiritual like God is, but corruptible or changeable. The soul contains the capacity to turn away from God and towards physical things through an aversio (aversion) or perversio (perversion).The Bodies
The lowest portion on this vertical line is the nature of the bodies. Bodies, as described by St. Augustine, are completely mutable. Bodies are not transcendent to time like both God and the soul, and they are considered immutable in place. St. Augustine equates the body to being the passions. Whatever the eyes see, the ears hear, and the tongue tastes, that is an “operation” of the body and not the soul, the soul must turn away from. The bodies are considered the temptations and trials that the souls experience in this life. St. Augustine demonstrates this through his metaphor of the City of God being contrary to the City of Man. It is the good that is the Church, against the evils of the world, being the privation of the good of the Church. These two cities are in a constant war within the human soul.
The soul is supposed to turn away from these materials that are made up by the body's desires. If the soul gives in, the soul suffers itself. If the soul looks down on this vertical line to things inferior to God, the soul is weakened. It becomes a slave to an easier lived life and a life considered more “toilsome and troublesome” to St. Augustine. Instead of looking to fixate the body's desires, St. Augustine believes that the body should be a tool of the soul. And then the soul should be obedient in looking up to God.
The Nature Of Evil
Along with tackling the relationship that God has alongside and within the nature of the soul and bodies, St. Augustine struggled with the problem of evil. The problem of evil puts God’s all-good and all-powerful nature into question. If God is all-good and all-powerful, why does evil exist? Many are led to that God is either not all-good or that He is not all-powerful. He could not possibly be all-good if there is evil in the world, and He could not possibly be all-powerful if He does not eliminate evil from this world. St. Augustine offers a metaphysical solution for this problem of evil. He first acknowledges that the Trinity is “supremely and equally and unchangeably good.” All things that come from the Trinity, including creation, are ultimately good beings. He believes that when evil is regulated, it only enhances humanity’s admiration of the good.
St. Augustine says that the Almighty God would never permit the existence of anything evil among His creation or His works. Because of this, evil is the privation, or absence of good created by humanity. St. Augustine illustrates this by stating that, “In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health…”When the animal is then cured, the disease and wounds cease to exist instead of dwelling elsewhere. The wounds and diseases were a defect, just as evil is a defect of good. Although evil is a constant in this world, St. Augustine believes that no matter how small a being is, the good that makes it a being cannot be destroyed without destroying the being itself. God did not create evil; humanity did in their ability to freely turn away from God Who is ultimately good.
Augustine's Metaphysics
St. Augustine’s metaphysical argument remains structurally sound and valid in regard to God’s authority over humanity as a whole. St. Augustine considered evil to be the privation of good. By definition, privation is considered an absence of something. St. Augustine is able to appeal to non-believers in this circumstance because he stays consistent with Platonic thoughts in reference to the Argument on the Forms of Opposites. This argument states that all things come into being from their opposite. For example, since death is the opposite of life, life then comes into being from death, thus causing life to be the absence, or privation, of death. The Argument on the Forms of Opposites best supports St. Augustine's position on evil being the privation of good because evil is considered the opposite of good. If there is a lack of good, or a privation of good, then there is evil. Evil came into being due to God providing humanity with the ability to turn away from Him. God gave humanity free will because humanity was made in the image of Him, and He had the free will to either create us or to not have created us. Free will is easily equated to freedom. No person in all of humanity can argue that they do not wish to be free. Therefore, humanity continues to have the free will to either look up to God or turn away from Him. Since the opposite of good is evil, those who turn away from God in humanity bring evil into the world by their absence of good. Believers in Christ, on the other hand, know that evil can do nothing when the human spirit belongs to God. This is best relayed in 1 John 5:18 where the writer states, “We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them.” Only those who are apart from God, non-believers, can be enveloped in evil. For if one’s spirit resides in God and all of His Goodness, evil can no longer cause harm upon them. The biblical text along with humanity’s desire for free will, supports St. Augustine’s claim that God created everything that is good. Everything that is apart from being created by God is evil, thus causing evil to be the absence, or privation, of both good and God.A Response To Arguments Against Augustine's Metaphysics
Many people, however, find St. Augustine's answer for the nature of evil to be incomplete. They often put God's existence into question. How could there could be a God if such a thing as "natural evil" exists? Natural evil refers to natural disasters such as famines and floods. These people argue that if God exists, then a being has to exist who is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. If there existed a being who were omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good, then there would be no "natural" evil. But since there is natural evil, God must not exist. The wrong question is being pursued in this case. What should be asked by these people is, what is God's agenda for His creation? Since all people have their own agenda for what is good and what is evil, why does it surprise us that God may have his own agenda as well? God may tolerate natural evil because God has created a universe with particular natural laws that make life on earth possible so that humans with free will can exist in the first place. The same weather systems that create tornadoes that kill humans also create thunderstorms that provide our environment with the water vital for human existence. God may also tolerate natural evil because it is the necessary consequence of human free will. Humans often rebuild along earthquake fault lines and known hurricane pathways. Much of this activity results in what humanity likes to call a "natural" disaster.
There are times when "natural" evil is caused or aggravated by human free will. This is the same free will that humanity does not wish to live without. Since humanity does not wish to be without freedom, or free will, they must be able to cope with the idea that the "natural evils" in the world are caused by themselves. Just because God does not stop these "natural" disasters or evils, does not mean that He is not omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly good. It simply means that His agenda is different from humanity's.
St. Augustine was able to successfully create an argument that God contains all authority over soul and bodies. He also was able to relay to his readers that there is a high importance in the soul turning away from the body and looking up towards God in all of His Glory. He then formatted a firm argument, with the support of Biblical text and the human desire for freedom, that evil is the privation of both good and God. It can then be concluded that, in my view, St. Augustine’s theocentric worldview is the true and well-grounded philosophy.
