What Is Augustine Idea Of Evil

Augustine’s argument for defining evil is that it is trying to do something good, but not doing it in the right way, so the outcome is bad. What we call evil is actually just a corruption of good. God created everything with a good intention, so everything God created is actually good. Augustine approaches the idea of evil by saying that, “evil had no being on its own but is only an absence of good” (44). Augustine explains this reasoning with the example of him stealing the pears. When Augustine stole the pears, he did not actually need them. He already had plenty of pears, so he did not steal them for nourishment. Also, the pears that he had were better than the ones that he stole, so that was not the purpose either. Then after he stole the pears, he just fed them to the pigs. Augustine says that, “the pleasure [he] got was not in the pears, it must have been in the crime itself, and put there by the companionship of others sitting with me” (33). The reason that Augustine stole the pears was to fit in with his friends. By stealing the pears, Augustine was actually looking for companionship. The idea of companionship is not bad; it is actually good. Augustine was pursuing something good: companionship, but went about it in the wrong way: stealing the
There are many situations that cannot be seen as someone pursing a good, but going about it in a wrong way. When a person kidnaps a child, yes, you could say that perhaps they were taking them to raise as their own because they wanted to be a parent, but they just went about it in a wrong way. But what about when kidnaps a child, tortures and kills them. What possible good could that person be pursing? The answer is that they are not pursuing good. That person is an example of iniquity which is not missing the mark, but not aiming at good things at all. When a person kidnaps a child just to torture and kill them they are not pursuing good, but they are pursuing