Augustinian Theodicy:

God, Evil, and the Beauty of the Opposition of Contraries

Matthew J. Coté

PH1010: Problem of Evil

December 1, 2020
 Introduction

Augustine of Hippo penned The City of God in the early 5th century in response to the

rise in the propensity for some Christians to abandon the faith in light of circumstantial and

cultural affliction and suffering. In order to provide a general defense for the Christian faith, and

notably the problem of evil, Augustine proceeded to provide his substantial treatise. In book XI,

chapters 17-22, he establishes a particular understanding of the nature of, and relationship

between, God, evil, and creation. This paper serves as an analysis of Augustine’s position on the

nature of evil and its relationship to creation and the will of God. More specifically, Augustine’s

notion of the beauty of the opposition of contraries will be evaluated as a viable theodicy in light

of the nature of evil and God’s will.

God’s Nature

In providing an analysis of Augustine’s theodicy from The City of God, it is of utmost

importance that the starting point of such an inquiry be the nature of God Himself. The positive

evidence for God’s existence and His attributive perfections provides the necessary prolegomena

for the response to the problem of evil. Moreover, an ambiguous term like ‘God’ in an argument

serves as the means through which the argument may be undermined entirely, which may be the

case at times with various iterations of the problem of evil coming from proponents through the

last several millennia.

In The City of God, Augustine presents a view of God, not as a moral agent acting rightly

or wrongly, but rather as the exemplar and perfection of goodness itself. He states: “God is the
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supremely good Creator of good natures.”1 Giving being to the created order requires the power

of being itself, and such a cause bestows goodness in all natures as the source of all goodness.

Augustine further affirms “the nature of God to be, as it is, unchangeable and absolutely

incorruptible, and subject to no injury.”2 As Pure Act, with no potency for change, the source and

cause of being and goodness itself remains unaffected by the created order. As such, the category

of moral agency, or any category for that matter, simply does not arise in the context of God’s

nature. God is incapable of failing to be goodness itself subsisting, which is not a limitation, but

a perfection. Brian Davies astutely concurs in stating:

People see 'the problem of evil' as calling on us to take sides on the question of God's
moral integrity. If that view is based on a category mistake, however, then there simply is
no problem of evil as they conceive it to be. Whether we believe in God or not, we need
no more worry as to whether or not he is well behaved than we need worry as to whether
or not tennis players score goals.3

The important distinction here can be seen through an analogy of being. God is being, or

goodness itself subsisting, i.e. His essence is identical to His existence; the necessary causal

power that imparts being to the created order, while the contingent created order merely has

being, as caused particular acts of being mated with natures, which are necessarily good because

of their cause. As such, God and creatures only share an analogy of being, as cause is to effect,

and thus why God does not participate in the categories descriptive of the created order, like

moral agency. Further, human language, a finite construct, is rooted in our experience and

1 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 17. trans. Marcus Dods (New York: The Modern Library, 2000). Sed
Deus sicut naturarum bonarum optimus creator est.
2 Ibid., XI. 22. Dei naturam, sicuti est, incommutabilem atque omnino incorruptibilem crederent, cui
nocere nulla res possit.

3 Brian Davies. The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil (London: Continuum International Publishing

Group, 2006), 104-105.

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knowledge of the finite created order itself, and as such is incapable of conceiving or predicating,

in any univocal sense, about God’s infinite being.

Augustine is also very intentional in maintaining consistency with God’s immutability

and simplicity in relation to His knowledge. He states: “For He does not pass from this to that by

transition of thought, but beholds all things with absolute unchangeableness; so that of those

things which emerge in time, the future, indeed, are not yet, and the present are now, and the past

no longer are; but all of these are by Him comprehended in His stable and eternal presence.”4

This affirmation of God’s absolute unchangeableness supports the distinction between creator

and creature mentioned previously, and as such serves to eliminate anthropomorphic notions of

God knowing things discursively, or through some state of process. God knows all things

through knowing Himself as the cause of all things. Augustine seems to imply this in stating:

“For as without any movement that time can measure, He Himself moves all temporal things, so

He knows all times with a knowledge that time cannot measure.”5 Here Augustine not only

maintains God’s absoluteness in being, but with it comes the implication that God’s knowledge is

causative. If God’s knowledge and will were separate metaphysical realities in His essence, then

He would not be absolutely unchangeable, since there would minimally be a process of

movement from knowledge, to will, to act, not to mention a cause of such a composition. No

such process or cause occurs in Pure Act; an absolutely simple being whose essence is existence

itself. This notion is made more explicit in the work of Thomas Aquinas, the great commentator

4 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 21. Ille quippe non ex hoc in illud cogitatione mutata, sed omnino

incommutabiliter uidet; ita ut illa quidem, quae temporaliter fiunt, et futura nondum sint et praesentia iam sint et
praeterita iam non sint, ipse uero haec omnia stabili ac sempiterna praesentia conprehendat.

5 Ibid. Neque enim eius intentio de cogitatione in cogitationem transit, in cuius incorporeo contuitu simul

adsunt cuncta quae nouit; quoniam tempora ita nouit nullis suis temporalibus notionibus, quem ad modum
temporalia mouet nullis suis temporalibus motibus.
 4

on Augustine, when he states: “The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge

of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art. Now it

is manifest that God causes things by His intellect, since His being is His act of understanding

and hence His knowledge must be the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined to it.”6 Such

an explication is consistent with the collective affirmations of Augustine already provided, and as

such, serve as a philosophical basis for his theology proper.

With a firm philosophical theology established from passages in Augustine’s The City of

God, the nature of evil remains an important further step in analyzing Augustine’s theodicy. If

God knows and moves all things through His goodness, how then does Augustine explain the

reality of evil? What is its nature?

Nature of Evil

Having affirmed a particular view of God’s nature from book XI, chapters 17-22 in The

City of God, Augustine additionally provides a clear explanation of the nature of evil and how it

relates to both God and creatures. He states at the outset: “without doubt, wickedness can be a

flaw or vice only where the nature previously was not vitiated.”7 Augustine makes this statement

in the context of God as the cause and source of the unvitiated natures, and as such, wickedness,

or evil, is not a thing in and of itself, but is rather a privation of the good in natures. Evil exists

only where something good once existed unimpaired, which means that evil has no being apart

6 Thomas Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, trans. Fr. Laurence Shapcote, O.P. (Lander, Wyoming: The Aquinas
Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, 2012). I. 14. 8. Scientia Dei est causa rerum. Sic enim scientia Dei se
habet ad omnes res creatas, sicut scientia artificis se habet ad artificiata. Manifestum est autem quod Deus per
intellectum suum causat res, cum suum esse sit suum intelligere. Unde necesse est quod sua scientia sit causa rerum,
secundum quod habet voluntatem coniunctam.
7 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 17. Quia sine dubio, ubi est uitium malitiae, natura non uitiata praecessit.
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from created goods. This absence, or deprivation of a good in a nature can be actualized through

an act of the will in creatures. In reference to the devil, Augustine reiterates this notion in stating

that he is “good by God’s creation, wicked by his own will.”8 And further that evil is “contrary to

nature and cannot but damage it . . . so that even the wicked will is a strong proof of the

goodness of the nature.”9 With a view of evil as privation, Augustine avoids the charge of evil as

a creation of God, and also maintains consistency with His goodness and absolute

unchangeableness. Moreover, evil’s ontological status is rooted in a privation of the freewill of a

being created good; acting for an apparent good, or good desire misappropriated. Human natures

are mutable, and as such move from moral purity, from creation, to moral sin through the abuse

of the potency of freewill.

Augustine establishes a clear case for the nature of evil rooted in the privation of a good

will, but the charge could be made that evil exists in nature, apart from the will. That is, that

creation contains beings that are, or are affected by, evil in some way. Augustine suggests some

examples for this notion, like “fire, frost, wild beasts, and so forth, which do not suit but injure

this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our flesh.”10 Or what about cancer, viruses, animal

suffering and death? Are such natural things, or the effects of such things, evil? If so, then it

would seem to indicate that evil has substance, or being in itself, and as such requires a cause of

its existence. Moreover, if God is the cause of all existing things, then God would seem to be the

cause of such natural evils.

8 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 17. Institutione illius bonus, uoluntate sua malus.
9 Ibid. Contra naturam est, ut non possit nisi nocere naturae . . . quapropter etiam uoluntas mala grande
testimonium est naturae bonae.
10 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 22. Quia egenam carnis huius fragilemque mortalitate. miam de iusto
supplicio uenientem, dum ei non conueniunt, plurima offendunt, sicut ignis aut frigus aut fera bestia aut quid eius
modi.
 6

In reply to this objection, Augustine argues that “no nature at all is evil.”11 That is, that all

existent things are good in themselves, as creations of God, who is goodness itself subsisting.

Nothing that has being is essentially evil, since evil is non-being, or a lack, or privation, of the

good in being. Augustine states that “persons, who suppose that some evil nature has been

generated and propagated by a kind of opposing principle proper to it, refuse to admit that the

cause of the creation was this, that the good God produced a good creation.”12 However, such a

response in isolation may not be satisfying to the intellect. the further question arises as to how

we are to understand such things as having good natures, especially given the appearance of a

lack of goodness, and in some cases evil suffered. The response to such a question is

multifaceted, but nonetheless, consistent metaphysically.

First and foremost, again, anything that has being is itself good in its nature. As such, the

natural activities of freezing and burning are goods in themselves as creative processes of the

material world. When the fire burns the fawn in the forest, it is not committing an evil act, as if it

were a moral agent working against its nature. Nor is the fire intrinsically evil, but rather the

effect of suffering is caused by the competing interaction between goods; the fawn’s flourishing,

and the flourishing produced by the fire, like the necessary cyclical soil fertilization and plant

reproduction of a healthy forest, which require fire as a cause. All animals, regardless of their

kind, are good. Both the lion and lamb are ontologically and necessarily good, as beings of God’s

creation. For example, the essence and teleology of a lion seems to indicate that a helpless lamb,

or such like, is its natural object of desire in attaining nourishment and flourishing as a particular

11 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 22. cum omnino natura nulla sit malum.

12 Ibid. Nec sane multum mirandum est, quod hi, qui nonnullam malam putant esse naturam suo quodam

contrario exortam propagatamque principio, nolunt accipere istam causam creationis rerum, ut bonus Deus conderet
bona.
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kind of being. Brian Davies comments regarding this in stating: “It may be bad for a lamb to be

eaten by a lion, yet, the lion is being fulfilled, indeed he is being filled, precisely by what

damages the lamb and renders it defective.”13 Further, Kyle Keltz, in his book, Thomism and the

Problem of Animal Suffering, argues:

To maximize the survivability of each species of nonhuman animals, God bestows certain
nonhuman animals with the ability to experience pain and suffering. Nonhuman animal
pain and suffering is not evil because it improves nonhuman animal flourishing, and
although it is unpleasant to its subjects, it is not morally significant for God to cause
because nonhuman animals are not persons.14

Davies and Keltz seem to indicate that such apparent evils suffered, while they may entail the

destruction of a good, which is a privation, are really not evils at all, at least in a moral sense, but

the concomitants of the natural order of creation, which is good.

Augustine, in furthering his rejection of natural evils, is careful to explain the error of

hasty judgements on the part of human observations of the good in the natural order. Many

things which may initially appear to have no utility or goodness whatsoever end up serving great

purpose upon further inspection. He states: “divine providence admonishes us not foolishly to

vituperate things, but to investigate their utility with care; and, where our mental capacity or

infirmity is at fault, to believe that there is a utility, though hidden, as we have experienced that

there were other things which we all but failed to discover.”15 In addition, Augustine describes

how poisons, when used properly, can serve to benefit an infirmity, while at the same time those

13 Brian Davies. The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, 181.
14Kyle Keltz, Thomism and the Problem of Animal Suffering (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers,
2020), 110.

15 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 22. Vnde nos admonet diuina prouidentia non res insipienter uituperare,

sed utilitatem rerum diligenter inquirere, et ubi nostrum ingenium uel infirmitas deficit, ita credere occultam, sicut
erant quaedam, quae uix potuimus inuenire.
 8

items which humans are accustomed to consuming pleasurably can cause great harm when used

improperly. As such, the careful inspection and judgment about things and their proper use is

vitally important in understanding the form and function, or essence and teleology, of things in

the created order. Further, the intricacy, beauty, and interworking of all things demonstrates the

handiwork of the artificer. And as Augustine argues, the difficulty in arriving at “the use of things

is itself either an exercise of our humility or a leveling of our pride.”16

With a broader picture coming together in relation to God’s nature and the nature of evil,

a few questions remain in establishing Augustine’s theodicy. If it is the case that God is the

paradigm of goodness itself, i.e. the eternal unchanging Pure Act of being subsisting, and the

cause of a necessarily good creation, and further that evil has no being in itself, but rather is a

privation of a good nature in a moral agent actualized through an expression of freewill, with

apparent natural evils being either necessary concomitant goods, or accidental privations causing

suffering, then the question follows as to how God is not in some indirect way the cause of

suffering, or the cause of good natures which go morally wrong? As such, though not the cause

of something that has no being in itself, i.e. evil, would He not yet remain the cause behind the

effects of suffering, and the cause of the freewill of moral agents who cause evil? How does God

escape culpability, and what are His reasons for permitting evils?

God’s Causal Nature

From what has been established thus far, it is clear that God is the cause of all things

which have being. Since evil does not have its own being, but rather exists in a good nature as a

16 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 22. Quia et ipsa utilitatis occultatio aut humilitatis exercitatio est aut

elationis adtritio.
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privation, it follows that God does not bring evil into existence. However, as the cause of good

natures with the potential for the privation of freewill, in what way is God a type of indirect

cause of evil, and does suffering, as a privation of being, entail that God is in some way the

cause? Augustine is clear that “nothing would have been made had it not been first known by

Him.”17 And moreover that “He Himself moves all temporal things.”18 As such, God both knows

and wills all things which have being through His own goodness. However, the accusation of

God directly causing evil, or evils per se, has clearly been refuted, since evil does not have its

own being in order to be caused. As such, what remains? Is the potency for privation in the will

of moral creatures an evil per se? It seems that this is not the case, since freewill is a per se

goodness, caused by God, even though it can be used for evil in the series of secondary causes of

moral agents. Augustine is also clear that the nature of freewill is such that it must have been

previously unimpaired, and given this, the immediate cause of moral privation must not be in

God as the first cause. God is the primary efficient cause of being, as well as the sustaining cause

of being, and also the final cause; the purpose for which the creature exists. As the Apostle Paul

states: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things (Romans 11:36).”19 As such,

the origin of moral evil, or sin, is not possibly in God in any sense, neither per se, nor per

accidens, though He does permit these secondary agent causations of privation through

sustaining being in act, even through privation and corruption, but more on God’s providential

use of evils will be discussed in subsequent sections.

17 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 21. Ut nihil eorum fieret, si ei fuisset incognitum.

18 Ibid. Neque enim eius intentio de cogitatione in cogitationem transit, in cuius incorporeo contuitu simul

adsunt cuncta quae nouit; quoniam tempora ita nouit nullis suis temporalibus notionibus, quem ad modum
temporalia mouet nullis suis temporalibus motibus.
19 NASB. ὅτι ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν τὰ πάντα
 10

As for apparent natural evils, or evils suffered, Augustine argues that no nature is at all

evil, and as such, these apparent evils of suffering are really not evils at all in any ontological or

moral sense, but rather the interworking of goods as part of God’s providential ordering of

creation. As Davies and Keltz seem to argue, such suffering is neither a per se, nor moral evil,

but rather the good of one nature’s flourishing through the corruption or privation of another

good nature as designed by God for the preservation of the created order. These concomitant

goods, achieved through suffering, are caused by God, through the willing of the good end in

creation, and entail natural privations or corruptions of being, as previously discussed. In

addition, God wills the punishment of sins, which is suffering, for the purpose of preserving

justice, and such justice, which is a good more desired, may entail a privation or corruption of

nature. Though Augustine does not elaborate upon this in the chapters discussed herein, the

following response is consistent with what Augustine has already established, as well as his other

works, and those he influenced. Aquinas elucidates in stating:

Now God wills no good more than He wills His own goodness; yet He wills one good
more than another. Hence He in no way wills the evil of sin, which is the privation of
right order towards the divine good. The evil of natural defect, or of punishment, He does
will, by willing the good to which such evils are attached. Thus in willing justice He wills
punishment; and in willing the preservation of the natural order, He wills some things to
be naturally corrupted.20

Therefore, the proper conclusion regarding God as the cause of evil is affirming the reality that

there are no per se evils caused at all, since evil has no being, and moreover that God is in no

way the cause of the evil of sin, even per accidens, since such evils are the result of the lack, or

20 Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, I. 19. 9. Nullum autem bonum Deus magis vult quam suam bonitatem, vult
tamen aliquod bonum magis quam aliud quoddam bonum. Unde malum culpae, quod privat ordinem ad bonum
divinum, Deus nullo modo vult. Sed malum naturalis defectus, vel malum poenae vult, volendo aliquod bonum, cui
coniungitur tale malum, sicut, volendo iustitiam, vult poenam; et volendo ordinem naturae servari, vult quaedam
naturaliter corrumpi.
 11

privation of goodness as a confused expression of the freewill in creatures. And finally, that God

is the cause of natural corruptions or privations as goods more desired through creation and the

good of justice meted out through punishment, but such sufferings are not really evils in the

same sense, but rather merely the per accidens sufferings concomitant with achieving goods in

God’s causal providence.

With further clarity provided on the nature of God and evil, the alleged problem of evil is

radically altered in its potency. The final topic needing explanation and analysis is why God

permits evil, and how it is used in His providential purposes. Such a further treatment serves to

complete a well rounded Augustinian theodicy, and is the purpose of the following section.

Goodness and the Beauty of the Opposition of Contraries

In beginning an analysis of Augustine’s explanation for God’s use and permission evil, it is

important to reiterate the reality if the finitude of human knowledge and its inability to know the

fullness of His purposes. The human intellect only has the finite creation and the human

construct of language to work with in attempting to know and pronounce judgements about God

and His will. Ultimately, the human intellect is radically incapable of transcending the realm of

the created order, and as such only sees through a glass darkly, as God dwells in supereminent

darkness. Given such limitations, our explanations merely serve as finite attempts at describing a

variety of analogical notions ultimately rooted in the perfection of the infinite Divine Essence,

whose essence is existence itself. As such, providing specific reasons as to why God permits and

uses evil for His purposes is an exercise that boarders on hubris. However, the following

explanation from Augustine is an attempt at providing such reasons.

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Augustine begins his explanation with the uncontroversial assertion that God “makes a

good use, even of evil wills.”21 Since God is His own goodness, and as such the cause of

goodness in all things, He wills good purposes, or ends, in and for all things, which entails the

notion that He wills the good through all privations, corruptions, and evils. Indeed, as Augustine

states, “God foresaw the good which He Himself would bring out of evil.”22 As such, in willing

the good end, He wills the means in achieving those ends. Now because God never wills the evil

of sin, as previously established, He must only permit such means, not as a cause, but only as an

ordering of use to the good end. Augustine elaborates on this in stating: “For God would never

have created any, I do not say angel, but even man, whose future wickedness He foreknew,

unless He had equally known to what uses in behalf of the good He could turn him, thus

embellishing the course of the ages, as it were an exquisite poem set off with antitheses.”23 This

exquisite poem, or pulcherrimum carmen (most beautiful song), as Augustine writes, is the

notion that God uses evil as means in accomplishing good ends, as though it were a tapestry of

interwoven contrasting threads. He further clarifies that “the beauty of the course of this world is

achieved by the opposition of contraries, arranged by things.”24 With Augustine calling the

opposition of contraries beautiful, in what sense is there an implication that something evil is

beautiful or good? That is to say, is the meshing or interwoven nature of the opposition of

contraries, i.e. good and evil, itself a good?

21 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 17. cum illae male utuntur naturis bonis, ipse bene utatur etiam
uoluntatibus malis
22 Ibid. Deus praeuidebat quae bona de malo eius esset ipse facturus.
23 Augustine. The City of God, XI. 18. Neque enim Deus ullum, non dico angelorum, sed uel hominum
crearet, quem malum futurum esse praescisset, nisi pariter nosset quibus eos bonorum usibus commodaret atque ita
ordinem saeculorum tamquam pulcherrimum carmen etiam ex quibusdam quasi antithetis honestaret.
24 Ibid. Sed rerum eloquentia contrariorum oppositione saeculi pulchritudo componitur.
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In bringing clarity to this question, a good place to start is determining if the terms

‘goodness’ and ‘beauty’ are convertible. In some sense they seem to be: All that which is good is

beautiful, and all that which is beautiful is good. Are there any examples of things that are

beautiful but not good, or things that are good but not beautiful? If God, as being itself

subsisting, is the cause of all other being, and God is His own goodness, then it follows that all

things are good. Moreover, all created things have a formal and final cause, and as such exist and

act in particular ways toward particular ends. In doing so, things exist and act beautifully, as

intended by the artificer, God. Failure to exist and act as intended by the artificer would entail a

lack, or privation, and as such would not exhibit the beauty of its nature. Given this explanation,

it seems appropriate to say that the two terms are convertible. If all that is good is beautiful, then

it would follow, as Augustine argues, that beauty and evil together, as the opposition of

contraries, are beautiful in some way, just as good and evil are good in some way. As such, how

can beauty and evil achieve something beautiful, or convertibly, how can good and evil achieve

something good? Further, does this entail that the universe would not have been as beautiful if

there were not this opposition of contraries?

In answering these questions, it is necessary to harken back to what has already been

established. Evil has no being in itself. Rather, it is the lack of the good in a good being as it

ought to exhibit. Further, God, as goodness itself, is not the direct cause of moral evil, a privation

in being, but is directly responsible for natural privations and suffering as the concomitants of the

goods of justice and the preservation of the natural order, as has been previously established.

God, therefore, in His goodness, uses all privations and corruptions in beings as means in willing

the goodness of His ends. Moreover, He brings about goods that could not otherwise exist
 14

without privation and corruption, including goods not accomplishable without the possibility for

sin, a privation of moral freedom. As such, the answer to the second questions is no, the universe

would not have been as beautiful if there were not this opposition of contraries. In order to reify

these notions, a few examples are in order.

Some virtues stand in opposition to evil, but require evil in order to be such, thereby

making things more beautiful. For example, mercy, forgiveness, self-control, obedience, courage,

etc. Aquinas, the Augustinian, agrees with this point in stating: “A kind of goodness is that which

is over and above the essence; thus, the good of a man is to be virtuous or wise. As regards this

kind of goodness, God can make better the things He has made.”25 Further, learning to be

merciful comes through seeing or experiencing the bestowal of mercy upon someone after

having deserved penalty. Likewise, self-control is learned from seeing or experiencing the effects

of a loss of self-control, and desiring the avoidance of such effects. God uses evil in oder to

demonstrate His mercy, grace, and forgiveness of sins, brought forth through His own

substitutionary atonement on the Roman cross. The accomplishment of the good ends of

incarnation and atonement use the means of sin. O Felix Culpa!

Heaven will not require such an opposition of contraries, as it will be the receiving of the

ultimate and direct self-communication of God’s glory, and thereby our nature’s perfection,

however, godliness in this life brings profit in the next, which entails that a deeper and more

profound good results when virtue is achieved by free moral agents struggling with evil.

What would it really mean to be courageous, graceful, heroic, or repentant without the means of

achieving such virtues? Brian Davies provides illumination on this in stating:

25 Aquinas. Summa Theologiae, I. 25. 6. Alia bonitas est, quae est extra essentiam rei; sicut bonum hominis
est esse virtuosum vel sapientem. Et secundum tale bonum, potest Deus res a se factas facere meliores.
 15

If God aims for there to be heroes, he needs danger as a means. Similarly, he needs
cancer for there to be people who die gracefully from it, and he needs genocide for there to
be people who repent of having committed it. Even an omnipotent God cannot bring it
about that Mary died gracefully of cancer if Mary did not have cancer. Even an omnipotent
God cannot bring it about that those who repent of genocide have nothing of which to
repent.26

Simply put, it would be meaningless to speak of such virtues if such privations of nature were

not permitted as a means of accomplishment. Given these examples, the answer to the question

regarding whether beauty and evil achieve something beautiful through an opposition of

contraries is a firm yes. It is evident from the examples provided that great goods, and arguably

the greatest good, come through the means of evil and suffering; goods that would not otherwise

be attainable. It also provides an answer, in part, to the overall question as to why God permits

evil. The universe is more beautiful because God providentially orders His good ends, for

Himself, through the means of privation, corruption, and moral evil. Kyle Keltz, in the context of

death, states that “God is not obligated to create a world that contains death (initially or

otherwise), but such a world communicates his goodness more than a world that does not contain

death.”27 Not even death, the great privation of life, can serve as an objection to God’s goodness,

since salvation has come through it, and has conquered it, and all for His own glory!

Conclusion: A Theodicy?

In concluding this analysis of Augustine’s theodicy, a number of important factors must

be reiterated. First a foremost, the limits of the human intellect in knowing the nature of God.

While we can know what He is not, through the via negativa, we cannot know what He is in

26 Brian Davies, 116.

27 Kyle Keltz, 132.
 16

Himself, except through the use of analogies from created effects, and even then, such concepts

and predications are limited to the finite created order; seen through a glass darkly, as God

dwells in supereminent darkness. Herbert McCabe says it well in stating: “God is his esse,

whereas the esse of creatures is received. God is not what is left over when you remove

creatures. God and creatures cannot be thought of together, or even apart. It is simply that what is

not Him is His.”28 In addition, as ipsum esse subsistens, God is His own goodness. He is not a

member of a kind; not a moral agent. God has no obligations or duties toward anyone or

anything, and as such does not have reasons for what He does, as if He were accountable to

anyone. He is His own reason for what He does.

From this foundation follows a number of truths: (1) The nature of evil as a privation of

freewill, an intrinsic good, is the cause of the evil of sin. (2) Having no positive being, the evil of

sin poses no incompatibility with God as the source of being. (3) Things which appear as per se

evils only appear as such due to a limited context of that which contributes to God’s goodness as

ends. (4) Natural privations, or corruptions, are caused concomitants of goods. (5) God, as

goodness itself, wills the good ends in all being, and through means permits all sin, privation,

and corruption. (6) God, through the opposition of contraries, weaves a beautiful tapestry

demonstrating His goodness. (7) Goods otherwise unattainable are achieved through the

opposition of contraries. (8) The greatest goods of incarnation and atonement are achieved

through the opposition of contraries.

Therefore, the two main versions of the problem of evil, i.e. the idea that there is a logical

incompatibility between God’s nature and evil, and the idea that given the kinds and quantities of

28 Herbert McCabe, God and Evil In The Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Continuum

International Publishing Group, 2010), 129.

 17

evil it is probable that God does not exist, are misconstrued and can be dismissed as pseudo-

problems, on the grounds that they entail a misunderstanding or confusion of terms. As McCabe

argues, “There was however a puzzle, and it has been cleared up in the way that metaphysical

puzzles are usually cleared up: by showing that the formulation of the puzzle depends upon the

use of words outside their proper context.”29 As such, it may be acknowledged that Augustine’s

theodicy, is actually a theodicy, i.e. it provides an actual accounting for God and evil. However,

given the context of what has already been said, it should be obvious that this Augustinian

theodicy is a mere minimalist accounting of the particulars of God and evil in relation to a

Divine mystery.

However, the emotional, or pastoral component of evil remains. Though God and evil do

not pose a problem per se, the existential component of human suffering is a reality, and though

the knowledge and wisdom of the reality of God and His relationship to evil is an important

foundation to stand upon when experiencing suffering, it may not fully satisfy the angst of the

sufferer. As such, resting in these truths, and specifically on the Cross of Christ, is additionally

important, as well as the truth of the renewal and reconciliation yet to come through God’s

goodness.

29 Herbert McCabe, God and Evil In The Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas (London: Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2010), 128.
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