St Augustine gives three answers to the questioning of suffering:
B – A – D
B – Better
St Augustine says God allows suffering because he is omnipotent and good. He allows evil because in his goodness and power he is always able to bring a greater good out of suffering. Suffering can be beneficial. He can make suffering better and we can end up better because of our suffering. This makes it a good thing.
A – Appreciation
St Augustine says that the existence of evil helps people to appreciate the good in the world. For example, being unwell helps us to appreciate when we are healthy.
D – Doesn’t Exist (PRIVATION)
St Augustine tells us that evil is just the absence of good things. This is called privation. WORD LINK – Deprivation. Living in deprivation means living without things. God does not cause or permit evil because evil isn’t even a thing. Same as DARKNESS is just an ABSENCE of light. You can make light. You cannot make dark.
St Augustine – Enchiridion 3,11
And in the universe, even that which is called evil, when it is regulated and put in its own place, only enhances our admiration of the good; for we enjoy and value the good more when we compare it with the evil.
For what is that which we call evil but the absence of good? In the bodies of animals, disease and wounds mean nothing but the absence of health; for when a cure is effected, that does not mean that the evils which were present — namely, the diseases and wounds — go away from the body and dwell elsewhere: they altogether cease to exist
For the Almighty God, who, as even the heathen acknowledge, has supreme power over all things, being Himself supremely good, would never permit the existence of anything evil among His works, if He were not so omnipotent and good that He can bring good even out of evil.
RED ZONE
Explain what St Augustine’s response to the Problem of Evil is in Enchiridion?
How might a Christian use St Augustine’s teachings to respond to the Problem of Evil?
‘St Augustine proves that evil isn’t a barrier to believing in God’ How might a non-Christian respond to this statement?
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