Augustine: Earlier Writings (continued)
l86 AUGUSTINE: EARLIER WRITINGS How then will he dare to say there should not be a moon? If instead of saying that the moon should not exist he said that the moon ought to be like the sun, what he is really saying without knowing it is, not that there should be no moon, but that there should be two suns. In this there is a double error. He wants to add something to the perfection of the universe, seeing he desires another sun. But he also wants to take something from that perfection, seeing he wants to do away with the moon.
25. Perhaps he will reply that he is not complaining about the moon, because though its light is less, it is not unhappy; his trouble does not concern the lack of lustre in souls but their misery. Let him carefully consider that so far as concerns the brightness of the moon and the sun there is no question of happiness or unhappiness. Though these are celestial bodies, they are none the less bodies so far as their Hght is concerned. For it is perceived by the corporeal eyes. Corporeal things in themselves, as such, cannot be happy or unhappy, although they can be the bodies of happy or unhappy creatures. But the analogy suggested from the celestial luminaries teaches us this lesson. When you contemplate the differences between bodies and observe that some are brighter than others, it is wrong to ask that the dimmer ones should be done away or made equal to the brighter ones. All must be contemplated in the light of the perfection of the universe; and you will see that all differences in brightness contribute to the perfection of the whole. You will not be able to imagine a perfect universe unless it contains some greater things and some smaller in perfect relation one to the other. Similarly you must consider the differences between souls. In them also you will discover that the misery you lament has this advantage. The fact that there are souls which ought to be miserable because they willed to be sinful contributes to the perfection of the universe. So far is it from being the case that God ought not to have made such souls, that he ought to be praised for having made other creatures far inferior to miserable souls.
26. But one who does not quite understand what has been said may have this to urge against our argument: If our being miserable completes the perfection of the universe, it will lose something of its perfection ifwe should become eternally happy.
If the soul does not come to misery save by sinning, our sins also arc necessary to the perfection of the universe which God has made. How then does he justly punish sins without which his creation could be neither complete nor perfect? The answer