Augustine: Earlier Writings
this is so? Ev,—I think that nothing but good is learned by education. Aug.—Yet possibly evil is also learned in this way, for learning [disciplina] is derived from the verb "to learn" [discere]. Ev.—How, then, are evils committed by a man if they are not learned? Aug.—Possibly because he turns away from learning and stands apart from it. However that may he, it is at least manifest that, since learning is good, evil cannot be learned. If it is learned, it must be a part of education, and education will not be good. But, as you yourself admit, it is good. Evil, therefore, is not learned, and it is vain to ask from whom we have learned to do evil. Or, if indeed evil is learned, that can only be in the sense that we learn to avoid deeds which ought not to be done. Hence to do evil is nothing but to stray away from education.
3. Ev.—I think there must be two kinds of education, one by which we learn to do well and one by which we learn to do evil. When you asked whether education was a good thing I replied that it was, because my enthusiasm for the good made me think of the education that teaches to do good. Now I have a suspicion that there is another kind, which I have no doubt is a bad thing. Aug.—At any rate you regard intelligence as entirely a good thing? Ev.—So good indeed that a man can have nothing better. I should never say that intelligence can possibly be evil. Aug.—If a man has been taught something but does not understand it, could you regard him as learned? Ev.—Certainly not. Aug.—If intelligence is entirely good and is the necessary result of learning, every one who learns does well and also arrives at intelligence, and so again does well. Whoever asks for the cause of our learning anything simply asks for the cause of our doing well. So do not look for any teacher of evil. If he is evil he is not a teacher. If he is a teacher he is not evil. ii, 4. Ev.—Since you force me to agree that we are not taught to do evil, tell me the cause why we do evil. Aug.—That is a question that gave me great trouble when I was a young man. It wearied me and drove me into the arms of heretics. By that accident I was so afflicted and overwhelmed with such masses of vain fables that, had not my love of finding the truth obtained divine aid, I could never have found my way out or breathed the pure air of free inquiry. But I took the greatest pains to find deliverance from that quandary, so in discoursing with you I shall follow the order which led to my own deliverance. May God grant his aid, and give us to understand what we have first believed. The steps are laid down by the ON FREE WILL II5
I prophet who says: "Unless ye be Ueve ye shall not understand"
I (Isa. 7:9 LXX). We know well that we must hold fast to that.
I We believe that all things which exist are from one God; and yet God is not the author of sins. The difficulty for the mind is this. If sins originate with souls which God has created, and which therefore have their origin from God, how are sins not 1 to be charged against God at least mediately?
5. Ev.—Now you have plainly stated the problem that was troubling my mind, and which impelled me to ask my question. 3w.—Have courage, and hold to your faith. You cannot do betterjhan believe even when you do not know the reason for your faith. To think the best of God is the truest foundation of \ piety. And to think the best of God means to believe that he is omnipotent and absolutely unchangeable, that he is the Creator of all good things, being himself more excellent than them all; that he is the most just ruler of all that he has created; that he had no assistance in creating as if he were not sufficient, in himself. Hence he created all things of nothing. One, however, he did not create, but begat. One equal to himself, whom we call the only Son of God, whom we endeavour to describe
more fully when we call him the Power and Wisdom of God. By him he made all things which are made of nothing. Having stated the_se articles of our faith let us strive with God's help to , reach understanding of the problem which you have raised, 1 and in this fashion. iii, 6. You ask for the cause of our doing evil. First we must I discuss what doing evil is. Tell me what you think about this.
If you cannot put the whole thing briefly in a few words, at least indicate your opinion by naming some evil deeds one by one. Ev.—Adultery, homicide, sacrilege. I need mention no more. To enumerate all the others neither time nor my memory
would be sufficient. But no one doubts that those I have men-
tioned are examples of evil deeds. Aug.—Tell me now why you think adultery is evil. Is it because it is forbidden by law? Ev.— It is not evil because it is forbidden by law. It is forbidden by law because it is evil. Aug.—Suppose someone were to press us, stressing the dehghts of adultery and asking why it
I is evil and why we think it worthy of condemnation. Do you think that people who wanted not only to believe that adultery is evil but also to know the reason why it is so, would be driven to appeal to the authority of the law? You and I believe without the slightest hesitation that adultery is evil, and I declare that all peoples and nations must believe that too. But