Augustine in His Own Words
Against the Manichees 215 understands. . . . Now those people who say that we are to believe nothing except what we know [with certainty] are on their guard against what goes under the name of "opinion"—what, admittedly, is ugly and wretched. But if they would consider carefully the great difference between thinking that one knows something and believing, on the basis of authority, something that one is aware that one does not know [for certain], then they would avoid errors and the charge of pride and lacking humanity.
(12.26) Now if something unknown is deemed unworthy of belief, then I ask: How are children to serve their parents? How are they to love with mutual affection those whom they do not believe to be their real parents? There is no way we can know by reason that [our parents are our parents]. Who one's father is is believed on the authority of one's mother; as for one's mother, she herself has to believe midwives, nurses, and slaves. Now can't she, from whom a son can be stolen and another substituted, having been deceived herself, deceive others? Nevertheless, we believe, and we believe without any hesitation what we admit we cannot know. For who would not see that, unless this were so, filial devotion, the most sacred bond of the human race, would be violated by massive criminal arrogance? Is there anyone so insane as to think that someone is guilty for carrying out filial duties towards those he believed to be his parents even if they were not in reality? Who, on the other hand, would not judge that a person deserves exile, if, for fear that he might possibly love imposters, he did not love those who were his real parents? Many examples can be cited which would show that absolutely nothing would remain intact in human society if we decided not to believe what we cannot grasp with a certainty of perception.23
The Problem of Evil
Augustine notes, in a brief autobiographical aside in an early philosophic dialogue (begun around 388), how the problem of evil had haunted him from a young age and how Manichean evangelists had used it to win him over. From On Free Will, Book 1:
(2.4) Evodius. Tell me the reason we do evil. Augustine. You raise a question which sorely perplexed me while I was still a young man, and one which in my weariness drove me into the company of heretics and resulted in my fall. I was so injured by this fall, so weighed down by the vast accumulation of nonsensical fables that, had not the love of find-
23. De utilitate credendi 9.21–12.26 (CSEL 25.1:26–34); my trans., based on Meagher, FOTC 4:417–27.