84. mor. 2.6.8; Teske, Manichean Debate (I/19), 82; CSEL 90.94.
Made to be Godly 65 it was perverted to what is worse, that is, because it fell away from its essence. But he who is the author of this essence is not the author of the falling away from this essence. Some things, then, are changed for the better and, for this reason, they tend toward being and are not said to be perverted by this change but to turn back and to be converted.84
We again see how conversion toward God results in the existence and completion of a creature, and how perversion away from God results in a falling away from what something should be. As such, we can see how there are really only two types of existents: goodness per se and participatory goods. All that is, is good, and much to the ruin of Manichaean cosmology, there is no third category of being. Evil is hence revealed as a parasitical corruption of the good. Consequently, there can be no thing which is essentially evil and nothing which is essentially corrupt. Evil is not the rival of the good but its reduction; it is able to be detected only within that which has been spotlessly created by the Good itself. Participation again plays a key role: all existents have goodness because all that exists participates in the Supreme Good so as not to fall back into the nothingness from which all came.
But malice and disorder are nonetheless discernible throughout the created order and Augustine was painfully aware of the havoc evil wreaks in our world. How then is it possible to account for evil and still see God as simultaneously omnipotent and all good? The answer would lie in the misuse of the (otherwise good) will of those made like God. While the Son draws all other creatures into his own adherence to the Father, enabling all of creation to speak of the beauty and goodness and truth of God, non-rational creatures can neither beguile nor disappoint. Only personal beings free to turn away from the Son can corrupt and disorder God's good creation.85 This is the primary way Augustine's break from the
84. mor. 2.6.8; Teske, Manichean Debate (I/19), 82; CSEL 90.94. 85. uera rel. 36.67; Hill, On True Religion (I/8), 74: "Thus falsehood does not arise