Augustinian and Thomistic Perspectives on Evil, Truth, and God
Augustinian Theory of Free Will and the Problem of Evil
The existence of evil in the world poses a challenge to the goodness of creation. Augustine explains this through the concept of human free will. God created man in His image, granting him free will, the ability to choose. Ideally, man’s will should align with God’s. However, man is subject to opposing forces, leading to conflicting desires. To deny the existence of evil, one must acknowledge that doing evil involves preferring a lesser good over a greater good. The pleasures of the flesh, for example, are not inherently evil but become problematic when choosing them prevents access to higher goods. It’s crucial to distinguish between freedom and free will. Free will is the capacity to choose between good and evil. Choosing evil is an act of free will, but it does not equate to true freedom.
St. Thomas Aquinas on Truth
Self-Evident Truths
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, our intellect can assent to a truth either directly, because it is self-evident, or because it follows from evident principles, or because the will influences us to believe something even without immediate evidence or demonstration. St. Thomas distinguishes between self-evident truths to God but not to us, and truths that emerge from self-evident principles.
Natural Truths
Natural truths, according to St. Thomas, are those that can be demonstrated through reason, leading to their revelation. An example of a natural truth is the Pythagorean theorem.
Preamble to Faith
Aquinas identifies two types of knowledge: truths accessible only through faith (articles of faith) and natural truths accessible through reason. He introduces a third category: truths that can be known both by reason and faith, known as the preambles of faith.
The Relationship Between Philosophy and Theology
St. Thomas proposes a framework where reason operates independently, faith occupies a unique domain inaccessible to reason, and a shared area exists where truths can be revealed through both reason and faith. He argues for a collaborative relationship between faith and reason, stating that philosophy is the handmaid of faith. In areas accessible to both, reason should revise its assumptions when its conclusions conflict with revealed truth. Saint Thomas constructed a philosophical system based on an Aristotelian scheme, defending the consistency and truth of faith. This synthesis brings philosophy and Christianity together.
Thomistic Proof of God’s Existence: The Third Way (Contingency)
One of the five ways Thomists prove the existence of God is through the argument from contingency. This argument begins with the observation that contingent beings exist, beings that could exist or not exist. If everything were contingent and could potentially not exist, then at some point, nothing would have existed. If nothing ever existed, nothing could come into existence. But since something exists now, we can conclude that something must be necessary, and this necessary being is God.