St. Augustine on God, Humanity, Evil, and Freedom
God, Humanity, and the World According to St. Augustine
A true creature of God is eternal, fixed, and invariable. Changing creatures are not real, *izakiak*. The final *izaki* has been created from nothing, as the biblical explanation states. God created a world of ideas or archetypes according to models. This is a correction to Neoplatonism, but it continues with the idea that the ideas of God are and are not always created by emanation (*jariapenez*).
According to Platonism, man has a vision in his mortal body and the soul is influenced by the use of a material substance. The soul is the sum of two different levels, reason (*arrazoimenduna*) and body (*arima*):
- Low-level: Responsible for the correct functioning of the body, giving it a lively and ever-changing reality, and the cause of sensitive knowledge.
- High-level: The objective of knowledge creation is the culmination of ideas (*ezagutza*).
Man is a sinner (*bekataria*) due to original sin, but this is due to the body mastering the soul (*arima*). According to St. Augustine, our body is the origin of original sin, but to save the soul, two solutions are proposed:
- Traducianism: The soul is transmitted from parents. This better explains the transmission of original sin.
- Creationism: God creates each individual soul, distinct from the body.
Disease and the Problem of Freedom in St. Augustine’s Thought
Disease has always been a concern for St. Augustine. Two types of diseases can be found in the world: physical ailments (earthquakes, storms, droughts, etc.) and moral evil (*gaiztakeria*, wars, etc.). Initially, St. Augustine searched for the answer in Manichaeism, but after his conversion to Christianity, he adopted and used Plotinus’s description of the developing creatures to clarify the truth. God created all things (*guuztiak*) very good, so nothing can be wrong with creation. Against Manichaeism, God is fully powerful. Disease is not anything created by God because God only created good things. Evil is not a real property; it is nothing positive or a lack of something. It is a lack of being (*izakitasun*):
- Physical Diseases: God is not the cause of the conditions for the existence of beings, but these are limited to the effects of the existence of beings.
- Moral evil: It is the result of the conditions of human freedom and the wrong use of human freedom.
Freedom, Grace, and Achieving True Freedom
Freedom is accepted or rejected by his love for the original sin. After the fall, man has a greater tendency to do bad than good. Therefore, God has given everything for Grace. This is the capacity of choice (*aukeramena*). St. Augustine defended this against the Pelagians, as he did not believe that man could use freedom to save himself without grace. The goal of human happiness is a conscious and deliberate return to the Supreme Good. We will not be happy if we move away from God. We will achieve complete peace of soul (*arima*) if we take care of Grace. To become truly free, we must turn to the Good.