St. Augustine is a city located in St. Johns county in northeastern Florida and is most known for being the oldest continuously occupied city in the United States, having been colonized by Spain in 1565. Prior to the 1513 landing of Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León (who christened the peninsula which he mistook for an island “La Florida” and claimed it for Spain), the area of land that is now called “St. Augustine” was inhabited by a population of natives known as the Timucua people. After the initial arrival of Juan Ponce de León in 1513, the Spanish would go on to make several unsuccessful attempts at colonization in Florida over the following 51 years. The Spanish were not alone in their pursuit to annex and settle land on the peninsula.
Theodicy: For example, Augustine here talks about the average individual he states, “By the same token, anyone who perversely loves the goodness of any nature whatsoever, even if he obtains the enjoyment of it, becomes evil in the enjoyment of the good” (p.61). Augustine explains the idea that ultimately it is left to us and our own choices
Ward states that doing “good” includes more than pleasure. It includes moral obligations and objective intrinsic values to do right by others and ensure pleasure for oneself. With an omnipotent and omniscient being like the monotheistic God, Ward argues that these values and obligations would be grounded within God. Thus, an "evil God would have to
You are one of two people in this world. Based on the choices you make you are either a good or bad person. Your actions are evidence of your thinking. Our choices in life define if we are good or bad people.
The Agents of Good and Evil There is this belief that the Christian God is good and all-powerful. He has the power to create worlds and beings, yet there is still evil in the world. Both Pierre Bayle and Voltaire address these questions in their works “Paulicians” and Candide (respectively). They both believe the Manichean philosophy as a more rational thought process than the contemporaneous Christian view. This belief is that there is not one, but two gods in the world; a god of good and a god of evil.
As time passes by people, society, the word is evolving. Whether it is our mindsets, rules, or ideologies they are constantly changing. At one point in time people believed that homosexuality was unnatural and a sin. Fast-forward to modern times and society has most definitely widen their mindset and religion has also changed their stance on the gay community. Thus if religion can change and evolve isn’t it plausible what was once viewed in the past as right can be wrong today?
Augustine was infuenced by Neoplatism by reading the books of platonist in book seven Augustine admit that the platonist help him undestand the relation of an Infinite God and a Finite creation and it aslo helped him understand evil. Augustine realize that the Neoplatonist conceptualized which means to form an idea that a prime mover also called the one. They believe that everything came from him and one day he will return which is similiar to chirstianity Augustine quickly incorperated most of the Neoplatonist thoughts were very much alike to his own beliefs. neoplatonist also believe that saw the soul as eternal as well did Augustine with chirstianity when a person dies they soul go on and be with christ if he believed. Augustine did not
McCloskey argues, “No being who was perfect could have created a world in which there was unavoidable suffering or in which his creatures would (and in fact could have been created so as not to) engage in morally evil acts, acts which very often result in injury to innocent persons.” (McCloskey, 56). The argument is based on the assumption, that for God to exist and be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent there should be no evil since He would have the power to eliminate it. “It does not seem to be true…that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can. What is true, perhaps, is that a good being always eliminates evil as far as it can without the loss of a greater good or the allowance of a worse evil,” (Evans ad Manis, p. 160).
This coincides with my next argument in that God has created a world that allows for both good and evil, and along with this, he gave humans the ability to make their own choices. God allows humans, who are not all-powerful and not necessarily wholly good beings to have the decision to make between being good and being evil. I am a firm believer in this hands-off approach that God may have taken during his creation because free will allows people to ultimately choose their own path in life, and while allowing the possibility for evil to occur God himself remains both wholly good and all-powerful. Without free will it would be unclear as to what makes humans unique individuals; free will allows for the understanding that humans can be themselves and choose their outcomes ultimately resulting in them deciding their lives. Unfortunately, free will along with good and evil go hand in hand.
(Muncaster – Religion Lecture, 2016). Meanwhile, Christianity states there is only one god oppose to other religions that state the opposite. Due to the various amounts of moral disagreements between religions, it makes it quite difficult to believe in universal truths as everyday we encounter contradictions that exist within religions in explaining the meaning of good and
Augustine of Hippo was a Christian philosopher who played a big part and impacted Christianity greatly. Augustine helped Christianity by helping the Church by finding answers to questions that could have damaged the Church if they went unanswered. He explained to the Church original sin, the Trinity, and clarified the concept of predestination. Augustine was the bishop in the city of Hippo located in North Africa. He was the son of the famous Saint Monica, but despite his mother being a devout Christian his father believed in paganism.
The Nature of God, Morality and the Existence of Evil An Almighty omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God created a vast universe. In the beginning of creation, a period of unknown antiquity became a vast universe filled majestic beauty. A supreme being, perfect Creator strong and mighty knowing all things gave command of his word and the creation of earth comes into existence. The existence of God, finds creation at work, an intelligent being who created the earth, the sun, the moon and all the planets.
St. Augustine has many reasons for writing City of God. In A.D. 410, the Goth king, Alaric, captured Rome, which was a shock because the Romans thought that it would never fall. The world itself seemed to have been destroyed, and everyone was looking for answers about what to do and what to believe in. “After 410 he found exiles, those escaping the disturbing events in Italy, arriving in North Africa where he was now Bishop of Hippo and asking how he could explain this collapse of a Christian Empire” (Introduction). Many of the remaining pagans in the world were quick to blame the Christians, claiming that the gods had abandoned Rome and also that the Christian God had failed to protect Rome, as he should have done, since Constantine had declared
Augustine’s conception of the sin in The Confessions is vastly different from today’s version of sin. In the modern world, Christian sin is mainly focused on the seven deadliest whereas Saint Augustine added more onto this list. The book mainly explores St. Augustine’s struggle for celibacy and converting himself to Christianity. Augustine also created a concept he termed as original sin. Original sin states that sin is inherently within all of us, we are all born evil and thus have to fight to be good.
The scripture tells us that God is God from all eternity. Before anything, He was there Richard of Saint Victor reminds us, “Everything which is or can be either has being from eternity or begins to be in time, and again, everything which is or can be either has being from itself or it has being from something other than itself... it has been established that what holds the highest place in this universe of things cannot receive what it itself is from its inferior. Therefore some substance must exist which both holds the highest place and is from
