Chapter 33 Part 4

Sin and the Soul and Saint Augustine

“I am an evil man because I forsook abolitionism for greater comforts instead,” Jude said reflectively.

Wilberforce paused. “Augustine was aware of evil. But he did not see evil as the opposite of good. It is not a battle between a perfectly good and a perfectly evil. He argued as God created the universe, God also cannot have created evil too. His reasoning is nothing evil exists in itself, only as an evil aspect of an activity. Augustine described evil as good gone bad, but at the same time, good is not evil reformed.”

Jude thought about what he’d just been told. “I do not understand this at all,” he said, even if it was not entirely true. But he wanted, no, needed to hear what the reverend would tell him.

Wilberforce watched him carefully.

“Too many people still see evil as a separate force competing with good in the sense it’s either wholly evil or wholly good. Augustine rejected this and he does argue evil is a parasite on good and not separate from it. Evil is a corruption or rejection of the good. A similarity is how lying is dependent on the truth, while truth does not depend on lying. Lying twists and corrupts truth, but truth is not a modified lie.”

Wilberforce picked up the oil lamp and moved it further away from them. Darkness descended upon Jude. “The room is now blacker for you, Mr. Royer. But do you still see the light?”

Jude nodded.

“Just as a shadow grows larger when we move away from the light, the evil grows when we move away from good. But you still see the light. It tells you even the wicked will is proof of the good, because a wicked will is still able to see the light and acknowledge its existence as wicked. Evil does not battle good. It is not at war with good. It is simply a different action.”