Summary: Confessions (page 2)

Book VII of the Confessions is the pivotal section of the work, as it presents Augustine's conversion and his encounter with God.

He revisits his conception of the world, shaped by Manichaean doctrine. In summary: God is a body, evil is a body. These two bodies are in conflict, for if they are not, then God is not good. The problem is that if this is the case, then evil can harm God, and God is therefore not perfect. Moreover, God is no longer infinite but is instead constrained by this opposing element.

This Manichaean conception of evil necessarily entails the imperfection of God, and this is what fails to satisfy Augustine.

Furthermore, the problem of the origin of evil torments Augustine: where does evil come from? From man? From the devil?

In truth, I was searching for the origin of evil, but I sought it in the wrong way, failing to perceive evil in my very search ¹.

He struggles to conceive of the relationship between God and the world. His vision remains obscure, steeped in the naïve pantheism of the Manichaeans:

I imagined Your creation as one vast mass, in which the various kinds of bodies were distributed. I conceived of this mass as immense, yet finite in all directions. And You, Lord, surrounded it, permeated it on all sides, yet remained infinite in every sense. Such would be a boundless sea of immensity [...] enclosing a sponge, as large as one might imagine, yet of finite size, and entirely suffused with the immense sea ².

Everything changes when Augustine turns his gaze away from the world, where he had hitherto sought God in vain, and directs it inward, in an introspection that leads to his conversion.

Indeed, he reads the Platonists, and, forewarned by these readings to look back upon myself, I entered, under Your guidance, into my inner self ³.

It is within himself, rather than in the world, that he encounters God. He describes this enlightenment as follows:

I entered into it and saw, with the eye of my soul, the unchanging light—not that vulgar light which all flesh beholds, nor any light of the same kind, but one seemingly more powerful, much brighter, and filling all space with its radiance. You dazzled the weakness of my eyes with the violence of Your brilliance, and I trembled with love and terror ⁴.

This encounter with God grants him a deeper understanding of the world and its relationship with the divine. First, the ontological status of worldly things is put into perspective: Then I looked upon all things beneath You, and I saw that they neither absolutely are nor absolutely are not. They are, coming from you; they are not, not being what you are. For that is truly which abides immutably ⁵.

Moreover, the problem of evil at work in the world finds its resolution: Everything that exists is good; and evil, whose origin I was seeking, is not a substance, for if it were a substance, it would be good ⁶. God’s perfection as Creator is therefore not called into question. If evil were a substance, it would be one of His creations—and that would pose a problem. Yet this is not the case, and thus the problem is resolved.

What, then, is evil? Augustine provides two answers.

First, evil does not exist but is merely a misapprehension of our intellect, which is too limited to grasp the perfection of the Whole and the necessity of the action deemed evil; the latter partakes in this perfection, from a perspective inaccessible to us due to our finite nature:

For You, evil does not exist at all—not only for You, but for the whole of Your creation—for there is nothing outside it that could disrupt or corrupt the order You have established within it. However, because, in detail, certain elements fail to harmonise with others, they are perceived as bad. Yet these same elements harmonise with others, and in that sense, they are good. They are also good in themselves. Far be it from me to say that these things ought not to exist. Viewed separately, no doubt, I would wish them better; yet even in seeing them thus, I should still praise You for them ⁷.

¹ VII, 5
² ibid.
³ VII, 10
⁴ ibid.
⁵ VII, 11
⁶ VII, 12
⁷ VII, 13