Aurelius Augustin's Interpretation Of Evil

Augustine is the main European theologian and philosopher in the middle ages, hi s thought deeply influenced the western world. He,from the perspective of free will an d God's grace, reinterpreted the evil, which opening the door to the medieval scholast icism.His understanding of evil was focus on the originality of sin, namely the definiti on, essence and consequence of the original sin, original sin and evil. He carried a de ep discussion on the essence of nature.For those people who have a "free will", they have the understanding of "freedom", of the direct source of the evil, of the god's pre diction and of the free will. The relationship between the evil and the free will is Aug ustine surmount contribution.Augustine's early understanding of evil, denied the dualism. He combined his und erstanding with the new understanding of Platonism, to define evil as a departure form which tends to nonexistence. And this is the explanation made from the perspective of ontology, The nat ure of the soul is the pursuit of higher integrity, if went against it and addicted into enj oyment and physical pleasure then it becomes evil. The will of God doesn't interfere people's choice of freedom, of knowledge of good and evil, of rewards and punishmen ts.The God's grace not shows on helping the god and punishing the bad, but mainly sh ows on the reward the good and punishment the bad.Augustine's definition and classification of the evil leads to his thinking of the o rigin and essence of Evil. He divides the evil into three categories:the physical evil,t he known evil,the ethical evil. At the same time, he thinks that the ethical evil is the c ore of his exploration of "original sin" theory. which triggering his thinking of evil. So he concluded that evil is derived from the original sin. Before this section introduces t he discussion on the degradation of free will, thus to verify that individual sin on free will is blame to themselves rather than the god. the god will judge those who abuse th e free will, and not interfere people's usage of free will before making decision. In thi s part, this paper will simultaneously take the theory of free will, city of god as the bas is to introduces the human ancestor's free will before and after their commitment of th e original sin, and to explore the relationship between free will and evil.Augustine's theory of grace is mainly expressed in his book Augustine's Christian Thought, through his discussion on the internal and external grace, and the discussion on predestination, he finally gets the comprehensive theory of grace.at last this paper discuss the relationship between the grace theory,,free will, and the evil, thus to solve the contradiction and tension between the theory of free will and grace, to concluded t hat evil derives from the free will, dies in the conclusion of grace.