The City of God, Volume I

Augustine proceeds to refute the notion that there could be an entity contrary to the divine. Citing God’s declaration, “I am that I am,” he explains that since God is the supreme existence and is unchangeable, the only contrary to Him is non-existence. To some natures He communicated a more ample existence, to others a more limited one, arranging beings in ranks. Consequently, no nature is contrary to the Supreme Being save that which does not exist. Therefore, the enemies of God are enemies not by nature, but by vice. They have no power to hurt Him, only themselves. Vice is contrary to God as evil is to good, and it is contrary to the nature it vitiates because it is hurtful. Vice cannot exist in the highest good, nor can it exist except in some good, for it injures the nature it corrupts. Even natures vitiated by an evil will are good in so far as they are natures, and when they are punished, they possess the good of justice.

Augustine briefly addresses irrational and lifeless creatures, stating that it is ridiculous to condemn their faults, as they received an existence fitting to them, often passing away to make room for others. This transitory order contributes to the beauty of the universe, even if mortals, involved in a fragment of it, cannot perceive the whole harmony. These creatures, in their proper places and according to their nature, glorify their Artificer. Even the nature of fire, though penal to the condemned, is beautiful and useful in its proper application. Thus, in all natures, God is glorified.

Returning to the angels, Augustine reiterates that the cause of the blessedness of the good is their cleaving to Him who supremely is, while the misery of the wicked stems from turning to themselves, who have a lesser existence. This vice is pride, the beginning of sin. By preferring themselves to God, they diminished their own being. Augustine then investigates the efficient cause of the evil will. He argues that there is none, for if a thing caused the evil will, that thing must either have a will or not. If it has a good will, it cannot cause evil; if it has a bad will, one must ask what caused that will, leading to an infinite regress. If one posits that the evil will always existed, it must have existed in some nature, which it would have injured; but it could not injure an evil nature, only a good one. If one suggests that a thing without a will caused the evil will, that thing is a good nature, and good cannot be the efficient cause of evil. Augustine illustrates this with the example of two men viewing the same beautiful object; one consents to an illicit desire, the other does not. The object is not the cause, nor is the flesh or temperament, for these are identical. The cause is the will itself. Therefore, the will is not made evil by something else but becomes evil by its own defection.

Augustine concludes that one should not look for an efficient cause of the evil will, for it is a deficient cause, not an efficient one. Defection from the supreme being to a lesser being is the beginning of an evil will. Seeking the cause of such defection is like trying to see darkness or hear silence; these are known not by their presence but by their absence. The will becomes evil by turning away from the immutable good to mutable goods. The fault lies not in the object loved—for gold, beauty, or power are not evil—but in the inordinate love of the creature that neglects the higher good for a lower one. He who inordinately loves a lower good becomes evil in the midst of that good and wretched because he is deprived of the greater good.

In contrast to the evil will, Augustine considers the good will of the holy angels. He argues that if there were no efficient cause of the good will, one might erroneously suppose the good will to be co-eternal with God. But since the angels are created, their good will must also be created. They could not have existed for a time without a good will, for then they would have been evil or at least not good. Nor could they have produced a good will in themselves without God’s help, for that would imply they made themselves better than God made them. Therefore, the holy angels never existed without a good will or the love of God. They were created with a holy love that enabled them to cleave to Him. The love of God is shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit. Those who have this good in common form one City of God, a holy fellowship with Him and with one another.

Augustine then turns to the creation of man, refuting pagan theories that the human race is eternal or that the world has existed for countless ages. He dismisses the chronologies of Apuleius and others who claim vast cycles of destruction and renewal, noting that these contradict the authority of Scripture, which records less than six thousand years of history. He cites the discrepancies between Egyptian and Greek chronologies to show the unreliability of such claims. Augustine also addresses the opinion that there are numberless worlds or that the same world perpetually dies and is renewed in cycles. He argues that these theories are attempts to solve the problem of why man was created so recently, but they fail.

To those who ask why man was not created sooner, Augustine replies that any finite time, no matter how long, is infinitesimal compared to eternity. Even if man had been created millions of years earlier, the question could still be asked why he was not created before that. Compared to the boundless eternity during which God abstained from creating, any span of time is as nothing. The first man himself could have asked this question on the day of his creation. Therefore, the controversy regarding the recent origin of man is based on a misunderstanding of the relationship between time and eternity.

Augustine refutes the specific theory of cyclical history, where the same events and individuals repeat endlessly. He argues that this contradicts the promise of eternal life and the unique sacrifice of Christ, who died once and rose again, dying no more. The saints shall be ever with the Lord. He interprets the words of Solomon, “There is no new thing under the sun,” as referring to the cycles of generations or the predestination of God, not to the recurrence of identical historical events. The path of the wicked is circular, but this refers to the error of their doctrine, not to a metaphysical cycle of time.