Augustine

• What does privatio boni mean?

  Absence of good
• In Augustine's view, evil does not have a separate existence but is insetad just a lack of goodness
• What is goodness according to Augustine?

  variety is part of the goodness and perfection of the created world.
• Why is variety important to Augustine?

  Augustine believed in Heaven, there is a hierarchy of angels, and so some received less grace than others and so the angels fell away from God
• The fall of the Angels was represented in the fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and all evil in the world has followed from there
• "Free will is the cause of our doing evil"
• Augustine believes that Adam and Eves disobedience, mirroring the angels, changed the whole world on a cosmic scale for the generations that followed and even affected the natural world through earthquakes and plagues. Everything can be traced back to the fall of the angels.
• Augustine's theodicy, however, does include some creative interpretation. Angels are not mentioned in Genesis except as guards of the Tree of Life. And the Bible does not say the serpent was Satan in disguise