How does augustine think it possible that evil exists, or that humans are capable of doing evil. when the free will is given to us by god and allows us to commit evil acts?
Augustine seperates evil two ways: First there is someone that does evil and then there is someone who suffers evil. God is good and just and so he rewards the good and punishes the wicked. Those that are punished suffer evil. So everyone that does evil is then the cause of their own evildoing. Evil is punished by the justice of God who is punishing those that vouluntarily do evil.
For Augie, “Evil” is simply the lack of the good. It’s not an either good or evil, but how much good.
Also, i’m not so sure Augustine accepts the notion of a “free will” in the manner that you or i might conceive it.
How do good and evil fit into augustines comments on those things which are contrary? How does this affect their natures and the free will?
augustine thought it the gravest sin not to read his texts and to ask homework questions on a chat board
-Imp
Im just having a hard time depicting his words…philosophy is hard for me to understand
That is a common problem to us all, you’ll be relieved to hear!
The great historian GM Trevelyan used to comb over what he’d written time after time until he was satisfied with it…you can bet Augustine was similarly scrupulous. Patience and doubling back on yourself to revise will no doubt positively influence your comprehension. 
Augustine’s veiw of evil was adopted from Plotinus and other Neo-Platonist, in which evil becomes a privation of being. For example, not being able to hear is “evil” because it is the lacking of something that should be there. Evil for Augustine has not positive being/existence.
Augustine claims that since god is goodness, creation being a overflow of that, he can only create things that are good. So everything in so far as it has being, having being and thus participateing in god, is good. So even deamons or the devil are good insofar as they have being. Evil consists in a privation, so for man he can be evil by not fully understanding the path to god. He always tends toward what he thinks is good, the privation lies in him not being able to truly know what is good. Evil is desiring/loving something in an insufficient or overly-sufficient manor. Note that Aristotle’s ethic is Eudaemonistic, with happiness being found only in god, and evil more or less occuring when someone turns away from god.
See Augustines city of god. There are two types of people: Those who are citizens of heaven, and those who are citizens of babylon.
I knew you would enjoy your medieval course eventually… =D>
Lol
What is the relationship between freedom and sin
i cant find any correlation between it
For Augustine, sin doesn’t lie in desires or wants, sin lies in consenting to them. Free-will allows us to consent to desires that are opposed to god, and thus sin.
Desiring my neighbor’s wife isn’t the sin according to Augustine, consenting to this desire and dwelling on it/acting on it/liking it is the sin. If we don’t have free-will then we cannot be said to have the capacity to consent, therefore we couldn’t be be held accountable in terms of a punishable sin.
The relationship is quite obvious.
thanks you guys 