.
St. Augustine then examined the origins of evil. He wanted to know where the drive to steal those pears came from? And where did this root of perversion originate? He was conflicted between what he was taught and what he saw. He saw that people were doing evil acts all around him, and yet he learned from the bible that God made everything good. So how are the evil acts good? He cried out to understand this contradiction, "Who made me? Is not my God not only good but the supreme good? Why then do I have the power to will evil and reject good?" (p.114) If God made everything good to begin with, then where can evil come from? For it is not a good thing. His explanation was that everything is good to start out with, and that only by corruption can evil come out and into play. .
It was obvious to me that things which are liable to corruption are good. for if there were no good in them, there would be nothing capable of being corrupted. Corruption does harm and unless it diminishes the good, no harm would be done. Therefore either corruption does not harm, which cannot be the case, or all things that are corrupted suffer privation of some good (St. Augustine p. 124).
Augustine was showing the world that everything is "liable to corruption" (St. Augustine p. 124). By demonstrating the concept that everything starts good only to have some good taken away, he comes to the conclusion that if something were "to be deprived of all good, they would not exist at all" (St. Augustine p. 124). This is based on the basics of creationism from God that declared everything good. If there is something that is not good, that would mean he did not create it, but that is a contradiction, for he has created all. Therefore, "as long as [things] exist, they are good" (St. Augustine p. 124). .
Where does evil fit into the picture then? How can evil exist if it is not good? These questions are the exact reason that Augustine concludes that evil does not exist.
