147: 'Sall Good

Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast about books and the ancient world and literally just whatever we've been thinking About recently my name is Thomas Magby. I'm joined as always by mr. Hannonberg.

That's this guy right here and mr. Graham Donaldson That's this guy right here Cool and this guy over here is passing it off to that guy over there. This is yeah Again, I was gonna say this was a visual medium, but we actually have YouTube videos also So if you want to see us in the flesh you can find a new YouTube how YouTube YouTube you can send each of us one of those Little golden YouTube microphones is that a thing? Yeah, when you hit?

I don't know certain numbers Oh, yeah, you know button. That's the thing. That's the thing. We are nowhere We need a million subscribers for that well at least why we probably got like what maybe 25 or something a hundred hundred 125 oh, yeah, we get like a wooden button Computer button will give you a wooden.

Yes, yes faster. All right, so today's episode is from a day So what do you have all right today? We're doing some a little different from my usual episode I usually will talk about a book give you a summary and then like chat about a little bit That's kind of not what we're doing today We're doing more of a topical thing and it's spraying from a book I was reading St. Augustine's confessions, which is fun I'm just not quite through it yet and what you doing episode on the confessions one day when I finish I'm more I'm honestly more excited about finishing fast.

Okay. Yeah, so Okay, so we're gonna start with a couple of questions gentlemen is evil its own thing an opposing force to good no Evil is twisted good. Okay. What what's your proof?

I know Augustine? Okay So evil so when God can exist without evil But evil needs something to play off of evil needs something to twist and destroy for evil So evil is the the misapplication or the misappropriation or the destruction the pulling apart of a good thing So like the word diabolical and it's old etymology means to pull apart So the ethos of evil is to take a hole and to pull it into pieces and leave a big old mess But it sounds like what you're describing isn't opposing force It's a force but it but it requires it needs that good thing to exist So for you to look at something and say that's evil there has to have been a good thing that gets evaled Doesn't that know the reverse so we can only know a thing is good because of evil, right? No because God can exist without evil Yeah, the standard can exist without The standard can exist but we but in our day-to-day lives We would only know a thing is evil by its comparison to a thing that we prefer or thing that is better Which would be the good thing right? We can compare better to worse and that's how we know one from the other No, you can have a road and this is good road.

You're going places on that road. It's gonna take you to take it home to your family That's a good road, but there's a giant hole in that road and it is no longer good road You fall in that hole and you curse that hole that hole is not a thing that exists It's just a lack of road No, no, it's something that has destroyed has ruined the road and that hole is evil But or did the road ruin my world not I feel like that's what we should call my episodes okay Public service announcement AJ does not your drugs in any way shape or form except for coffee and the occasional ibuproopier Okay, I asked this question because I've had a lot of conversations surrounding evil and its application and what can be Evil and I sort of have an ongoing debate with both Donaldson and mr. Shoe and Miss Maya Manchester about can a can a book be evil and depending on your view of evil? You might take a different stance on that one of one of the three that I talked to believes that it can be evil It encourages you away from God I Pause it that a book cannot be evil left in earth on a forced floor It does no harm and so this very substance of the book is not evil the intent or the message is evil and that is evil of a person Right, so I've seen different views of this So I decided to sort of dive in and I've also heard Graham your definition of evil from St Augustine that evil is a thing that twist good and does not exist in of itself From you and from several people and from CS Lewis who says the same thing about it and many other people who have taken Augustine's definition and sort of run with it But I never read the Augustine himself.

I've never read the original. Oh, you miss me nothing I just wanted to get on that five minutes in wow. Do you want this to be your episode? My guest On you it's not on page one anyway, I will try to do better.

Thanks for coming on call whatever you want to It's I'm gonna come if we're being real about it. It's August news. Call me the rest of the time then I Gotta be pure about something just ring a bell every time we are using so the Augustine doesn't quite well I think there are nuances to it that we miss a little bit and then there's some things that we What are you? Why are you?

Usually talk about all the all the literally our whole podcast this new ones So I wanted to talk a little bit about Augustine's definition of evil and where it comes from and how that has affected Christian thought there After I'm gonna bring up a little bit of the Sumotheological logic a It depends the yellow dye or the allergic a you can do either one by saint a queen of I believe It's a Thomas coinus and so I'm gonna do a few things We're gonna start work our way there But one of the things that I found is strangely necessary for understanding Augustine up. Sorry Augustine definition evil is the ontological argument Which a lot of Christians don't know and has been sort of baffling philosophers for ages and ages since it came out and Gentlemen, do you know what the ontological argument is and where it came from? It comes from Anselm of Canterbury who was a monk in the Middle Ages and in essence the ontological argument is That God is the thing upon which nothing greater can be conceived something like that so think of the greatest thing you can think of and that grace and you can think of is God and it's a proof of God because Anselm posits that it's better to exist than not to exist So if you can conceive of something if you can conceive of God, but he doesn't exist well Then you're not conceived of God because it's better to exist than not exist You're not conce you're not thinking of the greatest thing. Yeah, I mean it's tough to know something about a gold mountain It's tough to express but the argument basically goes that you should try to think of the greatest thing you can possibly think of and that must be God Right God is that him whom about whom which are over whom nothing greater can be conceived Right?

We can never conceive of anything greater than God. That's like his quality and then question two is it greater to exist or not? And most people would say yes better to exist if I if I'm imagining a diamond I would rather than be real than unreal right or I'd certainly prefer existing and so it seems to be better to exist than to be Non-existent so to avoid self-contradiction that thing you are thinking of that is the greatest thing in the universe must as an essential quality Exist otherwise you are contradicting yourself You could think of something greater something that exists in reality And so an essential quality of God being the greatest thing oh then him whom which nothing greater can be conceived is existence It must be an essential quality of this great thing or else you could think of something greater and that would be God Does that make sense? It is a very bizarre argument for God and one that has been you know criticized and eventually they get to like multiple possible worlds and dimensions And one of the most common criticisms is think of the greatest island you can okay, right?

It's the best island possible. It's got water slides. It's got long beaches It's got coral and all the coral is soft like big pillows like it's not even dangerous. I swim up bar swim up bar And you're served by talking dolphins.

It's wonderful. It's the best island you can ever think of well as a greater to exist or not to exist Therefore this island must exist by necessity, right? That's one of the criticisms, but I think wouldn't know that it exists somewhere Oh, no, there are no pale moonlight isn't the argument would just be that any island in existence is better than your fake island, right? Yeah Well and that you can always think of something like God is a different kind of thing right where we are thinking of the greatest thing possible I think of something greater than island.

Yeah, I can do you have to rank your things that are better than not so for example We could have awesome imaginary island, but like crap island, but crap island exists So is it better to so like if we're ordering the existence better is existence then awesome island so like crap island existing where the dolphins can't speak English and There is no swim up bar and the beaches are made of shards of glass But it exists whereas the imaginary island doesn't exist is crap island better because it exists mere moments ago Were you not complaining about nuance? Like literally a minute and a half ago. It's on your grandstand. This is a new one.

This is the core Dolphin speaking English is the core. Yeah, yeah And don't smoke could you understand maybe that's the ticket is that every nuance Graham talks about he faces the absolute core of the issue all essential? Okay, so that's the ontological argument right the greatest thing you can think of has all of these great qualities It's inviolable it exists in reality all that stuff really not that's gonna kind of kind of come into play with Augustine I don't know if he read the ontological argument or it was just sort of a way of thinking back then probably coming from playing with the Greeks But it's it's a piece of this that you'll kind of you'll see how it plays in when I finally get to Augustine. Mm-hmm.

Sorry. I'll gust I'm gonna say whatever you want to I only judge you the entire one thing about a guston that I found out when learning the confessions is that he used to be a mannequiest That is um two equal forces of good and evil good. Yeah, this mannequism was very popular When he was younger like debate clubs about it, but that's the core of it is that there's a force in the evil force They both equally balanced and they fight back and forth and they argue like a dragon ball is the episode it's like Satan charges up and God's like I have another level to get to and God charges up and say like I haven't hit my final power And he charges up and it's who's gonna who is going to win the like is who's gonna be 51% stronger than the other guy? That's the big it's exactly right now.

It's I mean, that's the thing We could argue about the nuance We must be getting it break just on my words. I don't tell ya So yeah, there's a good force and you leave of a greater answer And humanity and the world is kind of what popped out sideways when God and Satan or whatever the two opposing forces were at war You think of the kind of like yin and yang right two opposing forces equally as powerful warring for control of everything And this is what he believed for a long time And now Augustine had had some difficulties with some of the really basic stuff of faith But you have to think about when he lived right a lot of the basic tenets of the Christian faith were not established And so he had trouble He's like is God a substance and he's like okay if he's a substance that fills the whole world like smoke Then will it elephant have more God than a flower? You just get more God because you're bigger And so he had to ask himself all these questions He's like in my head. I could not get over the notion that he God was a substance a thing that he could see with his own eyes So he had stone or logic to oh yes, wait, so is an elephant more God?

So yeah, he was he was fighting the stone or logic hard and he I mean he eventually came to realize that all that was a Little bit of silliness But he had he actually it took a lot to sort of get him over the whole I think God is a real substance somewhere in the universe Thing and to see I think the metaphor he eventually comes up with is seeing God as a sea a grand infinite sea that the world is Plunked into and so you can have a little piece of God that piece is infinite and you're still so anyway Like if you're interested in sort of seeing the development of Christian thought from an early perspective reading the confessions is certainly interesting So he's sort of trying to leave mannequism and convert Christianity his mom had been Catholic for a long time and praying for his soul And he was kind of hanging out with some people who all realized that like this whole angling for political power and academic Cloud is kind of ridiculous And we're not happy and we see people who live on the street that are way happier than us Why am I worried about all this extra stuff if they're happier right or at least as happy? So he's he's going through a lot of really big spiritual difficulties and And he came to realize that if an essential quality of the good is that it's inviolable and unchangeable like incorruptible Right and in itself perfect What if it stopped fighting the bad thing? What if it was just like I don't want to fight today? That would be bad.

No, I mean what he realized it. What could the bad do to it? It's inviolable unchangeable cannot change from the good incorruptible. So what is the bad gonna do?

You're saying that this was what conquered the mannequism in him that yeah, they're not equal forces essentially Yeah, the one question was like what if good doesn't want to fight anymore? Can bad do anything about it? Can good be tempted away from his conviction? They doesn't want to fight can it be corrupted?

Can it be moved? Can it be tainted in any way or lowered? No, because otherwise I could think of something greater, right? So if this forces the ultimate great good it doesn't have a quality that leaves it vulnerable to the bad So that's kind of how he defeated it in his head.

It's one argument that sort of entirely dismantles the mannequistic religion Which is basically like what if good doesn't want to fight anymore? What happens and the answer is nothing like it might take over the world But it's gonna do absolutely nothing to God at all Pretty interesting. Do you agree with this? Because so like if if good people stop Standing up and trying to do good things than bad people would overtake them or overtake, you know, society, a city, whatever Again, he's talking at the level of like forces I don't know.

I just don't even know how he logics his way into good must be immovable and inviolable You see yeah, is this he is talking with Christians and they're telling him that this is how God is I don't quite It's a logical thing If something is it better to be something that cannot be corrupted or something that is corruptible and the answer is something that cannot be corrupted So to be supremely good, you must not be corruptible. Otherwise, I think it's something greater Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if this comes back later I with most of these aren't we kind of begging the question that by so if we start from a place for the ontological argument If we start from the place that the thing we imagine that is the best exists Well, why does that have to exist? Why can't I just imagine things that aren't real same with I guess if you start from the place of The force of good is immovable and inviolable Well, then he ends up finding out that good is immovable and inviolable right like is there a circularity? I mean, I don't think he's starting from it He's saying to imagine the best thing like and even in the mannequiest perspective, right?

If they are opposing forces then on the very one side you have something that is absolutely and extremely and all pure goodness Yeah, and so to be like by definition it's an argument from definition the definition of pure goodness is something that is incorruptible Because to be corruptible means that you have some weak spot and if you have a weakness you are not supreme perfection, right? So it's it is a like yes with the ontological argument I think the easy premise to take issue with is that existing things are better than non-existing things right? There are you're saying that is an assumption that can be challenged Yes with the ontological argument I think that is the easiest assumption to challenge is that existing things are better than non-existing with Augustines positive I actually have far less trouble to say that to be inviolable or incorruptible is better than to be corruptible seems obvious to me And if I am thinking about the absolute force of good the thing that is most perfect. It must by definition be inviolable It's it's a logical jump from the definition of the thing.

Correct. You're saying it's definition I'm saying it circular because by starting from the place of this good force is inviolable and then deciding that it's inviolable Does that make sense? You've encapsulated the conclusion in your precepts Well, I mean him deciding that was inviolable is not the conclusion the conclusion is that evil can't overtake it even evil has nothing to Threaten good with and therefore cannot be an equal opposing force I'm asking why good has those attributes that I guess and how does he know that it has those four those attributes that he gives to this force of good Well, that's my that's my point is it's an argument from definition right? It's it's same as ontological if is it better to be incorruptible if the answer is yes Then if I'm thinking of the absolute best thing in existence then it must have that quality and this isn't an existence or non-existence That thing is actually debatable about which one is better It is clearly better to be incorruptible sure and so if if I'm talking about the best It must as part of its qualities have incorruptible as a piece of the definition that makes sense to me existence I don't know if that is intrinsically better than non-existence, but of course existence is better What are you talking about?

But all these are disabilities. I'm going to be worried about anyway. My cat's breasts smells like cat food No, I think I'm tracking so But how does if we take that argument that that Augustine Augustine I guess then I'll just know what's right anymore We take the argument where he says God or good could stop fighting evil can't do anything about it But that doesn't to make these point that doesn't play itself out in Christian ethics So is there something is there a difference in kind as well that that doesn't for example God like we as Christians can't say hey Well, good's gonna win eventually so like do whatever you want peace out I'm not gonna fight for the widow and orphan and let's pillage the earth for all its resources and You know like you would say no, that's not good. That's not That's not that's not a good thing But I agree with the logical part of it where it says that evil can't wreck good or evil can't beat good even if good stops Fighting it so I would contend that this does does play itself out in Christian We're gonna talk about this more a little bit later, but good being assured victory absolutely does play itself out in Christian Yes, that is true We we work with an assurance and a hope and absolute assured like for those of you who are atheists listening to our podcast But I think arguments here are still interesting this part may interest you a little bit less But like you're sure victory you you don't work with the thought that oh I might be overthrown and if you encounter demons right like We know that they are really no threat.

Does that make sense? Yes I mean so like the good will win and has won already and that is defeated and that animates the Christian ethic not animates the Christian ethic in a much different way than a Mannequin ethic which says who knows we've got a double down because if we don't if we don't evil could take over and win And they are of equal value and they are of equal power. Yes Yeah, which like are we the greatest thing ever? No, we are viable and so we must always work to prevent that Prevent being tainted not as a different thing and he stops like fighting the devil can the devil suddenly corrupt him sure?

No, yeah, I think and then of course if you feel like your cause that you're fighting is it's the great good against the great evil You will sort of justify all kinds of tactics that you know may not necessarily be noble My I think like if you have to be overtaken the Christian ethic also has within it the Mandate to essentially play fair and play by the rules and if you lose you still need to lose with without losing your soul Whereas if you want to talk about this mannequin ethic winning and losing is the ultimate thing So if you get if you you know have to break the rules in order to win well It's a causal argument like you're winning is better than losing even though you're winning dirty or whatever I don't know this is taking us further field, but okay, so I wanted to read the actual small passage from Augustine that contains his definition of evil It's where he's fine like he's been struggling for it for chapters and chapters and wishy washy and she like just wanting to know What is evil because he's decided that it's not an equal opposing force, right? He kind of knows that like if good stops fighting there's no real danger to it from the evil So what what is evil? Where does it come from the good started if good made the evil then it can't be good anymore? Can it so what like he's just completely stumped and he's having a really hard time with it So this is where he finally comes out of the clouds And it became clear to and it became clear to me that corruptible things are good if they were supremely good They could not be corrupted, but also if they were not good at all they could not be corrupted So he's gonna make this more I know that it's kind of hard to follow Well, we'll we'll kind of pull apart if they were supremely good They would be incorruptible if they were in no way good there would be nothing in them that might corrupt for corruption damages unless and unless it diminishes goodness it would not damage thus either corruption does no damage which is impossible or And this is certain proof of it all things that are corrupted are deprived of some goodness But if they were deprived of all goodness They would be totally without being for if they might still be and yet no longer be corrupted They would be better than in their first state because they would buy it they would abide henceforth incorruptibly Okay, so to kind of pull that apart he basically says all corruptible things all things that can be corrupted must have some Intrinsic goodness otherwise there'd be nothing to corrupt right Yes, and say there there's like a sliding scale right out of ten you have totally incorruptible goodness And I a one you have like you can't corrupt anymore because it's a hundred percent corrupt does that thing exist?

Well, that's the thing He says if you hit one then there's nothing more to corrupt and all of a sudden it has randomly gained a good property Which is incredibly incorruptible right? Which is impossible right you can't hit zero because all of a sudden it would be better than being at one it would randomly Leep between like one and two right it is a logical impossibility to corrupt all the way to incorruptibility because it's like corrupting to a good state Mmm, so therefore this thing this imaginary thing that is like a hundred percent corrupt now all of a sudden has a good quality So it's like a hundred one percent right so it cannot exist therefore evil pure evil cannot exist because intrinsically would have a good property Incorruptibility and that can't happen it can't be a percent evil and be incorruptible Got you guys track it. Yeah, so it jumps back to yeah It gains a good quality when it sort of loses another point if you ever hit zero it bounces back to right This has nothing to do this so in like the old civilization I think it was civilization to the old computer game all the world leaders had a peace ability ranking I know this and so Gandhi had the lowest like he was the most peaceful leader if you were playing against him But you could play you could get a wonder of the world that dropped everybody's aggression against you by one But when you dropped Gandhi's aggression by one it went it didn't just go down to zero It actually went to the most extreme it could get it looked back and so you ended up having like absolute war thirsty Gandhi just nuking the crap out of everything in the game and And so there's lots of wonderful memes about like super ticked off Gandhi being like your cities will burn Anyway, so that case it that reminded me of that little tidbit from all of our childhood Yeah, exactly right it goes so evil that all of a sudden it's good again All right, so you guys track it so they're sorry yes pure evil cannot exist because then it would have purity Yeah, and purity is good right right so that's gonna come in on devil Satan like stuff like that Angel you scrub yeah, we can pull out where that comes from but there is goodness there to corrupt in fact There's like Vader there's great goodness in you. Yes, but that you're pointing to a past state I'm asking about like mmm.

Is he currently? Cable of redemption right isn't that what that means if he's not fully corrupt there's something to decorrupt wherever purify yeah Can Satan go to heaven well you guys are field right? I got some back for a little bit. Um we'll we can we can like once we sort of finish our journey We can give applications great great guys go that we will turn into the socratic interlocutors How's good otherwise?

Yes, please just agree with me as I go. Wonderful. Um, I just have to ask you all to do that Wait, that's it I can do that's why yes, maybe how could it be how could yes? I'm finding the very well who can think any different of course, though, okay?

Okay, okay, so to continue on what could be more Monstress than to say that things could be made better by losing all their goodness if they were deprived of all goodness They would be altogether nothing therefore as long as they are they are good thus whatsoever Things are are good and that evil whose origin I saw is not a substance because of it worry substance It would be good right so merely by existing you must be good because if you if you hit full pure evil You all of a sudden blip out of existence. So I was right the thing we call evil is the is the disillusioned There's like the corrupting force on good things. Yes. Yeah, I'm sort of like fleshing out your definition and bringing everyone to understand What's what's sort of going on here?

I appreciate it. Yeah, otherwise We would have had a minute like well said maybe or Okay Let's see if it were substance it would be good Okay, people who's originally saw is not a substance. Okay, um I'm trying to find where I ended it would not be corruptable unless it were good. What was the last thing I read remember?

I'll just take it from here for either it would be an incredible substance That is to say the highest goodness or would be a corruptable substance Which would not be corruptable unless we're good thus I saw and clearly realize that you have made all things good and that there are no substances not made by you and Because all the things you have made are not equal They have goodness over and above as a totality because they are good individually and they are very good all together for our God has made all things Very good. So if it is fully evil, it must blip out of existence. Therefore everything that exists must have some sort of goodness Right and all everything God made is good and it's totality all things that exist together. That's very good That's a lot of good right a lot of good things eat it mannequies.

Yeah, exactly There's no evil there's no equal forces here Right everything that has an existence must be at least in some way good because it can still it can still be corrupted, right? Okay, and I'm gonna do a little bit a little bit more and then we're almost done to you and he's doing direct address to God here To you then evil utterly is not and not only to you But to your whole creation likewise evil is not because there's nothing over and above your creation that could break in or deranged The order that you imposed on it But in certain certain of its parts there are some things which we call evil because they do not harmonize which with other things Yeah, these same things do harmonize with still others and thus are good and in themselves They are good all these things which do not harmonize with one another do suit well with that lower part of creation Which we call the earth which has its cloudy and windy sky and some way up to it God forbid that I should say I wish that these things were not because even if I saw only them though I should want better things yet even for them alone I should praise you for that you are to be praised the things of earth show and he basically says like all of this stuff that You created even though it seems bad is is good so evil It's not a thing like it's not a thing that exists to you and what we are calling evil is weirdly enough You've used the language of like corruption or twisting. He simply said disharmony like discord and it's discord It's something that doesn't quite fit or work with something else Right it's when things are kind of butting heads and not quite working And there are some things that are like maybe like have a lot less harmony with a lot of things and then there are higher order things That I have a lot more good right like if there's a scale of corrupt ability there are things at seven and there are things at four Right, but all of that is a and we call them good or less good depending on where they harmonize And even if we say man that thing's an evil thing well, it's fine and harmony somewhere and it still exists So it still must be corruptible meaning there is some good there right so what do we how do we justify this or? What do we do what do we as Christians do when we have commands of be perfect like my heavenly father is perfect and the command of Sanctification that we are to stamp out all even all evil in our hearts every last hair and feather to quote you get just Easy easy things bring yourself into harmony with God and God the word like no But I mean like this sounds like a recipe for being able to sort of like Explain into a comfortable place a bad thing be like oh well I I do this terrible thing but it's not really evil because there's it's hard and it's harmonious with something like You know, I just feel like how can this not end up being a An argument in the hands of somebody who wants to get away with something to kind of say that the thing that his sin is not so bad Because you can see some sort of good in him I mean I personally always hate it when you describe or when a student is talking about like a movie or something and they describe like a really Objectively bad person in the movie but I kind of like him because there was that one scene where he was like human for a minute And you realize like oh man, you know like I don't know Hannibal Lecter said a really hard childhood or whatever right like It seems like a mistaken logic right more than anything the things that we point to that are good is that he's made of God's creation That's good.

He's made in God's image, right and say what you will about Hannibal Lecter there are things that could still be corrupted I guess it's just like corrupt man. How do you not say oh well? Why do I need to push to be a seven eight or nine? I can be totally fine with like a three four five Yes, I'm out of one.

Yeah, and I'm never gonna get into one and I could never get into a zero because zero doesn't exist So what's the like impetus or how does this set up somebody for? Wanting to be good It's a good question. I thought of this more of it. It just changes the way that we think about and treat evil Mm-hmm.

It's certainly not my point to but I guess I took the pot like you know me I took the positive version of this not like how do we stop people from saying all kinds of things are good? And I took the look we get to say that all kinds of things are good Which means that we're never fighting a losing battle against evil It does not threaten to overwhelm us what we are seeing is disharmony and we can we can always work to bring more harmony Right? Blessed are the peacemakers and to bring something more in line with God's truth is to like just increase the amount of good in an already good world And to say like this world is an evil dark fall in place Well, yeah, it's twisted and there's there's some there's certainly some disharmony and there's some things that are happening that are Definitely not the intent of the thing itself, but you don't see this giving license to a CD or anything like that I think that many good ideas can give license to many other terrible things right? You can always take a license with a good notion right?

But you don't have to and this can easily return to a very hopeful message, right? You know saying I see what you're saying like recognizing that the world is a good place of something I think we desperately need in 2020 or whenever this is going to air and saying look yeah It looks bleak, but on the whole created things are good and if you are worried about evil well I got great news for you doesn't exist like it's as a as a pure does it in a purity in a pure form evil is not In existence and as a force against good it just it's not gonna overwhelm like it can't is that not cold comfort to the to those who have really? For whom evil has read has brought in a lot of sorrow I yes, it would be cold comfort to people who have a lot of sorrow certainly especially those who are starving stuff and hardship and have endured genocide and Abuse and all like all those things are terrible, but I feel like we're at the end of the episode here I'm giving all the moral lessons we still have more coverage on just but but I think Like we have to also keep in mind the lessons of both yes that when we submit our happiness to the winds of change We can't be bummed when they're up and then they're down like you're gonna have if you want the ups You got to take the downs when they come if you can find your peace Elsewhere and anchor it on eternal things and that is what can like that is what is the warm comfort It is cold comfort to say the world is good when they are experiencing is disharmony It is grand comfort to say the world is good and it comes from a purely good place It's the wheel of fortune good investing advice Call it all is it all whether all seasons portfolio anyway, yeah, that's a separate conversation Okay, so we I gave you the Augustan definition now that that time right me Augusting. Oh my gosh now I'm confused.

Oh, so I gave you the the Augustan definition. That's where it comes from That's where a ton of Christian theology bases its view is evil is that tiny passage from Augusting confession So he also has another passage in another book that he wrote similar, but that's it I mean that's the spot you you read it and now listen or you know the basic source But that's not as far as it goes We also have the Thomas Aquinas Sumithological where he sort of develops a lot of these ideas and takes on okay What exactly is evil and how does it work on things and what the cause is and he kind of is a high flute logical guy And he goes way further with a lot of this stuff and so I get to ask a couple more questions Okay, so is evil a nature can it be like thoroughly its own nature? Can someone be by nature evil? No, like fully evil is that the yeah, no, because the evil doesn't exist anyway Yeah, exactly evil is the absence of good Which is natural and due to a thing but that anything fail from its natural and due disposition can come only from some cause drawing it out of its proper disposition For everything is not moved upward except by some telling force.

So basically Evil is not its own agent. It's not its not its own nature Basically, it's something else moving it from like it's getting moved out of its natural by something else But that's something else might not even necessarily be an evil itself, right? Yes The name of evil is signified by the absence of good and evil is neither a being nor good And so it's its absence is evil found in things can a chair be evil This is and this is the you're gonna see the equivocation about your book. Yeah, this is where the question kind of comes in I guess no, I guess well kind of know can something be like so like meat sacrifice to the Greek god or the Roman gods like All good one, right, there can be things that are like given to a pulse as you can eat that stuff as long as no one's watching Yep, there's there's a qualification around it right and even situations where you don't need it So there's there is something different about that meat in the same way that like I don't know do Pagan priests like sit upon some kind of throne like it might be wrong to use that kind of chair in your chair Or what if a chair what if someone designed chair that like really hurts you when you sit in it?

Yeah, right? So I'm sure Aquinas will say no, but he's wrong. So what do you do about it? All right, well, let me let me read you the pertinent section I answer that as we said above the perfection of the universe requires that there should be inequality in things so that every Great of goodness may be realized so good like things at the seven and sink things at the four right?

Every good great of goodness now one great of goodness is that of the good which cannot fail another great of goodness is that of the good Which can fail in goodness and it's great as we found in existence itself for some things there are which cannot lose their existence as Incruptible things while some there are which can lose it as things corruptible So if it's a corruptible thing it is less good. I think it's this point So can you give me an example like a chair that's breaking down? Yeah, probably that evil chair chair that's breaking down or like the example I always come to is like smut like books are good enough of Themselves but books about terrible things are like they're losing their it's failing in its goodness. Hmm.

So there can be an evil book I think maybe oh what so so after after doing all of this thinking I've come to the conclusion that like a book that is not in harmony with God's order is an evil thing. There's such a book Who says? Yeah, yes So like remember dis if evil is disharmony then it depends on what piece we're talking about if we're talking about the book itself I would say decay of the book right the book is falling apart and burning and falling pieces So let me give you an example like a book where the big overarching moral core lesson is like abandon everything for the woman You love and it's like and then that's the that's a like great ethos of the book Would you say that that is in or not in harmony with God's created order? Well, I think then we're talking ideas and I think ideas can be good or evil depending on whether they bring harmony or not And that one sounds like it's a recipe for disarmony.

Okay, but it depends on like Aquinas makes a differentiation between like Like the causes of the matter the thing worked on the action all of these things can have a different point of death There's also evil of punishment and then there's evil of like intent and there's evil of like calamity So I could be punished for something or I can just suffer misfortune He I mean he is a cut and dried everything needs to be in its little box kind of thing And this was actually a lot of this was really hard to understand But that's that's what I think is that I think there would be some sort of evil of the matter itself It's its own decay is not good and then the ideas would be a separate form of disharmony And actually I think we could probably trace that disharmony back to the man It's it's probably the man and so the the problem there is not in the action of making the book It's not in the matter of the book It's in the agent the man who made the book and those are the three kinds of evil that he talks about evil in the agent Evil in the matter evil in the action so if you like picked up a book and it made your hands really itchy That's an evil in the matter right or or like if I was trying to make a sword and it's just the steel sucks Right like that's a that's a fault in the matter right That's an even pages on the side that you all Oh, yeah, oh like the like face out of my Odyssey right there that's you can flip can flip to the right page You don't like the fails. I hate it. I hate the rough guys I mean you like the book itself. Yeah, the book is great the rough cut edges driving nuts And then a fault in action would be like me stab you that is evil or actually I don't think that's it I think that's a fault in the agents my intent I think that fault in the action would be like me doing something poorly like me doing hurdles call what you want What's wrong with the hurdles not good nothing wrong with the eight like the intent?

I'm fine It's just I am bad hurtles and so that's that's a failure in the action right? Okay, can and here's where it starts to get complicated. We're going all We went all the way from the ontological argument and we're ending up in some theodicy's so the problem of evil can be can good Do we talk about the Odyssey already? Yeah, just use yeah look at the Odyssey.

Hey hey in focus interlocutors I need your you I need to see yes, but yes, of course. Yes. Okay. Can good be the cause of evil.

No No, no feels like the right answer. What is our hesitation? Well, then what causes evil? It's not a good thing.

It's not good the absence of good So just good not being there. Yes, so then we're back to good piecing up for a day. Mmm interesting I guess no would be again. We're talking at this like hi So at one level guess good can be the cause of evil if good does not prevent evil right?

But I think he's talking at this higher level of like the force of good versus the force of evil So I would say no, but I mean AJ stab me because he was jealous of how good I am so your goodness is what causes jealousy I actually know his no even causes jealousy. There was jealousy in him. That's right. Maybe it reacts to your goodness But your goodness is not the cause of it.

So I'm just I'm just a humble beautiful. Yes. Yeah So no, I said how how how how radical are we evil has no formal cause oh rather Is it a privation of form likewise neither has it a final cause but rather is it a privation of order to the proper end? Since not only the end has the nature of good, but also useful, which is the order to end so evil has no tell us so hold on evil However has a cause by way of an agent not directly but accidentally evil comes by way of accident of something else working For and one of the examples he gives gives us of a fire right the form of a fire is to burn hot and the hotter I burn right if I'm and like even they didn't even the good of the fire to do so the fire burns hot It may be causing evil to something else nearby the air is getting consumed the water is getting evaporated Right the good of the fire is the evil to the water right and so maybe your good causes by way of accident my jealousy Right and my my love for something good for maybe you have I'm jealous of like your cash Right.

I am my love for say comfort my love for generosity my love for all of these things And it is a love like those are good things by way of accident cause something else right? It is a it is a defect in the cause and it's sort of like is an accidental whoopsie that poops out the side So so evil has no formal cause in of itself evil cannot cause itself because it is not a thing Right so because evil cannot be a cause good must be the cause of evil so then what was the first evil the first whoopsies a Love for honor Satan wanted to be on the throne. He wanted to glorify So God so it was accidentally caused by God being glorious. Yes That's inevitable So I don't know in the action evil is caused by reason of the defect of some principle of action So if like you're you're doing poorly at doing something that's the evil I'm just gonna go through a lot of different versions of this I'm trying to simplify as much as I can't Thomas Aquinas But if God created agents with free will was the whoopsies evil Inevitable so the accident of evil okay So we are we are moving towards his next question which is whether the supreme good God is the cause of evil And I can't tell you how many conversations I've had about this They're like why did God put the tree in the garden?

How does evil exist in the world? Usually in the problem of evil which for the uninitiated listener is basically like if God is all good He would want to prevent evil if God is all powerful you can prevent evil there is evil in the world God's all knowing he sort of knows What how knows how to make mistake be not crap exactly yet? There is evil in the world so he must not be all knowing all good or all powerful therefore God like doesn't work I can't tell you how many people have walked away because of evil in their lives How many students are uncomfortable with the notion that evil is a part of God's plan like people have a really big problem with How to deal with evil in the world and this gets at the very core of the question can the supreme good God cause evil right? Can you justify the ways of God to man?

AJ I want to see you guys in first um, you just say the answers yes God's glory is what caused Satan's sin therefore God caused with that First sin the unnatural God is what brought something out in Satan. Isn't that what you just said from a coin? It's an accident. What is it?

I mean I it's not a causal accident in the first place I don't think it's right to say that God's glory caused Satan sin at some level It's a defect in Satan that he was not the all good So a coin says that here I'll say like if if the evil is a defect of the agent it cannot be traced back to God because there's no defect in the agent Right? So I said that there are different kinds of evil the evil um agent matter and action right? So he says but the evil which consists in the corruption of some things is reduced to God as the cause and This appears as regards both natural things and voluntary things for it was said that some agent in as much as it produces By its power a form to which follows corruption and defect causes by its power that corruption and defect But it's manifest that the form which God chiefly intends and thinks created is the good of the order of the universe I'll explain this in a sec. So just just listen along now here Here's the important But it's kind of easy to get now the order of the universe requires as was said above said above that there should be some things that can And do sometimes fail and thus God by causing in things the good of the order of the universe Consequently and as it were by accident causes the corruption of things according to 1 Samuel 2 6 the Lord Killeth and make it alive so Basically God is like the fire and he burns so hot and he wants to make the universe This is the outer flowing of God and the order of God's universe the order of his creation requires some things that can fail And so accidentally as he sort of explodes the universe into existence There also exists things that can fail and this would be also I did a little more research This is kind of there's a theologian named Plantinga and it's his free will defense that God wants things How's it planting God wants things with free will and therefore there are things that can fail in his universe Right?

He creates the tree in the garden because he wants things with free will that requires the chance of failure sing with Satan He had free will obviously he chose against his nature was good But he chose against the things of heaven and so in creating this world he didn't directly cause evil God can't as an agent That's not his thing, but he created a game where the probability of evil happening could happen Yes, and then I think a natural question here is did he intend it to like did evil did I only falling take God by surprise? No, I would say no like he knew that was happening And so a piece of his created order is like sin is part of the game And if that makes you uncomfortable one way that I get a lot more comfortable with it is if you take God out of time Like most Christians believe he is out of time then at the same time that Adam and Eve were falling as far as God is concerned Jesus Christ was dying to solve the problem It was not a problem for millennia before God finally got around to solving it It was a problem in the moment of falling that was at once being solved at the moment of crucifixion and renewed at the moment of Second coming all if all of these things are in eternal history for God like he is outside of time Then it's a problem that is solved sorry that problem that is created well created by accident kind of but accident of creation Created solved and then renewed all at once as far as God's concern So then this could be yeah in so far as that is believed and and cherished in the heart of Someone who loves God that isn't cold comfort that actually Paul's not just saying when he says like I consider it pure joy to have all of The suffering Paul's not just like putting a good putting a good face on on bad things It's actually he's actually making quite a a large not just a logical argument But a profound statement about because of this revelation that we have that revelation 21 is happening We hold I will make all things new and the game is already one that that actually ends up being the truth And the way that you can endure the present suffering yeah I think as with predestination this can you can take two perspectives on this with predestination which Calvin meant to be a Comforting theology right once you are safe to go make sure you're like he chose you He pulled you up out of the muck and loves you even though you're nothing That's what he wanted it Yeah, Calvin's kind of guy that thinks like wearing a 60-pound backpack and like walking in the Arctic winds is like a great afternoon Yeah, who would fell but the same thing you could think okay? Well God must therefore you know by accident have created evil it's part of his plan He is like you can really sink in some dark places here But I think you can also take it really positive the evil that exists is part of redemptive history And it's a problem that has already been solved by his sacrifice of himself like yeah It's a terrible thing But he solved it and he's gonna come and renew it and save everybody and fix the problem and for him These are all happening at the same time And so I think the the place I wanted to get to from the get go here is that it changes the world when you see it rather Than as a place where good and evil are at war as a place where good is everything and evil is sometimes a Disharmony in those various goods but a place where harmony can be renewed where God is consistently doing the renewing where eventually all of that Disharmony will be obliterated and it's all part of like none of this is an accident None of this is out of control none of this is chaos 2020 might feel like it But it's all sunk in redemptive history in the hands of God like you can take this to a really positive place Maybe that's why I'm such a plucky guy all the time is because that's where I land things None of this is a surprise or an accident or God being frustrated. It's all part of the deal You mean the egg maybe not?

You got anything else? I'll get it otherwise You have not lifted that yet I've already lifted that Oh welcome to the nuance nothing No, that's good. It's still something. I mean, yeah, it's again that Tell that you know, it's a yeah the cold comfort for the person who's right in the middle of the hardship Sure, but I don't think you're wrong.

Yeah, it's not great Like this is the kind of thing you should play for someone when they've just like lost their job in their family Mm-hmm. You know, give it a while, but maybe it's reminding them that they are in the hands of an Evelyn God Mm-hmm not to well, I'll I do what is undermined and double-s advocate what is better comfort than that if why is that not the best now? You're right. There could be that all all of history is redeemed Yeah, I'll just yeah that that Sims conquered if you're if you're being wronged against by someone that sin has been Over-taken and both they are forgiven and heck you for all your problems have been forgiven Why is that not the best news that you could give someone and there's a better and worse ways to share that with someone?

I think maybe grandma's what you're saying. Yeah, like what what news is better than that to give to someone who's suffering and hurting? Mm-hmm. That's a good point.

Maybe good work finally got one in a hundred and sixty episodes. Okay, so anything else before I wrap up? Let's end on that. That was good.

So you find us on YouTube YouTube.com slash classical stuff You should know you can find us on patreon patreon.com slash classical stuff You can email us at the guys at classical stuff that net and you can find us online at classical stuff not net Thank you all for listening. We will see you all again next week. Goodbye. Goodbye