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Philosophy and the Problem of Evil
If God is good, and has created a good and just world, how can evil exist in such a supposedly good world, a world created by a good God? The Manicheans, of whom the early Christian philosopher Augustine was a member of during his early youth, provided a dualistic (two-God) rather than a monotheistic (one-God) solution to such a problem of evil in the world. Namely, the Manicheans suggested that there were two divine forces or beings in the world, that of a good and evil force, and the evil was the creating force that formed the evil world, while the good force existed apart from the evil world. However, human beings could still strive to access this good, pure force, despite the intrinsic evil of the creation through understanding and removing themselves from the influences of the evil, created world.
Augustine, however, did not find this idea to be satisfactory, and ultimately left the influence and philosophy of the dualistic Manicheans in favor of Christian monotheism. Instead, Augustine came to believe that the world was intrinsically good. To make sense of evil he stated that yes, there were things of a variety of 'goodness' in the world -- not all living manifestations were equally good in their moral weight. But Augustine held that this variety of levels of goodness did not negate the fundamental goodness of the world in its totality. Furthermore, Augustine argued that evil is not actually a reality. Yes, there are bad things, but evil only exists because it preys upon what is good. Evil exists in a bad world, like a parasite preys upon a good body, but the parasite does not negate the goodness of the body. Without a good God, the source of all creation, evil could not exist.
How satisfactory is Augustine's solution? It seems, at its heart, at least more satisfactory and less simplistic than the Manichean suggestion. At least in Augustine's view of the world, there is the possibility that evil and good are not absolutes in one's world and one's live one's life, but that a person can exhibit both good and evil behavior, even if the person is basically good -- and the same time, good can harbor evil, as a good nation, for example, can adopt an evil ideology.
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